The gospel according to Paul, as revealed in his letter to the Romans, is the power of God for salvation, originating from God and centered on Jesus Christ. Paul's personal experience and the letter itself demonstrate that all humanity, regardless of background, is sinful and in need of God's grace. The sermon emphasizes that salvation is achieved through faith in Jesus Christ, particularly his resurrection, which offers justification and sanctification, transforming lives from persecution to proclamation. The core message is that belief in the resurrected Christ is essential for salvation, and this gospel's dynamic power is available to all who believe.
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kind of a privilege to be with you here in Father's farm and I would ask in the quest of you especially that you will remember the meeting in your prayers. Sometimes we meet together in a conference like this and we're very much taken up with the social aspect of meeting together, which is wonderful to read those of like precious faith. But let us never forget the spiritual out there. And ask God to be blessed this week, especially. So let us turn this morning to a very familiar portion, Romans chapter one.
Book of Romans, the first chapter. Romans one, and we'll read verse one. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he has promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declare to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name, among whom are ye also called of Jesus Christ, to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit and in the gospel of his Son.
that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I learn to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end we may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. No, I would not have you, ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purpose to come unto you but was prevented thus far, that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
May the Lord bless to us the reading from his word this morning. I believe, brethren and sisters, that we have just read from one of the greatest documents that was ever entrusted to the human race. This is the greatest book that was ever written. In the days of Paul, there was a proverb which was well known amongst the people of that day, and it was this.
that all roads lead to Rome. Every person in the ancient world, they desire to visit Rome. Rome was the mistress of the world. Her armies were marching proudly, arrogantly, and triumphantly throughout the then known world. At the thunderous roar of the footsteps of the Roman troops, nation's temple. Rome was also the metropolis of the world, not only mistress but the metropolis.
It was the center of the world, and from there prey flowed to the uttermost corners. From the golden milestone In Rome, great arterial highways flung their tentacles around the world. Everyone in the ancient world of anywhere hoped before dying to visit this great city. And as we have read together this morning, it was Paul's desire.
to visit this great metropolis, the metropolis of Rome. And several times, and we learned this from his other writings, he had made arrangements in his itinerary to visit this great city. But up to the time of writing, he had been hindered by various causes. Paul is now at Corinth, and he has heard that a sister called Debe, a deaconess or a servant of the church in Cria, is about to visit this great city of Rome.
And Paul is interested in this And he suggests to Phoebe that he wrote her a letter of commendation to the believers in Rome. And Paul sat down, and he wrote his letter of commendation. And by the time he had put down his pen, beloved, he had written his theological master, and one of the most important documents in the history of the world, the epistle to the Roman.
And when our dear sister Phoebe left Corinth on that momentous occasion, she carried under her robe of her cloak the whole future of Christian theology. Paul wrote the Romans, as we know, and the Romans is the gospel according to Paul. The gospel according to Paul. Right after his conversion and his baptism, instead of returning to Jerusalem, Paul was led by the war into the quietness and the solitude of the desert in Arabia.
And we understand from the Galatian epistle that he was there for three years. He was there alone with God. We will never know all that took place while he fellowshiped and communed with God. But some things we do know. and that while he was there that God communicated to him what we know today as the gospel. I think of another man who spent time alone with God on Mount Sinai and for forty days and nights he was closeted with God in the vastness of that great mountain and when he emerged from the presence of God with a face that shone, reflecting the glory of God, he carried with him a document, or should I say two tables of stone, which estranged and condemned man forever from the presence of God.
But I thank God for Paul, who emerged from the solitudes of Arabia, with a message that did not estrange men, but which could reconcile men unto the Holy God. Dr. Alexander White, a great Scottish preacher of a century or two ago, he says that Paul took with him in his knapsack the books of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms, and then he returned to Damascus three years later with the Roman truths in his heart.
What a blessed experience that It was an experience that he never forgot. Because in writing to the Galatians, he said, The gospel that I preach unto you was not committed or communicated to me by men. I received it from God. And if any other man or angel... preach any other gospel than that which I have committed unto you, let him be a curse. This was one of the greatest messages that ever fell upon the ears of mortal men, the gospel of the grace of God, the gospel concerning his son, Jesus Christ.
I believe it was Job that asked the question, who can be justified before God. And brethren, that question remained unanswered really until Paul wrote his wonderful treatise, and thank God for the message that this letter contains. Paul was a great man. The more I study his character, the more I am intrigued with his personality. A man who is an example to all men, and a man who walks close to God, and a man to whom God could communicate the very truths that fill his own divine heart.
We're indebted to Paul for some of the greatest truths that we have in our faith today. truths of course which are not very popular. Paul reveals some of them to us in this wonderful book. In chapter one he tells us that the heathen are sinners. In chapter two he tells us that the hypocrites are sinners. And in chapter three he tells us that the Hebrews are sinners. And then he winds up his argument by saying that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
It is to Paul that we are indebted to the solemn and profound doctrine of the total and absolute depravity of man. It is a doctrine that we hear too little about today. It is a difficult thing to get men to understand the total depravity of the human nature. The men among whom I work are engaged in some of the greatest scientific projects that the world has ever known.
