In Hebrews chapter one the author quotes a Psalm concerning the nature of the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. And at the beginning of that book, he states that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact representation of His nature.  So then what the Psalmist says about Jesus is also true of God.  The Psalmist says in Psalm 45:6-7 “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness (or justice) is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows.”

Justice is a primary aspect of God’s character, and thus judgment is a primary extension of His character.  Justice, or the judgment of God is not a character trait that we like to focus on.  We would much rather focus on the more benevolent aspects of God’s character like love and mercy. But understanding that God is a holy God of justice and righteousness is paramount for a true knowledge of God, and to be able to worship God in spirit and in truth.  Our faith must be informed through the truth about God and founded on the  knowledge of God as revealed in His word. 

So, God’s justice and righteousness results in HIs judgment against sin.  This subject of God’s judgment is something that Paul is addressing here in the first three chapters particularly, and he wants us to fully understand this doctrine of human sin and God’s judgment against it.  He wants to make sure that when it is all said and done, we will take refuge in nothing other than the mercy of God and the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is applied to our account by grace through faith.  He wants to make sure that we do not hold on to some measure of self righteousness or assurance due to what we think are our own merits, but will fully trust in the righteousness of our Savior.

The principle of justice reminds me of the story from many years ago of the very fashionable lady who went to a photographer to have her picture taken. She thought she was very good looking, but she really was not. She struck her best pose and said to the photographer, “Now, young man, I want you to do me justice.” And he said, “Lady, what you need is not justice, but mercy.” And so also in this passage, what Paul shows us is that we are all deserving of God’s justice, but thank God that mercy has triumphed over judgment, because if we got what we deserved, we would all receive the condemnation of death.

God’s justice and His mercy must both be satisfied.  And justice and mercy are satisfied in Jesus Christ.  As the Psalmist says in Ps.85:10, “Mercy and truth have met together;

Righteousness and peace have kissed together.” God’s justice against sin was poured out on Jesus Christ, that He might show mercy towards sinners.

Now we have already seen in the first chapter that man in his human nature is born in sin, and sin totally corrupts, and thus men are totally depraved and deserving of the judgment of God. To summarize the end of the first chapter, Paul says starting in vs28 “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,  being filled with all unrighteousness,(he then goes on to describe that unrighteousness) and then concludes in vs 32 saying, “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”  So Paul says that they are worthy of God’s judgment against their sin, and that judgment is death.

Then in chapter 2,  Paul includes in that judgement those who judge others as sinners while they themselves are guilty of doing the same things. Rom 2:1 “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.  And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.” So he is saying that even those who recognize sin and  think they are morally superior to those who blatantly sin, are guilty of doing the same things themselves.  And so all men are sinners.

However, even though Paul wants to deal with man’s condemnation and God’s righteous judgment against sin, yet he cannot help but give a brief glimpse of God’s mercy which is salvation.  Paul says in ch.2 vs 4 that God gives time for the sinner to repent.  And we spent a lot of time last Sunday talking about the fact that the kindness of God is expressed as patience – intended to produce in sinners repentance so that they will escape the judgment that is coming upon the world.  

Then Paul goes on to reemphasize that the judgment is coming and that it is the due penalty  of God’s justice against sin. He says in vs5 “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.” 

And in that statement, that God will render to each person according to His deeds, Paul changes gears in his argument.  He now begins to delineate God’s judgment on the deeds of the unrighteous as opposed to the deeds of the righteous.  Those who do good, he says get eternal life.  Those who do evil, get wrath.  And Paul adds, there is no partiality with God.  He doesn’t judge on the basis of race, or religion or position, or prestige, but he bases His judgment on their deeds.

In John 5 verse 28, Jesus said, “Marvel not at this for the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice and shall come forth.  They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life.  And they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”  Jesus is saying exactly what Paul says here, that judgment will be made on the basis of their works. 

Now good works are not the means of salvation. Salvation is a gift of God, not on the basis of our works but on the basis of God’s mercy.  But good works are the evidence of salvation for in Eph.2:9 where it says “not by works lest any man should boast,” the next verse says, “we were created for good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.”  So our works are the evidence of our faith by which God will judge. Romans 3:23 says, the wages of sin is death.  And in Romans 1:17 it says, the just shall live by faith (obedience to faith).  So you have two outcomes, one for works of sin, resulting in damnation, and one for works of righteousness, resulting in life.

What Paul then is going to show here in the remaining verses of chapter 2, is that the people that considered themselves righteous, namely the Jews, because they had the law and they had been taught the law, they were in fact guilty of sin.  This argument is going to conclude in chapter 3 vs 10, that “there is none righteous, no not one.”  Both the Jew and the Gentile are sinners.  Both the religious and the pagan are sinners.  Both the moral man and the unmoral are sinners.  And so all men are sinners, all are lost, all are going to be held accountable for their sins, and they will be judged at the last judgment, and that judgment is eternal death.

Now, notice in verse 12, then, we have two distinct groups of people.  First of all, “As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law.” What law is he talking about?  The law of God, the Mosaic law.  He is describing Gentiles who did not have the written Scripture. Most people who have lived on this earth have not had the law of God.  They have not had the written Scripture.  And so the question is, what about them?  Will God judge them when they never had the law?  Yes, Paul says, but He’ll judge them as those who have never had the law. Vs 12, “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law.”  So the punishment for sin is still the same, death is the wages of sin.  And he has already made it clear that they knew that they were guilty of sin even though they did not have the written law.

But there is another group in vs 12, and that is those who had the law. “And all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.”  This refers to those who had the Word of God, particularly referencing Israel who knew the truth of God.  But it also can be related to people today who sit in the church, people who know the truth, people who are in a Christian society.  They will be judged according to the greater light that they received. 

Someone came to Charles Haddon Spurgeon one time and said, “The Bible is the light of the world.” Mr. Spurgeon objected. He said, “No; how can the Bible be the light of the world when the world never reads the Bible?” “The Bible,” he said, “is the light of the church. The Christian is the light of the world. The world reads the Christian, not the Bible.” 

So the argument with Paul’s reasoning then that might have been made, in fact, it still may be made today, is;  “We who have been the custodians of the scriptures, we should have the higher honor, not the greater condemnation.  We who have possessed the law should be protected from God’s wrath.”  And today someone might say, “I’ve gone to church all my life, I’ve been  religious, I possess a Bible. Why should I be condemned along with the pagan?”  

And Paul gives the answer in vs 13,  “for [it is] not the hearers of the Law [who] are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.”  James says something similar in James 1:22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” God’s law doesn’t protect hearers from judgment.  No, in fact the more they hear, the greater the judgment. 

Jesus said in Luke 12:48 “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”  So the principle is that the more you know of God’s law, the more it intensifies the judgment unless it is obeyed.

But here’s the conundrum: you can’t obey the law in your own strength.  And so Paul’s argument literally backs them into a corner. He says, you’re constantly hearing the law but you don’t do it.  And so there is a judgment against you.  As verse 13 says,  the doer of the law shall be justified, not the hearer. 

So the righteousness and justice of God requires perfect obedience.  God requires a manifestation of righteousness but no one can do that.  Thus, the law is meant to drive us to a recognition of our need for a Savior, and to cause us to recognize our hopelessness so that we turn to God for the power to do what we otherwise couldn’t do.  To see our need to be born again, to be made into a new creation whereby we have the power within us to do works of righteousness.

So Paul says the Jew, or the person who possessed the law is under condemnation because though they knew the law, they couldn’t keep it.  Then what about that pagan?  What about that the person who never read the law of God, never read Scripture, never heard the gospel?  Can you condemn them for not obeying the written word? 

Paul answers that objection as well in vs 14. “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves,  in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”  What Paul is saying is simply this:  You do not have to have the written law to be responsible because you have a law within you manifest in your behavior, manifest in your conscience, and manifest in your thinking patterns.

Paul has given us four reasons why the pagan is lost.  Reason #1, creation. Rom 1:20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” 

Reason #2 the pagan is lost is because of conduct.  Ch.2 vs 14, “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves.”  In other words, they don’t have an outside law, but they have an internal law that makes them a law unto themselves and it is manifest in their conduct.  Pagans naturally recognize certain things which are in the law.  Their conduct shows that they recognize right and wrong.

For instance, unbelievers recognize it is right to pay their debts. They know that children should honor their parents.  Unbelievers may love their wives, or husbands and they love and care for their children. They recognize that it’s wrong to kill.  There are many unbelievers who know it’s good to feed the hungry, who would help a man who was sick or a woman who was sick.  Pagans recognize that it’s right to tell the truth.  They may seek after justice.  They may struggle for fairness. All of these things, their conduct,  reveal an internal human code of ethics that is the law within them.

There is a third reason why the heathen are lost and that is conscience. Vs15, “in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” Conscience means co-knowledge. 

And conscience is something in you that recognizes what’s right.  It refers to a person’s inner sense of right and wrong, the moral consciousness that pronounces judgment on thoughts and attitudes and speech and deeds. I read a quote by an 19th century theologian by the name of William Arnot the other day.  And though he was speaking of the difference between a believer and an unbeliever, I think that there is a principle in his statement that applies to conscience as well.  He said, “The difference between an unconverted man and a converted man is not that one has sins and the other has none, but that the one takes [sides] with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes [sides] with a reconciled God against his hated sins.”  Now what he is getting at is this agreement with God, this recognition that we have about our sins which is in agreement with God.  

And I suppose that principle is applicable to the idea of conscience as well.  It is something within us that is given by God, which recognizes wrong doing and thus is in agreement with God in regards to it as sin. There’s a thought process in you that knows right and knows wrong and deals with you when you violate it. And that inner law is in agreement with the law of God. 

So the unbelievers are lost because of creation, conduct, conscience, and lastly, they are lost because of contemplation. Paul says in vs 14, “their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” In other words, there is in us the capacity to contemplate or to reason and to determine what someone does is right or wrong.

That’s why we have a system of justice in our country, and in fact, all civilized countries have a justice system.  Because we have the capacity to accuse or excuse behavior on the basis of law. They know that there should be, or needs to be punishment to fit the crime. So all of these four reasons, creation, conduct, conscience and contemplation all show that the law of God has been instilled within them. And so they have no excuse.  Because if they would just respond to the light that they are given, then God would give them more light, even to the point of receiving the full light of Jesus Christ so that they would be saved from their condemnaton.

Now there is a final aspect of God’s judgment that we will look at this morning briefly, and that is found in vs.16.  God will not only judge on the basis of men’s deeds, but on the basis of their motives.  God will judge on the basis not only of what a man’s deeds are but what his reasons were. And at this point, I’m afraid, is where most of our works of righteousness which we think we can claim become undone – on the basis of our motives. Even our works of righteousness are as filthy rags because we do them with impure motives.  Paul says in vs.16 “on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”

So the secrets of a man are bound up in his heart.  But God sees the heart.  He knows our motivations.  Jesus said in Matt. 15:18-19 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”  

Jeremiah 17:10 puts it this way:  “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind even to give to each according to his ways, according to the result of his deeds.”  Yes, God judges deeds.  Yes, He judges ways.  But He judges the motive behind them as well. 

James says in chapter 4 vs 3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures.”  God knows the motives of our hearts, and He will judge us according to our motives.  You either do what you do for the glory of God or you do it for the glory of man. 

I believe that what Paul is indicating here is that it’s possible to do good deeds with bad motives.  I think we see that in Christendom all the time.  That was the recurring sin of the Pharisee in Jesus’s day.  And it’s the prototypical sin of the church today.  It’s hypocrisy. The sin of impure motives.  Someone said once, that the the sin of hypocrisy is failing to live up to the truth that you claim to have.  And that seems to be true.

Paul reemphasizes in vs 16, that there is going to be a day of judgment.  “On the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”  Jesus said in Luke 8:17 “For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor [anything] secret that will not be known and come to light.”   God will judge all men, and all deeds, on that day of judgment.  All things will be revealed, even the thoughts and motives of men’s hearts. 

2Cor. 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

If your sin hasn’t been dealt with before that day by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, if you haven’t confessed Jesus as Lord and accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and His payment for your sin, then you are storing up wrath against the day of wrath.  There’s going to be a judgment from God that will cause you to be cast out of His presence forever into the Lake of Fire. And no one will escape that judgment unless they can claim Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.  He alone has satisfied the justice and righteousness of God, that He might show mercy to those who are under judgment. I pray that you have claimed His righteousness and His sacrifice on your behalf that you might not be condemned with the world. 

One of the disadvantages of an expositional, verse by verse style of preaching is that sometimes you find yourself having to deal with a passage of scripture that you would rather not have to deal with. Charles Spurgeon said of this passage that it was not worthy of public discussion. He refused to preach from this text because he felt that it was too upsetting to proper decorum.

While I might sympathize with him, I ultimately feel that I must recognize that if God felt comfortable talking about it, and Paul felt comfortable enough writing about it, so that it would be read in the church, I must be faithful to expound the Word of God as I come to it and not gloss over or skip passages that I don’t find appealing for some reason.

So with the adage of “fools rush in where angel’s fear to tread” ringing in my ears, I will try to be faithful to the word of God, and yet not overstate what God has said, or supplement what God has not said.

Now then as we come to this passage it is more important than ever to place it in the proper context. Paul is writing a letter, and so there can be a danger in isolating this passage or any passage and taking it out of context. If we are going to make something more out of it than what was intended it will come about more than likely by virtue of taking it out of context. When we do that, we risk making more of it than it was originally intended.

So then the context of Paul’s message so far is really understood by verse 18. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” From this point on, Paul is going to reveal man’s unrighteousness. And so that is the title of my sermon. Unrighteousness revealed.

If you back up a verse, then you see the the opposite statement; righteousness revealed. Vs17 “For in it [the] righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘BUT THE RIGHTEOUS [man] SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’” So in vs 17 the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel by faith.

Then in vs 18, the unrighteousness of man is revealed. Now actually, Paul says the wrath of God has been revealed against unrighteousness. Remember we said last week that God’s wrath was revealed by death. The curse of death is upon all men and even upon all of creation. And he says that death, or wrath, is due to sin or unrighteousness. So sin is unrighteousness. Notice Paul uses the word unrighteousness twice in vs 18 as if to emphasize that sin is the cause of God’s wrath. As the scripture says, the wages of sin is death.

So I think in context then, Paul goes on to reveal the unrighteousness of men. He begins to show in detail how unrighteous men are. And this is going to continue for quite a while. His argument comes to it’s climax in chapter 3 vs 10 when he declares by quoting an Old Testament text, “There is none righteous, no not one.” Paul’s purpose is to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. His purpose is to take away all supports from both Jews and Gentiles, to show all as deserving the wrath of God, because all are sinners, and all sin qualifies for the penalty of death.

And furthermore, Paul shows in this text the progression of sin. The Bible makes it clear that we are born in our sins, we are born into a body of death. We are born with a sin nature that we inherited from our father Adam. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Man sins because he is a sinner. Because he was born a sinner. It’s what John Calvin calls the total depravity of man.

David said in Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”

But though that is our natural condition, there is also a natural progression to sin, going from bad to worse. That’s why Jesus made the case in the Sermon on the Mount that hatred constituted murder, lust constituted adultery. There is a natural progression to sin that the Lord equates to that of a little leaven (which represents sin) corrupting an entire lump of dough.

So Paul gives five steps in this downward progression of sin. He starts in vs 19 with revelation. God revealed Himself to man by means of His creation. The second step is rejection, vs 21. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” They rejected the truth. The third step in their progression is rationalization. Verse 22, “Professing to be wise they became fools.” They thought they were smarter than God.

The fourth step of their downward progression in sin is religion. Vs.23, they “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Idolatry in all it’s forms is man’s religion of choice. In effect, he worships himself, making God in his image, and puts forth his priorities and his desires as being acceptable to God.

And that leads to the last step, reprobation. Vs. 24, God gives them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. Three times Paul says, God gave them over, in vs 24, in vs 26, and vs28. What it means is that they reach a point in their rebellion where God gives them over to their desires or lusts. He abandons them to their lust. He stops striving with them. In Genesis God said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever…nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” One hundred and twenty years was the time that Noah preached the gospel to them as he was building the ark. Peter says of that time that the patience of God kept waiting. He was giving them time to repent, but they did not repent.

And in a similar way that is what God does during the course of a man’s life. Though man is born in sin and will progress in sin yet because of His mercy He is giving them time to repent until the time comes of their death. And yet Paul paints a picture here of man progressing further and further in his sin, until it consumes his body and soul.

