Again, let us turn to Romans
chapter 12. I'm sorry, Romans chapter 13. Beginning in verse eight, reading
through verse 10. Oh, no man anything, but to love
one another. For he that loveth another hath
fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. And if there
be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this
saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love
worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling
of the law. We're continuing tonight to look
at scriptures, which are in the practical part of Paul's letter
to the church at Rome. It began in Romans chapter 12
in verse 1, this practical part did, when he said, I beseech
you therefore, brethren, and he is writing to believers, to
children of God. I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. Last week, we looked at the first
seven verses in this chapter 13, dealing with the responsibilities
of those who are in the kingdom of God, and yet we live in the
kingdoms of this world. Those who are in the kingdom
of God. They've been translated by the
power of God in the new birth. They've been taken out of a kingdom
of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God's dear son. Those who trust and believe in
Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. But we live in this world. We're not of the world and our
Lord prayed that we be not taken out of the world. We are the
light of the world. We are the salt. And we looked
at the Word of God that tells us our responsibility to the
civil rulers. We ended with verse 7, which
speaks of supporting. Supporting by paying taxes and
tribute. That is, we are to support those
who are ministers of God, both with respect and also financially. Now the verses that we are looking
at tonight that we just read deal with Christians and debts. Christians and debts. He deals
with two kinds of debts. First, the Christian and monetary
debt. owe no man anything. It's an easy transaction for
the Apostle Paul to go from showing that we are to pay tribute or
pay taxes to support civil authorities, now to admonish believers, owe
no man anything. Some have taken this to mean
that God's people should never have any financial debt. Now,
there is no question it is a great blessing not to have any debt.
But to teach that it is sinful is not the teaching of the word
of God. For instance, our Lord gave two
parables, I believe it was, in which talents were given out. And the one who gave out the
talents represented the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no question
about that. And he gave talents to three
different men, one man five talents, one man two talents, and one
man one talent. Now those talents were the man
who gave them out to the people, whoever they were. They were
still his. They were given to them to use
so that when he returned, there would be increase. So you can't
take this verse of scripture and teach that the Bible teaches
that all debt is sinful. You just can't do that. Some,
you know, they've tried to teach socialism from the Bible, trying
to say that men must have all things in common. And I think
one of the reasons they have taught this is because early
on in the book of Acts, the people sold everything there in Jerusalem
and brought it and laid it at the feet of the apostles. And
everyone had everything in common. But remember this, our Lord had
told those what was going to happen to them in Jerusalem,
what was going to take place there. It was all going to be
burned up. It was all going to be destroyed,
and it was. But the Scriptures do not teach
anything like socialism. And you can see that even from
the Ten Commandments. One of the commandments that
Paul quotes here in verse 9 refutes that very idea of all men having
everything in common, because one of the commandments is, thou
shalt not steal. That refutes the idea that there
should be no private ownership. I and you, we are to keep our
hands off the property of others, and they are to keep their hands
off of our property. Thou shalt not steal. In fact, we are not even to covet
that which belongs to someone else. Look back with me, if you
will, to Acts chapter 5. I think this is so well illustrated
here early on in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts
chapter 5, there was two people in the church. One was named,
the man was Ananias and his wife Sapphira. The scripture says,
but a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold
a possession. Now they owned a piece of land.
And they sold it. They sold it. And kept back part
of the price. His wife also being privy to
it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles'
feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart
to lie to the Holy Ghost to keep back part of the price of the
land? Was it remained? Was it not thine
own? And after it was sold, was it
not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this
thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men,
but unto God. And Ananias, hearing these words,
fell down, and gave up the ghost. Great fear came on all them that
heard these things. And the young man arose, wound
him up, carried him out, and buried him. And it was about
the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what
was done, came in, and Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether
you've sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
Then Peter said unto her, How is it that you have agreed together
to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which
have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee
out. fell she down straightway at
his feet, and yielded up the ghost. The young men came in
and found her dead, carrying her forth, buried her. By her
husband in great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many
as heard these things." Peter makes it very clear in his words
to Ananias that the property was his and his wife. They could
sell it or they could keep it. And once they sold it, they could
have taken all of it and gone on a cruise. They could have
taken a vacation if that had been what they had desired to
do. They were killed because they
lied to God. They lied to God the Holy Spirit. What a testimony here also we
have to the deity of God the Holy Spirit. They lied to God. They lied to the Holy Spirit.
