Romans chapter one and verse
one. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which
he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures. Concerning his son, Jesus Christ,
our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according
to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead,
by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience
to the faith among all nations for his name, among whom are
ye also the called of Jesus Christ. 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. First, I 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 request
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 ye 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 let
hitherto, that I might have some fruit among you also, even as
among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks
and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as is in me, so as
much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that
are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is
written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that
which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath
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 and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God,
they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed
the glory of the incorruptible, the uncorruptible God, into an
image made like to corruptible man. and to birds and four-footed
beasts and creeping things whereof God also gave them up to uncleanness. Wherefore God also gave them
up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to
dishonour their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth
of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more
than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause
God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the women, burned in their
lust one toward another, men with men working that which is
unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error
which was meat. And even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate
mind to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers. backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful, who, knowing the judgment of God that
they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only
do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Amen. May God bless to us this solemn
portion of the Holy Scriptures. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, We thank thee
that thou hast brought us together at this time that we might read
thy word, that we might share a time of prayer and praise together,
and that we might reflect upon the revelation that thou hast
given us. We pray that thou wilt teach
us. We pray that our hearts will be open to the promptings of
thy spirit. And we ask that thou wilt be
merciful to us, causing us to cling ever more strongly to thee
and to the Lord Jesus Christ and to those things which thou
hast revealed to us in thy gospel. For we know, our God, this world
is a wicked place, and our enemy goes around seeking whom he may
devour. And we pray our God that in the
midst of this wickedness which has afflicted our humanity and
is the lust of the flesh that thou wilt give thy people the
strength that they may maintain a worshipful approach to thee
and that we might be found to be thy servants and seeking to
honour thee in our life and in our walk and in our conversation.
So be gracious unto us, we pray, and in these moments that now
follow, we pray that thy Spirit would teach us and lead us into
thy truth, and that we might be helped and upheld in the things
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us as we wait on
thee, and bless those who cannot be with us this evening. And
we pray that wherever thy people are worshipping thee now, be
it in their homes or be it in the company of thy saints, that
thou wilt be pleased to go to them and minister to them the
things of the gospel of grace and the mercies of Christ. May
it be so for thy name's sake. Amen. Last week, we spent a little
bit of time thinking about some of the opening verses of this
portion of the Word of God, the epistle of Paul to the Romans. And we drew one or two points
and applications from these opening verses. I mentioned that Paul's
purpose in writing this letter was to convey his desire to preach
the gospel in Rome. He had preached in a number of
other places, he had been involved in a variety of missionary endeavours,
and he wanted to go to Rome to preach, which he had not yet
done. This man who was once an advocate
of the Jewish religion and was happy to uphold it and defend
it and maintain it wherever and whenever he had the opportunity. now is a preacher of the gospel,
where once he believed in a righteousness that could be obtained through
obedience to the law of Moses, now he understood that righteousness
could only be had in Jesus Christ. Now he preaches the gospel. Now
he preaches redemption by the blood of Jesus Christ. He preaches
forgiveness of sins. He preaches salvation by grace. He preaches about an atonement,
about reconciliation with God, and about the blood that cleanses
from all unworthiness. But what does that all mean?
What do all those words mean? If somebody came in to our service
this evening or had occasion to listen to what we are saying,
Would they understand what those words meant? Would they have
any concept as to what we are talking about? Would they be
thinking that these things are just jargon? These things are
just theology. This is something that isn't
appropriate for me and has nothing to say to me. I don't know what
all these words are. I don't know what all this message
is about. And we might wonder, particularly,
what relevance these things might have had to Gentiles. Rome, Rome with all its majesty,
Rome with all its power. Rome, that city, which it says,
drew all the world to it. There is a saying that all roads
lead to Rome. It doesn't matter where you were
in the known world at that time, Rome was the centre of civilisation,
a mighty power, a centre of government, a centre of military might, a
centre of trade and commerce. the heart of a mighty empire
that sent its armies from Africa to Northern Europe in order to
overwhelm the barbarians and the heathen people and to enlarge
its sphere of influence and power. What was Paul going to say? as
one man when he got to that place. What was he going to talk about
that would be meaningful to those Gentile people? Sure, there may
be some Jews amongst his audience. There may even be Gentiles who
had converted to Judaism. Remember we said last week that
perhaps the establishment of this church had resulted from
the fact that there were a number of people present in Jerusalem
at the time of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. Otherwise,
we don't know who established this church at Rome, but we do
know that it had been established for some time because their faith
was spoken of throughout the whole world. The reason why Paul believed
he had a message for Rome was because Paul believed that all
men and women need salvation. He believed that he had a message
