The past 16 days, Miss Pam and
I have been celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary by visiting
Europe. For many years in ministry, the
missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul have been of great interest
to me, especially his last journey that took the Apostle Paul to
Rome. I don't know all the specifics
regarding the church at Rome, but obviously there was a church
there in somebody's house. It probably didn't look like
the buildings I've just shown you at all. It was someone's
house, the church that is in thy house, the church that is
in thy house. I've been trying to figure that
out, the church that is in thy house. What does that mean? Actually, you may already have
the answer to that. Wherever there's a believer,
that's where the church is. The church that is in thy house. Paul was so anxious to get to
Rome. In fact, in Romans 1.7, he called
the saints there, the beloved of God. In Romans 1.16, he said,
I just can't wait to see you and to preach the gospel that
I'm not ashamed of because it's the power of God unto salvation. The book of Romans was probably
written from Corinth. that great wicked city. And you
know, there was a New Testament church there. And oftentimes
when we talk about our New Testament church, we're thinking about
this holy building where people come together and all the issues
of life are solved and they have no problem. The church at Corinth
was an absolute mess. It was divided. They met to take
the Lord's supper and got drunk on the wine and had a party.
There was fornication and adultery that was taking place in that
church. And some of them were saying,
I'm a follower of Paul and I'm of Cephas. And Paul said, I'm
glad I baptized none of you. Is Christ divided? So the book
of Romans, when you think about, where was the book of Romans
written? It was written from Corinth, that wicked city where
Paul was so discouraged that he said on one occasion, I'm
getting out of here, I'm out of town, I'm not staying here.
And you remember the angel of the Lord said, Paul, you stay
here because I have much people in this city. And Paul stayed
and the elect of God came to know Jesus Christ through Paul's
preaching in that wicked city. But the book of Romans was written
from Corinth. I think that is really interesting
because the book of Romans is, to me, the greatest systematic
study of theology ever written. We talk much about Romans here.
Often quoting Romans 116, that the gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. Not nude pictures drawn by Michelangelo
or huge marble buildings with crosses on a steeple, but the
gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation. And we love to quote Romans 8,
28. Don't we love Romans 8, 28? And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love the Lord, to them who are
the called according to his purpose. I have such a great appreciation.
You're going to hear Romans 8, 28 quoted much more than I ever
have before. And I know some of you are going,
that's not possible that he would do that. Romans 8, 28, that the
Apostle Paul knew that everything in his life was on time and that
God had a purpose in his life as well as in ours. As always, Our travels, Pam and
I, in our daily walk, we're always sheep hunting. It is so interesting
when you really come to realize that God has such a diverse family,
such a big family, and they all have warts, and they're all messed
up, but there's something different about them when you meet them.
You almost, Well, you discern. Have you ever met someone and
said, I am positive that person knew the Lord? I mean, we didn't
even talk Bible too much, but their spirit and their attitude
and their joy and their peace and their kindness, there's just
something radiates about them. Well, on our sheep hunt this
time, meeting up with the elect of
God, and God's elect are found in the strangest places. When
you're not even looking, or suspect, in the strangest places. I was
in the, we were in the Paris airport, waiting for our plane
to leave, and I think Ms. Pam was downstairs
in the boarding area and we'd walked past a young man that
was in a female cosmetic store. By the way, if you've never been
to the Paris, to the airport in Paris, it's not like exactly
Metro. I mean, it's, I mean, there are
classy places in the airport there in Paris. Anyway, I went
past this store that did female makeup. They sold all of that,
you know, stuff you put on your face and eyebrows and eyelashes
and all that stuff. And there was a young man there
that was trimming beards. He was trimming a guy's beard.
And I thought to myself, you know, I ought to have this thing
done before Sunday, just kind of trim it up. So we went downstairs, Pam and
I got a bite to eat. And I said, I think I'm gonna
go upstairs and see if this young guy can, you know, make this
thing look halfway presentable. So I went back up there and sat
down in the chair. He was so welcoming and so kind
to me. And when I got in the chair, he said
to me, so what brings you to Paris?
