Expounds on the nature of the gospel as the power of God for salvation, emphasizing that it is not a message to be ashamed of, even in the face of Roman imperial power and philosophical skepticism. Drawing from Romans 1:1-17, The examples highlight Paul's sense of debt to preach the gospel to all people, regardless of their background or perceived wisdom. The core lesson is that true transformation comes not from human systems like philosophy or politics, but from the gospel, which changes lives and offers righteousness through faith. The message concludes by underscoring that salvation and spiritual growth are entirely by faith, from an initial act to a continuous life of trusting God.
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Good morning. Well, it's great to be here, and it's been a great weekend so far, and I'm sure it will continue to be. I knew I would enjoy it, but I didn't know I would enjoy it this month. I don't deserve to enjoy it this month. I'm telling someone that at home I'm used to working with young married, especially college age, and several Bible studies going. It's a holiday age, and I think I'm going to get an old people's program going in our assembly when I get back. If you can get some old people in because I enjoy them so much. I want to thank you all for a wonderful weekend.
So many people to thank, and the food is good, the lodging is great, and the fellowship is just wonderful, and I've enjoyed Brother Don's ministry a whole lot. All of you. ministry from all of you, we have great friends and fellowship. I put out six different handouts up at the dining hall, and I gave POP copies of Iqwan. So if you want some that have run out, you can make copies for you. When someone asked them this morning, and I thought I'd remind you of that, One of them is the, I don't want to be a servant.
Read that if you read nothing else. It's not something I wrote. But I got so much from it. And what it's like to truly be a slave and the fact of the matter that our Lord came is Jehovah's servant. And there's something very practical I have found about that. A servant, a slave, is not like the Lord says. Does he thank that servant? He says he did what I said. No, he doesn't thank him. That's the way servants are treated. They're unappreciated, unnoticed, unsanced. Now, you say you don't want to be a servant, but sometimes we're treated like that. It just turns out that we, and our ego, doesn't like that when we're unnoticed and unsanced and unappreciated.
But it does happen. And when it's ours, if you just remember, thank you, Lord, I've been treating you like a servant. I'm more like you than I was. Maybe I'm beginning to arise treating you now like a servant. It really helps. I've used it that way very practically. Thank you, Lord. I can identify with you. We can have fellowship now over that. You were treated like a servant here. And you know something we still treat our Lord like a servant. How many things we ask him to do and then forget to thank him for it? It's kind of convicting even if we think about that. We pray and we pray and we pray and the Lord answers. And then down the line of ways, do you think that? Did I really thank him for that? She answered my prayer, and I didn't really thank him for it.
So we still treat him like a servant, and he still carries on like a servant. And bless his precious name. When we're there in heaven, he's going to gird himself in service, it says. He'll always be a servant. So we have the joy of being like him, being a servant. Praise God. Well, let us turn again to Romans chapter one. And we want to leave Brother Don plenty of time here. But we do want to read the first seventeen verses. So we have this all in context before we begin and before we continue. Romans chapter one beginning with verse one.
Paul, a servant. a bond slave of Jesus Christ, all to be an apostle, separated under the gospel of God, which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made or was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. Among whom are ye also the call of Jesus Christ, to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without speaking I make mention of you always in my prayers, making requests, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come to you, for I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end that you may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by our mutual faith, both of you and me. Now 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 better both to the Greeks than 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 believe us, 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. Verse eight, Paul says, first, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all.
I think it's significant that that comes first in his thanks. And isn't that the way with us? Isn't that the thing we really appreciated? To see someone get faith and go on for the Lord. For the John who said, I have no greater joy than to know that my children are walking with the Lord. And that's what's big in our lives, isn't it? Those of us who have children in the flesh who are walking with the Lord, what a joy. Not to mention our spiritual children who walk with the Lord. And he goes on to say that verse nine, he says, for God is my witness. Whenever Paul uses that expression, he says something, it precedes something, it's kind of unbelievable.
He says, for God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit and the gospel of his son, that without seeking I make mention of you always in my prayers. It seems a bit much that Paul would... continually pray for them, and he had met most of them. A little bit hard to believe, but Paul says, God is my witness. You're always in my prayers, constantly. It's interesting how it comes out. He says that without teaching, I make mention of you always. Well, it's kind of a double positive or something there. He really emphasizes it. And so he says, God is our witness.