They tempted the Lord. You know, many religions, cults,
of course, but they say, well, the Holy Spirit's not a person,
just a power. No, the Holy Spirit is a person. Just as much as the Father and
just as much as the Son. Persons in the Godhead, the blessed
Trinity. But the point being, It was in
their hands to do what they wanted to. It was their money, they
could do what they wanted to with it. But they agreed together
to keep back apart and then tell the apostles, well, we've given
all. This is what we got for the property and we're giving
it all to the Lord. If you rent a house, we try to
illustrate this. I've rented houses many times
in my life. until we moved back to the States
in 1977. Every house we lived in, we rented.
We rented a house. It wasn't ours. The house wasn't
ours. And if the house was mortgaged
that we lived in, I don't believe any of them were, but if they
were, I had no obligation with that mortgage company. None whatsoever. None whatsoever. My only obligation
was to pay the rent, to pay the rent. And I was thinking about
this this afternoon. I used to go when we lived in
Mexico. We lived in one house for about nine years, I believe.
And I paid the rent to the father of the man who owned the house.
The man who owned the house lived in another state. And the father,
an older man, I'd go down to the Ford dealership there. That's
where he worked as a kind of a watchman. And every month give
him, I think it was 900 pesos, first of the month. That was
my obligation. That was it. And this is what
Paul is teaching. Oh, no man anything. Pay your
debts as you have agreed. Whatever you have agreed to,
then pay that. Dr. John Gill, His comment was,
for men industriously to run into debt and take no care to
pay but live upon the property and substance of others is scandalous
to them as men, and listen, and greatly unbecoming professors
of religion and brings great reproach upon the gospel of Christ. And it does. We've heard, I personally
do not think I've known any preachers who didn't pay their debts, but
I've heard back over the years of some who had that name, they
didn't pay their debt. And what an awful, what an awful
testimony, right? What a reproach that brings upon
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ for a preacher and for
every Christian. Now I read this past week the
words of a man who pastored a very large church in a city in the
northeastern part of our countries in the middle part of the 20th
century. And evidently, he counseled a number of couples and people
in the church there over this matter of debt and paying their
debts. And he came up with this advice
he gave to people, and I thought it was good advice. He said this,
on payday, most people used to get paid on Friday, on payday,
first of all, Give thanks to the Lord for the money He has
allowed you to earn. First of all, you bring your
check home, you and your wife, give thanks unto the Lord. God's
given you the strength to work. God's given you the wisdom, the
knowledge to earn. Thank the Lord because He's the
one who's done this. Ultimately, the glory goes to
Him. Thank the Lord, first of all,
for the money he has allowed you to earn. Next, he said, separate
that which you would give to the Lord. That's the second thing. Separate that which you would
give to the Lord. And then, pay your bills. And if, now listen, if it's not
enough, you thank the Lord for the money, you've separated that
which you are going to give to the Lord, and then you pay your
bills. If it's not enough, ask yourself
this question. God has promised to meet my needs. He has. But my God shall supply
all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. God has
promised to supply all my needs. Is this a need or greed that
I'm dealing with? A need or greed? Am I living above what I should? Now remember, he's talking to
believers, and I'm speaking to believers. Make the necessary
adjustments, he said. But above all things, pay your
bills. And then he added this, and you
might be surprised what the Lord will do. And I've heard the testimony
of men in our congregation back years ago, when as new believers,
they began to give. They wanted to give and they
thought it, I remember one brother said, I just thought it was impossible. There was no way we would be
able to do this. And my wife said, let's try it.