because he believed men and women needed to be saved. and like
any other person, because like any other person, the people
in Rome were guilty sinners before a holy God. That was their condition. That was their nature. That was
the result of their actions and their thoughts and their character
and their person. The Apostle says here in verse
18, the wrath of God is revealed upon them. The wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men, so that whether you were Jew or Gentile, whether you had
a history of the vocabulary of religion and theology or not,
whether you were wise about the things to do with faith and religious
practice and activity or not, you are a sinner and you need
to be saved. And when it comes down to it,
that is exactly the same message that has been part of the whole
of the preaching of the gospel since the time of Christ. That
is the reason why the Lord Jesus said to his apostles, go into
all the world and preach the gospel, because all men are sinners
before a holy God. And the wrath of God was upon
the men and women of Rome just as much as it was upon the towns
and the villages of the provinces of the nations to whom Paul journeyed
at other times. He had a passion to be at Rome
because he had a passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ and
he wanted to preach it. Now this is worth pausing over,
I think, because the gospel with its language of mercy, its message
of redemption, is important to all men and women everywhere. and whether they realise it or
not, and whether they are going to give it an ear, an audience,
give it any time or not, it is an important message for them,
because it is the only message which will deal with the condition
of their heart. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. All are guilty before God. And we might think of a first
century Jew, or we might think of a Roman senator, or we might
think of a Germanic trader. Or we might think of a slave
that had been captured in Britain and brought to Rome in order
to serve some high up individual. But whoever it was that was at
Rome, they needed to hear the gospel. The high and the mighty,
the lowly and the humble, they all needed to hear the gospel
at the lips of this preacher. because the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, every
age, every people, every place. Neither, said Peter in Acts chapter
4, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none
other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be
saved. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only way of salvation. And if you would have forgiveness
of sins, if you would know peace with God, if you would have eternal
life, if you would have hope of glory and everlasting communion
with God in Christ in heaven, then you need to hear the gospel.
You need to hear the gospel that Paul preached. You need to hear
the gospel that the apostles carried to the world. You need
to flee to Christ. And that was Paul's message.
It was Peter's message. It was John's message. And I
trust that it is our message. And I trust that same burden
which laid upon the heart of Paul is the same burden which
lays upon our hearts. To take this message that we
have received, knowing its value, knowing its power, knowing its
significance, and having a desire to take it to our generation
and to confront the people of our generation with these things
which we have seen and heard. The apostle is making a number
of points in these verses in the middle of the chapter here.
He is recognising that Moses' law had been given to the Jews. And when that law had been given
to the Jews, it had revealed them to be sinners and guilty
before God. They were never able to fulfil
the law and thereby be righteous. It was always a yoke about their
neck. It was always something that
dragged them down. And whether they lowered the
bar as much as they could in order to have some superficial
acceptability, to have some sort of generally agreed way of explaining
what that must mean, therefore we're able to fulfil it. or whether
they truly understood it in its spiritual significance and therefore
appreciated that it brought them into condemnation never made
them righteous, never made them acceptable. The Jews by the law
of Moses were brought under condemnation by that standard that they had
granted to them. But what of the Gentiles? Well,
that's what Paul is dealing with here. Paul is saying that while
the Jews were given Moses' law, the Gentiles also had a law. They had the law of nature. They had a natural law. And that
too brought them into condemnation. Paul shows, therefore, that whether
you're a Jew under the law of Moses or whether you're a Gentile
with this natural law, you are nevertheless condemned. No one
has an excuse. Thou art inexcusable, O man. Now that limited revelation of
God in nature, was not sufficient to show all the things that the
revelation of God to the Jews revealed to that People, they
were blessed to have had those things. They saw more of God. They had been given prophets. They had been given a religious
understanding. They had been given the types
and the metaphors and the symbolism of the true gospel, the spiritual
gospel of Jesus Christ. They had been blessed in receiving
those things, a blessing that the Gentiles never had. Thousands,
tens of thousands, perhaps millions have lived and died in almost
complete ignorance of the revelation of God. But their ignorance was
not absolute because there were sufficient clues granted. to make all men inexcusable before
the holy God. God in nature is sufficient to
expose the sinful actions of individuals. That's why, although
people might have no knowledge of the Christian faith, No knowledge
perhaps of any standard of right and wrong which we would want
to establish and maintain for the well-being of society. They
still have a witness within them of things that are right and
wrong. They still have an awareness within them that there is something
and someone bigger than themselves. They still have an awareness
that ultimately they have to give an account for the things
that they do. And it doesn't matter where you
go in the world. It doesn't matter. It's a universal truth. that men and women acknowledge
the greater power that exists. They see the handiwork of that
power in nature. They are aware that there is
a fearsomeness about that power and that there is an accountability
to that power. and men will construct gods of
their own, they will endeavour to rationalise these things that
they observe to the best of their ability, but ultimately we discover
that no matter where you go in the face of this globe, from
the north to the south, from the east to the west, people
are involved in some kind of worship or another, because they
understand in their conscience in their natural state that there
is an accountability and they are under judgment. So here is
this limited revelation that was given and what we discover
in scripture is that the more light a man is given the greater
is his culpability before God. Now I said a limited revelation
because much about God and God's ways remain hidden in nature. That's just the way that it is.
