the letter of Romans chapter
9. I want to read two verses from
chapter 9 and then four verses from chapter 10. Romans chapter
9 verses 1 and 2. I say the truth in Christ, I
lie not. My conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost. that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart. Now in chapter 10, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being
ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. I have for us
this evening three truths about Paul that I see from these few
verses. You notice in chapter 9, verse
1, he calls three witnesses to witness to the truth of what
he says. I say the truth in Christ. Christ is the first witness.
The second witness is his own conscience. My conscience also
bearing me witness. And the third witness is God,
the Holy Ghost. I want to begin the message this
evening by reminding us of one other text from the Apostle Paul. This one, you don't need to turn
here, but this one is found in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 1,
when he told the believers in the church at Corinth, be ye
followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. As you look at
that verse, we all recognize that there could not be a period
after those first few words. He could not say, be ye followers
of me, period. There's a comma. Be ye followers
of me, even as I also am of Christ. In other words, follow me as
I follow Christ. were not to follow any man, only those men that follow Christ. The same thing is true about
that verse in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, when he said, I labored more
abundantly than they all. And by all, he is referring to
the other apostles. I labored more abundantly than
they all, but he could not put a period there. He had a colon. I labored more abundantly than
they all, colon, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with
me. We follow Paul, and that's the
point I want to make, that's the message, these three things
we see about Paul. We follow Paul tonight, if we
would serve the Lord, but we follow Paul as he followed the
Lord. These three things that we see
about him, we know were also true of the Lord Jesus Christ,
whom Paul followed. And remember the scripture in
Philippians chapter two and verse 13, where he said, for it is
God which work in you. both the will and the do of His
good pleasure. God works in us to give us the
will and also the strength to do His will. God works in us. And we should
pray. We should ask the Lord when we
pray, God work in me. Work in me to will. If I don't
have that will that I should have to serve Thee, to follow
Thee, if I don't have that will to love Thee, to love Thy Word
like I know I should, Lord, work in me that will. Give me that
will. Give me that desire, first of
all. But not only to will it, not
only to desire it, but to follow up, to do it, to do it. Now the three truths that I want
us to see about Paul that are true also of the Lord Jesus Christ
whom Paul followed. Follow me even as I follow the
Lord Jesus Christ. First, I see a man with a burden. Verse two of chapter nine. I
see a man with a burden and he confessed that his burden was
great. I have great heaviness, great
heaviness. A burden is something that is
heavy. If we were carrying a feather,
we would never call that a burden. A burden is something that is
heavy. We speak of animals, certain
animals, as beasts of burdens because their backs are loaded
with freight to carry. I heard this story one time of
a man who saw a young lad, a young boy, about 10 or 11 years old,
and he was carrying a younger child on his back. And this man
told the one who was carrying the other child, son, Let me
help you with your burden. And the boy responded, he's not
a burden. He's my brother. He's my brother. He's not a burden. Well, Paul
had a heavy burden, a great burden, he says, for his brethren, his
kinsmen, according to the flesh. Now in this ninth chapter of
Romans, you're familiar with it. He's going to deal with some
great depths of truth. One of the pastors that we used
to know said this is the most neglected chapter in the Bible,
Romans chapter nine. Why? Because it clearly states
that God will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. That
it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Paul begins by letting his brethren,
if they might read this passage of scripture, of knowing how
he felt. He had a heavy burden. He said,
I, that I have a great heaviness and not only a great heaviness,
a great burden, but it's a continual thing. Notice that he confessed
to this being continual. I have heavy burden, have a great
heaviness. and continual sorrow in my heart. I brought a message a few Wednesday
nights ago on the humanity of Jesus. The manhood, if you please, of
Jesus. We know that he is one person,
but he has two natures. He's fully God. He's one with
the Father and one with God, the Holy Spirit. And he's one
with us. He's fully God and he's fully
man, not two persons. And that's very important. That's
one of the heresies the church has had to deal with down through
the ages. Some saying that he was two persons. No, he was one person, but he
had two natures. And those two natures were so