That brings us to the revealing of unrighteousness starting in vs 24. And in this verse, what Paul shows is that sin unrestrained results in the dishonoring of the body. God gives them over to impurity “so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.” Sexual sin dishonors the body. Those of you that were at our Bible study on Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago will remember 1 Cor. 6:18 which says, “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral (porneia) man sins against his own body.” Immoral is porneia in the original language, which covers all kinds of sexual sins from illicit intercourse, to adultery, fornication, homosexuality, incest, etc. Remember that Paul was rebuking the Corinthian church because they were tolerating a man who was committing incest with his father’s wife.

And Paul uses that as an entrance to the subject of immorality on a broader scale in the church. All types of porneia was going on in the church, presumably among Christians. They dishonored the divine design of their bodies which God had intended through immorality. The opposite of honor is shame. They did shameful things. There is an inherent shame that comes upon the person who indulges in immorality. There are all types of repercussions and consequences of immorality. But one of the main ones that does not get much notice is the injury to the human psyche. They hurt themselves. They cheapen themselves. And they suffer great damage that is not necessarily seen by the eye, but it is felt by the body.

In vs 25, Paul says that this happens because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and exchanged the divine order of sex for a perversion. He says they worshipped the creature rather than the Creator. It’s interesting that immorality is correlated in the scripture with idolatry. (Col.3:5, 1 Cor. 10:7, Eph. 5:5) And so in vs 25, rather than man honoring God with his body and serving God with his body, we see man serving the creature, serving his animal instincts, serving himself, serving his lusts.

This immorality and idolatry works it’s way in the progression of sin to the culmination of sexual immorality, which is homosexuality. Vs 26 For this reason (What reason? The reason is they exchanged the truth for a lie) God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

First of all, let us be clear that Paul is condemning homosexuality as sin. Those churches today that attempt to rationalize homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle are guilty of doing exactly what Paul is saying these men do; exchanging the truth for a lie. But Paul makes it clear here and elsewhere that homosexuality is unrighteousness. The whole point of this passage is to reveal the progression of unrighteousness.. He is revealing the unrighteousness of men who reject the truth of God and set themselves up as their own god. And so all of these behaviors and attitudes that Paul presents in this passage are manifestations of sinfulness. There are 22 sins that are delineated here. Paul is addressing the sin of homosexuality first because he is showing that immorality dishonors the body. When we get to vs28, then he goes on to list sins that are sins of the mind, or soul. But sin affects the entire being. The spirit of a man is dead because of sin, the soul of man is depraved because of sin, and the body is dishonored because of sin.

Thus you cannot make the argument that the Gnostics did, that sin which was in the body did not affect the spirit and so it was not really sinful. Paul is saying here that sin of the body and sin of the mind both corrupt and degrade the person so that they are exceedingly sinful.

Paul says these sinful practices have an immediate consequence. “Receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.” The fruit of such sins produce consequences in themselves, in their bodies and in their minds. Some people have tried to construe this to mean the AIDS epidemic. I would not necessarily say make that connection, but I do think it’s referring to things like depression, self hatred, low self esteem, stress and suicidal tendencies. There are inherent consequences of sexual sins that affect the body and the mind and Paul says that is the result of such sins.

In vs 28 that leads us to the third time God gives them over, and this time it’s to a depraved mind. “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.” God abandons them to their sinful practices which in turn affects their soul. Sin is corrupting to the full extent of the person, not only the body, but the soul.(mind, will, emotion)

Man’s arrogance causes them to be given over to a depraved mind. “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind.” They didn’t deem it worthwhile to acknowledge God any longer. They considered the knowledge of God as something worthless.

So God gives them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. Bad thinking results in bad practices. An evil heart results in evil deeds. Prov.23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Jesus said in In Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, and these are the things which defile a man.”

Then Paul gives a dirty laundry list of these kind of practices. What he calls every kind of unrighteousness. And there are 21 of them. Some of them seem to overlap in their meanings. But I think he wanted to give the full spectrum of sin which comes as a result of rejection of the truth of God.

Now you will be glad to know that I’m not planning on giving a detailed analysis of all 21 sins. I think they pretty much speak for themselves. But there is an order here which I think gives us a method to consider them. The first four sins are introduced by the words “having become filled…” And I think that speaks of the progressive nature of sin. It starts out small, as a form of rebellion against God, and it continues to corrupt and corrupt until it corrupts the entire loaf.

Jesus equated sin with leaven, saying, a little leaven, leavens the whole lump. In other words, a little sin begets more sin, and so on, until the entire person is corrupt. So maybe Paul gives the first four as the starting yeast, so to speak, that soon corrupts completely. The first four then starts with unrighteousness, which is simply rebellion against God, against God’s standard of righteousness. The next, wickedness, describes people who enjoy doing wrong. Greed is covetousness. Wanting what is not yours, wanting more. And evil or depravity is a corrupt nature where wrong is preferred to what is right.

The next group in the 21 is a group of five sins. And this group is described as “being full of..” They reach a stage further along in their progression in sin. So what are these people full of? First is envy. Begrudging what others have. Then murder. Perhaps this is speaking of more of an attitude of murder, which Jesus said was hate. Strife; which is being angry, quarrelsome. Deceit; which is lying, treachery. And malice is spite, a desire to harm people.

And then Pull gives the last group, which is a group of 12. I see these attributes as almost an outpouring of what has been filled up within them. Having been filled up their sin spills out and affects others. And we see that first in gossips; they spread rumors. Slanderers; they publicly tell lies about others. Haters of God; they openly attack God or His people. Insolent: they treat others with contempt. Arrogant; is putting themselves first and of most importance. Boastful, they love bragging of the things that they have done. Inventors of evil; they take special delight in novel forms of evil. Disobedient to parents; they disregard what their parents teach them.

And then their is what is considered a sub group of four which finish up the 12. Without understanding; senseless, they are fools. They have rejected God. And God calls such fools. Paul is being nice; he says they are without understanding. Then untrustworthy; they have no moral compass and so you cannot trust them. He goes on to say they are unloving; meaning without natural affection. Our society’s demand for abortion comes to mind as an example of being without natural affection. But a lack of natural affection certainly manifests itself in many other ways as well. And then the last one is unmerciful. These are cruel people, heartless people who only care about themselves.

Now what is important to note is that Paul equates these sins of the soul as deserving equal punishment as those sins of sexual immorality. They are no less grievous to God. And I would suggest that if you are honest you heard your own attitudes and behaviors described as I was going through that list. So none of us are exempt from the condemnation of sin. He says in vs 32, “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

What Paul is saying is that such people that commit these things know that they are doing wrong. They have an awareness within them that such vices are worthy of death. God has revealed this to them in their conscience, and He has revealed His holiness in His creation, so that they know that they are offending a holy God. And I will suggest another possible way that they know this. Because when societies make laws regarding right and wrong, they always follow the principles of righteousness that God has ordained. Even in the darkest of Africa, they recognize that lying is wrong. They recognize cheating as wrong. They recognize hatred as wrong. They may twist their laws to try to protect themselves, but people always recognize the sin in another person. And our judgment of that sin in another is always very severe. So I think that our judgment of other’s sin, condemns us of sin. We know instinctively in our hearts what sin is. And we judge others by it. So Paul will say in chapter 2 vs 1, “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.”

But not only are we cognizant of our sin, and thus due the penalty for it, but also Paul says we give hearty approval to those who practice sin. In other words, they encourage sin in others. I was speaking to someone the other day who had a run in with an unbeliever who was trying to put him down and condemn him. And I said the reason that he was acting that way was because he was jealous that you weren’t like him anymore; you were clean, you were sober, you were trying to live for the Lord. And so in their wickedness which they weren’t willing to repent of, the way to make themselves feel better is to make you look worse. Ultimately, they are trying to bring you down to their level. And that is really the culmination of sin, that it seeks to pull others down with them. Eve did the same thing to Adam, and Adam was foolish enough to willingly go along with her for the sake of companionship.

So what is the conclusion of this study today? It should be to show the complete corruptness of sin, the total depravity of man. Sin is rebellion against God and that progresses to defilement and debasement of body and soul. The person who is in sin is corrupted completely by sin and deserving of the wrath of God.

But the good news is that when you come to the point where you recognize your hopelessness, and you recognize your sinfulness, when you stop trying to rationalize your sin, then you are ready to be delivered. You are able to be saved by faith in what Christ did for you on the cross. Taking our sin upon himself, that we might exchange the lie for the truth, the body of death for life in the spirit, that we might exchange our sins for His righteousness.

The good news is that in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul gave another long list of sins very similar to this list. He said in 1Cor. 6:9-10 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor [the] covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”

But then he says this; 1Cor. 6:11 “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Such were some of you. No matter how vile the sinner, God is able to save and deliver us from our sins. The lesson here is as Paul said in another place, “Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” When you realize your sinfulness, then there is the hope of salvation. Jesus came to save us from sin and from the wrath of God against sin. I hope you will turn to Him today in repentance and faith and be saved from God’s wrath.

Last week we studied verses 16 and 17, in which Paul lays out his thesis for the epistle of Romans. The thesis for the book of Romans is simply justification by faith. The righteousness of God applied to man on the basis of faith. The righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, it is conveyed to man by faith, resulting in imputed righteousness, or to say it another way, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to man’s account by faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross. That is the gospel; the good news from God to man and Paul’s thesis for this epistle.

Immediately following this statement of his thesis, Paul begins to elaborate in great detail the tenets of the gospel. And I find it almost ironic that the first tenet he begins with is the wrath of God. The subject of the wrath of God is not very politically correct in most churches today. Everyone wants to focus only on the love of God. And love is, of course, an important attribute of God. But so is the wrath of God. And what I believe Paul is teaching here is that you cannot be saved until you realize that you are lost. You cannot be healed unless you first realize your terminal condition.

I believe the Bible as well as history shows that the greatest revivals have come as a result of an understanding the impending nature of God’s wrath, or God’s judgment. One of the most famous sermons that was ever preached in this country was given by Jonathan Edwards to his church on July 8, 1741. The title was “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” And that message (which Edwards read, mind you) was interrupted several times by people crying out in terror, “what must I do to be saved?” The result of that message was the beginning of the revival known as the “Great Awakening.” One of the most widespread, successful revivals that the world has ever known.

So it is entirely appropriate that Paul should begin his message of the gospel with a detailed description of the wrath of God. The wrath of God is a necessary attribute of a holy and just God. God’s wrath and God’s love are perfectly balanced. From a human perspective we tend to view wrath as something inherently bad, something to be avoided at all costs. But there is such a thing as righteous anger. And God, who is righteous, must respond to sin. Justice demands the wrath of God. The cross is unexplainable without first understanding the wrath of God.

Hebrews 1:9 says concerning Jesus Christ; “thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.” God is able to love perfectly and hate perfectly. God’s anger is not capricious, it’s not spiteful. God’s mercy is great, God’s love is great, and God’s wrath is great. As great as God’s love is, so in like manner is how great his wrath is.

Here is the love of God. God made man in HIs image, in HIs likeness. He gave him the breath of life. He gave him the world and all the animal life and the plant life of the world to rule over. God gave man all that, and made him as the object of His love. But here is the wrath of God. Man rejected His Maker. Man chose to believe a lie and the father of lies rather than the truth of God. Man chose to rule over himself, rather than to let God rule over him. Man chose to partake of the only thing in the world that God told him not to take of. God had already made clear the punishment for breaking his law. The punishment was death. It was destruction. It was wrath. And it was deserved. It was just. It was justice.

Because God cannot abide sin. God cannot be holy and tolerate sin. What communion has light with darkness? We were made to be like God, to be one with God, to be the bride of God. To have communion with God. And when we chose sin, we rejected that communion. We broke that relationship with God for which we were made. And the wages of sin is death. Sin is destruction. God’s wrath is rightly poured out on sin and sinners, to be destroyed from his presence forever.

In the great epistle of John, what some have called the epistle of love, is found the verse in chapter 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” That verse establishes that the wrath of God is a pre existing condition of man. Man was born into that wrath. Man was born to die, he was born estranged and alienated from God. He was born into sin.

And that’s why Paul begins with the wrath of God. It is a pre existing condition. It is the judgment of God upon the world. He made it, and He has the right to destroy it when it no longer suits the purpose for which it was made. And sinful man is not able to achieve that purpose. He is broken. He is corrupted by the sin nature and as such he is destined to destruction.

So Paul says “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” Now we might ask, how is the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men? How is the wrath of God revealed to men? I would suggest that the way it is revealed is in death. It is by death.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity in the hearts of men. I think that is the reason that death reveals the wrath of God. Because somehow in our psyche death does not make sense. Somehow we know deep in our souls that we were made for more. Death cuts short life. And so the wrath of God is revealed through death in all it’s forms, whether prematurely or in old age, it is the operation of the wrath of God.

And the wrath of God is revealed in action. For example; by the flood. It’s interesting to note that almost all primitive cultures have a flood story. They may have changed it, but at one point at least God gave the world a witness of His wrath that endured for generations, to be told to subsequent generations. The same can be said of God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Another example of His wrath which became known to the nations was His judgment upon Egypt during the time of the Exodus. These were meant to be examples to the watching world of the wrath of God which was upon the whole world.

And Paul says the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So God’s wrath is revealed against sin in all it’s forms. Ungodliness refers to a lack of reverence for God, and unrighteousness to a lack of reverence for His law. Both are sin; rebellion against God. And we are guilty of both.

Not only does man rebel against the truth of God, but Paul says he also works diligently to suppress the truth. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. There is a 6000 year war against the truth of God that is captained by no less than Satan himself, and willfully assisted by men of every generation to try to disparage or deny the word of God. Our unrighteousness provokes us to suppress the truth because we don’t like being convicted of sin. John 3:19-20 says, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

The problem is that men love their sin, and they hate the truth because it reveals it as sin. So the sinner wants to validate himself, to defend himself, and to do that he must attack the truth. He wants to justify his sin. And so to add insult to injury, in his sin against God he also calls God a liar. They exchange the truth of God for a lie. One of the most common refrains you hear today is the statement that “My God would never do so and so, because my God is a loving God.” In saying that, they are guilty of idolatry, of making a god in their own image. Of trying to manipulate God according to what they think He should be.

Rob Bell, the notorious ex mega church pastor, the author of the book “Love Wins,” said “What kind of good, loving God would it be if He sent people to an eternal hell for what they did or didn’t do in the few short years they lived on earth? And if He was like that, then who would want to worship Him?” That statement flies in the face of the truth of God’s word, which clearly teaches the reality of hell as the just punishment for sinners. And in saying that, Bell is really attacking the character of God and suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

But Paul indicates that all men are guilty of the same suppression of the truth. “In unrighteousness” just means that in their sin they suppress the truth. Because of their sin they suppress the truth, because they love darkness rather than light. They love their sin. They love what they think is their autonomy. They want to determine for themselves what is good or what is bad. And as vs 25 indicates, they exchange the truth for a lie. What is good is deemed as bad. Right has become wrong. Morality is pilloried, and evil is championed. We live today in a society in which morality has been turned on it’s head. When perversion is accepted and validated as normal. Sexual abstinence among teenagers is said to be unnatural and unrealistic. Abortion is the law of the land. Suppression of the truth is nothing less than trying to make their own version of the truth to accommodate their sin.

But Paul says that irregardless of their suppression of the truth, God has revealed enough about Himself to condemn them. Vs. 19, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” God has made Himself known through nature, through history and through man’s conscience. God has given enough revelation of Himself through these methods that man should have been convinced and convicted of God’s truth and his need for God.

Paul says that what can be known about God through creation has been clearly seen, so that they are without excuse. Vs. 20; “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

In vs16 and 17, Paul said that God revealed salvation through His gospel. In vs 19 and 20, however, Paul moves from special to general revelation. He is saying that enough truth about God has been revealed in creation to turn men to God. Unfortunately, today the lie of evolution has been exchanged for the truth about creation. I believe that evolution is a diabolical strategy to eliminate the general revelation of God in creation. Just as the devil has systematically tried to destroy the word of God, he also is attempting to destroy the truth of God revealed in creation.

But there is a witness to a divine design in nature that is apparent if one would only look for it. My son has developed lately an interest in aquariums. And he now has a freshwater aquarium as well as a saltwater. And as he studies and learns about all the different species of fish and coral and all kinds of living creatures in the ocean, he is constantly remarking how this great variety and creativity in these creatures is a testimony to a Creator. He said the other night how this has enabled him to see that God has a personality, even a sense of humor. And I think any study of nature should cause men to see the reality of God, unless they are prejudiced against the truth.

