Let's take our Bibles and turn
to Romans chapter one. Preachers who get old have one
major problem, or at least this one does, finding out where I'm
supposed to be in this book. And you miss enough of them to
remember that. But I want to read you part of
this first chapter. I'm going to try to deal with
verses sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Let's start at verse one. Romans
chapter one, Paul, a servant or a bond slave
of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God. Parentheses. which God had promised
before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures." Verse 3, "...concerning
his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." Look at this statement very carefully,
which, I prefer to say who, was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh. That takes care of the human
nature of Christ. And then we read in verse 4, And declared the Son of God with
power. Verse 3 has to do with our Lord
Jesus as the Son of Man. And verse four addresses him
as the Son of God, and he can only be declared the Son of God. He has no beginning and no end. None. According to the spirit of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead. Now, let me tell you something. If the Lord Jesus didn't resurrect
himself, then this statement should not be in our Bibles.
I do not deny the fact that God the Father raised him from the
dead, God the Holy Spirit raised him from the dead, but God the
Son rose from the grave to prove his deity. God cannot die. Let's read verse 4 again, "...declared
to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness,"
that's a little s, by the way, "...to the spirit of holiness
by the resurrection of the dead, by whom we have received grace
and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations
for his name, among whom are you also the called," I like
that little word, the called, of Jesus Christ. To all that
be in Rome, all the believers in Rome, beloved of God, called
saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. First, I thank God, thank my
God, through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken
of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I
serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing
I make 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 established,
that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual
faith both of you and me. Now, I would not have you ignorant,
brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but was hindered
up until now. that I might have some fruit
among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both
to the Greeks, for the Gentiles, and to the barbarians, and to
the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am
ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. Carefully
perk up all your ears. You just got two. That's what
I got. Verse 16. If I can, I want to work on these
three verses, 16, 17, and 18. Verse 16. For I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for or because it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. 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. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth." That
word, hold, carries with it the idea of suppressing the truth,
trying to hold it down, let people not hear it, let it not be spoken
publicly. who hold the truth, who hold
down the truth in unrighteousness. Now, who's going to win this
battle? God is. Who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Unrighteousness. Our first point
is simply this, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is the one true gospel. There is none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It is the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is salvation nowhere else,
not in anything else, not anything all the people in this world
could do, not even just one deed. We find it impossible. Other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Secondly,
about this power of God, the power of God. I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God. And that power of God is to save. And it is the gospel of Christ
that declares God's law perfectly honored and satisfied. Not one
claim left for a single one of God's chosen people. And that
God, in infinite grace and mercy, satisfies in Christ in the gospel,
God satisfies His justice. You've heard these words, but
I remind you of them. Payment God cannot twice demand. First at His bleeding, sure at
His hand, and then again at mine. You can't punish sin twice. If
Christ bore them on the cross, you may not know it yet, but
they're gone. Psalm 8510 tells us, you remember
that little advertisement I showed you yesterday, and they were
so proud that they preached the God of love and mercy? But Psalm
8510 says, mercy and truth are met together. Those are seemingly
attributes of God that have some kind of tension between them.
If one has its way, then the other is shortchanged. But something
occurs to make this absolutely a wonderful statement of the
gospel as to how God deals with sinners in the saving death of
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Where did mercy and truth meet?
They've always been together, but it is a supposed division
between them. But when you look at Calvary's
treaty, You find mercy. What was that other one? Mercy
and truth. You were a little slow, Tommy. Mercy and truth
are met together. And the second pair is righteousness
and peace have kissed each other. I can remember the first time I
ever saw that in the Bible. I just, wow. God's law must be
perfectly honored. It cannot take anything less
than perfection. And you can't find perfection
except in the God-man, Christ Jesus. Thirdly, have this little phrase,
if I can find it. Unto salvation. In that same
verse now, verse sixteen, unto salvation. When I change pages,
I'm changing verses, okay? Got three pages. I don't know
anything about this thirty-minute introduction and one point or
two points after or whatever. I can't find myself there somehow.