That's the way it is. You're always in my prayers. And thank God for those who pray. In our assembly, we do have an older lady. She's younger than me, but she's mature. And she's very careful those aren't the writers. And she can't get around very much. But she prays a lot. And right now she's praying for me. And she promised me that. I know she always does. And she said in her prayers, follow me down here. And I know she's praying for me. And it's not one of those things. You know, sometimes people say, well, I'll pray for you. And you wonder if they ever do pray for you. But God is her witness. I know she's praying for me.
And that's precious. And then he says, making requests if by any means, now at length, I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come to you. And Paul did have a prosperous journey. but it was a very perilous journey, if you recall. Shipwrecked and the whole thing. But it was prosperous. He did make it, but it was a very perilous journey. He said he'd often wanted to come to them, but was hindered thus far. Let's go to verse fourteen. We want to skip some things because we do want to finish up and try to get through verse seventeen and read plenty of times about Adam. He says, I am debtor, both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise.
The Greeks considered anyone who were not a Greek as unwise. There was a thing. Greek was a thing. I mean, they were the educated. They were the elite. They had the philosophers. Rome had conquered Greece, but nevertheless, Greece, the Greeks had it. As Leviton has pointed out to us, that language or something else. And God chose that language because it's so expressive. He tells you exactly what he has in his heart. And so the Greeks considered any non-Greek is unwise. And one Greek philosopher said as far as the barbarians, he said, he said the Greeks have no more concern for the barbarians than they have for the beasts of the field.
The barbarians were not. I mean, they weren't Greeks. They weren't educators. They were nothing. Paul says, I feel a debt. I feel a debt to the wise folks. I feel a debt to the barbarians. And what made him feel so much in debt? Well, he had something that he was bringing to them. He had the gospel. And someone has put it this way. I'm a banker, so I would pick up on this. But, you know, a bank messenger carries money between banks. So here's this messenger boy or girl, I gotta be careful, I'm not sexist, you know, but boy or girl. And they maybe have a hundred thousand dollars in the bag and they take it from one bank to another.
It's a lot of money, a lot of responsibility. Well, that messenger is a debtor to that bank over across the street. It has this precious deposit. He must not, he must not fail to make that delivery. He's a debtor. Paul felt like that. He said, I've got this gospel and I'm a debtor to everybody. I'm to take it to the ends of the earth. He took the great commission very seriously. He wanted to get to Spain, never did. He talked about when I take my journey to Spain, I'll stop by and see you. He never made it to Spain. But Paul has that weight of debt and I hope we all have that feeling of debt that we must get We must get the message out.
It suggests that we, oh, we cannot keep it to ourselves. It must be given to the barbarians, to the Greeks, to the wise, to the unwise. Sometimes, don't we as Christians, we, it's fun to work with, for me, for me, it's a joy to work with college kids. Well, what about the kids down on Skid Row? The barbarians, so to speak. We have a debt to them too. I'm glad that the assembly of God works a lot with those, you know, and there's a mission down there and there are those who will work. And it's not that I haven't worked with them, but I find myself working with college students. But I owe a debt, don't I, to those that aren't able to go to college.
Well, Paul certainly felt that very keenly. And then we had the measure of service in verse fifteen. So Paul says, as much as in me is, that's the measure of service. How much can I give? Am I holding back at all that I'm not giving enough? When the poor widow put the two mites in the collection, the Lord said she gave all that she had, gave all of her living. That's the measure of service. When Mary broke the box of ointment, the Lord says, she has done what she could.
She's done what she could. Paul said, as much as in me is, that is the measure of how much I should give, as much as in me is. He says, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you at Rome also. Going back a little bit, he says that I might have some, back in verse thirty, he says that I might have some fruit among you also, even among other Gentiles. I think Paul was talking not only, he was talking about fruit, yes, of growth, growth in the Lord.
He was also, I believe, talking about fruit of false one. I think he was anxious to preach the gospel. Sometimes we think when he's writing to the church, he wants to come to the church and preach the gospel. What he wanted to preach to anyone who came, the unsaved also. Or perhaps he was thinking about their children. And sometimes we get so busy with teaching that we don't emphasize the gospel and our children don't perhaps get the emphasis. I was talking to someone here. I forget who. Oh, yes, I do remember it was... Biola telling her about her daughter and how that one brother, laboring brother, would come by and whenever he came by, he would always ask at the end of the service, ask her daughter if she had gotten saved tonight, if you meet the Lord tonight.
And eventually she did. But the pressure was always on. If you don't know the Lord, we have a concern. We feel a debt. We must get the message across. You must accept it because I owe this debt to you. We'll praise God for that. Then verse sixteen, we know that verse very well, don't we? We hear that often, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first, the Jew is always first, not as there any better, but God sees to a savior first, and also the Greek.