There is evidence of design. There is evidence of the creator
in the things that we see, the sheer magnitude, the majesty,
the glory of the heavens, the wonder of nature around about
us. It testifies of a superior hand. a superior mind, and yet there's no way from looking
at nature that you will discover the trinity of persons within
the Godhead. Just never will dawn on you that
that's the case. That has to be revealed. It was
revealed to the Jews, but it was not revealed to the Gentiles. We can witness the majesty and
the power of nature. But we'll never know from that
the proper way to worship God. We'll never know how it is that
an individual is able to come to God. And so men will endeavour
to build structures, build edifices to the glory of that which they
discern. They'll endeavour to construct
and mould out of the vain imaginations of their mind, images that they
can acknowledge as being the recipient or the beneficiary
of their worship. They know that there is a God
to be feared. but they don't know anything
of a God of love and a God of mercy. And so sacrifice is often
part of worship. And men will perform sacrificial
practices in order to appease the gods, whatever that might
be. You remember how Paul went to
Athens and he stood upon the Mars Hill and he saw all the
idolatrous activities that were going on around about him because
men had this desire to worship God. And he says, I'm going to
speak to you. I'm going to reveal to you. something
about this unknown God. They had even built an altar
to the unknown God just in case they missed anyone in their pantheon
of religious activities. I'm going to tell you about the
unknown God. How did he know about the unknown God? Yes, because
as a Jew this had been revealed to the Jews. But even the Jews
didn't understand the fullness of the revelation of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the gospel. This is the completeness of the
revelation. That's what the apostle says
at the beginning of Hebrews, that God had in past times and
in sundry, diverse manners spoken to us by the prophets, but now
he's spoken to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. The fulfilment,
the completion of revelation. And Paul knew. because he'd met
the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew because he understood,
as it were, this structure of increasing knowledge and revelation
that God had given. There was a natural evidence
of God. There was a special revelation
to the Jews, but now there was the fulfilment and the completeness
of revelation in Jesus Christ. And he knew that this was the
message that the men and women of Rome needed to hear. And we
have received that same apostolic message. And it is the same message
that the men and women of Great Falls need to hear. The men and
women of our communities, our families, our friends need to
hear because there is no other message which will answer their
greatest need. God had spoken to men at different
times. Adam, tracking back, tracing
back to the origin of our relationship with God, Adam had known something
about God. He had spent time in the presence
of the Lord. The sons and daughters of Adam
and Eve, though fallen, knew something of God because their
father had been able to tell them something of God. They knew
something about the God who expelled, the God who separated, the God
who pushed them away. and set up this fiery barrier
between them and him so that they could not enter any more
into his presence. And so the whole of humanity,
starting from that original man, had that message conveyed to
them, father to son, son to grandson, and there is a knowledge which
exists. More than that, In Job 32, verse
eight, there's an interesting little phrase which perhaps supports
this understanding of a universal awareness, a universal inclination
for men to worship God or to seek to worship Him, to sacrifice
to Him and endeavour to appease Him. And this is what it says
in Job. There is a spirit in man. and the inspiration of the Almighty
giveth them understanding. Now by the inspiration, we understand
the Spirit of God. So the Spirit of God, there is
a Spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty, Spirit speaks
to Spirit, not in a saving way, but in a way which reveals gives
an understanding at some sort of level that there is a God
to whom we all are answerable. But Paul goes on to ask a question
now. He says, look, While this may
be the case that there is an understanding, even amongst the
Gentiles, even amongst those that don't have the fullness
of the revelation of the Jews, what has man done with that understanding? What has man done with that awareness? Now look at verse 21 again with
me, please. I want to read a few verses here.