Unto salvation delivered from sin, from its penalty, what does
it require? Death. Death. Our Lord actually died, the man
Christ Jesus. Power. Power. Salvation is all-powerful because
salvation is Christ. Practice the penalty of sin,
the power of sin, the practice of sin, And ultimately, the very
presence of sin will be gone. All gone. I'm going to turn to
Daniel chapter 9. I think if I try to quote this
verse, I'm going to mess it up, and it's too important to do
that. Daniel chapter 9, and while we're there, we might get another
verse to go with it. I usually fudge on people and
mark my Bible, but I didn't make it on that one. Now, along about in chapter 9,
along about 20 through 24, it starts talking about all these
different weeks and all that stuff. I don't, I have no interest
in that. I don't even know what, I don't
want to know what you think, and you certainly don't want
to know what I think. But when we come to verse 24,
we read this statement. Just ignore the 70 weeks, a period
of time. are determined upon your people
and upon your holy city. And here is our blessed Lord
Jesus, here are his credentials. Number one, to finish transgression,
to finish sin, to put sin away. And sin can be put away no other
way. It can't be put away by our going
to hell, because hell never ends. To finish the transgression,
to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for
iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, our Lord Jesus
Whatever you call His righteousness, it is everlasting righteousness. It's just like this gospel that
we preach. It's an everlasting gospel. And to seal up the vision and
prophecy. I really get weary with these
people that want to talk about, you know, what kind of a millennium
do you view? Are you pre, post, or awe? And
all such junk is that. That's not any good. It's not
any good at all. To seal up the vision and prophecy. Now, if you have visions, I sure
hope they're about Christ. If they're not, they ain't worth
nothing. And I know that's a double negative. And according to Revelation,
when it comes to the subject of prophecy, the testimony of
the Lord Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. I've got a couple of books on
my shelf at home by C. H. McIntosh. Some of you have
seen that little track we have printed. Let's see, it's on the
blue paper, and Henry's is on the No, it's almost. It is pain. Ain't no almost to
it. But I was reading him out of Deuteronomy,
and I really needed some help on the chapter I was trying to
read. And he got to chasing this, you know, the millenniums and
the second coming and when this is going to take place. And I
just closed the book. He didn't have anything else
to say. But I'll tell you, when he's on track, Like that little
track, can't find any better. Religious people want to put
on airs about how much they know. And we ain't got the first base. To seal up the vision and prophecy,
and to anoint the Most Holy. Fourth thing about the gospel
being the power of God, in verse 16 now we're talking about, is
to everyone that believes, to the Jew first, and also to the
Greek, or the Gentile. To everyone that believes. Now,
you remember what we said this morning about faith? You can't have faith without
being born again. Whosoever believes that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God, 1 John 5, 1. And that's just one statement. There are many others very similar
to it in our Bibles. Ephesians chapter 1, just for
a little bit, please. Starting at verse 17, I trust
you're so familiar with those other verses, I won't have to
go all the way back to verse 3. That's only three sentences
that takes you all the way to verse 15. But in verse 17, Ephesians
1, 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
Paul is praying that He may give unto you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened." Now, here are three things. Spurgeon calls
this the three what's. Two of them are in verse 18,
and one is in verse 19. "...the eye of your understanding
being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his
calling." There's the word what. What is the hope of God's calling
in Christ? and what the riches of the glory
of his inheritance in the saints." And I, the third one is just,
Lord, I don't even know what to say about it. And what is,
there's the third what, what is the exceeding greatness of
his power to us-ward who believe? What does it take to make a sinner
believe? The same power that raised Christ
from the dead. It is a spiritual resurrection. Nothing less. And only God can
do it. Romans chapter 1. Now, y'all
weren't supposed to read Romans. I forgot to tell you not to,
but... Verse 17. For therein, that is,
in the gospel of Christ, therein Is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith? As it is written, the just or
the righteous shall live by faith. You know what that means, don't
you? The just shall live on Christ. We don't live on our faith. Faith
ain't worth a nickel without the object. Religion makes much of faith.