Why would Paul possibly be ashamed of the gospel? He says, I am not ashamed. Would there some reason to be ashamed of the gospel? We think of that verse as perhaps talking about our lack of courage, you know, to be a witness for the Lord. I don't think he was talking about that. He was talking about the very message which at that time, and of course, not that it's any different today, to the Romans, it would not seem like a very important message. Because here it was, it was coming from a... Paul, he was a Jew. He was coming from Jerusalem as a capital of a despised little country that was conquered by Rome.
He was coming to the very capital of world power. And it was about a little-known Jew who had gotten himself crucified, claiming to be the king of the Jews. It just wasn't much of a message to them. Rome was used to great speakers, great orators, the best spoke in Rome, philosophers, the Greeks. And then here comes this renegade Jew with this story about a man who was crucified. And you know, the Romans were not, would never be crucified.
The crucifixion was just for the down of, for the slaves, for the, for the, certainly not for the elite, certainly no Roman should ever be crucified or even, or even think about crucifixion or witness crucifixion for lesser people. So here we come with this story of a man who claimed to be God, got himself crucified, What a story. Paul says, I'm not ashamed of that story. Because I'm telling you folks in Rome where all the power is, this is where the power is. The power is in that gospel. He's not ashamed.
It changes people. Paul had seen it change people in filthy places like Ephesus and Corinth. He knew what it would do. He said it will also change people in Rome. I'm not ashamed of that gospel, he does. Philosophy didn't change people. Someone has said that philosophy is that system of study whereby you may be miserable more intelligently. It does nothing for you. A system of study whereby you may be miserable more intelligently. Bertrand Russell, who spent his life...
as an agnostic philosopher trying to destroy the faith of many, he said at the end of his life, he says, to me, philosophy has proved a washout. When you face death, philosophy just doesn't have it, does it? It's a washout. Who was it who, as he was dying, he said, you're looking at an atheist who has lost his faith. When they face death, they realize there really is a God. He's lost his faith in atheism. Socrates said, it may be that the deity can forgive sin, but I don't see how.
That message didn't change anybody in Rome, did it? Philosophy will do you no good. And I'm afraid, hope I don't get in trouble here, but I'm afraid that psychology is right in that area. How many people we have going and paying the shrink when they should be going to the Lord Jesus? What do we learn when we go to a psychologist, psychiatrist? They teach us to blame somebody else. Go back into your childhood and find that you need to blame your father, your mother, whatever, your surroundings, but never you. It sounds good, but nobody gets saved that way.
We need to face up to our sins. We need to come to the one who had washed away our sins in his own blood. No, those things don't change lives. And power, Rome has the political power that didn't change lives. The police with their prisons and whatever else they have don't change people. Politics sure doesn't make people any better, does we know that? Seneca called Rome a cesspool of iniquity. What Rome needs is this message, this gospel. Juvena, a writer, called Rome a filthy sewer into which the dregs of the empire flood.
Rome needs the gospel. They were proud. They thought they had power, but Paul says, no. No. I'll tell you what power is all about. power to change people's lives. Paul had been a Pharisee, and he knew the law didn't change people's hearts, and made them harder than ever. Think of it. Paul, one of the most religious... He said he was of the strictest sect of his religion, a Pharisee, and yet he could go and try to wipe out the church. That's what the law will do for you.
That's what Judaism does for you. Paul says that is not where the power is. He'd been there. Paul grew up in a Greek city. He had the best of every. Paul was a Roman citizen. And he grew up in a Greek city, Tarsus. He knew Greek. And he was the best of the Jews. So he had the best the Jews could offer. He had the best the Greeks could offer. And he was a Roman citizen, but Paul had an emptiness in his heart until he found the one that can fill that emptiness. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of this gospel. It changes people. It has power in it. It has power in it.
I think of Harry Ironside. He was speaking on the ship corner one time. He used to do a lot of work for the Salvation Army. San Francisco. And back in those days, a member of the IWW, there were communists, atheist people, was there, well-dressed man. And he edged up towards Harry as he was speaking and handed him a card. And he said he challenged him to a debate at some place, a hall. And Harry kept on preaching. Then he just mentioned he said he had this challenge. And he said he would take up this man and this challenge. under one condition. He said, I will bring with me one hundred people from down here in the Red Light Street who have gotten saved, whose lives have turned around through the gospel, that you will bring with you just one person who, through atheism, through communism, from down here, whose life has been changed and cleaned up.