Verse 21 of Romans chapter one. because that when they knew God,
okay, they did not know Him with the fullness of the revelation,
obviously, of Christ's coming, nor did they know Him with the
fullness of the revelation that was given to the Jews with the
Old Testament prophets, but they had a knowledge of Him, whether
that came from their observation of the natural world around them
or from the history and heritage that Adam had and conveyed to
his children and his children's children, or a mix of them both,
because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Neither were thankful, but became
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools. And isn't that the truth? Isn't
it the case that men have built religions? In order to reach
out to God, whether we're thinking about the ziggurats of Babylon
and the Tower of Babel, or whether we're thinking about the most
backward form of animistic worship that we could imagine in the
darkest parts of the uncivilised countries of this world. It doesn't
matter where it is you go, there's always a witch doctor. There's
always a priest. There's always a clergy that
separates himself from the common people and dictates how it is
that men have to live in order for the great God to be appeased
and to accept them. And maybe they need to cut themselves
with stones or bring certain amount of fruit and vegetables
or do some sort of appeasement to enter into a greater state
of spiritual awareness. But it doesn't matter what, professing
themselves to be wise, they've made themselves fools. and changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man
and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them
up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to
dishonour their own bodies between themselves. And this is what
we find. We find this imagery at work,
whether it's an idol made of stone or wood, or whether it
is the vain imaginations of our minds, it's all an image made
in the image of man. Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse
nine says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. Who can know it? Natural man
seeks to manipulate and to control God. That's what he's doing. That is what is happening here.
That's what Paul is talking about. Natural man, recognising there
is a God, thinks to himself, how can I manage him? How can
I control him? How can I manipulate him in order
to get what's good for me? And the priesthoods of all the
religions in the world have been doing it for hundreds and thousands
of years. They turn to idolatry. They make
themselves gods. They make themselves religions.
They make themselves a way of approach. And then they live
by it and they impose it upon others. And I guess we shouldn't be surprised
at this. Is it not the case that in our
own experience we have found that where light is granted,
man takes that light and abuses it and manipulates it in order
to get something for himself from it? He will corrupt the truth and
it exposes the evil and the selfish motives of the natural man's
heart. Now this next verse, verse 25, describes the depths, the abominable
depths of the indulging wickedness that man wallows in. who changed
the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature
more than the creator. And that's the depths of the
wickedness of man, to worship and serve the creature. They
created a God that was an idol. and then they bowed down their
knees and they worshipped their own creation. They worshipped
their own idolatrous, manufactured idol and they dedicated themselves
to its service. This is a bottomless pit that
men have come into. This is the fullness of the extension
of their depravity. This is man's heart pursuing
its own ends. Ultimately it knows no bounds
and it finds no bottom. Revelation speaks about the bottomless
pit into which Satan will be cast The wickedness of man knows no
depth. And perhaps what we have here
is a statement that the absence of God, the ultimate separation
from God is going to be men indulging themselves in their own wicked
ways for all eternity. This world is bad enough at present.
What is it going to be like when God withdraws himself completely?
Now look at verse 26. For this cause God gave them
up unto vile affections. For even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their
lust one toward another, men with men working that which is
unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error
which was meat. And even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate
mind to do those things which are not convenient. The rest
of the passage is a list, a catalogue of examples of the sin that men
and women fall into and pursue. I'm not going to go through all
of these different sins. Read them. If you don't know
what a particular word is, look it up in a dictionary. You know what these things are.
We see it in the world all around about us. What they show is that
from then till now, man never learns. Man never improves. Paul's talking about something
that is going on 2,000 years ago. We see the very same things
happening in our world today. This great movement of gay pride,
this idea that we can marry whomsoever we want, that we can live without
any sense of morality. These things are not novelties. These have been around for hundreds,
thousands of years. We might see an ebb and a flow
in the manifestation of those things and the general acceptance
of those things, but when Paul is speaking here about these
Gentile nations, and that, remember, is everybody in the world except
the Jews, he's speaking here about a catalogue of wickedness
that was well established in his day and has continued ever
since. Man never learns. Man never improves. Man is incorrigible. That's a word that we sometimes
use of children. Oh, you're incorrigible. What
it means is that he won't be corrected. He won't be directed. He won't be improved. He won't
be reformed. You can't change the heart of
an individual. As Jeremiah said, it's deceitful
and desperately wicked. You don't know how deceitful
it is. And that's why the gospel is so important because only
the gospel transforms. Only the gospel begins again
and makes a new creation. A man must be a new creation. He must have a rebirth. He must be quickened. He must
be made alive out of his dead state and condition towards God. I always like to read Robert
Hawker. Some of you may be familiar with Mr Hawker. He was a clergyman
in England. a couple of hundred years ago,
but a lovely, lovely commentary, the poor man's commentary, and
I was looking at it in anticipation of the meeting this evening,
and he had a paragraph on this portion of this catalogue of
sins, which I'm going to read to you. The language is kind
of dated, but I hope you'll get the thrust, and afterwards I'll
perhaps try and put into a couple of sentences what it is he's
saying here, but let me read it to you anyway. He says this,
he says, while I admire the chastity of language in the sacred writers,
he's speaking about what Paul has written here, I admire the
chastity of language in the sacred writers upon every occasion of
this sort, when called upon to sketch the horrid features of
man's portrait since the apostasy of Adam, in which all his posterity
are equally drawn I behold enough in the picture to be humbled
to the dust before God, and desire to gather from the whole without
enlarging on the several parts of the representation, yet fuller
views of the infinite preciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, by
whose vast redemption alone his church is brought up from such
an awful state of depravity. Isn't that lovely? What's Hawker
saying to us there? He's saying, look, as I've said,
I'm not going to start talking about what fornication and maliciousness
and fullness of envy and murder and debate and deceit and malignity
and whispers. I'm not going to start telling
you what all those things are. Because you know what they all
are. You know what they all are. You indulge in these things.