Tells a sinner, if he'll come up with it, God will save him. I used to tell the same lie. The just shall live by faith. Nowhere but in the gospel of
Christ is there a place for poor, helpless, guilty sinners. But oh my, in Him, in Him. You don't need to turn. I'll
be there before you get there. I'll tell you where this is after
I read it. That's the only way you won't
turn to it. See, I had a marker in there. Let me read you just a few verses
here out of this anonymous chapter right now. Behold my servant whom, that's
Christ, whom I uphold, mine elect, Christ is God's elect and all
other election is in Christ, mine elect in whom my soul delights,
I have put my spirit on him, he shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles." Now, please listen. He shall not, he shall
not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his," I can't even read, y'all.
Let me get a different focus here. He shall not cry, nor lift
up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised
reed shall he not break, and the smoking flats shall he not
quench, till he set judgment in the earth and the islands,
the coast shall wait for his law. Thus says God the Lord,
He that created the heavens and stretched them out, He that spread
forth the earth and that which comes out of it, He that gives
breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk
therein. the Lord have called you in righteousness."
This is the father speaking to his son. I, the Lord, have called
you in righteousness and will hold your hand and will keep
you and give you for a covenant of the people and for a light
of the Gentiles, for this purpose, to this end, to open blind eyes,
to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit
in darkness out of the prison house. That's where every son
and daughter is until Christ delivers us. And verse 8, I am
the Lord, that is my name. My glory will I not give to another,
neither my praise to graven images. That's in Isaiah 42, 1 through
8. Secondly, in regard to this righteousness
that God reveals to us in Christ in the gospel. This revealed
righteousness is the imputed holiness and righteousness of
God. You're right here in Romans,
how about just flipping over, save your place and flip over
to chapter I could see how disappointed
you all were when I wouldn't tell you where I was reading
from. The word righteousness in the
Bible is sometimes confusing to us, and we don't
know which righteousness is which. But here's a verse in Romans
chapter 10, and I'll tell you the verse. It's verse 3. And
I know what you're going to do. You're going to go and start
reading anyway. See? So you're better off if I don't
tell you that. They being ignorant of God's
righteousness. Now, who is ignorant of God's
righteousness? every human being that's ever been on this earth,
or ever will be. We just cannot figure out why
God is so holy and righteous. But He is. Now, this word is
three times in the third verse of Romans 10.3, and the first
time it's talking about the inherent, intrinsic righteousness of God
Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Righteous. Righteous. He can't be anything
but righteous. The second one speaks about the
Jews. You've figured out by now, I
hope, that Romans chapter 9, 10, and 11 are a trilogy that
doesn't need to be separated. Chapter 9 gives us the perspective
from God's point of view. Chapter 11 picks it up again
along the same lines, and the difficulty that we have to understand
what this is all about somehow just escapes us. But how God
can be just and justify sinners, this is a mystery, and we don't
really understand it. But Paul gives two answers to
it in Romans 9, 10, and 11. The first one is in 9 and 11,
and that resolves the issue into the sovereignty of God. God choosing
His people in Christ. And we rejoice. Thank God we
rejoice. There was a time I would have
fought you over that, but I'm glad that day's gone. But that
leaves the middle chapter, chapter 10. And here Paul just by the
grace of God. He just lays it out on a human
level. Here's how it is. Here's how
it's going to be. You read the first, the tenth chapter of Romans,
and you'll see it. So the second righteousness in
Romans 10, verse 3, ain't a thing in the world but plain old self-righteousness. And that ain't no righteousness
at all. It's pretended righteousness,
but it's not true. It's not real. They being ignorant
of God's righteousness, not knowing who God is and how holy God is,
we go about to establish our own righteousness. We used to
think if you took enough study courses and had enough pens hanging
down your shirt, you know, man, you're on your way to heaven.