And men who can send missiles into the air and chart their progress And after ten months flying through space at incredible speeds, they find that the missile has gone just a little bit off course, and they can press a button which releases gases in one side of that missile and pull it back in course. And it has been going up into space for almost ten months. They can circle the great planet. with their missiles and flip a switch and in fifteen seconds can have black and white photographs coming back over hundreds of thousands and millions of miles.
They can flick another switch and they can have colored photographs coming back. Amazing. A breakthrough. It is difficult, beloved, to tell men of such intellect that they are totally betrayed so far as God is concerned. And there are people in all walks of life, I meet them every week, who are indignant when we suggest to them that they are sinners. And perhaps there is one here in our audience this morning.
God knows. You look like everyone else. From my vantage point, you all look good and look Christian and are ready for the presence of God. That God looks beyond the outward appearance. And he looks at your heart. And today, my dear friend, you may be hiding under the facade of religion. You may be hiding under the veneer of conformity. You may be able to deceive your friends and those sitting next to you. But, beloved, you can never deceive God.
For God looks at your heart, and all men are sinners. before him. Prior to my incarceration with the Japanese, I did believe in the total depravity of man, but it was a doctrine that was rather vague to me as it is to many people today. But after having been for four years, I have seen humanity with the lid off. I was given a glimpse of human nature that you are privileged to see.
And even apart from the doctrine of the scripture, my own experience tells me that man is totally betrayed and are sinners in the sight of God. And apart from the grace of God and the love of God, there is absolutely no hope for them, for the future. Paul unfolds this tremendous fundamental doctrine in this wonderful Peter. But Paul brings us on in the book to the great truth of justification.
and how wonderful it is that God can take such depraved creatures and make them new in Christ Jesus, and can forgive sins because of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and can remain just and yet be the justifier of them that believe in Jesus. I believe, brethren, sisters, that we are losing the truth and the joy of justification today. Think of it for a moment. Our sins are gone and gone forever.
Never to be remembered against us again. The skeletons in the cover. Those horrible deeds that we all have done in our life. We're ashamed of them. We hold them back. We hide them in the deep recesses of our hearts. But so far as God is concerned, when we came to Christ and received him, they're gone. They've been removed as far as the east is from the west. I remember sitting with a young man, six feet, six tall. He had been brought up.
Or I should say he had been engulfed in the drunk scene. Praise God he had found Christ. We brought him up every Thursday evening to our home to teach him more practically the way of the Lord. And we're going through a lesson one night and we came to the word justification. He said, Mr. Stadden, what does that mean? And I thought that I would put just explain it to this new Christian, that we were justified in the sight of God, and that God now saw us just as if I'd never sinned.
And I said, every sin that you have committed is gone and gone forever. That young man literally jumped from his chair. And he says, Praise the Lord. For he had a bath. He had a wicked bath. And now he stood and he had a neatly trimmed beard. And the tears were running from his shining eye. And he says, Praise God. There's God. And I am now justified before God.
What a truth. belonging. Then Paul takes us in the book Beyond Justification to the truth of sanctification. You know, we leave our comfort on the threshold, don't we? But Paul would have us to know that not only are we totally betrayed, not only have we been saved unjustified, but that we have to lay down our life for the Lord in sanctification. And I know the aspects which we cannot go into in detail this morning. But beloved, you who have been on the road for a long time, and there are a few young people here this morning, and perhaps you belong to the Lord, and God expects you to lay your life on the line for him.
He expects you to be more sanctified today than you were yesterday, and more sanctified tomorrow than you are today. And then going on into chapter twelve, God expects us to lay our lives down in complete surrender and consecration to him. Wherefore, I beseech you by the mercies of God that ye present your body a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God. But there is not so much these things this morning that I want to talk to you about.
It is the fact that one of the themes in the book is the gospel. Paul calls it in the first verse the gospel of carving to God. This gospel, as we have reminded you, did not originate on earth. It was like the manna. It came from heaven. It originated in the heart of God beloved. And John wrote the truth when he said, For God so loved you, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Not only did the gospel originate in the heart of God, Paul says, but the gospel is concerning his son Jesus Christ. The heart of the gospel is Jesus Christ. And it will be tied to person who attempts to preach a message For the glory of God, and for the salvation of sinners, without exalting the person of Jesus Christ. And Paul says, he is the promised one. The prophets promised that he would come.
And then in verse three, he said, not only is he the promised one, but he is the resurrected one. the resurrected month. Beloved, I believe that we have been guilty of short-changing our audiences down to the generations. We make much of the cross of Christ and rightly so, that if we stop at the cross of Christ, we are doing an injustice to the work of Christ. Because I believe that all my heart that a crucified and dead Christ could save no one.
There had to be the resurrection and Paul points out that Jesus Christ not only died but he was resurrected on the third day according to the scriptures. And thank God we do not look back and see a man mutilated nailed to a cross, but will look up and see a man sitting in glory and honor on a throne. And praise God he is there, a prince and a savior, willing and able to say to the uttermost all will come to God by him.