You just bring one, I'll bring a hundred. And the man just walked away. He just walked away. Atheism, communism does not change hearts, not for the better. But Paul says, my gospel will, I'm not ashamed of it. It has power, the power to change lives. Well, sin has power. sin has power over go back to Proverbs five and verse twenty two Proverbs five verse twenty two his iniquity shall take the wicked himself and he shall be held with the cords of his sins we all know something about that don't we he shall be held with the
cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction and the greatness of his folly. He shall go astray. He shall be held with the cords of his sins. For Charles, once he could write, he breaks the power of cancel sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the flawless clean. His blood avails for me. It has power. Praise God. Paul says that here the power is the power of God in the salvation to everyone that believe and this is another thing about the gospel that is so it causes so many to stumble the philosophers would balk at this one day you get it simply by trusting nothing else no price just trust and man's ego and man's ignorance and the devil is right there I don't know what it all takes but say block at that point.
You mean just believe? That's all you have to do? Can't believe it. There's got to be more than that to it. I've got to tell you a whole story. It's an encouraging story. I'm not the greatest witness. I do witness. But some of you know Scott and Mindy Pell here of Kansas City, not by, which of Kansas, rather. And They were in the assembly there. And I was going to be going with one of the branch coordinators. I'm the personnel manager. And once a year I visit all of our branches. We have eighteen branches scattered all over North Dakota. And so when I go, once a year in the summertime, fall of the year, I go with the branch coordinator who goes monthly to visit the branches.
But I go with him and visit the branches. So we spend a lot of time in the automobile. And Scott and Mindy told me that... when I went out with this coordinator who was not a saved man. He, a good guy, but not a Christian. And she said, we're prayer. They said, we're praying that you'll get an opportunity to witness to Lance. His name is Lance. Lance Wolf. I thought that's very sweet. I'll pray too that I get a chance to witness to him. Well, we're riding along about the second day. We're riding along and and I'm doing some work and he's driving and he turned to me and said, John, what is John three sixteen?
And I said, Lord, you know, that's an opening if ever I heard one. Well, he's quite a sportsman. He was a great basketball coach and so forth and he watches sports on TV and whatever. And I don't watch TV so I don't see the, and I don't watch sports. I'd be the last thing I'd watch if I did watch TV. But I don't know if it still happened, but somebody raises a card with John, three, sixteen on it. Remember that, some of you. And that's what he, that was his question. He saw that in the background, you know, and he said, John, what is John three, sixteen? So I told him more than he wanted to know about John three, sixteen, probably. And he said, he said, well, you know, all you have to do is believe.
His church, his church teaches that you need penance, not repentance, but penance. He said, that's too, I can't believe that. You just believe and then your sins are gone and it doesn't matter what you do. And of course, some people accuse Paul of teaching a loose life. You just believe and God takes care of your sins. That's always to it. But Paul says over in the sixth chapter, doesn't he? What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin and grace may abound? God forbid. Like he says in the Spanish, no way, Jose. No, it doesn't say that. But no way we don't continue in sin that grace may abound.
So anyway, I got to finish my story. So I was telling this then the next Lord's Day. And after one of the young, two of the young ladies came to me and said, you know, we just had an argument last week about this. One girl said, the Lord will never use. Well, why did he just hold up, you know, John three sixteen? That's all just John three sixteen. The Lord will never use that. I mean, that's nothing. The other girls said, oh yes. The Lord will use that. You just see. You'll use it some way. So then I give the testimony of how the Lord used it. So anything we do for the Lord, just put up John three sixteen. That's all you do. The Lord will use it. It's the power of God and the salvation. I'll tell you. Okay, so getting back to our text here.
He says, for in it, verse seventeen, and we'll close with this, for in it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, as written back in Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith. Fact is, it says the just shall live by his faith back there in Habakkuk. From faith to faith. On that particular point there, well, first of all, it's to everyone that believes, on verse sixteen, of course, there's not a limited atonement, it's whosoever.
And on this matter of from faith to faith, John Phillips says this, he says the righteousness of God is received by faith and it is reproduced by faith. In other words, what he's saying is we are positionally made righteous by faith and we become sanctified in our life also by faith. It's a continuing growing thing. Vine puts it this way. He says it's from faith. Some faith points to the initial act and to faith to the life of faith that issues from it.