And isn't it interesting how we say some sins are worse than
others? Some sins are bigger than others? The immorality of debauchery
and lust, of adultery and fornication. Ooh, we don't like that. But
what about whispering? What about backbiting? What about
speaking about others? You see, as far as God is concerned,
sin is sin. And Hawker is saying here, I
don't want to go into all of these things. That's a dark place
to go. We don't want to give any more
light to this wickedness than what it teaches us about our
own nature and our own sinful desires. Rather, let it speak
to us of the wonder of Christ's transforming grace. Because as
deep as that hole is into which we have gone and all of the experiences
we've had and all of the things that we've done, Christ's grace
is sufficient for it all when we are brought to faith in him. The blackness of the depths of
sin heightens the brightness and the glory of the light of
Christ. What a contrast there is between
sin and holiness. Let me say that again. What a
contrast there is between sin and holiness. I want to make
two points in closing and then we're done. In the reading of these verses,
I want you to notice a couple of things that Paul said. He
said in verse 24, God gave them up to uncleanness. He says in
verse 26, God gave them up unto vile affections. And he says
in verse 28, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. This is speaking about the way
in which God dealt with these people who chose not to know
anything of him. Even when there were things to
be known, rather they just proved the intensity of the wickedness
of their own hearts by endeavouring to control and manipulate him.
So he just let them get on with it. I have a friend who often
says, let them run on in their own folly. Well, that's exactly
what God let them do. He gave them over to the wickedness
of their desires and their lusts. What can we say about that? Well
at the very least we can say this, that there's no common
grace there, is there? There's no common grace there
for all men. There's no general love of God
for all men there, is there? There's no universal atonement
to be discovered for all men there. No, God purposely hands
them over to the extent of the depravity of their own lusts. These people are reprobates and
they're given over to dirty, vile lusts and degenerate activity. And whether we think about that
as moral conduct, whether we think of that as intellectual
thinking and art and what we sometimes call the higher orders
of thought, or whether we're speaking about spiritualness,
spiritual things, man is in the wrong direction. He is heading
as fast as he can away from God, and God is letting him run on
in his own folly. well might the wrath of God burn
against men and women. Well might we be described as
the children of wrath, even as others. Paul says in Ephesians
2, verse 12, strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope and without God in this world. Well, that was the first point
I wanted to draw your attention to. Here's the second one, and
it's a lovely balance to that. Notice with me, if you will,
please, therefore, the blessed state of those who have been
freely justified from sin by God. The blood of Jesus Christ,
we're told, cleanseth us from all sin. Precious blood. Precious blood. Precious blood
that can cleanse us from such a catalogue of sin. Precious
blood that can redeem us from such a depth of separation from
God. Precious blood that brings us
into a relationship with God and makes us fit for His presence. Adam plunged us all into darkness
and the Lord Jesus Christ has lifted his church from the pit
of hell. As black and as dire and as hopeless
as our state was by sin, in the company of every other reprobate
given over to the vile affections of their natural heart. God, who is rich in mercy, for
his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in
sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are
saved. and hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Well might the faithful apostle
seek to take this message to Rome. And well might you and I who
have tasted something of the love and the grace and the mercy
of God in Christ, seek to take this same message to our own
generation. God grant us this evening ears
to hear and a door of utterance and opportunity that we might
speak of Christ. Amen.