The resurrection. O beloved, we should thank God for one of the greatest miracles that ever took place. I know that there were those who were raised from the dead before Christ was raised from the dead. But the difference between them and our glorious Lord is this, that they lived to die again. But our glorious Lord was raised and he thou lives in the power of an indissoluble life. He will never, ever die again. And he's in the glory. the first fruits of a great harvest that is about to take place at the rapture of the church.
The resurrection. It is most important. Paul says that the body of the gospel is this, that Christ died for our sin according to the scripture. He was buried and he was raised the third day according to the scripture. He showed himself to many names, over five hundred at once on one occasion. And Paul says, if you doubt my word, there are some alive today who saw him manifest in the flesh, the resurrection.
Beloved, I believe the scriptures teach emphatically. that there can be no salvation for anyone unless they believe the resurrection of Christ. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And we not only have to believe in a crucified Christ, we have to believe in a resurrected Christ. Arohabadan was taking a Christian tourist to the various focal points in Palestine on one occasion.
And he came to, was walking towards the tomb of our Lord, and he told this tourist who was a Christian a story. And he had a cynical smile in his face. He says, you know, sir, we Mohammedans can visit our sacred city, and we can worship the bones of our prophet there. But you Christians have nothing to show for an empty tomb. Praise God for an empty tomb. Praise God for a full throne.
Praise God for our resurrected Christ. Now Paul says that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Ashamed. Have you ever blessed to speak the name of our Lord Jesus? Oh, don't say you hadn't. Because I know that you like me. Paul says I'm not ashamed. of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Suppose we could ask Paul the question, why are you not ashamed, Paul? He answers it in the thought.
He says, it is the power of God unto salvation. Now before we split the items, dynamite was the strongest force that we knew. And this word power here comes from the same root word that we get our word dynamite. And what Paul is saying here, for it is the dynamite of God unto salvation. Paul says the gospel is dynamite. It is powerful. And Paul might be asked again, how do you know that it is so powerful?
Perhaps we could listen to his own story. He said, when I had exterminated the church in Jerusalem, and at least I had amowed their voice and put them underground, I was marching towards Damascus with my followers to do the same with the little pocket of Christians that had come up there. Just as I was going over the brow of the hill and could see the master stretched out in front of me, suddenly I was enveloped in a gray light.
I believe, beloved, that Paul was enveloped in the glory of Christ, the one that he was seeking to exterminate and those that followed him to persecute, was put into Paul directly from heaven. And that haughty, proud little despot found himself groveling in the dust in humility, enveloped in a greater power and glory than he had ever known before. and that proud little man's heart was smashed to smithereen.
We do not know all that was involved in that encounter with Jesus Christ. No one can we get to the glory, and I'll be very interested to know. But Paul was crushed, and Paul acknowledged that he was going in the wrong direction. And from his heart he cried for salvation. And then eventually he said, Lord, what will thou have me to do? And that proud little man emerged from that tremendous experience, blind and shaken in spirit and affected in body.
Praise God, the man called Saul of Tarsus had met the Savior, had found the Savior, and it revolutionized his life. And from being a persecutor, he became a preacher. And from being a scatterer of the flock, he became a succourer of the flock. Yes, Paul knew the literal dynamic power of the gospel. Paul also knew of the power of the gospel, in the jail, the prison at Philippi.
God shook the foundations of that prison and opened every door and loosed every stutter of every criminal that was in that prison. But most of all, he shook the jailer through his very foundations. The jailer had listened to the songs of praise. and probably listened to the prayers that had been offered. The Spirit of God convicted that, rough, uncouth, cruel, though clever and powerful man. And he sprang for a life, and he called for a life, and he sprang in, and he said, under the deepest of conviction, what must I do?
be saved. And back came the simultaneous answer, Believe, on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And the message that was given under the power of the Spirit so many years ago is still the same today. If you are here unsaved, and you wish to be saved, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And then the last phrase of the gospel with this I close.
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. Or you can believe all about the gospel. You can believe that it revolutionizes men's lives and changes men's character completely. And you can remain the same going on the way to a lost eternity, to hell. The gospel is only powerful and effective to gain that belief.
Have you believed? Do you believe? I thank God for the day in my experience at thirteen years of age when I believe and receive Christ as my personal Savior. But is there one here this morning still outside of Christ? Will you believe? Will you believe one? Will you receive Christ? as your personal sage. If you do so, thou shalt be saved. Let's bow our heads just for a moment now.
It's possible that God has been speaking to some soul today. And we'd like now to give you an opportunity just to receive him. No raising of hands, no coming to the front. Just simply saying yes to Jesus. Into my heart.
Into my heart. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in this day. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Thank you, our Father, for the Gospel concerning thy Son, Jesus Christ.
Thank you for the book in which it is written. Thank you for such a wonderful faith. Where perhaps there's one in our midst this morning, we know not Christ. We plead for them. We ask for salvation. We ask to give them glory to Christ. Fill heaven with joy, saying, over a soul, repent. We ask this in our Savior's precious name.