I said, well, my wife and I are celebrating our 50th wedding
anniversary. And he said, really? He was a young guy, single, nice
looking young guy. And he said to me, so what brings
you to Paris? I said, well, we've been married
50 years. He looked right at me and he says, so what do you
attribute that to? And I thought to myself, I've
got one on the line, it's sure shooting. I said very strongly, God. He goes, amen. I said to myself, amen? And I
said, you know, Kevin, my name is Ken. He said, my name is Kevin. I said, you know, God set this
up for me to meet you today. He said, I believe that too.
He said, have you ever heard of Romans 8, 28? He said that
to me. I haven't even told Miss Pampus.
He said that to me. I said, yes. I said, where are
you from, Kevin? He said, Haiti. He said, you
know, when the earthquake hit over there and we had that catastrophe,
my mother and I left. I said, do you know why I grew
this beard? I thought it was because I hated
to shave every morning. and I would just let it grow
because no one would know me. But I grew this beard because
God in his providence had planned that you and I meet today in
the Paris airport. Boy, I'd love to live that way.
So we had a little gospel talk and he wished me well and I went
on my way. Kevin from Haiti. chosen of God, predestined for
he and I to meet and fellowship in the gospel. And we had church
in that women's makeup store. And all the time I thought I
was growing this beard just to get out of shaving. Probably
next Sunday it won't be here, I don't know. Some of you made
some awful comments to me today about... No, you haven't, you've been
very good. I want to give you a little history of the author
of the Book of Romans. First of all, as you know, He
was Saul of Tarsus. He was a Pharisee. He was very,
very religious. He was a leader among the sect
of the Pharisees and probably a member of the Sanhedrin. And
he hated Christians, hated them to the point of putting them
to death and in prison. He was like a bloodthirsty dog
hunting sheep. He got papers from the authorities
and on the road to Damascus to arrest Christians in Damascus,
he met up with the living Christ on the road to Damascus and he
got knocked on his desk. He found out that this Jesus
of Nazareth was the Christ of God. And when he got knocked down
and was blinded, he said, he got knocked off his high horse.
He said, who are thou Lord? And the answer came, I'm Jesus.
You know, the one that was crucified and on the third day arose from
the grave. I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting.
You're killing my people and you're persecuting me. Well,
that encounter, whatever happened to Paul on the Damascus road,
later from Paul, from Saul to Paul, whatever happened to him
on the Damascus road, he never got over. Have you gotten over
it? I pray you haven't. I'll never get over it. With
all of my warts, with all of my mess ups, with all of my mess,
with all my instability, with all my doubts, with all my fears,
I know I serve a living savior. He's in the world today. In Acts 23 verses 11 through
14, the Lord stood by Paul when they
were going to kill him. In the book of Acts, the Jews
were. Can you imagine how they hated him? A Pharisee of the
Pharisees, they hated him. He had a glorious encounter with
Christ. Don't expect everybody's going
to love you when you're converted. Your mama may say, I liked you
before you got over there in that cult. They might say stuff
like that. They hated the apostle Paul.