united that what could be said of one is true of the other. And I know his person is a mystery,
isn't it? Great is the mystery of godliness. God, God, God Almighty, the God
in whose hands is our breath, the God in whom we live and move
and have our being. God was manifest in the flesh. And John in his first epistle,
remember he goes so far to say that we handled him, the word
of life. Not only did we see him, we touched
him. John could say, I lay on his
breast. the humanity. We emphasize His
Godhood. I do. Maybe, maybe, I don't,
I'm not going to say too much. I'm not going to say that. Because
this is all important. That the Jesus that we believe
in, that we know that He is God. He's not just some Jesus. He
is the God-man. One with the Father and one with
God the Holy Spirit. And if He's not God, He could
not be our Savior. And if He's not God, He's a liar. He's a liar because He confessed
to be God. But we do not need to emphasize
His deity to the point that we overlook or fail to realize that
he was flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones. He was a man,
a man. Paul had a great heaviness and
continual sorrow in his heart. In that message, I mentioned
I brought a message recently, and we looked at various things
in the scripture that speak to him. He was weary. He was weary. God? God who upholds all things by
the word of his power, the God-man was weary? Yes, the scriptures
tell us that. And something that really impressed
me as I prepared that message, he was troubled. He was troubled. He was man. He was man. But in preparing that message
and I made this statement that we never are told in the scriptures
that the Lord Jesus left. We're never told that. And I
went back and reread Lorraine Boettner on this. He said, and
I'm quoting, this is an old tradition. on what authority at rest we
do not know, which says that Jesus was never seen to laugh
a single time, but that he was seen to weep. Whether that is
true or not, at least the spirit of it is good. That he did weep,
we are told in scripture, John 11, 35. That he was never seen
to laugh may at first seem strange to some, But for one who saw and fully
understood fallen human nature, who knew apart from divine grace
every member of the race was hopelessly lost and on the way
to eternal destruction. And was conscious that the whole
burden of redemption rested exclusively on his shoulders. Life could
be no laughing matter. We can laugh and enjoy life because
our burden has been borne by another. Indeed, the world has
much of happiness and joy in it. But let us remember that
the happiness and joy was purchased for us by one, who suffered in
our stead and who paid in his own person and in full the awful
price that sin entails. Christ had a burden for sinners.
Paul had a burden for sinners, for the lost. Christ did. You say, how do you know he did?
Because he came into this world to seek and to save that which
is lost. We know that. Be ye followers
of me, Paul said, even as I also am of Christ. We, you, myself,
we should have a burden to see sinners saved. Now we just should. And if our doctrine is what we
believe, causes us not to have a burden to see sinners saved,
then something is wrong with our doctrine. Or either we have
believed our doctrine wrong, one or the other. Paul had a
burden to see sinners saved, didn't he? Isn't that clear?
Can you say amen to what I've said so far? Can you agree? I know you do. We should pray and ask the Lord. It's God who works in us both
to will and to do. God, give us that will. Give
us that burden to see others saved, to see others come to
Christ. We can't make anyone come. I
understand that. But we can desire that others
come. The second thing I see, first
of all, I see a man with a great burden. Second, I see a man whose
heart's desire resulted in prayer. We see that in verse one of chapter
10. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. It would
be impossible. I saw David Lembaugh the other
day on television. He and his daughter have written
a book about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it was interesting as he spoke about reading through the scriptures,
the word of God, as he said and confessed that Paul, he said,
you can see he was a man like us. that he needed God's help,
he needed God's strength. And you can't read, I don't remember
if he said this, but you can't read the New Testament letters
that Paul wrote and have any doubt, any question that this
was a man who prayed. This was a man of prayer. I want you to look back to chapter
one just to get an idea, Romans chapter one, of what I'm saying
here. Romans one in verse nine. By
the way, David Limbaugh came to hear Brother Don Fortner preach. Don was preaching at the church
that drew who's coming to be with us in Jackson, Missouri,
several years ago. And when I went up there to preach,
Don wrote David, emailed him, I think it was, a text, and asked
him to come. He didn't come, but he's heard
the gospel, let me say that. He's heard the gospel. And he
professes to believe the gospel, and I have no reason to doubt
that he does, doesn't. But here in Romans 1 in verse
9, 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. Just a sample, but you're familiar
enough with the scriptures that you know what I'm saying here,