And I want to point out another interesting aspect in this verse. And that is that God is an invisible Spirit. Paul speaks of the invisible attributes of God. Jesus said that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. John 1:18 says that “God Himself no one has ever seen.” Col.1:15 says that the Son “ is the image of the invisible God.” 1 Timothy 1:17 says the King of the Ages, the imperishable, the invisible God. And Hebrews 11:27 says “seeing Him who is invisible.” So we must recognize that God is a Spirit, and as such He is invisible. It is a grave error to imagine God as just like us, as perhaps a bigger or stronger version of ourselves. But we need to realize that God is an invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent Spirit who is over all, and above all.

Furthermore, Paul says these invisible qualities of God are “His eternal power and divine nature.” His eternal power is clearly seen in nature. It is clearly seen in the power of a hurricane, in the power of the seas, in the power of the sun and the moon and the stars. God’s incredible power is seen through the things which He made. God has to be unimaginably powerful to have created and have control over such things as seen in nature. And when we contemplate this power, it should be apparent that it is an eternal power. The power of the stars is evident from light years away. The God who made them must be superior to mortality. He must be eternal.

And Paul adds another attribute, which is HIs divine nature. When you consider the way all of creation works together, how it is all connected and interdependent, it should impress on you the divine nature of God, the goodness of God, the wisdom of God. It should indicate that God has a divine plan for the world, since all things work together according to His grand design.

To describe such qualities Paul uses an oxymoron. He says these invisible attributes are clearly seen. It might be correlated to “seeing” the wind. We cannot see the wind, it is invisible. But we can clearly see the effects of the wind and so we know that it exists, and that it is powerful. There is much we can learn about the wind even though we cannot see it. And so the soul of man clearly sees the nature of God through the works of God, or as Paul says through the things that are made.

So Paul says that man is without excuse, because nature is a witness to the invisible attributes of God, and yet they refuse to worship Him as their God. Even before the relatively modern inventions of microscope and telescope, man was able to see the immensity of the universe in the night sky, he was able to monitor the heavenly bodies in their courses and plot the seasons and months and the tides by them with absolute precision. He was able to study the way a tiny seed grew into a specific plant and the plant gave forth fruit after it’s kind, and in turn produced more seeds. He is able to see the variety and diversity of life in the birds, in animals, and in the sea. Man is still discovering ever more varieties of animal and plant life even today. If you look closely at the earth you will notice even the ground is alive with insects and animal life. The more microscopic you go, the more life you discover. And the opposite is true as well. As you look at the stars you see further and further evidences of galaxies upon galaxies. Surely, he who denies God is inexcusable.

But though they see the invisible attributes of God clearly in nature, yet they refused to acknowledge Him as God. Vs.21, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” There is a progression to sin. There is a hardening in rebellion. And Paul is delineating that progression here. Because their sin encouraged them to rebel against God they then suppressed the truth to try to justify their sin. And though God revealed Himself to them again and again in nature they continued to defy Him, they chose not to honor Him, and they became futile in their minds and their hearts were darkened. They loved darkness rather than light and so God gave them over to darkness. And their progression in sin progressed further and further away from the truth. Until not only was their hearts darkened, but they were hardened. Their consciences were blunted to dullness. The light of the truth flickered out. They cannot reason correctly. They no longer can see the truth. The blind lead the blind, and the devil leads them all round in circles in the rat race of life, until they expire by one means or another and face the wrath of God.

The progression of their sin goes from bad to worse. Vs. 23 “and [they] exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Let us not just imagine primitive cultures are guilty of worshiping the images of man and beast. Today our modern culture worships the beast as well. They worship nature, they worship the environment. The very thing that should have turned them to God, they worshipped it instead of God.

Whether or not you want to believe in climate change or any number of other environmental initiatives, the fact is that there are a lot of people who have exchanged the glory of the Creator for the so called science of environmentalists, and as such they worship the creature rather than the Creator. Today there is a growing trend in society that there is nothing more sacred than nature itself. Environmentalism is the new religion. And as we see so often in new laws that are made concerning the left’s view of the environment, it rules with a rod of iron like they once accused religion of doing. And if it’s allowed to run it’s course, then one day the environmentalists will decide who will live and who will die. How many children you can have. What kind of food you can eat. What kind of cars you can drive. Whether or not you can fly in an airplane. It’s amazing how far they can reach into your life by the excuse of climate change, or what’s good for the environment. So don’t think that worshipping nature was just something that primitive people did hundreds of years ago. It’s going on now. Man worships the creature rather than the Creator. Man worships man, he worships movie stars, athletic stars, music stars. In one form or another, man worships that which was created rather than his Creator.

Vs 24 “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Three times in this chapter Paul uses the phrase, “God gave them over.” I believe that means that people reach a point in their progression in sin that He finally gives them over to their desires. They rebuke the conviction of the Holy Spirit to a point where He no longer speaks to them. The light goes out.

There is a verse in Isaiah that I really like that speaks of the mercy of God, which says, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” That speaks of God’s long suffering with sinners. That is God’s mercy towards our weakness. Peter says His patience is waiting to lead us to repentance. But there does come a time when God no longer seeks to keep the flame burning. There does come a time when God allows the broken reed to fall away unto perdition. And I think that is what Paul is getting at here. They reach a point when God finally will give them over to their depravity and their desire and their destruction.

Paul says that as a result of their rebellion God gave them over to impurity, which means uncleanness, and their bodies are dishonored. It’s interesting to note that Paul is writing from Corinth, a city rife with sexual immorality. And as we studied in 1 Cor. 6 on Wednesday night, when a man commits sexual immorality he sins against himself. That is what I think Paul indicates here when he says their bodies are dishonored. We bring shame upon our own bodies in sexual sins. We bring consequences in the physical body that are destructive when we deviate from God’s plan of marriage.

Col.3:5 states, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.” This outpouring of God’s wrath is yet future, but even now God allow a foretaste of this wrath by finally abandoning them that continue in their wickedness, so that they perish in their rebellion.

God allows that judgment to fall on them because according to vs 25, they “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” They worshipped and served the creature. That is the sin of idolatry. Rather than worshipping and serving the Creator who gave them life and the world and it’s creatures to enjoy, they rejected God and served and worshiped the creature, and so therefore they deserve the wrath of God.

At the close of his sermon on the wrath of God, Jonathan Edwards made this appeal; “Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.” There is but one way out from under the wrath of God, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. He has taken the stripes due to us from God upon Himself that we might go free. Isaiah 53:4-5 says “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being [fell] upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” Jesus has borne the cross for you and for me, if we just come to Him in faith. He has taken our sins upon His shoulders, bearing our punishment, bearing God’s wrath which was due to us, if we would just believe on Him as our Lord and Savior.

The invisible, immortal God that the world has never seen has manifested Himself fully and completely in the man Jesus Christ, that we might know God fully and completely, and that we might have life through HIs death. An even worse fate than the one described here by Paul of the pagan Gentiles who did not know the scriptures but had the witness of creation to teach them, is to be had by those who hear the truth of God’s word, who hear the gospel of justification by faith in Christ, and yet consider the blood of Jesus Christ as no account and continue on in their rebellion against God. To those, the wrath of God will surely come with a vengeance that surpasses that of the ignorant pagans of time past. I pray that you will not refuse to answer His call today. Do not harden your heart against God.

Today, if you hear His voice, if you are outside of Jesus Christ, I urge you to fly to Jesus. In the hymn Rock of Ages it says, “Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die.” There is a antidote for the wrath of God, and that is to look to Jesus who took the wrath of God which I deserved upon Himself that I might be set free. Look to Him and receive justification and life.

If you are a person who has achieved even a basic level of maturity, who has even a rudimentary intelligence, then you probably have come to the realization that life is not all that we wish it to be. It doesn’t take too long for the average person as they live their life to realize that something’s wrong, something’s missing. It may seem like some other people manage to get it right and things seem to work out for them, but we think for us it’s just not the case. But I think that rather than that being a personal deficiency it is actually a universal problem. It even affects those who are still in the process of maturing; such as teenagers and young adults. People that you would think should have every reason to optimistic and full of hope for the future are instead finding themselves becoming disillusioned with life. Millions of young people today are depressed and searching for answers to life in therapy and counseling and the use of anti-depressants and so forth. The suicide rate for young people has reached almost epidemic proportions in this modern age as they become disillusioned and so despondent over life.

And if that’s true for young people, then how much more so is it true for the person who has reached middle age and done all the things that society tells us are necessary to succeed at life and yet found disappointment and emptiness rather than joy and fulfillment. Yet even so, most of us manage to convince ourselves that a happy life is still achievable, if we just do a couple of things, or if we can just acquire enough things, or get enough money, or get in shape, or find true love, or whatever it is which we feel is the missing ingredient. And so we pull our shoulders back and thrust out our chin and we power on in the hope that things will get better, that we can somehow get things right and find whatever it is we need to make life satisfying and fulfilling and enjoyable.

The wisest man that ever lived wrote in the book of Proverbs; “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” And what Solomon was getting at is that though man might try every conceivable tactic, he is still unable to figure out a way to circumnavigate this life. Ultimately, no matter if you manage to get rich, no matter if you are beautiful, no matter if you achieve fame or power, one day death comes to everyone. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that all is vanity and chasing after the wind.

Peter, quoting the prophet Isaiah said, “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away.” The principle of death affects all aspects of life, turning man’s glory into decay, putting an end to all our struggles, it’s the end of life for every living creature.

And yet there is more to that quote from Isaiah. This diagnosis of life which seems so hopeless, so despondent, so depressing, has an antidote. That dire prognosis has a prescription of hope. Isaiah said it is this; “But the word of our God stands forever.” Hallelujah! That is hope. That is something to rejoice about. That’s good news. That God has spoken and His word will not fail, His word will not pass away. The life giving word of God endures forever.

This word of God is no less than the gospel of Jesus Christ which Paul is proclaiming in this epistle. Gospel means simply “the good news of God”. The angels proclaimed the good news from heaven to the shepherds at Jesus’s birth saying, “Behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The good news is God has sent a Savior for mankind. This gospel is the hope of the world. It’s the light that shines in darkness. It’s the word of life that banishes death in all it’s degrees. It’s the truth of God that sets us free from the corruption that is in this world. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

But just as in the day when Noah was building an ark in preparation for the flood, the world thinks that the gospel is foolishness. They laughed and scorned Noah in the days before the flood, and the world has derided the gospel as foolishness ever since. 1Cor. 2:14 says, “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.”

But thanks be to God that even though the world may treat it as foolishness, God makes His word known to some. In 1Cor. Paul says “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

That’s why Paul says in vs16 that he is not ashamed of the gospel. Because “it is the power of God for salvation.” Paul is not ashamed to proclaim it to everyone, in every nation, to all men and women, both young and old, Jew or Gentile. Because it cannot fail. Because there is life giving power in the word. Because the word of God stands forever. Because the gospel is the answer to life’s questions. It reveals life’s purpose and meaning. It is the answer to death. Jesus said in John 6:63, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Paul is not ashamed because though the philosophy of men may fail, though the wisdom of man may fail, though science may fail, though attempts at religion may fail, though the heavens and the earth may fail, the word of God stands forever. It’s powerful. By the word of God the heavens and the earth came into existence. Every thing that is created exists by the word of God. Again and again in the Genesis record of creation it reads, “And God said…and God said,” and it was so. God gave life by His word. God’s word is the source of life. It’s the source of wisdom. It is truth and it is life.

Paul says he is not ashamed to proclaim the gospel because he knows it is the power of God. The word of God is powerful. The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The word of God is living, it gives spiritual life to that which is dead, to that which is powerless, to that which cannot help itself. It gives sight to the spiritually blind, healing to the spiritually sick, life to the spiritually dead. It is powerful. The word of God is the gospel, the good news for mankind.

Paul is not ashamed to proclaim the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. This word “power” is dunamis in the original Greek. That’s the word from which we get our word dynamite. As I said in my opening statements, man is unable to make fundamental changes in himself that are actually able to overcome the shadow of mortality which casts a pall over all of life.

But the power of the God is powerful enough to transfer souls from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. It’s powerful enough to change men from sinners to saints. It’s powerful enough to give life to the dead. It’s able to give sight to the blind. It’s able to save men from their sins, even deliver from the penalty of sin which is death. The power of God through the gospel is able to deliver men from Satan’s power, from judgment, from death, and from hell.

The gospel is the power of God, Paul says. It’s an unlimited power, an incredible power that can transform lives. Jesus said that what was impossible with men is possible with God. With God all things are possible because there is no power that is greater, there is nothing that God cannot do, there is nothing that is beyond His reach.

Romans 5:6 says, “When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.” Man couldn’t save himself, he is powerless to give life to that which is dead. But Christ died for the ungodly in order to bring us to God, to reconcile us to God. He died that we might have life in Him.

So Paul is unashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation means deliverance, to save, to rescue. The problem of mankind is that they are on the road, so to speak, to perdition. All that life was meant to be has been corrupted by sin. Paul says in Romans 8 that all of creation groans under the weight of sin. That sin resulted in the penalty of death which is passed on to all men, for all have sinned. Sin resulted in alienation from God, who is the source of life and by whom all things have their being. And by that alienation from the source of life there comes death for all men. There is a futility in all things because nothing has permanence. Everything has become corrupted and infected with the terminal virus that is sin. Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

But Paul says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation is deliverance from sin and death. Salvation is God rescuing those that are lost. Salvation is setting men free from the captivity of Satan. Salvation is a divine transformation of the unrighteous into righteousness. Salvation is from God. He is the author and finisher of our salvation.

Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek. God’s salvation is available to everyone who believes. Believe means to trust in, to have confidence in, to have faith in. So Paul is saying that salvation is available to everyone who believes in what? In God? No, that is not faith unto salvation. The Bible says the devils believe in God and tremble. But they are not saved. It is believing in the gospel. And the gospel, Paul says in vs9 is the gospel of God’s Son, the good news concerning Jesus Christ.

So as Jesus said, HIs words are spirit and they are life. Believing in Him, believing in who Jesus said He was, believing in what He accomplished through His death and resurrection, believing all that He taught, constitutes trusting and believing in Christ. The power of the gospel, the life giving, transforming truth of the gospel is accessed by faith in Christ. Not faith in faith, but faith in what Jesus accomplished on our behalf.

And what Jesus did on our behalf is He left His throne in heaven and took on the form of a man, becoming our substitute, taking our sins upon Himself, and dying in our place, and taking our penalty upon Himself. The Apostle’s Creed states it this way; I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

And what Paul is saying is that those who believe in Jesus Christ, in that good news which He accomplished on our behalf, will receive salvation by the power of God. We who believe will be transferred into the kingdom of His Son and receive new life in Him.

Paul goes on to say that in it, that is, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. This salvation of God is possible because we are made righteous through Christ. According to 2 Cor. 5:21, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” What we must believe about Christ is that He is righteous, He knew no sin. He was the Holy Son of God spoken of by Isaiah in chapter 53; “By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” He goes on to say that “He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.”

This holy, spotless, righteous Lamb of God bore our sins on the cross, becoming sin for us, paying our penalty, and as God transferred our sins to Him, He also transferred Christ’s righteousness unto us, so that we might be declared righteous, justified by faith in what He did for us. The power of the gospel is salvation to everyone who believes in what Jesus has done, and in His righteousness. So that we may say like Paul in Phil. 3:8-9 we may say “I count all things [I once held dear in this life] to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [comes] from God on the basis of faith.” HIs righteousness credited to my account is the basis for my salvation.

The good news of the gospel is not that God commands us to be righteous and we must try to attain to His standard of it, and if we do so then we can be delivered from death and enter into everlasting life. But the good news that God commends Christ’s righteousness to us by faith. We believe in Him and what He has done and what He has said, and God transfers our sins to Him, and His righteousness to us, so that we might be justified before God, made righteous before God, made holy, and we receive the life of God, even the Spirit of God to dwell in us.

The gospel reveals Jesus Christ, our righteousness. It reveals God’s standard of righteousness. And it reveals the manner in which Christ accomplished that transference of righteousness to us.

And what Paul states here is that the gospel reveals God’s righteousness “from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith.” What Paul is saying here is that this gospel is not something new. The quotation which he gives from the prophet Habakkuk shows us that Paul is basing this principle of imputed righteousness on the Old Testament. Habakkuk said, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” What was true for OT saints is true for NT saints. And from faith to faith means God revealed his righteousness to old dispensation saints through faith, and He reveals His righteousness to new dispensation saints through faith.