Let's try it. And from that time until when
he was giving his testimony, he had always been able to give
unto the Lord and the Lord had always supplied their needs. I know this. You cannot out give
God. You just can't do it. I don't
care who you are. You cannot out give God. Give, and it shall be given unto
you. That's what the scripture says.
So that's the first debt Paul deals with, financial debts.
Pay your debts. Oh, don't demand anything. And then secondly, the Christian
and his debt of love which is a debt that is never, never,
never fully paid. Love one another. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world a little over 2,000 years ago now, love came
into this world because he is God and God is love. God in the flesh came into this
world. Love came into this world. The
Bible reveals that Christ loved and died for His people, for
you, if you're one of His children tonight. He died for you. He died for me when we were enemies,
enmity with God. He died for us when we were godless. He died for us when we were Hopeless. In Titus chapter 3 and verse
3, the apostle Paul gives a description and he includes himself in this
description of all men. He said, we, we ourselves also
were sometimes foolish. I can say amen to that. Every unbeliever is foolish. Every unbeliever is foolish.
We sometimes, the Apostle Paul said, we ourselves also were
sometimes foolish, disobedient. We can say amen to that. Disobedient. Deceived. Oh, we were deceived,
weren't we? We thought everything was all
right between us and God. You know, this matter of salvation,
there's nothing to it, nothing important about it. I'm better
than somebody else. We can always find somebody we
are better than, in our opinion at least. We were deceived. That's all you can say. Serving
divers lust and pleasures, living in malice and envy, and listen
to this, and hateful and hating one another. That's the description,
my friends, of the world apart from Christ. Hateful and hating
one another. And you see the envy. We see
it in our nation, don't we? People envy those that are wealthy,
people who've worked maybe. Surely they've worked and they've
earned. And people are envious of them and think it's only right
that they take what's theirs and it become ours. Envy, malice,
hateful and hating one another. The natural movement of man without
Christ is always toward himself. Always toward himself. The supernatural
movement of the supernatural man that is the believer in Christ
is outward. It's toward others. When we truly
know God, we love one another. The apostle John, in his first
letter, has a lot to say about love. He wrote, we love him because
he first loved us. You love God tonight? You know
you do so because why? Because he first loved you. In
fact, He loved you before there ever was a star in the sky. He
loved you, my friends, from all eternity, because His love is
eternal love. Yea, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love. He also wrote, If a man say,
I love God, and hateth his brother, he's a liar. That's all you can
say, John said. He's a liar. Does it matter how
he boasts about how much he loves God and sings, oh, how I love
Jesus? If he hates his brother, he's
a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Also, By this we know that we
love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. Now God's children, I said, when
we were lost, everything was coming to us. Everything was
for us. But when a person is converted
by the grace of God, then it's outward, it's to others. We love
our families. We love our families with a deep,
deep love. I remember hearing this many
years ago, but a young preacher told an older pastor one time,
he said, preacher, I believe that I'm guilty of loving my
wife too much. The old preacher said, no, I
don't think so, son. The apostle Paul said, love your
wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. We love our, our family. our wives, our husbands, our
children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. We love
them. That's a love that's distinct
from other loves, but there's likewise a deep love that goes
out to our friends and to the members of the body of Christ
and ultimately to all men. I think of it as throwing a pebble
into a body of water and you've got one ring, and then it gets
larger, and then it gets larger, and it gets larger. Yes, we love
God's children, our brothers and sisters in Christ, but our
love doesn't end there. It extends to all men. The Apostle
John also wrote this about love. My little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Let us love indeed. I want us to look now at some
ways we as Christians are to love one another indeed, our
deeds. First of all, if you will, turn
with me to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse
24. Let us consider one another. Let us consider one another to
provoke unto love and to good works. To the brethren in the
church at Philippi, the apostle exhorted, look not every man
on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. This is what this verse is telling
us. Consider one another. Love in
deed and in truth. Not just in word, but in deed
and in truth. Consider one another. Look not
every man upon his own things, but every man also on the things
of others. In other words, it's never to
be my way or the highway. Another translation of this verse
in Hebrews is, let us consider how to stir up one another to
love and good works. Have you heard of a chain reaction?