that Paul was a man who prayed He prayed for believers. Remember,
he said the burden of all the churches was upon him. He prayed
for believers. He prayed for churches. And as
our text here in Romans 10 in verse 1 tells us, he prayed for
the lost. He prayed for the lost. You know,
over the years, you run into a bunch of people, or some people,
I shouldn't say a bunch of people, have some crazy ideas about the
scripture. I remember this had been years
ago when I was working for SP Trucking Company. There was a
driver for another trucking company, and he told me, no, you shouldn't
pray for the lost. You shouldn't pray for the lost. He said, the Lord prayed for
them when he said, Father, forgive them. That's enough. You don't
have to pray for the lost. And I've run into some people
that said we shouldn't confess our sins every day. You run into some strange people,
don't you? Over the years, many years, I've
run into several. I have some strange ideas about
the word of God, what the scriptures teach. And I'm sure they say
the same thing about me. Yeah, Paul prayed for the lost. He did. Our text tells us, my
heart's desiring prayer to God for Israel. He's talking about
Israel after the flesh, no doubt, is that they might be saved. And he was specific in his praying. He didn't just say, Lord, bless
them. That's what I do, I should say. I hope you're not guilty
of that. Lord bless him, or bless her,
or bless them. No, he was specific in his praying. His request was, Lord, that they
might be saved. That they might be saved. Now Paul wrote in chapter nine,
if you look down to verse 27, what he knew that a larger number of the nation
of Israel, I'm talking about the natural descendants of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, that they were not going to be saved, that they
were cast away. He quotes Isaiah, Esaias also
crieth concerning Israel, though the number of the children of
Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. He knew. inspired by God the
Holy Spirit to write this letter and this chapter that many would
not be saved, but he knew there was a remnant, a remnant according
to the election of grace who would be saved. You see that
in chapter 11, verse 5, Romans 11, verse 5. Even so then at
this present time also, There's a remnant. It's true that many
of the Jews did not believe. They should have received their
Messiah. They should have received Christ.
He came as a Jew. He came to His own people. They rejected Him. It's true
that most of them, many of them, did not believe in Him. But Paul knew even so then at
this present time also, there's a remnant according to the election
of grace. Remember he asked this question,
has God cast away his people? Of course not. Not those he foreknew. Paul said, I'm a Jew myself. He saved me. No, God has his
remnant according to the election of grace. And what I'm bringing
out to us, the Lord willing, is the doctrine of election.
I believe it with all my heart. I know you do. The scriptures
reveal it. It's an encouragement to pray.
It's not a detriment. It should not keep us from praying
for the lost. The same thing about preaching.
The truth that God chose the people, I know that. Christ redeemed
those people, I know that. And God is going to save them. And He has chosen by the means
of preaching to call His people. It's an encouragement. these
truths that we hold so dear from the word of God. Should never
discourage us or cause us to be lax and not be engaged as
we should. Why does anyone need to be saved?
That was what Paul prayed for, that they might be saved. Not
that they might drive Larger car. Not that they might live
in a bigger house. Not that they might have a larger
bank account. That's what this false teaching
today is so popular. That wasn't Paul's burden. That
wasn't his concern, was it? Oh no! That they might be saved. They might know Christ. That's
all important. These other things are just temporary. They're just here for a while.
We're here just for a little while. But what is so important
is that a man or a woman, a boy or a girl be saved. Why does
anyone need to be saved? Saved from what? I saw on the news a few weeks
ago now, I believe it was, that there was a flash flood out in
one of the states, western states, and someone with a camera, you
know everyone has their phones today and can take a picture,
but here's this man holding on to a log and the water, the current's
just taking him away. And there were two men who saw
that and they knew that river or creek or whatever it was well
enough to know He's going to come to a point, and when he
comes to that point, we can save him. We can save him. And somehow,
they got to that point before he came by on that log, and they
saved him. They rescued him. That's what
salvation is, isn't it? It's rescue. It's deliverance. Deliverance. Men need to be saved
from sin. which is like that log that man
was hanging onto, holding onto. The current was taking the log
and him to certain death. They need to be rescued, delivered
from sin and all of its consequences. And I read this past week, A
survey among 1,000 evangelical preachers, a third of them believe
that a person can go to heaven just by being a good person. Just by being a good person.