In Acts 23, 11, when they were meeting about how they might
kill him, the Judaizers, the legalists, the Pharisees, the
Sadducees. The Bible says, The Lord stood
by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified
of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome. And
when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together and bound
themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor
drink till they had killed Paul. So just before the last missionary
journey, these Pharisees, these religious people, these keepers
of the law, are dreaming up ways they're going to murder Saul
of Tarsus, the apostle Paul. Doesn't sound good legally to
me. Anyway, just to hurry right along,
Paul is arrested. He's brought before Felix. And the Bible says in Acts 24
and verse 25, one of the leaders of the Roman government, that
Felix trembled. And then he's brought before
Festus and then before King Agrippa, and they decide to send him to
Rome. That's strange. The enemies of
Paul decide to send him to Rome free of charge. Of course, he's
arrested and he's on his way to Rome by ship. And you know the story in Acts
28, the ship gets in a storm and
actually shipwrecks. and they're going to kill all
the prisoners. The Roman soldiers are gonna
kill all the prisoners, but one of them likes Paul and they decide
not to kill him, to leave everybody, all the prisoners alive. And
Paul says, we're gonna make it ashore, all of us, but we gotta
stay with the stuff, stay in the ship. And you remember the
ship broke up and they were washed ashore on Melta, which we also
visited. And then Paul moves on to Rome
for two years. Now, I just gave you a little
in a brief background about Paul getting to Rome. This was his
fourth missionary journey and his last one. Everywhere Paul
went, he established a church. In other words, he preached the
gospel and people were converted. And so wherever those people
went, that's where the church was. It wasn't about building
fancy buildings out of marble and Michelangelo painting naked
men and women on the ceiling walls of the cathedral. It wasn't
about that at all. It was about the wonderful grace
of God that Jesus Christ had come into the world, not to build
buildings of marble, but to save poor sinners from their sins,
to be just and justifier of the ungodly. Let me tell you a little
bit about what I saw in Rome. I saw in Rome the ruins of a
society gone entirely bad. Rome, a city of two million,
mostly slums of captive slaves. They built a Colosseum that took
10 years to build. Now, this is not, I wanna be
really clear here. This is not Christian Rome, this
is pagan Rome. There is a difference. Somehow
pagan Rome and church Rome got together and what you have over
there now is a messed up mixture where there is no hope. I saw
nothing over there. I saw nothing in all of those
buildings that made my spirit leap with joy. In fact, most
of the time when I was going through looking at, which is
an art of man, I'm telling you, the ability of what man can do
in building and architectural and painting, all of that is
absolutely beyond me, but it's all tainted with depravity. If
you look at it really close, you will see the depravity of
man. Anyway, they built that Colosseum, it took 10 years. and was built by slavery. You
know, Rome was built on slavery. Here in America, we talk about
slavery. Slavery is horrible, whether
it's white people, black people, yellow people, or green people.
God is not the author of slavery. In fact, the words of the Apostle
Paul is, if the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. I'm
a free man. Anyway, in this Colosseum that
was built by slavery, 400,000 people were killed in that coliseum
over a period of time, and many of them Christians. One million
animals were killed in that coliseum, one million animals. What they
did was they brought in a giraffe. And then they would hunt that
giraffe in that coliseum and elephants. And they had elevators
in the coliseum, not like we have elevators, but where they
would bring those massive animals up and let them out. They would
bring Christian captives and slaves in, and they would be
eaten by the lions into that coliseum while 50, 60,000 people
cheered. You wanna talk about depravity?
Depravities wherever you go, man is totally and completely
depraved. Palaces were built by rulers,
monuments and statutes, and the worship of unknown gods. Let
me ask you this, is the church in your house? If the church
is in your house, when you get home today, you'll still be worshiping
Jesus Christ. because you're there and you've
been saved by the grace of God. And whether you're in a building
like this, or you're at home in the kitchen, cooking beans
and cornbread, there's a desire in your heart to thank God for
saving your soul. Let me tell you about Rome. In
this Roman empire, women were less than humans. They really
were. There was no respect for the
female, absolutely none. Pedophiles was common. Homosexuality
was legal and acceptable. I mean, when you read about what
was going on in Rome, you think, oh God, keep America. That's
what I say. Marriage and faithfulness to
one partner was unheard of. It's a bad place. Bad things
were going on. Finally, Christianity by Constantine. Constantine said that Christianity
could be tolerated. But before you know it, not only
was Christianity or religion beginning to be tolerated, but
the state became a religious state. You know what's going to happen
before Jesus comes back again. There's going to be government
and religion are gonna go together. To me, that's antichrist. They're
gonna team up against the Lord Jesus. You and I probably will,
if we live long enough, we'll see some pretty bad things happen. Persecution, perhaps. Anyway, religion became the religion
of the state. Now, where is Rome today? I'll tell you where it is. I
saw the Pope. Rome has a Pope. I didn't get
to speak to him, but I saw the Pope. Not only did I see Rod
Stewart, but I saw the Pope. Miss Pam and I saw the Pope. He was about a block away and
he was ordaining 300 cardinals. All the cardinals had to be at
least 80 years old. So it took a little while to
ordain those guys, but they were all walking in in these red pajama
outfits, kind of, and, you know, the Pope came out and did whatever
he did. You know, when I hear On a hill
far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering
and shame. And I love that old cross where
the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain. My spirit leaps within me. When
I saw the Pope ordaining those 300 cardinals, nothing happened
but yuck. I was not moved in my spirit. I'm trying to drive a point home
here. True religion, true salvation
is in the coming to see that you are a sinner and that it's
not in stained glass buildings and buildings made of marble
and all of the religious mess that goes on and the ceremony
that takes place. The Apostle Paul, I thought,
I thought, I wonder what Paul thought when he got to Rome. I wonder what he thought when
he saw all of that mess. I know his message didn't change.