That's what this verse is speaking about, a chain reaction. Because we consider others, they
increase in love and good works, and this reacts on us And we
increase in love in good works. A chain reaction. Love one another. Consider one another. We might say that love begets
love. Look at another verse with me.
First Thessalonians chapter four. So first of all, we are to consider
We're to love indeed, consider one another. Think about how
our conduct will affect somebody else. I think sometimes people who
are not faithful in attendance in the worship services, they
should consider, they should think about this, how their conduct
affects others, how it can be a discouragement to other believers. But notice here in 1 Thessalonians
4 and verse 18, comfort one another. Comfort, wherefore comfort one
another with these words. How are we to comfort one another? With these words. With these,
you say, what words? The word of God. The Word of
God. You know, we've all heard a lot
of maxims of this world. I think it was Benjamin Franklin
who had a lot of those sayings. In fact, he printed a book about
those different sayings. And most of them are good, I'm
sure. But let me tell you, there's
nothing that comforts a child of God like the Word of God.
God's Word. Comfort ye one another with these
words. And the only way we can comfort
one another with the Word of God is if we study the Word of
God and commit the Word of God to our memory, to our hearts.
All right, notice another one in 1 Thessalonians, this time
in chapter 5 and verse 11. Edify one another. Wherefore,
comfort yourselves together, and edify one another. And notice how the Apostle Paul
was able to write to this church, even as also you do. Edify one another, even as also
you do. What a blessed thing it was to
be able to add that to the exhortation. All right, look in in Philippians
chapter 2. Here's another one, Philippians
chapter 2 and verse 3. Esteem, esteem other
better than themselves. Let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory But in lowliness of mind let each esteem other
better than themselves." Better than themselves. You know, this
is especially brought out to us if you look at what the Apostle
Paul writes about himself. And look at these in a chronological
order, in the order in which he wrote these things. First,
in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, He wrote, I am the least of the
apostles. Well, how many apostles were
there? 12. I'm the least of the apostles. But then in Ephesians, he wrote,
unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace
given. Well, there's a lot of saints.
Least of all saints. But then lastly, in 1 Timothy,
he writes, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners
of whom, here's the chief, here's the chief, I am chief. That's what this verse is telling
us, isn't it? Let each esteem other better
than themselves. This is loving in deed and not
just in word. And one other place, if you will,
in Galatians chapter 6. And you know that matter about encouraging
one another. I've been, I've had some experiences,
I'm sure everyone here has, when you've been greatly encouraged.
And you don't forget that, do you? You don't forget that. I remember one day when I was
very discouraged, and two of my friends who were pastors,
they just happened by. They just happened by. It's kind
of like Ruth. Her hap was to go into the field
of Boaz. God had arranged that from all
eternity. And those two men, my friends,
One of them especially did something that was such a great encouragement
to me at that time. And I haven't forgotten it. And
I trust that I won't forget that. Encourage one another. We should
work at that. Showing our love for each other.
Encourage one another. It's easy to find fault, isn't
it? It's easy to criticize. But where did love? And here's
this last one here in Galatians 6 in verse 2. Bear ye one another's
burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. That's what Paul said
in our text, isn't it? Love is the fulfillment of the
law. Bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. Love sees the need of another
and shares the burden and in this way fulfills the law of
Christ. That last verse in Romans 13
says, love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love
is the fulfilling of the law. I pray that the Lord would bless
these thoughts to all of us here tonight. There's some practical, practical
things that the Apostle has given us. Okay, David. Let's all stand. Let's turn to
hand number 441. 441.