If that were true, why did God send his son into this world
to die? And over a third of those interviewed
in that survey denied the person of God the Holy Spirit. Those
are men who are in pulpits here in our country somewhere, deceiving
souls. Why do men need to be saved? And what is salvation? What is
this deliverance? Well, I jotted down these three
things. The Lord Jesus saves men from the guilt of sin. the
guilt of sin. Christ suffered for my sins so
that I, excuse me, I'm not obligated to suffer for them. God is a just God and there will
not be double jeopardy. Christ suffered for my sins and
he suffered for your sins if you trust in him tonight, if
you know him. He suffered for your sins so
you will never Suffer for your sins. God is your father. He may correct you as a father,
but he'll never punish you as a judge. Why? Because he punished your sins
in your substitute. Men need to be saved from the
guilt of sin. He saves men from the power of
sin, the power of sin, so that we're cleansed. And we may live
a life now to his glory, to please him. I'm not what I want to be. But I can tell you tonight, I
thank God I'm not what I once was. Can you say that? Can you? Men need to be saved from the
power of sin. He gives us grace. As I said,
I'm not perfect. I'm sure not what I want to be,
but I'm thankful I'm not what I once was by the grace of God. I love that passage in 1 Corinthians
6 when Paul says, and such were some of you. That was me. Such were some of you, but you're
washed, but you're sanctified. but you're justified, and all
in the name of Jesus Christ. And third, he saves us from the
presence of sin, that one day we will live with him in the
blessedness of heaven. There's a day coming when he's
going to wipe every tear out of your eyes. God's people shed tears on the
way, but there's coming a day, a time, an eternity when there'll
be no more crying, no more sorrow, no more death, no more sickness. He saves us to that. Be ye followers of me, even as
I also I am of Christ. Be much in prayer for the salvation
of others. And the last thing, the third
thing, I see a man, I see a man with a burden, number one. Number
two, I see a man whose heart's desire was prayer. And number
three, I see a man with the only message that will save, that
does save. Look at it there in Romans 10
in verse four. For Christ, Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. The righteousness, that's what God requires. And
man doesn't have the ability to produce it. Paul said of those he prayed
for, they have a zeal of God. Paul knew something about zeal,
didn't he? Read that in Galatians chapter
one. Let me turn over there and read
that, Galatians chapter one. He knew something about zeal,
but it was according to false knowledge. There's a lot of people that
are very zealous in false religion. Because most false religion,
well all of it, it's works, it's works religion. But in Galatians
1 and verses 13 and 14, he said, for you have heard of my conversation
in time past in the Jews' religion, now that beyond measure I persecuted
the church of God and wasted it and profited in the Jews'
religion above many my equals in mine own nation. Now notice,
being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. He was zealous for the tradition,
not for the word of God, but for the traditions of his fathers,
which moved him to persecute, to hate Christ and to persecute. He would have persecuted Christ
if he could have got to him. Couldn't get to him, but he did
get to those who followed Christ. He was zealous, and Paul said
his countrymen that he prayed for, they have a zeal of God,
but not according to knowledge. Not according to knowledge. How
did he know that? Because they went about trying
to establish their own righteousness. They went about trying to do
something to satisfy God, to establish a righteousness that
God would accept, and that's an impossibility for man to do. One other scripture, look in
Hebrews 10. talking about his countrymen
according to the flesh. Hebrews 2.10 in verse one, he
said, for the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not
the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices
which they offered year by year continually, now notice this,
make the comers thereunto perfect. That's what man needs. He needs to be perfect before
God. To stand before God perfect. So that the big, you know, they
had these big searchlights, I guess they still have them, you know,
and you turn one of those searchlights on one of God's children, God
looking. And he sees no blemish. There's
not a spot. There's not a wrinkle. They're
made perfect. Those animal sacrifices, they
could never do that. But by his one sacrifice, by
his one offering, he makes the comers unto perfect, perfect,
without spot or wrinkle. Be you followers of me, even
as I also am a Christ. He had the one message. They
did not submit themselves to the righteousness of God. How
does a person submit himself to the righteousness of God?
He believes Christ. He trusts Christ. He trusts Christ
for not most of his righteousness, not for most of his holiness,
not for most of his sanctification. Oh, no. He is our righteousness. He is our sanctification. He
is our redemption. He's our everything. I pray the Lord will not only
bless this message, but speak to our hearts and help us, these
three things, to really take to heart and to practice in our
lives. Okay, David.