All the Old Testament saints were saved by faith. Paul restates that principle in Romans 4:3 saying, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’” Justification before God is through faith, where God credits Christ righteousness to your account on the basis of faith in Him.

So then to every age and to all people everywhere, the question of “What must I do to be accepted by God?” is answered by “the righteous shall live by faith.” And that is the way the gospel is communicated; from faith to faith. We that have faith have a responsibility to tell others the good news of Jesus Christ. We must tell them that in Christ alone is there hope in this life. In Christ alone is there life that continues beyond the grave. In Christ alone are the questions of this world answered.

So let us not be ashamed of this gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. So many people are seeking for happiness and satisfaction in all kinds of things, but nothing can satisfy the searching soul like Jesus. Nothing else can reconcile us to God so that we might have life as we were designed and created to have. Let us boldly and confidently proclaim the good news, and pray that God will give them eyes to see and ears to hear, that they might believe and be saved.

At the crucifixion of Jesus, there were two thieves who were also being crucified, one on his right and one on his left. As the mob was cursing Jesus and spitting at Him, and mocking Him, one of the thieves joined in the chorus of derision. Luke 23:39-43 says “One of the criminals who were hanged [there] was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed [are suffering] justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

This incident illustrates beautifully the salvation that Paul said comes on the basis of faith in Christ. Notice first of all that the thief feared God, that is He had a holy reverence for God. I believe that indicates that He recognized that Jesus was God in the flesh. And notice also that he recognized his own sinfulness and that sinfulness rightly condemned him to death. “We are suffering justly, and are receiving what we deserve for our deeds.” Thirdly, he recognized Jesus’s righteousness. “This man has done nothing wrong.” Fourthly, he recognized Christ as Lord. “Jesus remember me when You come in your kingdom.” What a statement of faith! He was dying, and he could see Jesus was dying. And yet he has faith that Christ will come again to claim His kingdom. He recognized that Jesus, by His righteousness, was able to save him. And lastly, he received that salvation on the basis of his faith. “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

There is no other information about this dying thief in scripture. So I can only imagine what happened next. But I think I can assume that later that day, when his life ebbed away, and he closed his eyes in death, he found himself taken to the gates of Paradise. And perhaps an angel there stopped him, and said, “Stop thief! By what right do you enter these gates?” It probably seemed to him that only minutes had passed since he was hanging there on the cross, a dying thief who was getting his just reward for the deeds he had done in his life. But he remembered the exchange there on the cross with Jesus. And so he lifted up his head, and pointed through the gate at Jesus standing there, and said, “I’m with Him. I’m here because He said I could come. It’s by His righteousness that I am able to enter.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you that same question today. By what right can you enter the kingdom of heaven? If you are claiming anything other than HIs righteousness which God granted to on the basis of your faith in Christ, then you cannot enter. Only by faith in Christ will the righteous live. I hope that you have trusted in Christ, believed in Him for your salvation. There is hope in none other.

We are going to sing a closing hymn which I think illustrates this doctrine well. It’s Rock of Ages. And I want to close by reading just a line from that song before we sing it.
“Not the labors of my hands, can fulfill thy law’s demands. Could my zeal, no respite know, could my tears, forever flow. All for sin could not atone, thou must save, and thou alone.”

Last week, as we began our study of Romans we saw that Paul introduced himself as a bond servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.  And if you will recall we talked about this idea of servanthood, and how foreign it is in modern Christianity.  The concept of servitude is something abhorrent to our modern culture. But having the attitude or heart of a servant is fundamental to the principles of our faith, even though it be alien to our nature.  In this age when individual rights are championed, in our culture of self gratification, and self promotion on social media and so forth runs rampant, the idea of becoming a servant is something that we recoil against.

However, to those people who lived ages ago under a feudal system, or lived in a monarchy, the idea of fidelity and servitude to the king was an accepted way of life.  In a sense all who lived in the king’s realm were vassals of the king. He owned everything, and was over everything, and the people served the king.  And it is in that context that Paul and the other apostles write of themselves as bond servants of Christ.  Their allegiance was to dedicate their life to serve Him.  I’m sure you remember how the Old Testament law described the role of a bond servant.  He was one who had been set free by his master, but because of his love for his master had refused that freedom and pledged himself to remain a servant to the master for the rest of his life. And so it is a perfect picture of our relationship to Christ.  Because of our love for God we pledge our lives  to be bond servants of the Lord.

And Paul wore this title like a badge of honor.  He lists this attribute even before that of being an apostle. His primary goal was to be a voluntary slave of Jesus Christ. But not many of us would consider being a bond servant as something we would like to put on our resume, or on our “about” page.  For Paul, however, this servitude was something to boast about.  Because being a bondservant of Jesus Christ is a greater position than being the CEO of a fortune 500 company.

In 1 Cor. 4:16 Paul said to the church at Corinth, “Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me.” Now he could say that because he also was imitating Jesus Christ.  He says later in chapter 11:1, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.”  Jesus, our supreme example was a servant.  In Phil. 2:5-8 Paul says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  So we are to have the same attitude in us that Christ had, which is to humble Himself and take the form of a bondservant. Even if that means that we are obedient unto death. 

Now in the passage we are looking at today, Paul in his introduction to this letter reveals some attitudes and behaviors in himself that should help us to flesh out what it means to be a bond servant. By example he teaches us 10 principles of true spiritual service.  Paul accomplished great things for the Lord during the time of his ministry.  And we all might wish that we had the same power that he had, but what is important for us to see is that God’s prerequisite for power is humility.  God’s power is available when we are truly serving the kingdom of God.  Not when the motivation is to serve ourselves.  We are going to be talking about the power of the gospel next week, and I am looking forward to teaching that passage.  But the attitude of humility and the heart of a servant is essential to handling that power.

The key then to this passage is found in vs 9, “For God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son.” It’s interesting that the word service there is from the Greek word latreo, which can be translated as either service or worship. And that’s because true service is worship.  The idea of worship has been dumbed down in the church today to the point that people think it’s just singing some songs, or being sung to. But worship is characterized by service and sacrifice.  I want you to look at Romans 12 for a moment so you can see how Paul ties  those three principles together. Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” So true worship is service to God.  Presenting our lives as a living sacrifice to God. Sacrificing our priorities, our will, for the sake of God’ priorities. Paul is urging us to have a spirit of service, and that is his example which we see in this passage before us today.

So the first characteristic of spiritual service that Paul embodies is that of a thankful spirit. In vs8, Paul says, “First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world.” Paul was thankful for the faith and the testimony of that faith of the Romans.  There was no sense of rivalry there, no sense of competitiveness.  He was genuinely thankful for their faithfulness and their testimony.  He was thankful because he saw them as co-laborers, not as competition.  He was thankful because he saw them as helping to build the kingdom of God which was also his purpose.  

And that should be our goal as well.  If we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, then we should be serving that kingdom.  And we should be thankful when others are also working for that end. Not having a spirit of competitiveness or divisiveness because we want to be seen as the leaders, or because we want to be known as the only ones who are really doing the work the right way.  Remember Paul said in Philippians regarding some who were preaching the gospel out of selfish ambition, seeking to cause Paul distress? He responded, “What then? [so what] Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice.”  That’s a servant’s heart.  He is serving Christ, serving the kingdom, not seeking self glory.

That’s not to say that everyone who claims to be serving the Lord really is.  Some are actually false teachers and tares sown among the wheat.  And we need to be discerning in those matters.  But when it’s clear that they are of the faith and serving the Lord, then we should be thankful for them, supporting and encouraging them in their faith.

Secondly, spiritual service is a concerned spirit. You can be thankful and yet still be concerned. Vs9, “unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers.”  Being a servant means you care enough to pray fervently for others. It’s being concerned about their well being, about the goal of the ministry, concerned about the life of the church. Being a servant means being wiling to go to war in prayer on behalf of someone else.  How many times have we received a prayer request from someone and we say we will pray, but we don’t really?  Or we give a cursory prayer just to ease our conscience but then forget about it for the rest of the day?  

James said the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. Paul said pray without ceasing.  Pray at all times in the spirit. True spiritual service will be manifested by a concerned spirit which results in fervent prayer.

Thirdly, a spirit of service is characterized by a willing spirit.  Look at vs10, “making request in my prayers if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.”  This is such an important principle.  Paul is praying for them and he is saying to God I am willing to be the answer.  I’m asking God to let me be part of the answer.  That’s a willing spirit.  Far too often we may pray for an answer to someone’s problem or difficulty, but we are praying for God to send someone else to help them. But when you seriously pray for a problem, many times God shows us that we are the answer to that problem.

James speaks to that in chapter 2:15, “if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?”  You know, I almost avoid the expression “God bless you” because it is abused so much in the church.  Maybe God wants you to be the blessing.  Maybe you are supposed to be the instrument of HIs grace.

Let me ask you a question.  Are you praying for the salvation of lost loved ones, or of lost co workers or lost neighbors?  I hope you are.  But are you willing to be the instrument of delivering that message of salvation to those people?  I think that the reason so many of us duck that responsibility is because we don’t want to embarrass ourselves or inconvenience ourselves.  I hope more of us would have a willing spirit like Isaiah who said, “Here am I.  Send me.”  To be wiling to serve the Lord, to carry His message to the world.

And in that regard we see next that Paul exhibits a submissive spirit.  Spiritual service demands a submissive spirit. The end of vs10 he says, “if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.” In other words, everything he does has to be according to God’s will.  He doesn’t rush to a decision and then try to make things work according to his plan. But there’s an utter submission to God’s will. 

One of the greatest hindrances to the gospel is our impatience with the Lord’s timing. We want things when we want things.  And so we get ahead of God and end up making a mess of things. A submissive spirit is not marked by personal ambition but by submitting to God’s will.

Last week Rachel’s boyfriend Stu entered into a 5k race at the beach and it was a race where you were encouraged to run along with your dog.  So Stu brought Jackson, our 1 year old Siberian Husky.  He isn’t very socialized, and so he ended up being a real challenge to control with all these other dogs running around.  But I’m happy to say that Jackson came in first among all the dogs in the race.  We were very proud of him, and they gave him a great big Huskey stuffed toy dog as his prize which he really enjoys carrying around the house. 

But during the race I noticed that they had some boy scouts stationed along the race course handing out water to the runners.  And I couldn’t help but see that correlation to my ministry.  I’m just a glorified water boy.  My job is to pass out living water, and encourage those that are running the race to not give up, to keep up the pace, to finish the race. I’m not here to build a church building, but to equip the body. To serve the runners.  Far too many churches are built which are not much more than monuments to man’s ambition.  But a true servant should be to serve God and submit to His will and His timing.

Fifth, true spiritual service is marked by a loving spirit. In vs 11 Paul says, “for I long to see you that I might impart some spiritual gift to the end that you may be established.  That longing that others would receive a blessing that Paul speaks of there is a characteristic of Christian love.  God’s definition of love is serving others.  Selfless service, not selfish service. Having a desire to see others strengthened.  To see others filled. Love is not some sentimental feeling for others, but love is longing to see others benefited, to see other’s needs filled, even before your own.

The characteristic of an immature person is that they are “me” oriented.  They are all about themselves and they never think about others.  Well, the same can be said about immature Christians.  All they are focused on is their own needs and desires.  But maturity means that we love others and want to see their needs fulfilled. 

Paul said in 2 Cor. 12, “I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?”  When he says “I’ll spend,” that means I will use my resources. When he says “I’ll be expended,” that means I will use myself up. Even though it may not be reciprocated, I will love you.  That’s a loving spirit.  You can’t be a true spiritual servant unless you have a loving spirit.  And a loving spirit is more interested in others than themselves.

Number 6, true spiritual service is characterized by a spirit of cooperation. In vs12, Paul says “that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.” The whole principle of the church body that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians is that all the parts of the body are mutually dependent upon one another. You supply what I lack, and I supply what you lack, that all the parts work together and the church is not lacking in anything.  That we are all encouraged.  And that happens when we see our service as cooperation with others for the mutual comfort and encouragement.

I must say that I have observed a lot of people fall away from the church due to a lack of encouragement.  And a lot of times it seems that some of you are totally unaware that you are responsible for that aspect of the church.  Maybe you see yourself as sufficiently filled, and you get tired, or you get busy, and you think it won’t hurt you to miss church now and then.  But there is someone out there who is watching you for encouragement.  And when they see that sister Sarah isn’t coming regularly, then they start to wonder if it’s really necessary for them to be there.  They look to you as an example.  They look up to you. And if you find it important to be at church it makes them see it as important.  You don’t even have to say anything to such a person.  But they notice when you’re not participating, and it serves to discourage them and eventually they may stop coming altogether.  I have witnessed this so many times and most of the time the “mature” Christian seems obvious to it.  They are too self concerned to notice that others steadfastness is dependent upon them.

Another characteristic that Paul displays of spiritual service is found in vs13, which is a fruitful spirit. He says, “I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.”  Paul’s view of spiritual service was that it resulted in spiritual fruit.  The purpose of ministry is that it brings fruit.  The goal of sowing the seed, which is the word of God, is that it grows into maturity and bears fruit.  

The parable Jesus gave in that regard is known as the parable of the soils.  It’s a parable about sowing the seed which is the word of God.  God gives the increase, but someone has to sow the seed.  Someone has to till the ground, or water the plants, or pull weeds.  But the goal is that it bears fruit.  And that metaphor of fruitfulness is found repeatedly in the scripture in regards to the church maturing.

The Bible speaks of fruit of the Spirit, which are attitudes of godly behavior.  And it speaks of souls being saved; the fields are white unto harvest.  But whether in sanctification or salvation, the goal is that they grow in the Lord and bear the fruit of righteousness.  Paul recognized that his goal was to minister to the Romans so that they might be more fruitful. The pastor’s goal, according to Ephesians 4:12 is  “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;  until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”  That is fruitfulness.  And that is the goal of  spiritual service.

Number eight, spiritual service is characterized by an obedient spirit. In verse 14, Paul continues to expand upon the reason for his service; “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.”  What Paul is basically saying is that the ministry for him is not an option, it’s not something that he thought he would try for a while and see how it goes.  He didn’t look at a bunch of different career paths and say, “enie, menie, miney, moe.”  But he considered his servanthood as an obligation, as a debt to the Lord. 

It’s great to serve God when you feel like it.  But it’s even more important to serve God when you don’t feel like it. I hate to admit it but the number of days I don’t feel like it outnumber the days when I do.  But obedience is not conditioned on whether or not you feel like it.  And the Lord honors those who are obedient. Jesus told a parable recorded in Matt. 21:28-31 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ “And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went.  “The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I [will,] sir’; but he did not go.”Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.”  Those tax collectors were ones that repented and obeyed the voice of God.

In Matt. 7:21 Jesus said, ”Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.]” Paul says I owe the Gentiles  my service of the gospel because I myself have been given the grace of God to be saved. To whom much is given, much is required. And so Paul considered his service as a debt first of all to God who had shone His grace upon him when he was in darkness.  And so he expressed that debt by preaching the gospel to the Greeks and barbarians.  Greeks and barbarians was a way of speaking to both the wise and the unwise.  The sophisticated people, and the down and out people.  Or to put it another way, those you like and those you don’t like. You make no distinction between people, you’re obedient to God to serve them all by the ministry of the gospel.

Number 9, a servant of God has an eager spirit.  This dovetails into the last point about obedience.  You don’t do it grudgingly.  But there is an eagerness to be obedient. Vs.15, “So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” There should be a sense of urgency about serving the kingdom.  Are you eager to run the race?  Are you eager to come to church? Do you look forward to studying the Bible to learn what God would say to you? Or are you dragging your feet?  Maybe we need to pray the prayer of David in Psalm 51, where he says “Lord, renew a right spirit within me.”  David said he used to love to go to the temple, he loved to read God’s word.  But when he harbored sin in his life he avoided going up to the temple.  He avoided the reading of God’s law.  But when he confessed his sin and repented, then he prayed for God to renew a right spirit within him.  And now he loved God’s law.  He loved the things of God.  Those things that you love, no one has to make you do.  So to be eager to serve means that you need a right heart before God, that loves God and wants to please Him.

Finally, we see the 10th principle of spiritual service in the first part of vs 16. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.” The last characteristic of spiritual service is boldness.  Not being ashamed to serve the Lord. Not being ashamed of the gospel.  You know the gospel is a double edged sword.  It’s both good news and at the same time it’s offensive.  It tells people that they are sinners.  The gospel tells people that the punishment for sin is death and hell.  That doesn’t make for polite dinner conversation.  That’s not how you make friends and influence people. But it’s the truth and we must not be ashamed to proclaim it in all it’s fullness. 