Here's what he said in the Corinthians letter. He said, when I came
to you, I came to you in plainness of speech. I was determined to
know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. There
was no paintings on the ceilings of buildings. Some of you often
wonder why I don't, I mean, for as long as we've had this building,
I bet at least once a year, somebody says, you know, pastor, I'd like
to buy a big cross for you and put it up. No, no, the cross
deal is over. He's not on a cross, hallelujah.
He's sitting on a throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Some nice religious paintings
would be good in your building, pastor, to kind of... No, no,
no, no. We're going to keep it plain.
We're going to keep it simple. We'll try to keep it comfortable.
But what we're going to see is Jesus dying in our stead, in
our room, in our place. Is the church here today? If
you're the church, you know what I'm talking about. I'm having
a little bit of a tough time getting the point across, but
I'm not talking about all these marbled buildings. these steepled
buildings with a cross on the top of them. They were empty
and dead and cold. There was nothing there. Where
the Spirit of God is, there's life and hallelujah and joy and
peace and comfort. You say, well, pastor, we need
something we can see. Well, it's not marble. And it's not naked men and women. By the way, while we were going
through the church there at Rome, the person leading us through
said, in such and such a time, AD, the Holy Father, the Pope
decided that we ought to put some kind of covering on these
men and women's personal parts. You know, they painted coverings
over the personal parts. I thought to myself, hmm, for
so many years, they were naked. You say, well, pastor, I don't
think you ought to be talking about that in church. What I
think maybe is some of you are gonna go to Rome and go, wow,
wow, that's so, it is awesome what man has done, but I'll tell
you this, what God has done far exceeds anything what man has
done. because the Word was made flesh. I'm about to start preaching
now. The Word was made flesh. The Word was made flesh and tabernacled
among us. Think about that. He who walked
out of eternity one day, eternity passed, said, let there be light,
and there was light. That God became flesh and tabernacled
among us, walked the Judean acres, went upon Calvary's hill, died
on the tree of the cross in the sinner's room, stand in place,
got up out of the grave on the third day, said it's finished,
it's accomplished, his name shall be called Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. Ah, how good it is to be home
with a bunch of no good sinners saved by the grace of God. Who have no confidence in the
flesh, but are looking to Jesus Christ alone as Lord and Savior. God is doing such great things
here, folks. I don't know, I want you to see
it. I think many of you do. But what
a miracle we are of the grace of God. I thought about, I'm
telling you this, there's a lot of money in religion. I'll tell
you, Rome, operates, I don't know, I can't
remember what it cost us that day to go on that little tour.
And there were thousands of people. It wasn't just me and Miss Pam
and 12 more people. It was thousands of people who
had paid thousands of dollars to get in there. And you could tell that many
of them were swept away with the awe of all of that mess And I thought to myself, God's
not happy with this. And you know what? I don't remember
one time Jesus Christ being brought up in a real conversation. Michelangelo, some other architects and people. And then I thought about how
many slaves would it take to build some of these buildings? Slaves building church buildings. You
know what I am? I'm a slave of Jesus Christ. I'm a bond slave. and whom having
not seen, I love. I say to you today, I have not
seen him. One day I will see him face to
face. What a glorious day that'll be.