We're saved by faith and we grow by faith. It's step by step. As the Apostle Paul says in Colossians two, six, he says, As you have received Jesus Christ, the Lord, so walk ye in him. It's all by faith. We're saved by faith we grow by faith. If you recall, Paul uses it, by the way, three times, doesn't he? He uses it here in Romans, he uses it in Galatians, and he uses it in Hebrews, if you wrote Hebrews. I think he did, but we won't talk about that.
I might get in trouble. But anyway, if we go back to Habakkuk, and we won't go back to where he's running out of time, but If you recall, Habakkuk had a problem. Israel was kind of going to pot, and God didn't seem to be doing anything about it. They were going downhill. They were becoming more wicked. They were worshiping other gods, and God was doing nothing about it. So it came to God about that, and God said, don't worry, I've got something in store. I'm going to have the Chaldeans. I'm going to have Babylon come in and punish Israel for what they're doing. And then Habakkuk had, he went even deeper into depression. He was a very sensitive man. Habakkuk, the name means embrace.
He was a weeping prophet, a very tender man. And so he became even more depressed because he said, how can you take a nation even more wicked than Israel that come in and punish Israel? And so he went to the Lord about that. And by the way, the whole book of Habakkuk all happens in his mind, in his heart. There's no events so on. He says, his exercise before the Lord. And the Lord assured him that, well, first of all, he says, remember that just shall live by his faith. It is your problem, Habakkuk is. You're not trusting me. That's your problem. Remember that just shall live by his faith. Not somebody else's, but his.
It's his own soul's exercise. Each one of us has to read our scriptures for ourselves. We have to believe for ourselves. We have to pray for ourselves. It's our faith. It's our Christian life that we must... I can't live it for you. You can't live it for me. He says, the just shall live by his faith. You've got to believe me, Habakkuk. And you know, most of our problems when we're down in the dumps and so forth is because we don't really believe the Lord. Oh, we think He can handle our eternal salvation. That's no problem. But what about today? I'm down in the dumps. Can He handle the problems in my assembly? He's not doing anything about it. It's going downhill. He said, God, it's gone somewhere.
Is he working someplace else? He lacked the trust in him. We believe his word, yes. But do we have the confidence in him that he loves us and is doing the very best for us, has our very best interest at heart? And he is really looking after us. He has many programs going all at once. And he's doing the very, he makes no mistake. Do we have that confidence? Well, Habakkuk didn't. But after the Lord talked to him, and he said, you know, the time is coming, Habakkuk, when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, he said, God is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent. Everything's okay. I've had things under control.
Things are working out. Just trust me. And so because of faith, simply because of faith, Habakkuk comes with this lovely burst of worship. He says, Although the pig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no food, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no hurt in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hind feet. He will make me walk on my high places. I will be on the mountaintop. From the root cellar to the mountaintop.
Because of one thing. Faith. He believed God. But not enough. Not as much. I mean, he was saved. He was like we are. But we can be the root cellar, can we? And faith makes a difference. And I used to think. Because I'd read this. And he will make me walk on my high places. What didn't he say? He will make me walk on his high places. No. No, no. It's my life. The Lord has to, it's low places for the Lord. He has to stoop. But I have to go through the experience. It's not your high places. It's my high places. George Mueller said that when he began his ministry, we're all familiar with his ministry, he said it was as hard to believe for one pound when he began as it was forty years later to believe for a thousand pounds.
From faith to faith. I want to read you a little poem poem that I just love. It's about Peter and his growth from face to face, and I'm going to turn it over to John. Peter talking. He says, I owned a little boat a while ago, and sailed the morning sea without a fear. And whither any breeze might fairly blow, I'd sear the little craft afar or near. Mine was the boat, and mine the air. and mine the sea, not mine a care. Peter was all in charge. My boat became my place of nightly coil.
I sailed at sunset to the fishing ground. That morning the boat was freighted with the spoil that my all-conquering work and skill had found. Mine was the boat, and mine the net, and mine the skill and power to get. One day, that passed along the silent shore while I my net was casting in the sea a man who spoke as never man before. I followed him. New life begun in me. Mine was the boat, but his the voice and his the call, yet mine the choice.
Ah, t'was a fearful night out on the lake. and all my skill availed not at the helm. Till him asleep I awakened crying cake. Take thou command lest waters overwhelm. His was the boat, and his the sea, and his the peace over all in me. Once from his boat she taught the curious throng, then bade me let down nets out in the sea. I murmured, but obeyed, nor was it long, before the catch amazed and humbled me. His was the boat and his the skill and his the catch and his my will.
From face to face Peter grew and we can grow. Praise the Lord.