The gospel requires that we serve Christ as ministers of the gospel.  Are you ashamed to let it be known that you are a servant of Christ?  Do you feel more comfortable trying to be a secret disciple? Jesus said that he who is not ashamed to confess Me before men, I will not be ashamed to confess before My Father who is in heaven.  

Being a servant is not a popular choice in this world.  Being a servant means that you are not your own but you are bought with a price.  It means that you are not in charge, but you serve at the pleasure of the Master who is in charge.  But being a bond servant goes beyond that.  It means that you have been set free from your former bondage to sin, and now out of a debt of love and gratitude to the Master who set you free, you serve Him willingly, for all your days committed to following Him and being obedient to Him.  And what God promises is that this servitude to Him on this earth will be exchanged for a crown in glory, when we will rule and reign with Him.  I pray that you will consider all that it means to serve Christ and that purpose will be the guiding factor in your life as you live for Him and serve Him.

We are beginning a new study today on Sunday mornings in the book of Romans.  I have preached through Romans before many years ago, but I don’t think very many of you were here then.  And so I want to look at it again as Romans is the most thorough book concerning the nature of our salvation.  Many notable people down through the years  have credited the book of Romans as the source of their salvation, such as Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Wesley to name a few.  And so it is an unparalleled source for understanding our great salvation.

In beginning this book today though I want to skip the usual longwinded background information that one would commonly begin with.  I think that in the course of our study a lot of that information will be covered in due time and so I would rather just jump right into a verse by verse exposition of the word and let it explain itself as we come to it.  

In this first section Paul is giving us an introduction of sorts to the letter and to himself and so let’s start by looking at the first verse. Vs1, “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.”

So the author obviously is Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus,  who was a Pharisee of Pharisees, a Jew, once a persecutor of the church, now residing temporarily in Corinth, who is  on his third missionary journey, headed ultimately for Jerusalem.  He is the author of this letter to the church at Rome whom he had never met.  And it’s an unusual letter in that respect because all the other letters by Paul were written to churches he had either begun or visited personally. 

Now notice this phrase, Paul; called to be an apostle.  Being a Pharisee, being a Jew, being of the school of Gamaliel, was not the credentials of importance to Paul.  It was that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ. And furthermore, that he was called to that office.  God appointed him. Not through the agency of man.  Apostle means sent one.  And Paul had been expressly sent by Christ. Christ revealed Himself to Paul, so that he had seen the resurrected Christ.  Acts 1:22 says that the requirement for an apostle was that they were witnesses of Christ’s resurrection.

Paul says in 1Cor. 15:4-8 concerning the resurrected Christ  “that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,  and that He appeared to [Peter], then to the twelve.  After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;  then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;  and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” So Paul had met that criteria.

There were also the signs of an apostle, which are given to confirm that apostleship. In 2Cor. 12:12 Paul wrote that “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” And Paul certainly had exhibited those signs.  But though his apostleship was something that was important to him and also for the sake of the authenticity and authority of the gospel which he preached, yet he emphasizes still another aspect of his ministry, that of being a bondservant of Christ.

It’s interesting that Israelites came from a background of slavery.  They were enslaved to Egypt for 400 years.  So to be called a slave was abhorrent to a Jew.  It invoked the worst aspects of their heritage and one that conjured up feelings of shame.  So it is remarkable that Paul embraces this title, with all it’s implications of servitude and humility.  He embraces it because this attitude is essential not only for the preaching of the gospel, but it is essential to the foundation of Christianity.  Christianity is submission to Christ as Lord.  There is a general attitude of modern Christianity which freely accepts Christ humbling Himself to be our servant, to bring us to God by virtue of giving up HIs life for us so that we might receive grace. We have little problem accepting Christ as a servant, but we balk at becoming a servant of Christ.  We balk at Jesus being Lord of our lives and having complete control of us. And yet there can be no real conversion without that kind of submission.  

The crux of our problem before conversion is that we want to live for ourselves, to choose for ourselves what is good, or what is wrong.  We want to be independent, we want to make our own decisions.  And that is essentially rebellion against God.  So many so called Christians eagerly accept what they think is the whole of Christianity – the grace of God whereby we are declared righteous and forgiven – and then continue to live a life characterized by making their own decisions, living as they think is right, doing as they please.  There is no sense whatsoever after their so called conversion that they are now servants of Christ.  Unfortunately, they have failed to seize upon true saving faith.  They have merely seized upon a license to sin with impunity; to go on living in sin without any sense of judgment.  And I’m afraid many who think that they are justified before God on the basis of grace will be found to be lacking at the judgment on the basis of obedience. Notice in vs 5 that Paul says that grace was given to bring about obedience. Rom. 1:5 “through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about [the] obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake.”

Now concerning his ministry as a servant and an apostle, Paul says he was set apart for the gospel.  Set apart means appointed, separated for a specific purpose.  Paul says in Galatians 1:15 “But when God, who had set me apart [even] from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased  to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.”  Notice in that verse Paul equates being set apart from the time before he was born. While he was still in the womb, decades before he even had been converted on the road to Damascus, God had set him apart to preach the gospel.  That is a wonderful expression of the foreknowledge and election of God in regards to our conversion.  Heb.12:2 says, Jesus is the author and the finisher of our salvation.  

But I think that to be set apart also speaks of sanctification.  It speaks of being set apart from the world for the purpose of righteousness. I think it means being set apart from the normal priorities of the world so that we might fulfill the priorities of God. It speaks of the purpose of all believers in being  ministers of the gospel.  That is the reason that we are here on earth.  To be holy, to live righteously, and to be a witness to the power of the gospel to those who are without God.  Our light is to shine so that we might be a beacon of hope to a world that is perishing, that is in darkness.  It is not to hide our light under a bushel so that we don’t offend.  It’s not to try to placate the ungodly so that we do not make them mad at us or not like us anymore.  It’s not to sit on our hands and do nothing and sanctimoniously say that we are just going to trust God to do it, when in fact God has entrusted us to be ministers of the gospel. And that includes you.  If you are a Christian, then you are called, you are set apart from your mother’s womb for the purpose of the gospel.  I pray that you did not receive the grace of God in vain but that you are obedient to your calling.

Now what was Paul set apart for? He says he was set apart for the gospel of God.  Gospel means good news.  It is the good news given to a world that is dying, that God sent Jesus to die in our place, that we might receive life from God.  The good news is what God has done for us, not what we might do.  God did what we could never do, and that is provide atonement for our sins, and give us the righteousness of Christ, that we might have eternal life.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

This gospel of God that Paul is set aside for is further described in vs 2 as the same gospel “which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.”  Its important to understand that there is but one gospel in all of the Bible.  The gospel is promised in the Old Testament, proclaimed in the gospels, and explained in the epistles.  

There are so very many scriptures in the Old Testament which prophesy of the fulfillment of the gospel in Jesus Christ.  One prime example is that found in Isaiah 53 which speaks of the  suffering and death of the Christ which provided an atonement for sinners. And in our sermon last week from Matthew 1, the story of Christ’s birth, we read the prophecy from Isaiah which was fulfilled concerning the virgin birth of Immanuel, meaning God with us. Jesus was promised as far back as in the garden of Eden, at the fall, when God said that one would come from the seed of the woman who would crush Satan’s head.  Furthermore, all the types and shadows and symbols of the temple and offerings and sacrifices were in fact prophecies foretelling the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

So this gospel was promised by the prophets of the Old Testament, but furthermore, Paul says it is the gospel concerning His Son, “who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.”  

This is as I said last week when we talked about the birth of Jesus Christ the most important thing to note.  The virgin birth emphasizes Jesus’s humanity, to be sure, but  more importantly it emphasizes His deity.  Mary was a descendant of David and it is important that the Messiah came from the Davidic line, but more importantly that Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit.  He was the only begotten Son of the Father.  Paul says in Titus 2:3 that Jesus is “our great God and Savior.”  He says in Col. 2:9 that “in Him all the fullness of the godhead is concentrated.” 

So Paul makes clear here the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ; He was fully man and fully God.  The Son who without laying aside His divine nature took on the human nature.  In 2Sam. 7:16  is found the beginning of the promise to David for a kingdom that will not end.  God promised him that “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”  And this promise was repeated to David through the Psalms and then by  Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah so that when the wise men sought the new born King of the Jews, they were told that He must be born in Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, for He was to be of the seed of David. 

In saying that Jesus was declared the Son of God with power Paul is saying that though Jesus was from all eternity the Son of God, yet during His life on earth His power and glory was hidden from view. But by means of His resurrection from the dead, that glory was manifested to His disciples.  His resurrection declared His deity, and manifested HIs glory as the Son of God in all His power and glory.  

And Paul adds to that statement that Christ’s manifestation with power was according to the Spirit of Holiness.  That simply means that the Spirit of Holiness that dwelled in Him became evident.  His Spirit shone forth in a way that had not heretofore been seen by men.  God who was in Him, who was Him, who is Spirit, became evident, or was manifested in Him after the resurrection. In a way that is hard for finite, mortal man to comprehend, God is one and yet separate.  Listen to how Jesus prays to God speaking of this unity in the upper room; John 17:20-23 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, [are] in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”  Now I am not going to take the time now to delineate that doctrine further, but that indicates the unity with God, the oneness with the Spirit of God that Christ manifested in His resurrection.

In Romans 8:9 Paul gives us some additional insight into the mystery of the Godhead.  He says, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  So you see in that verse the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are used interchangeably.   So Paul in saying that Christ was raised from the dead according to the Spirit of holiness is just another indication of the deity of Jesus Christ which is he delineates further with the name and title, Jesus Christ our Lord.

In this title Paul combines the human name of Jesus (Jehovah saves) with the title of Messiah (Christ is the Greek equivalent to Messiah) and then Lord (owner, master, ruler, soveriegn).   It is in this full name and title of Jesus Christ the Lord that the gospel reaches it’s fullest expression.  Without Him existing in all those realms salvation is impossible. 

Now it’s to this doctrine of Jesus is Christ and Lord, that Paul ascribes himself as an  apostle.  Vs.5,  “through whom (Jesus Christ the Lord) we have received grace and apostleship to bring about [the] obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake…”  This statement may be interpreted as I have read it in the NASB, which list grace and apostleship as two distinct things Paul has received. Or it might be better translated as the “gift of apostleship”.

That gift of apostleship was described in Acts 26 when Paul recounts his experience on the Damascus road, and a bright light shone upon him, and the voice of the Lord spoke to him.  Acts 26:15-18  “And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.  ‘But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the [Jewish] people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,  to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’”

So it’s clear from that text that Paul received his apostolic commission directly from the Lord Jesus. The purpose of Paul’s appointment was to bring about the obedience of faith.  Please understand this principle; that obedience is based on faith and springs from faith. Obedience is the evidence of faith. That’s why James said, show me your faith by your works.  Faith without works is dead.  That’s why the Lord said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”  Faith and obedience can be compared to identical twins. When you see one you see the other. A person cannot have genuine faith without obedience, and cannot have obedience without faith.

Paul illustrates this symbiotic relationship of faith and obedience in two passages; one regarding faith, and the other regarding obedience.  He says in Rom. 1:8 “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.”  Then in Romans 16:19, “For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you.” So to put it another way, justification and sanctification are both essential elements of our salvation.

So having related that the gospel has brought about the obedience of faith among the Gentiles, Paul then includes the church at Rome as those who are being obedient to the faith thus proclaimed.  He says in vs 6 “among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.” It’s interesting that Paul equates his call with the effectual call of those in Rome, these Gentile believers.  God called them with the same effectual call that He has employed to call all the saints of God.  For without that call of God men cannot respond to the gospel.  Jesus said in John 6:44  “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

And notice how in the next verse that essential call of God is reiterated.  Vs7 “to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called [as] saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Let’s not miss the love of God Paul speaks of here; to all who are beloved of God in Rome…”  So much is made of God’s love today that love has become in certain circles a euphemism of God.  I do not agree with that kind of title, because I think it shortchanges God to assign Him only one attribute and define Him by only one definition. 

However the fact that God loved the world is clearly the motivation for the gospel. John said in 1John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins.” In John 3:16 again he states, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  

Divine love then is God seeing our helpless estate, and sending Jesus Christ to take our place in death so that we might be receive pardon and new life in Christ.  God’s love is not winking at sin.  God’s love is not ambivalence towards sin. God’s love is not loving us just the way we are.  But love is making it possible for us to be born again, to be made new, to be righteous. 

Notice that we are called as saints.  The effective call of the Holy Spirit illumines our eyes to the truth, gives understanding to the gospel, convicts us of our sin, makes clear our need for a Savior, and as we receive that light by faith, He gives us the power to become sons of God.  He gives us new life, new desires, that we might turn from serving ourselves to become servants of God. It’s an effectual call of God that transforms us from sinners to saints, and translates us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God.  John 1:12-13 says “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name:  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Now to such saints as we who have believed are, Paul gives a salutation that only Christians can receive.  “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Only by the gift of God can we have  peace with God.  We have grace because He loved us and sent Christ to die on the cross in our place and because His Spirit has called us with an effectual call as saints.  

And because we have received the grace of God then and only then can we have peace with God.  We who were formerly enemies of God have been brought close by the blood of Jesus Christ. So that by faith we are obedient to Him and we love Him because He first loved us.

I pray that if you have not yet been born again, that you have heard the call of God today, and that you will receive the gift of HIs Son, believing in Him, and following Him with the obedience of faith.  This is the gospel which was manifested in Jesus Christ our Lord.  This is the gospel that Paul writes of here in Romans.  I pray that you will receive it as the word of God.

As most of you probably are aware, I do not usually make a point to preach messages that correlate with the holidays. We are usually studying a certain book of the Bible verse by verse, and I let that be the guide for the subject matter of my sermon, and not what a holiday, either secular or religious, might suggest.

However, we have recently concluded a long study in the Sermon on the Mount. And as I said, I believe that sermon title might better be titled “The Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.” In that sermon Jesus laid out the character and nature of the Kingdom of Heaven and particularly the character of it’s citizens. Then last week, I added to that series a message which attempted to define the characteristics of the consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven which is yet future. To explain in light of Jesus’s teaching what we tend to call “heaven;” or the future state of the Kingdom of Heaven, which I titled “The Kingdom to Come.”

So in light of this series on the Kingdom of Heaven, I felt that today we should look at the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the origin of the title of this message; “The Birth of the King. Matthew in particular presents the birth of Jesus Christ as the birth of the King of Heaven on earth. And so I want to spend some time this morning looking at the origin and nature and ministry of the Coming of the King as the Kingdom of Heaven as manifested on earth.

One of the most important doctrines in the Bible is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. But though it is of tremendous importance, yet it is possible in the expression of that doctrine to emphasize the wrong person. The emphasis should not be to venerate and exalt the virgin Mary, but to recognize and worship the divinity of the Son born of Mary who was the only begotten Son of God. The fact that Jesus was born without the instrument of a human father, but was born of the Holy Spirit through the flesh of the woman is the doctrine of the incarnation.

Those sects which do not recognize the deity of Jesus Christ must totally ignore such accounts as this found in Matthew, where twice it says that the Child was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. And in Luke chapter 1, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bring forth the Holy Child, she could not help but ask how such a thing was possible, since she was a virgin. Gabriel responded, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

The fact that Jesus was born of God and thus God is supported by the fact that men worshipped Him. Worship is not given to men. But when the wise men sought to visit the Christ Child they asked, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

Now I find it interesting to note that the scriptures, while it has a lot to say about the birth of Christ, yet it does not command us to celebrate nor commemorate His birth. Our celebration of Christmas is something that the Bible doesn’t really instruct us to do. The only holy day that we are told to celebrate in the New Testament is the day of the Lord’s death. That is why we observe the Lord’s Supper. Paul said in this way we celebrate the Lord’s death until He comes again. And also of course every Sunday we celebrate the Lord’s Day, which is the day of His resurrection. But we are never instructed to celebrate His birth.

Now that is not to say that observing Christmas is in itself the wrong thing to do. But I will say that certain aspects of it can be less than advantageous to the gospel as it is often practiced by the popular traditions. Because the idea of a poor little baby born in a stable to a young mother and father plays to a sentimentalism that emphasizes the humanity of Jesus. It’s possible to diminish the significance of Jesus’s birth to purely the human pathos of a helpless little baby boy born to poor Jewish peasants on a cold, dark night some 2000 years ago who was misunderstood and unappreciated by the world. But of course, though those things may be true to some extent, the point that He was the Son of God, God incarnate in human flesh, veiled in all the humility of flesh, so that He might be the Savior of the world is often obscured by our fixation on the human elements of His birth.