When by Jesus I shall see, I will look upon his face, the one who
saved me by his grace and bow down before him as my Lord and
my Savior and my King. whom having not seen the apostle
Paul said, you love. Think about this. Here we are
meeting in a former bar. Ah, to God be the glory. What
an awesome thing it is. Some of you have told me I got
drunk right there and threw up right there. But you're not getting
drunk anymore. You've been saved by the grace
of God. And if you are getting drunk, you're
struggling with it if you're a believer, right? I mean, we
all have our mess, but greater is he that's in you than he that's
in the world. And you look at what God has done and what God
is doing here. And God has given us this great
building, and I'm not knocking at all beautiful buildings in
that sense, but I'm saying beautiful buildings did not save me and
will not save you. and the most beautiful places
of worship without God are just empty buildings. That's all they
are, marbles and stone. I saw so much money. By the way,
Just this little story. I don't know why God does these
things to me, but I appreciate them so much. We were on our
way from Rome to the ship that we were going to get on. And I don't know how far it was,
maybe 30 minutes from Rome to the dock where the ship was.
And over there, Mercedes is pretty common. I was in a Mercedes van. We need one of those here. That
was a nice van. They picked us up and took us
to the dock. But we were going down a highway
like I-94, like, you know, a big highway from Rome to the ship. And I looked over to my left
and it was kind of country a little bit. But I thought, I think I
just saw a half-naked young lady standing beside the road going
like this. And I said to the driver, is that what I think
that was? He goes, yes, she's a prostitute. They have them in Rome too. only she was like on I-94 trying
to flag the... I said to myself, human depravity
is more than a doctrine, it's everywhere. And I'll tell you
something else I did, I bowed my head and in my heart, I prayed
God would get the gospel to her and deliver her from that. I
did. And here I am back in America,
telling you about the young lady, half-clad, standing beside a
major highway, trying to wave cars down to sell her body. The
world needs to know Jesus Christ and the free pardon of sin. So
wherever we go, and whatever you're impressed with, remember
this, What makes this alive is the Spirit of God being here.
We can do Baptist rituals, Presbyterian rituals, we can do Catholic rituals. All of the pomp and circumstance
that went on over there that I saw with these eyes was empty. and dead, there was no hallelujah,
there was no shout, there was no praise be to God who has saved
me and delivered me and given me life and purpose, there was
none of that. I saw some outstanding things,
but I'll tell you this, I'm so glad to be here with you. I'm
so glad to be home. I love you and I know you love
me. And I know the spirit of God is here. Yesterday I got
a call from a fellow pastor about where God was leading him. And
I was so encouraged by what he was saying to me, being led into
Detroit, to a place like kind of we have here in Pontiac, but
going there to preach the gospel. And here's what he said to me.
Pastor, I wanted you to hear this from me about what's taking
place in my life. And he said, many years ago,
maybe seven, eight years ago, I said to you, and I'm counting
on this being the truth, I said to you, what do you attribute
the success of Grace Gospel Fellowship and Grace Centers of Hope? And
he said, you know what you told me. And I said, I know what I
told you, but what did I tell you? He said, give God all the
glory. And he said, I'm going to the
city of Detroit to do just that. Large ministry, large ministry. I'm gonna give God all the glory.
And you know what? I said to him, you will be successful. Whether you eat or drink or whatever
you do, do to the glory of God. Now, when you go home today, I hope you don't simply say this,
well, you know, the Lord, the Lord was there. It was a wonderful
time we had together, but the Lord is here because I'm his. He's loved me with an everlasting
love. I should have been dead sleeping
in my grave. He should have passed me right on by, but he's been
so merciful to me. And so here I am. The church
in my house. I still don't have that all figured
out. I can't figure it out exactly. The church in thy house. The church in thy house. You
can have churches. Anywhere the believer is, just
worship. Just worship. It's okay to praise
God. You know, I'm 74 now. When I
left here, I was 73. I'm 74 now. And I'm determined to be more
open about who my Lord and Savior is because the world's in a mess. It's just, our country is still
in a mess. What a mess! But we have a God
who has a purpose and is working all things out. Now I wanna say
to you who are here and you've never believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ, I wanna tell you, all those fancy church buildings,
all that rigmarole that you go through in the religious world,
all of the procedures that they tell you to do and you do all
of that and it just doesn't seem like it has any life, that's
because it doesn't. Here's the way it is. Come to
faith in Jesus Christ Trust the bloody substitute. Trust the
gory offering of sin. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Amen. Let's stand and sing.