Lord, have mercy. We're substituting the physical
for the spiritual, and it's killing this nation of ours. It's giving
false religion. Or it's just as bad as the Muslim
religion, if it ain't saving, I'll tell you that. Going about to establish their
own righteousness leads to this natural conclusion. And have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. That's
gospel righteousness. the righteousness of God in Jesus
Christ. And verse 4 adds, I'm trying to tell you there's
just no way to get out from under that statement in verse 3 and
some of these others that we've read. And here's why, because
Christ, verse 4, Christ is the end, E-N-D, the end of the law
for righteousness, for whom? To everyone that believes. Now, our believing didn't make
us righteous. Christ did. What do we believe? We believe
the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thirdly, on this seventeenth
verse, God can demand no more and no
less than perfect holiness, and we can't give it to Him. And God will be satisfied with
nothing less. That leaves us this conclusion. whatever God demands of me, He
must, in grace and mercy in Christ, give me, or I won't ever have
it, and neither will you." Page number three, last one. Oh, man. Verse eighteen, back
in Romans chapter one. Romans Some people, and I won't tell
you who put this Bible together, but they've got a break between
what we just read and verse 18. But I don't see how you can artificially
divide the two. That's what it is, no matter
which Bible of yours. So let's just take verse 18 just
like we have it. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold down, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." Let's look
at that, the wrath of God revealed. We see it in the scriptures in
the sentence of death upon Adam in the garden. We certainly cannot
miss it in regard to the flood. How many people on that boat?
Eight people? Eight? Oh, I know there were
nearly as many people as there are now on this earth. That was a lot of folks. Those people lived a long time,
had a lot of offspring. and they died in the flood. That sentence is also seen in
the fires of Sodom. Sodom is a great sin, but it
ain't the biggest one. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew
11, if Sodom had witnessed the miracles that were done in Capernaum
and in the synagogue at Capernaum, they would still, the city would
still exist. You know what that sin is? The
sin of all sins. The sin for which there is no
gospel remedy. It's the sin of unbelief. Right? It's the greatest sin there is.
There ain't no remedy for it. Donny doesn't believe that, I
don't think, but... Nothing can equal the wrath of
God against sin revealed at Calvary's cross. The Bible plainly says,
God spared not His own Son. There's our sacrifice, our substitute,
our surety, our righteousness, all in Him. All in Him. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
sets forth vividly before the eyes of our soul the mercy of
God for sinners. Before you and I were ever thought
about, the Lord Jesus went to the cross. God has mercy for sinners, but
God must punish sin. He must. God will in no wise clear the
guilty, even that one, namely the Lord Jesus, who is guilty
by imputation and representation. One more quick word, without
notes, which is dangerous for a man my age. But it took me
a long time to really understand what little bit I know in regard to using Adam, God purposed this
before the world was ever made, to use Adam as a federal head
and representative. so that we are constituted and
made sinners while we're still in our mother's womb. Because
that sinful condition is given to us because we're Adam's descendants,
and he has passed on that sentence of death upon us. or else human
beings would not die if there was no sin. But the wonder of
it all, some people may say, well, gentlemen, I'd rather stand
before God on my own two feet. I believe I'd rather stand, if
it's me, in a substitute, in a federal head, in a, you know. Here's why that's necessary.
If God finds us guilty by representation, then it is perfectly right for
him to find us innocent by federal headship and representation.
You can't just, if you're going in the courtroom,
you've got to have your stuff together. And if you can prove
this is what afflicted this human race with sin, was that one man
in the garden. It wasn't Eve, it was Adam. First
Corinthians 15 uses language like, let me just see if I can
read it to you. Well, shoot, that's the whole
book. I'm looking in the wrong Corinthians,
it's in 1 Corinthians 15. I knew that and just dumbed on
it. All right, here it is, right here. Verse 45, 1 Corinthians
15. And so it is written, the first
man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam, that's Christ,
was made quickening or life-giving spirit. Verse 46, Howbeit that
was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and
afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth,
earthy, that's Adam, our fallen federal head. The second man
is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they
also that are earthy, and as is the heavenly, so such are
also they that are heavenly. And as we brought forth the image
of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does
corruption inherit incorruption." Thank you. Good, good, good, good. Very
good.