But what the scripture teaches is that Jesus was born of the woman so that He was fully man, yet fathered by the Holy Spirit so that He is also fully God. That is what is called by theologians the hypostatic union of Christ. Both natures, divine and human, fully existent and operational in one person, that He might truly be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And to that end, Matthew begins his account of the birth of Jesus Christ by setting forth the lineage of Joseph, who was HIs legal father, though not by blood. In Luke, a similar lineage is given of Mary. And what is important to understand is that from a human standpoint the heritage of Jesus was from the royal line of David from both Joseph and Mary’s lineage. That is given to establish that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy that the Messiah, the future King, would come from the line of David and would even be born in the city of David, which is Bethlehem.

Now it was the custom in those days for marriages to be an arrangement between families and it was a contractual agreement that was binding from the moment of betrothal. For Joseph and Mary, this betrothal was considered legally married, but not yet consummated. But ordinarily, after a betrothal period of about a year, the two came together by means of a wedding banquet and other ceremonies, and then they consummated their married life by moving into the same home. But they were considered married from the time of their betrothal. Our text states that when his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,(that being a more legal bond than simply an engagement) before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. And again, that emphasizes the divine origin of Jesus Christ.

The statement, “before they came together” obviously refers to the consummation of their marriage. They were betrothed, legally bound together to be married, but the marriage had not progressed to the stage where they had come together physically. And so Mary was still a virgin. So when Mary was found to be with child, Joseph, as a righteous man, as a man who was concerned about the seemliness of things, was going to divorce her. That’s what it means when the text says he was going to put her away privately. At that point, Joseph had undoubtedly been told by Mary the source of her pregnancy, but as you can imagine, it was just something that must have seemed fantastic to him. As much as he loved her, it must have seemed so illogical to him that he felt compelled to divorce her in order to maintain his sense of decorum. It’s evident from scripture later on when Jesus speaks of divorce that the Jews considered divorce in such cases as obligatory in light of the law. Jesus refutes that idea, but at this point, Joseph may have felt as if the law actually required him to divorce her. And that may be why he wanted to do it privately, so as to protect Mary to some extent, and not disgrace her publicly.

Now all of that is important of course because of the fact that Jesus was fathered by the Holy Spirit. The passage tells us that, but how it must have appeared to the world would have given rise to speculation and scandal. But God is concerned that Joseph know this for sure, and so God sent an angel to communicate it to Joseph. So vs 20 tells us that as Joseph had decided to send Mary away to be divorced, “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.’”

Notice also that the angel makes a point of saying of Jospeh that he was the “son of David”. God through the angel is announcing the birth of the promised King who would come through the line of David. So according to the flesh Jesus was of the royal line of David and thus qualified to take the throne of Israel. I would like to just take a moment to look at a few verses from the Old Testament, which of course was already in existence, written hundreds of years before, which speak of David’s future descendant taking the throne. Isaiah 11:1 “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”
Jer. 23:5 “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.” Micah 5:2 “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, [though] thou be little among the thousands of Judah, [yet] out of thee shall he come forth unto me [that is] to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth [have been] from of old, from everlasting.”

Now Jesus is announced to be born a King, not only from a human standpoint, but from a heavenly one. Notice what Psalm 132:11 says; “The LORD has sworn [in] truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne.” So God speaking to David says I will sit on your throne.

Now that this future King is God Himself is an important point, and the evidence of it is that it is repeated twice in our text of Matthew 1. In the 18th verse, we read, Mary was “found to be with child by the Holy Spirit,” and in the 20th verse, we read, “the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” So then according to God Jesus is qualified to be the King of Heaven, because He is the Son of God.

Hebrews 2:17 says concerning Christ, that He had to be made like HIs brethren in all things. So Jesus had to be human, born of flesh. But in order for us to be His brethren, we must be made like Him, and that is born of the Spirit. That is why we must be born again, born of God in our Spirit, so that we also have two natures, that of the flesh, and that of the Spirit. And so Jesus, in order to be our substitute, and our Savior, must be born of the flesh and born of the Spirit, even like we must be. In order to be the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, He must be born in the flesh on earth, but eternal God in Heaven. So that John might say in his gospel, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.”

Then in Matthew’s account of His coming, we read further that the angel spoke of the ministry of the King. Vs. 21 “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” The name Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “Joshua,” so that the Lord’s name was Joshua.

“Joshua” is a name that means “Jehovah saves.” And so we see that the very name of Jesus is connected with the word, salvation. So the fact that the Lord Jesus is called “Joshua” is very suggestive spiritually. For he is—by virtue of the name that is given to him—he is to be the Savior of His people. As I mentioned at the Christmas party the other night, Savior was a term given to kings, to the Caesars, to deity. It was a term in Greek and Roman culture which had political overtones. In Luke’s account, we read that the angels announced to the shepherds “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Jesus was to be the Savior, not politically, but spiritually, He will save His people from their sins.

As a matter of fact, this has a direct application to the world we live in today. Our problem today is not an environmental problem. Our problem today is not an economic problem. And our problem today is not a political problem. Our problem is a spiritual problem, and that is that sin has separated man from God, who is the source of life, and without Him, we all are dead spiritually, and thus condemned to die both spiritually and physically. But Jesus the Savior of the world came to die in our place, that we might receive pardon and given life through Him.

So every time someone pronounced the name of Jesus, he was preaching the gospel. Jehovah saves. God saves. Man can not save himself. Men do not save other men. Only God can save. So that Jesus could say, “no man comes to the Father, except by Me.” Christ is the only way man can be reconciled to God. Because only the death of God could atone for the sins of the world.

Matthew goes on to cite texts of the Old Testament in support of his teaching regarding the purpose of Christ’s birth. What he’s trying to do is to make plain to us the fact that Jesus is the Messiah as the Old Testament Scriptures have prophesied. And so he interrupts his narrative by saying, “now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was written through the prophet, saying, behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

The 7th chapter of Isaiah, written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, is the text which he quotes here. Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” Then Isaiah says in the 9th chapter of that same book, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” And finally, in the 11th chapter, we read, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and the result of his ministry shall be, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

As you can see, the sweep of Isaiah’s prophecy is that the Child who is born of the virgin in Isaiah chapter 7, is the Child upon whose shoulder the government shall rest, and it is through His ministry that we shall find a universal knowledge of the Lord throughout all of the earth in which we live. We have, then, a prophecy here that is fulfilled in the birth of our Lord Jesus, he is truly born of a virgin, but it is the same person who is ultimately going to rule and reign over an entirely renewed earth when the kingdom of God is consummated on the earth.

Now, notice that here we have another name for our Lord Jesus, and it is not a name that emphasizes his human nature, but a name that emphasizes his deity. “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is ‘God with us.’”

So Isaiah says what John later says, that God became man and dwelt among us. He became like us, fully human, so that He might share in our sufferings, so that He might become our example, and so that He might become our substitute, taking our place in death so that we might receive His life. And that life came from His divine nature; because He was fully God. As God, He is the giver of life. John 1 says without Him nothing was made that was made. He says that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And because of His substitutionary death on the cross, by faith in Him we are made righteous and holy with His righteousness, and we are given life in the spirit by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So that we also are made sons of God. So as Paul says in 1 Cor. 3:16, Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” That is the full import of the name Immanuel, God with us.

So Joseph, then, responds to words of the angel, and we read in the 25th verse—24th and 25th—“Then Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, ]but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.”

There is much that could be said about all the various names and titles of the Lord. The Savior. Immanuel. The Christ. The Messiah. The Anointed One. I love the titles found in Isaiah; Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But there is so much that we can learn from just the simplest of names; Jesus. This is the name that was divinely given. And so when we plead the name of our Lord Jesus as the one who saves, we are bringing back to God His own promises concerning the Lord Jesus. When He was called by the name of Jesus by man it identified Him as the Savior of His people. He is called Jesus because He saves His people from their sins. And it is the name that marks out his ministry here on earth. No one ever lived up to HIs name more so than the Lord Jesus. And if you trust in Him, He will not fail to perform His atoning work on your behalf. He cannot deny His name. Jesus saves because He is God who saves.

Did you notice Matthew’s words, “God with us?” Is this really true? Phillips Brooks was correct when he wrote, “O little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie, above thy deep and dreamless sleep thy silent years go by; yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” But Phillips Brooks was a preacher, and he also emphasized the need of personal appropriation. Is Immanuel really God with you?
Have you responded according to the last stanza of the hymn? “O holy child of Bethlehem descend to us we pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today; we hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell, O come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Emmanuel.”

There is one other word in this passage that might easily be overlooked. It’s a most unlikely word. It’s the word “interpreted.” You’ll notice that when he is said to be Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Why should it be necessary to interpret? Why should not the word Emmanuel be sufficient? What is the point of it being “interpreted?” Well, the reason we have an interpretation of this statement is that God wants it to be known. It means that is the desire of the heart of God to have you know that through Christ God with us. If we needed any further encouragement that God is interested in gathering a people unto Himself, it’s found in that word, “interpreted.”

That’s God’s way of saying I want Gentiles, as well as Jews, I want the whole world to belong to this King. May God help you to respond in faith to His gospel.

We have finished our study of the Sermon on the Mount, or what I prefer to call the Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  This message of Christ described and delineated the character and nature and practices of those who are citizens of the Kingdom.  And yet sprinkled throughout this message are references to different aspects of the Kingdom which are what I would like us to think about today.  Because as Jesus teaches it, there is a progression to the present and future aspects of the Kingdom which are not always that clear to us.  Modern Christians often have a view of heaven  that incorporates many preconceptions that do not necessarily line up with what the Bible teaches.  And so I would like to expound on the subject of heaven today.

Right at the beginning of the Sermon, Jesus says that the characteristics of the Beatitudes are a description of the citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.  He begins with that in ch 5 vs 5, with the first Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  In another place, Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven has come near you. And so there is a present reality of the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus was referring to.

But as Jesus gets to the end of his sermon, He speaks of another aspect of the kingdom.  For instance, in ch.7 He speaks of a future aspect; Matt. 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.] Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’” The phrase “In that day”, refers to the day of judgment, which comes at the end of the age, or the end of this world.  It actually seems to refer to the kingdom of heaven as something in the future, what we often think of as “going to heaven” when we die. 

This connection of the Kingdom of Heaven with the end of the age, or the end of the world, is found again right after the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter 8.  After healing the centurion’s servant.  Jesus said in vs 11 “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline [at the table] with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven;  but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

So again we see this idea of the Kingdom of Heaven, which Christians are supposed to be a part of now, being connected to the end time, when the Lord judges the just and the unjust.  And some come to their reward, and some to their condemnation and judgement.  In chapter 5 vs 12, where Jesus is talking about being persecuted for His name sake, He says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.”  So there is a reward for the just, and judgment for the unjust in the future dimension of the Kingdom of Heaven.

We have learned from the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Christ that the Kingdom of Heaven is the spiritual realm of the Lord. Heaven is a term that is used in the Bible to speak of the atmosphere around the earth, or to speak of the space in which are the stars, or to speak of the realm of God. What all those indicate is heaven is the invisible, spiritual realm over all the earth. In the scope of time and matter it’s not finite, it’s infinite. It’s the invisible characteristics of the Lord of Heaven manifested on the earth. “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool” speaks of an infinite God in an infinite heaven ruling over a finite earth. 

It might be helpful to think of the Kingdom of Heaven in three stages: inauguration, continuation, and consummation. In the inauguration, the Lord was manifested on earth. John says “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.” God’s kingdom was inaugurated “on earth as it is in heaven.”  So we should understand the fact that heaven is where God is.  Thus Jesus could say the Kingdom of Heaven has come near you, it is in your midst. 

With Christ’s first coming, Christ on the cross broke the curse of sin and made it possible for the world to be reconciled to God. In Christ, God offered the perfect sacrifice for sin so that man might become citizens of heaven. All of Jesus’ ministry—the words He spoke, the miracles He performed—showed the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. When Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead,, He was giving a foretaste of the future state of the Kingdom of Heaven when it comes in it’s fullness. That was a preview of what will eventually be a universal reality—a kingdom of righteousness and justice, without death, disease, on earth.

And the victory that Christ accomplished on earth at His inauguration as King is that  He overcame death, which was the means by which Satan kept the world in chains. He now holds the keys of death and hell.  He took captivity captive.  He has overcome the world, and Satan and death, and provided liberty to the captives. Heb. 2:14-15 says “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,  and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Col. 1:13  “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

The continuation stage of the kingdom of God is the stage we are in now—living in between Christ’s first and second coming. It’s a stage of redemptive history often referred to as “already and not yet”: the kingdom of heaven is already in existence, but not yet complete. We have been given the deposit of the Holy Sprit to live in us and govern us until Christ comes again. 1John 3:2 says,“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” So at this present time we live by the Spirit, we walk by the Spirit. 2 Cor.5:7, “we walk by faith and not by sight.”

The third stage, the kingdom’s consummation, will take place when the King comes back visibly and with power and every knee will bow to Him.  1Cor. 15:51-57 says,  “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, [that is to die in the Lord] but we will all [both dead and living in Christ] be changed,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.  But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.  “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;  but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”   Christ has accomplished victory over death. When He returns there’ll be no more sickness, death, tears, division, or tension. The “peace on earth” which the angels announced the night Christ was born will become a universal actuality.

Now it’s to this third phase of the Kingdom of Heaven that I would like to speak for a while.  The consummation of the Kingdom, the idea of heaven, future.  And I would suggest to you that there are two stages of the future Kingdom of Heaven.  There is the intermediate state, and the glorified state.  Unfortunately, most Christian’s theology makes little distinction between the two.  There is a nebulous view of heaven that you go there when you die, and there is no distinction.  To add to that confusion, there is the idea of the rapture of the church, which they are usually taught happens at the beginning of the tribulation at the end time.  Then there is another  belief that there is a 1000 year reign of Christ on earth called the Millennium where Christ will reign with a rod of iron and yet there will still be unbelievers on the earth.  And then they believe that there is another rebellion, and then Armaggedon, and then finally, sometime in the far future, there is the eternal reign of Christ.  I don’t have time this morning to deal with all the various views.  But I feel that it’s important that we understand what the Bible calls our “blessed hope.” I think it’s important that we understand what we have to look forward to in heaven.  I think that the problem with most Christians is that their view of heaven is so dim, that the reality of this world far outshines heaven, so that it has no future appeal.

But that was not the case with the earlier saints.  Hebrews tells us that they looked eagerly for a city  “which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”  “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”

Now the simple teachings of Christ and the apostles is that one must be born again spiritually into the Kingdom of God, which is the spiritual reign of Christ in the hearts and minds of His people.  It was inaugurated by the appearance, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is entered into by faith in Christ’s finished work.   And though Christ our King has ascended into heaven, His Spirit was sent into the hearts of His people to dwell in us and rule over our soul and body.  Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 5:5 that the Holy Spirit was given to us as a deposit in this intermediate state of the future glorification that we will enjoy. We have new life in the Spirit.  We walk by the Spirit. 

I would like for you to look at 2 Cor. 5, because it speaks to this principle of the intermediate state as well as the glorified state.  Notice vs 1, Paul says, 2Cor. 5:1 “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”    Those of you who are part of our Wednesday night studies will remember that 1 Cor. 3 says we are God’s building.  And Paul here says that this building that is in us, is not made with hands, but is eternal in the heavens.  So there is already an aspect of heaven abiding in us.  That which is eternal.  We have new life in the Spirit, even eternal life.  And that eternal life which is from God is, according to Ephesians 2:5, already  seated in the heavenlies. “[God} made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” So heaven is not just a place, but a state of being.  It’s a spiritual state.  

But this body which we are in Paul compares to a tent.  A tent is a temporary dwelling. It’s not permanent.  However the building we have from God is permanent.  It’s spiritual. It’s our soul and spirit.  And I would point out that all men were created as living souls.  In Genesis 2 it says God breathed His breath into man’s nostrils, and man became a living soul. Man will live forever in his soul.  But because of the curse of sin, “it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.”  This body will be torn down.  It will be folded up.  It will die. But Paul says the spirit of the Christian is eternal in the heavens.  We already have been given eternal life.  Jesus said in John 11:26, “everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

Then in 2Cor. 5:2 Paul says, “For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.”  What Paul is referring to is perhaps the statement in Ecclesiastes 3:11, that God has set eternity in their hearts.  There is a consciousness of something more, something beyond the grave.  Man wasn’t designed to be temporal, but eternal. 

Paul speaks further on this subject in Rom 8:19-23 “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope  that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.  And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for [our] adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”

Now this is speaking of waiting for the redemption of our body.  That is the glorified state, when we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  When this corruptible shall put on the incorruptible.  But that is speaking of the resurrection of the body and the recreation of the heavens and the earth in the glorified state.

Paul speaks of that day in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.  For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

The second coming of Christ then ushers in the consummation, the completeness of the Kingdom of Heaven.  But notice the reference to those who are asleep.  That’s talking about those who are dead in Christ. In the scriptures, sleep refers to those who are believers who have died. And Paul says here that those living when Christ returns will not precede those who are asleep (that is dead in Christ) but the dead in Christ will rise first. Now this is speaking of the resurrection of those believers who have died in the time between the first and second coming of Christ. 

But why would they need to be resurrected if they are already in heaven? That they have not already been raised into heaven is evident because the resurrection follows after the Lord descending with the trumpet of God.  That’s the second coming.  And so it behooves us to understand what constitutes this being asleep in Christ.

And to answer that, perhaps the best answer is found in Luke 14 in the story that Jesus tells of Lazarus and the rich man who both died, and Lazarus was taken by the angels into Abraham’s bosom, which was a reference to Paradise, and the rich man lifted up His eyes in torment. Jesus said that in between the abode of these two men was a great chasm, and no one could cross from one to the other. That was in keeping with the Jewish tradition of what was known as Sheol in the Hebrew, or Hades in the Greek.  It is the abode of the dead. It is believed to be in the center of the earth.  It is the intermediate state of the soul while waiting for the resurrection.  And as we have seen in 1Thess. 4, the resurrection of the dead comes at the last trumpet and the descent of Christ at His second coming, which ushers in the consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Now I do not believe that this is a parable.  The writer does not identify it as a parable, for one.  And two, there is no other example of a parable being told by Christ in which He uses actual names of people. So I think our understanding should be that this is an actual event, though some aspects might be allegorized. But we should understand the setting and events as realistic descriptions of an actual place and actual people.

Now there are some important things we can learn from this story concerning this intermediate state – what happens when a person dies.  One is that the dead are conscious.  This is not soul sleep. That is not taught.  The body is correlated to sleeping but the spirit is alive and conscious.  Peter says that Christ also descended into Hades during the time of His physical death.  Though His body was dead,  He was alive in the Spirit.  1Peter 3:18-19 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, [the] just for [the] unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits [now] in prison.”  Paul makes it clear in Eph.4:9 that Jesus descended into Hades, the abode of the dead, in the lower parts of the earth.

Furthermore, the story of Lazarus teaches us that the believer is comforted, while the unbeliever is in torment.  It teaches a common refrain in the OT that the saint is gathered unto his fathers, as we see Him seated in Abraham’s bosom.  Furthermore, we learn that they engage in conversation.  That they are conversant about current events, even the present condition of things on earth.  We also see that point confirmed at the transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ on the mountain and they talked about things to come.  So we can be certain those qualities of our life immediately after death, in what we call the intermediate state, awaiting the final appearing of Jesus Christ. 

And if we go back to the passage in 2 Cor. 5, we see in vs 6-8 that when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord.  Vs 8 “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”  Now I cannot say exactly how this is accomplished.  The mystery of God that He can be everywhere at once.  He is omniscient as well as omnipresent.  Christians all over the world, at all times, are promised the presence of the Lord.  Jesus said “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”  

Jesus said further on that subject in John 14:16 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;  [that is] the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, [but] you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”  So millions of Christians have the presence of the Lord with us now, and I think Paul indicates that we shall have His presence with us after death in an even more intimate way.  Because we are spirits in the intermediate state, we can know the Spirit in a more direct way. And remember, the Spirit is called the Comforter, and Jesus said He will be with us forever. Notice also that Abraham was described as comforting Lazarus in Luke 14.  In that sense, I think that Abraham, though an actual forefather to Lazarus, was allegorically a figure of our Heavenly Father who comforts us and welcomes us into His presence.  And I would remind you that where God is, there heaven is.

The glorification of the Kingdom is the last act of the consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Paul only speaks of one aspect of it in 2 Cor. 5, but it is a major part of what is involved in it.  And that is the judgment for all men that occurs when Christ comes the second time.  Paul says in vs 10, 2Cor. 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” 

Jesus speaks of that in conjunction with HIs coming, in Matt. 25:31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;  and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. … 41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; … 46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

This same event is described in Revelation 20, as the second death for those whose names are not written in the book of life.  And it says that they were cast into the Lake of Fire.  But there is another outcome for those who are saved, who are the church, the bride of Christ.  And that is described in symbolic language in the next chapter, 21. Rev 21:1-4 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer [any] sea.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,  and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be [any] death; there will no longer be [any] mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

This is then the city the patriarchs looked for whose architect and builder is God.  This is the heavenly Jerusalem which will be the eternal dwelling of God with His saints, the church. And notice that this heavenly city came down out of heaven, to a new heaven and a new earth. As Peter says in 2 Peter 3 at the day of the Lord this present heaven and earth will be burned up, and we are looking for a new heaven and a new earth.  This is the consummation of the kingdom of heaven,  a place of no more death, no more pain, no more sorrow.The Kingdom of Heaven will be on earth as it is in heaven.  And God will dwell among them.  He tabernacles among them. This city is described further in the vision as a cube, the same shape as the Holy of Holies in the old tabernacle.  We will dwell in the unadulterated, unveiled presence of the Lord God Almighty in all His fullness.  We will dwell in the beatific vision, in the midst of the source of all life, all wisdom, and all power.   And we shall be given a glorified body like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  We shall rule and reign with Christ, as co heirs with Christ in a body that is glorified, immortal, incorruptible, forever and ever in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

This is the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven.  If you would enter it, you must do so now, in this age, in this life, by faith in the life and work and word of Jesus Christ.  You must be born again spiritually, that you might have eternal life, which will never die, so that you might attain through the resurrection of the dead that which is imperishable, incorruptible, reserved in heaven for you.

1Peter 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,  to [obtain] an inheritance [which is] imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,  who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Today, after more than 7 months of exhaustive study,  we reach the conclusion of the first recorded sermon the Lord preached, known as the Sermon on the Mount. And in the last chapter of His sermon He has shown us that there are only  two types of people, two ways in which to live, and two possible destinations or outcomes of their lives.  He has shown us three illustrations of that principle, and now the one in today’s passage is another one, which is the third.  In the first illustration, Jesus presented two ways, entered into by two gates, leading to two destinations.  There was the narrow way, through the narrow gate, which led to life, which only a few found,  and there was the broad way entered by the broad gate, which led to destruction, and many were on that path.  Everyone is on either one of two paths of life, leading to only two destinations. One way leading to life and one leading to destruction.

In the second illustration Jesus pictures the life of a person as like either a good tree or a bad tree. The good tree produces good fruit, but the bad tree produces bad fruit.  And He says the bad tree will be cut down and thrown into the fire.  So, He says, you shall know them by their fruit. That is, the fruit of their lives indicates whether they are a good tree or a bad tree, resulting in either life or death.

In the third illustration which we are considering this morning, the Lord compares  two men who are builders of houses.  The wise man builds a house with a foundation upon a rock and the foolish man builds his house on the sand.  And when the rain came, and the floods rose, and the winds blew, the house that was built upon a rock stood firm, but the house that was built upon the sand was destroyed.

Now as I said, this is the conclusion of Jesus’s sermon.  He has been showing throughout this message that there is an important difference between the natural man and the spiritual man.  We learned when we studied the Beatitudes that the characteristics of the man described was not natural. It was not normal. But rather the attitudes and nature of that man showed a supernatural character which indicated that there had been a fundamental change in him.  And we deducted that this man had been born again into the kingdom of God.  He had been changed from natural to spiritual as the result of a supernatural conversion.  And in this new life, new nature, new character, he exhibited spiritual life which came from God. 

Then as Jesus continues His sermon, He continues to show this difference between the two type of people, the natural and the spiritual man, which is a continual theme running through the entire sermon.  Now at the culmination, Jesus shows the two possible outcomes of these two different types of people. And as a preacher, as a teacher of the gospel, Jesus uses these illustrations to press for a decision.  He warns against doing nothing, of simply going along with the natural flow of the world.  He warns that it’s important to examine yourself, to judge yourself, lest you be judged at the last day.  He is pressing us towards a decision to enter into the narrow way that leads to life, or be found on that day to hear, “depart from Me, I never knew you.”

So in this illustration, Jesus presents two men who build two houses.  Now most commentators say that these represent two different things; one is the men, and secondly is the houses they build.  I recognize that I am not as smart as those commentators, but I think that they are one and the same.  The man is represented by the house.  In other words, the man is indistinguishable from the life he lives.  And I think that is an important point which Jesus is emphasizing here.  It’s not possible to consider a person without considering his life.  It’s impossible to say, so and so is a good man, and yet they live as a bad man.  I think that this is the point of the comparison of the fruit tree.  Jesus said a bad tree bears bad fruit.  What you are is evidenced by how you live.  What you are on the inside shows itself on the outside. 

I think this speaks to a lot of Christians who want to claim justification by grace, but their lives never show any sign of sanctification.  But Hebrews says without sanctification, no one will see the Lord. So their life is a betrayal of their profession.  There life is a reflection of who they are.  The house they build is their fruit, it’s the life they live. As Jesus says, you shall know them by their fruits.  He doesn’t say, you will know them by what they claim to be.  In fact, the false prophets Jesus spoke of in vs15 claim all sorts of things; they claim to be prophets, they claim to be able to perform miracles, they claim to speak in Jesus’s name, and yet He says “I never knew you, DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.”  Their fruit was lawlessness, which was evidence that they were not of God.

Notice also in this illustration that from outward appearances, both houses seem the same. They are built in the same location.  They are subject to the same storms, the same stresses of life.  The difference between them was one was founded upon a rock and one was built on the sand.  We get some further insight into this illustration if we look at Luke 6, where on another occasion Jesus uses this same illustration in a very similar sermon.  Look at Luke 6:47.  Jesus said, “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like:  he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted [accordingly,] is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

So what is the difference between Matthew and Luke?  In Luke, Jesus says that the difference is the wise man laid a foundation which was built on the rock.  The foolish man built his house without a foundation.  Now that gives us some insight into what Jesus was getting at.  

Those of you that were at Bible study last Wednesday night will remember we looked at another passage which talked about a foundation.  Paul says in 1 Cor. 3 vs 9 that you are God’s field, and God’s building.  There the analogy is established that Jesus likens a man to a house.  Paul says that we that are Christians are God’s house.  God’s temple.   Paul says in another place, 2 Cor.  5:1 “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”  So there should be no doubt that our life is correlated to a house, and the house which is built on a foundation is the life that is born of God.  It’s a spiritual house, a spiritual life, which we received from God.  The natural man does not have it.  He is natural, carnal, still in his sins. He too builds a house, but it’s natural, it’s not of God.  And as a result, it has no spiritual, eternal character. Paul says in 1Cor. 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”  So there is a great difference between the natural man and the spiritual man.  The spiritual man’s life has a foundation which is Jesus Christ, and the natural man has no foundation.  He cannot ascertain that which is spiritual.

Go back to 1 Cor. chapter 3 again, and see what Paul has to say about this foundation.  1Cor. 3:10-15 “According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it.  For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is [to be] revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.  If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

Now Paul is speaking in that passage to Christians.  He is addressing the church at Corinth.  The foundation Paul makes clear is faith in Jesus Christ.  It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is the word of Jesus Christ.  It’s not just believing that Christ existed, but believing in His gospel.  And you will notice that Paul says it’s important to build the right kind of building on that foundation.  That which is built which is not of God, which is not spiritual, will be burned up at that day.  And that which remains, in other words, that which remains which is spiritual, shall receive a reward.  If all you built on your salvation is carnal, is natural, is things of this earth, then you will still be saved, Paul says, but yet as through fire.  All of your works will be burned up.

Now I wanted to share that passage because it speaks clearly that the house is your life, and the judgment that is to come for all men, both good and bad, and it speaks clearly about the nature of our foundation.

But I want to point out that Jesus is giving us another type of comparison using a similar analogy.  He is saying one man has a foundation, and the other one does not.  So one person is a Christian and the other is not.  That’s simply what it means.  One has put their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and have been given spiritual life, and one has not.  Their faith is in themselves, in science, in philosophy, in false religion, in wealth, in prestige,  in power, whatever. Whatever they are building, it is not for the glory of God, it is not a spiritual life, it is something they are attempting to do on their own. 

Jesus says the wise man dug deep and built a foundation.  A foundation is analogous to being born again.  When we are born, that is the beginning of our life.  And when you build a house, the foundation is the beginning of a sound, well built house.  You cannot have spiritual life without new birth.  And new birth spiritually is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ. 

The other man Jesus describes as foolish.  He doesn’t see the need for a foundation.  He thinks the efforts of his life are sufficient.  He may have all the external appearances of a good life, but without a foundation which is laid in Jesus Christ his life is destined for destruction.

I want to point out another aspect of this foundation which the wise man built upon.  When you build a house the foundation is something that is not really seen.  It’s hidden.  It’s what is underneath the ground, underneath the framing.  But even though it is unseen, it’s vital to the stability of that house.  And so it is with our new birth.  From the outward appearance the natural man and the spiritual man may look very similar.  On the surface, the natural man may even have a bigger or nicer house than the spiritual man.  But the inner quality, the hidden quality of the spiritual man is what gives his life that indestructible quality, even immortality. Without the right foundation, the house cannot stand the tests and trials of life and the judgment to come.

There is another aspect of this foundation which Jesus wants us to consider.  And that is it’s based on obedience to the word of Christ.  Notice Jesus says, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”  And then in regards to the foolish man He says, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”

Now the Lord is not teaching here that the way to eternal life is by doing works.  But rather He is saying what James says in his epistle, that faith without works is dead. When Jesus says that everyone who believes in Me will be saved, He is not talking about merely an intellectual assent to the truth of the gospel, but believing and trusting to the point of being obedient to it, of acting upon His word. 

Jesus said previously that “not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven will enter.”  So there is a difference between a life founded on faith and obedience to the word and a life that may have an intellectual acknowledgement of the truth, but does not actually live in accordance with the truth.  

The difference between faith and intellectual assent is that intellectual assent says “Lord, Lord” but does not do His will.  Faith is dying to self and putting God’s will above your own.  Paul says in Gal. 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the [life] which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  

Now that is possible for the spiritual man because in regeneration God has changed my desires.  I have a new heart.  Salvation is not just a clean heart, being forgiven, but being changed.  It’s a new heart, new desires, a new character.  It’s being remade in the image of Christ.  It’s being a new creation, old things are passed away and all things become new.  And so there is now a desire now to do the things of God.  As Jesus said in the Beatitudes at the beginning of this message, “blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  As a new creation I have a hunger for righteousness, I have a hunger for the word, I want to live to please my Lord and Savior.  I am willing to make a sacrifice of my old way of life in order to obey and please the Lord.

So you have pictured here two men, whose lives are characterized as two houses, which look very similar on the outside, but inwardly one has a foundation and one does not.  One man hears and does the word of God, and one does his own will.  So then what?  To each his own?  You have your religion and I have mine?  Is that the outcome?

No, Jesus says that both these houses will endure storms.  He describes it as rain, floods and wind which beat upon the houses.  And Jesus says that the house which was built on the foundation did not fall, but for the house without foundation, great was it’s fall.  Now what does that mean? 

Well, some preachers have tried to break down this allegory to the point of identifying things that I don’t think Jesus Himself even thought of.  I read one theologian who said that the rain symbolized things like illness, loss or disappointment, something going wrong in your life.  Floods, they say, represent the world, and the things of the world like the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life.  And the winds blowing they say symbolizes the attacks of the devil. I must say, I do sometimes think the devil is in the wind.  But I don’t know how we can really determine what specific things are symbolized here. 

However, in light of the text, one thing I think we can be certain of.  These storms of life come upon the whole world. Notice Jesus says the same storms come to the wise and the unwise. They come upon the Christian and the non Christian.  Christians in Christ’s analogy are not immune to the storms of life. Rather, Jesus said in John 16:33  “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” So if we are to understand this illustration correctly, Jesus is saying that trouble and trials, the storms of life, are universal.  It’s something that happens to everyone.

For the Christian, I believe the Bible teaches that God uses trials to refine us, to sanctify us, to mature us and to strengthen us.  But for the unbeliever, who does not have a foundation, such trials will wreck destruction upon them.  So that is one interpretation.

But I think the intent of this illustration goes further than that.  I think He is not just speaking of the trials of this life, while we are living, but that Jesus is speaking of the end of our life. Death is universal. If you look at the other illustrations that Jesus gave in His sermon, He speaks of the day of judgment.  He says the broad way leads to destruction.  He says the bad tree will be cut down and thrown into the fire.  He says that may will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord” and He will say, “depart from Me I never knew you.”

So I think that Jesus is referring to the storms as a metaphor for death, and the judgment to come.  And I find support for that by His reference to the rain and the floods.  And I find it similar to language found in the Genesis account of the flood.  The flood in Genesis was an act of God’s judgment upon the wickedness of the world.  It had never rained, and so men were not concerned about that possibility. Yet the day came when God closed Noah and his family up in the ark, and the rains came, and the waters of the deep broke loose, and the floods came and destroyed all living things upon the earth.  And great was it’s fall.  

Listen, Hebrews 9:27 says, it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgement.  I think Paul is speaking of the same event  in 1 Cor. 3, in the conversation about the foundation and building upon it, Paul changes the metaphor from water to fire, saying in vs12 “Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,  each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is [to be] revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.”

You will remember that Peter said the first world was destroyed by a flood, but the next time the world will be destroyed by fire.  And so I believe this is a reference to the day of judgment, when those who are without a spiritual foundation will be cast into hell, for eternal destruction, and great will be their fall.  It’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.  God will pour out His wrath upon those who considered the blood of Jesus Christ as something common, something to be trampled underfoot in their hurry to live life like they wanted.  And as the wicked were destroyed in the day of the flood, so also at the end of the age, on that day, the wicked will be cast into the eternal flame, undergoing eternal destruction.

But in the account of the flood, you will remember that one family was saved.  They had a firm foundation.  They had built upon that foundation of faith in obedience to what God had said.  And so they built an ark in obedience to God’s word, and when the rain and the floods and the wind came, which destroyed all the rest, they were delivered. 

Listen, Jesus gave this illustration to say that there is a choice that is set before you.  To receive the life of Christ by faith in Him and repentance of your sins, or to go on your way, trusting in your own ability to make a life for yourself.  But the fact remains, that none of us get out of here alive.  It is appointed for all men to die and after that the judgment.  But a life lived in Christ is a life that endures beyond the grave.  It is a life that will be resurrected in a better body, in a better world, for a better future.  But for the life that rejects Christ, that refuses to bow to His will, for that soul there is nothing but eternal destruction.  I pray that you will hear His invitation today to come to Him, to receive Him as your Savior and Lord, and to follow Him all your days.  If you will come to Him, He said He will never cast you out.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  You are not guaranteed tomorrow.  Come to Jesus for forgiveness and a new life in Him.

Last week we considered what really is the beginning of the culmination of the Lord’s message in the Sermon on the Mount.  He begins to wrap up His message by showing that the contrast between the natural man and the spiritual man reaches it’s eventual destination.  And since Jesus has been teaching that there are two possible types of men – the natural and the spiritual, the unregenerate and the regenerate, those born again and those who have not been born again – then it stands to reason that He indicates that there are  but  two possible destinations.

So Jesus said in vs.13, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  So there are two types of people, two gates, two paths and two destinations.  One is life, and one is destruction.

What is really the major thrust of this section down to the end of the sermon then is this principle of a coming day of judgment.  That there is appointed a day of judgment for all men. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” 

So then what Jesus is urging is that we thoroughly examine ourselves to be certain that we are on the narrow way that leads to life.  And to that point, Jesus gives us two warnings.  The first warning is one about false prophets. If pastors are supposed to be shepherds who lead us in the path of life, then we should be concerned that they are leading us correctly, and that they are not false shepherds, or as Jesus refers to them here, as false prophets. 

He says in vs15, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”  The question then is who are these false prophets, and how shall we recognize them? First of all, notice that He says they come in sheep’s clothing. In other words, they look like the right kind of people, they have the right clothing on.  There is nothing in their appearance to make you suspicious.  They say the right kinds of things.  They have a personality and decorum that lends itself to appearing righteous. 

This last week I thought seriously for a while about growing out my beard.  Since we didn’t have Wednesday night Bible study I didn’t bother to shave all week.  So I thought it might be a good opportunity to grow out my beard and see how it looked. But yesterday I chickened out and shaved it off. However, I had  thought it might make me look more distinguished perhaps.  More studious, sophisticated.  And I bet if I were to add to that a black shirt with a clerical collar, I would get a lot more respect.  I have a nephew that recently started working as a pastor in a Hospice facility.  And he has decided to wear a clerical collar in order for people to recognize him as clergy more easily. And from what I hear it works wonders.  So I can’t help but think that people respond better to outward signs of a spiritual office, that they would give more respect if I looked a certain way.  Yet Jesus says beware of such people who have the appearance of a prophet, but their teaching is false.

And really, I think their teaching is more what Jesus is referring to rather than just the way they look. Though I would remind you that Paul said that the devil masquerades as an angel of light.  So there is that.  However, the doctrine of demons is more to the point of what Jesus is getting at.

I’ve often said that the defining characteristic of a false prophet is not so much what they say, as what they don’t say.  It’s a very subtle difference. The most dangerous preacher is the one who does not emphasize the right things. They say all kinds of things that sound ok, perhaps even orthodox, and yet it’s what they leave out that is deadly. The false prophet is one who doesn’t speak of the narrow way in his gospel.  He does not say things that are offensive, that call for any sacrifice.  Paul refers to that as tickling the ears of his listeners in  2Tim. 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but [wanting] to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”  Notice there is a collaboration between the false prophet who wants to please men and the hearer who wants to hear things that are pleasing to him.

In Jeremiah there is a description of the false prophet as one who cries “peace, peace,” when there is no peace.  In other words, they are a comforting preacher.  They want to assuage your concerns about the judgment to come with comforting, beguiling words that lull you to sleep, to say there is nothing to fear.

The fact is the false prophet rarely preaches about things like holiness, righteousness, the need for repentance, and the wrath of God. He always emphasizes instead the love of God. He makes God out to be a one doctrine, one aspect, one dimensional God, and that dimension is strictly defined as love, but not Biblical love, but some sort of sentimental mushiness that winks at sin.  And to that I say, to conceal the truth about God by omission is just as destructive as to preach outright heresy.

As I said, the deceit of the false prophet is not what they say, but what they don’t say.  They don’t really talk about sin. They don’t try to say that we are perfect, but rather that sin is not serious. The bottom line is that they don’t want to deal with sin.  They don’t emphasize the need for repentance. They emphasize that the door is quite wide, and the way is broad that enters into life.  It’s easy.  It doesn’t require any sort of sacrifice on your part.  They emphasize a relationship without repentance. But Biblical repentance has works.  John the Baptist said in Matt. 3:8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”

So Jesus’s warning is to beware of false prophets because they will lead you on the wrong path.  I have much more compassion for sheep that have been led astray than I do for the false shepherds who lead them astray.  Sheep need a shepherd, and God has appointed in the church pastors who are to shepherd the sheep.  But as James said, let no many of you become teachers for they will incur a stricter judgment. 

So Jesus tells the church to beware false prophets.  You are not totally inculpable. You have a responsibility to be on your guard and judge them by their fruit.  Notice that Jesus says they look good on the outside, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.  In other words, they devour the flock, they take advantage of them, and ultimately they ruin the flock. So though Jesus said in the beginning of this chapter to judge not lest you be judged, He now warns us to exercise righteous judgment.

So to that point, He says that we are to be fruit inspectors. Twice Jesus says, you will know them by their fruits. Vs.16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn [bushes] nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.” 

The whole point of this illustration is that Jesus likens a man to a fruit tree.  One is good, and another is bad.  Though they both look the same superficially, one brings forth good fruit, and one brings forth bad fruit.  One is cut down, and thrown into the fire, and one has life.  Once again, Jesus is reiterating the principle of two types of men in the world; the natural and the spiritual.  He speaks in another place in a parable about the wheat and the tares.  One is sown by the Lord’s workers, and one is sown by the Devil.  Both look similar.  And yet at the harvest, Jesus says, their work will make evident which is will be gathered into the Lord’s harvest, and which will be burned up.

The point is that a man may look like a Christian on the outside, he may say the right things, and appear to do the right things, and yet inwardly he is not a Christian.  And that is the difference between a good tree and a bad tree.  Outwardly they look the same.  They may both look the same, bear the same leaves, the same flowers.  But one produces fruit that is good, and one fruit that is bad. 

Jesus says, “Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?”  The point is this; that out of the heart comes that which defile a man.  There will be evidence of righteousness in the righteous. There will be holiness in the life of a man who is sanctified.  As Hebrews 12:14 tells us; “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification/ holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”  

There has to be a change of nature, a change of heart.  That’s why we use the term “regeneration.”  It’s new birth, it’s being born again.  It’s a new life, spiritual life.  And only when that is a reality, can there be the kind of fruit that God deems good.  Simply being a  moral person, or being kind, or being a nice person is not good fruit.  Only a spiritual tree can produce spiritual fruit. Only an apple tree will produce apples.  Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes.  Like produces like, kind produces kind. So if you are going to produce spiritual fruit, then you must first be made spiritual. If you are going to bear the fruit of righteousness then you must first be made righteous. And that comes only through faith and repentance which leads to the righteousness of Jesus being transferred to your account resulting in regeneration.

So we are called to judge with a righteous judgment in regards to false prophets and false teaching.  We are called to be discriminating when it comes to the fruit of a person’s profession or proclamation.  But we are to be careful because we can easily be deceived.  Ultimately we cannot always know the difference when looking at the outside appearance.  But we must remember that ultimately, God is the judge and God is never deceived.  He knows the heart of man.  God will judge at the last day.  “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  

And that brings us to some of the most terrifying words found in scripture, in vs 21-23. This statement is what makes  the preceding warning  about false prophets so concerning. Because false prophets can lead you to the wrong destination.  Jesus gives the second warning in vs21, saying, ”Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.] Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

So in this second warning Jesus is warning against the danger of self deception and self delusion. It may have been fostered or encouraged by false prophets, but ultimately it is your responsibility to be sure that you have entered into the narrow way and the narrow road that leads to life, and not been pandered to by preachers the popular gospel. 

In this passage, Jesus gives us a list of false things upon which men tend to rely upon as evidence of spiritual life, but which in fact are not evidence at all.  Or to put it another way, the Lord shows what is possible to experience as a man who is actually still dead in his sins, still carnal, natural, and who has not been born again.  And it’s a pretty enlightening list.

First He says they will say unto Him, “Lord, Lord.” What is important to realize here is not that it’s wrong to say “Lord, Lord.”  No one is going to enter into heaven without saying recognizing that Jesus is Lord.” But what He is saying, is that not everyone who says that will get in. In other words, merely saying you believe that Jesus is Lord is not enough. James 2:19 says, “the devils also believe, and tremble.”  There is a danger in being content with an intellectual assent to the truth.  It’s possible to say you believe in Christ, and yet your life is evidence you live in denial of that truth.

Listen, the historical evidence of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth is undeniable.  But no one is saved by simply believing that He lived and died on the cross 2000 years ago. You can believe that and still remain unregenerate. You can say, “Lord, Lord,” and still remain outside of the kingdom of heaven.

The second danger is that you can be zealous and fervent in your belief, but still be unsaved.  Notice the repetition of the word “Lord.” These people are not just giving intellectual assent, but they have an emotional component to it. They have a fervency in their faith. But what Jesus is indicating is that enthusiasm and fervency does not make it spiritual.  Emotion may be simply a work of the flesh.  It may be born out of carnal enthusiasm which stems from a natural desire of the flesh.  I’ve seen so many country music stars for instance who live like the devil, and yet when they sing some old gospel song they shed crocodile tears and get all choked up. So emotion or fervency or enthusiasm is not evidence of spiritual life.

Then the Lord indicates even more dangers which can contribute to a false confidence, and that is their works.  What works can a person do and yet still be outside of the kingdom?  The first thing He says is that they say, “did we not prophesy in Your name?”  To prophecy means to speak forth the word of the Lord. There are two types of prophecy; fore telling, and forth telling.  Jesus doesn’t indicate exactly what type He is talking about.  I think both are covered here.  The point He makes is that many people will offer a defense in the day of judgment that they prophesied in His name.  But He will say to them, “I never knew you, depart from me you who practice lawlessness.”

I believe this indicates there will be many preachers in the day of judgment that will not be accepted into the kingdom of heaven.  It’s hard to believe that someone can preach God’s word, and yet miss it themselves, but that is what Jesus says.  Such was true of Balaam the prophet. He delivered the message of God, but the outcome of His life revealed that he was outside of the kingdom.  

Paul warns in 1 Cor. 13:1-3 “though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and yet don’t have love, it profits me nothing.”  In fact, as I quoted James as saying earlier, the fact that a person is a preacher subjects them to a stricter judgment.  And that’s why I feel that the false prophets deserve a greater condemnation than those foolish sheep who follow them.  

The point being, that Jesus says that in the judgment we shall find men and women who were lauded by man as doing some great work of God, of having some special anointing of God, and yet they will be cast out of the kingdom.  

Not only though are those who prophesy subject to judgment, but Jesus says also those who cast out devils.  Notice again, “in My name.”  It is possible for a person to cast out demons in the name of Jesus and yet still be outside of the kingdom.  And we can find an example of that in Jesus’s inner circle.  When Jesus sent out the disciples to preach and cast out demons, they came back rejoicing that the demons had been subject to them.  It’s pretty clear that this gift was given to Judas as well.  And yet once again, the outcome of his life was evidence that he was not part of the kingdom of heaven, but rather the son of perdition.

Furthermore, there is an account in Acts19 of certain sons of Sceva who claimed to have  the power of exorcism. Jewish exorcists. Yet they weren’t saved. Even today we hear of certain people who are exorcists and claim a certain amount of success in that.  But Jesus says such evidence is a false positive.  It’s not necessarily evidence that they are of the kingdom of God.

The final false evidence that Jesus gives is one that has great advocates in many religious circles today.  And that is the ability to do signs and wonders. He said they will say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not in Your name perform many miracles?’  Many people today claim to be great workers for God and they show as evidence their ability to do miraculous things.

And yet scripture should have taught us that such miraculous powers are not necessarily of God.  Remember the magicians of Pharaoh, when Moses performed the signs that God had given him to authenticate His message, the magicians were also able to duplicate many of them. They were able to do miracles. 

Not only though do we have that example in the Old Testament, but Jesus Himself says later on in Matthew 24:24, “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.”  So false prophets have been given power, presumably from Satan, to deceive people into following their false teaching.  And it affects even the elect.  That is even those that are saved are subject to their false signs and wonders.  

That’s what I find so ironic about certain denominations today that advertises that the main characteristic of their faith is that of signs and wonders. They put it out it as evidence of God speaking to them. And yet in the church age, the Bible gives more warnings about such things than it does accolades.  

For instance, Paul warns in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, about the coming of the one at the end of the age who will deceive through signs and wonders, saying, “Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;  [that is,] the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders,  and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”

So it’s not only possible, but Jesus indicates that it is very likely that many who have relied upon such power will be found to be outside of the kingdom at the judgment.  Such miraculous powers are often attributed to the Holy Spirit, but may in actuality be given by Satan himself. In fact, there are powers of man, such as hypnotism and things like that, which though we don’t understand them, nevertheless may seem to effect miracles.  And so we must be wary of such things and those that use such power to deceive men.

When Jesus’s disciples came back rejoicing that Satan and his angels had been subject to them, Jesus said, “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” (Luke 10:20)  The important thing is not what kind of external validation or power or appearance of righteousness that it seems someone may have, but whether or not they have been born again into the kingdom of God.

Vs.21  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.]”  If you have been born again as a child of God, then you have received a new nature that will want to do the will of God.  You will obey the word of God.  You will exhibit the characteristics of God, the very characteristics described in the Beatitudes at the beginning of the message.  And that is only possible if you have been made into a new creation, given spiritual new life, a new heart, and new desires.  That is the only way to enter the narrow gate, by regeneration, through faith in what Jesus Christ has done for you, and that is the only way to enter the narrow way, through the new birth that is given as a result of your faith, as you take up your cross and follow Him, being conformed to His image through obedience to His word.

Examine yourself today in light of God’s word, and see if there is evidence within you that you have been regenerated, that you are a new creation, a new tree, if you will, so that you might bring forth good fruit.  ““So then, you will know them by their fruits.”