The End of Romans

all right so please open your Bibles to Romans 16 today we are finishing the book of Romans we're gonna do verses 19 through 27 I am attempting to speak prophetically about the future here but I may be wrong because of lack of self-control and the ability to be 16 we're gonna be getting into at the end of Romans Paul gives some really important important stuff that is sometimes we skip past because we often read the ending of a letter not realizing how it ties into everything else that we've already read in the letter and so I wanted without doing overview of Romans I did that already there's that's online but I just wanna remind us of a few things we're also going to get into an archaeological confirmation of the Bible that I just want to show you that in random places as you're reading the scripture there's times where archaeology speaks to the thing that we're reading and we don't know this obviously unless we're familiar with what's going on in that world so setting the context a little bit remember this the book of Romans Paul wrote to the Romans and he had not visited Rome and so this changes the way he writes to them right when he writes to Timothy he's writing to like a young leader in the church about how to run the Church of God but Timothy had traveled with him Timothy knew the gospel and all this stuff when he writes to other churches like Corinth he'd been there he'd stayed with them now he's writing a letter to his well known associates about their walk with the Lord's and compromises they've had but when he writes to the Romans it's totally different and I love this about Romans he's writing so that he might like really well explain the whole gospel and the Christian life and so it's such an essential book in our Bibles the book of Romans it's like here you go this is the gospel how it ties into the Old Testament how it ties into the new how we're saved how Abraham was saved how the prophecy is there here's the gospel presented towards the Jews the gospel presented towards the Gentiles here's how God's plan unfolds throughout scripture and then here's the Christian life here's walking in the spirit here's you serving the Lord in your local fellowship here's keeping Christian unity here's how to deal with government interestingly enough here's how to deal with government here's how to deal with Christian life issues convictions for when you guys don't agree on issues like here's this stuff so he just kind of keeps giving more and more stuff and it really unpacks so much of what you need to know for all of Christian life in this one book in Romans so this is it's a massive wonderful book a detailed gospel presentation the philosophical reasoning in the book of Romans is one of the things that impresses me the most about the book there's like deep thoughtful careful philosophy in Romans now some think a philosophy equals worldly philosophy but that's not the case the biblical philosophy or Christian philosophy is I think I think it's the only philosophy that actually makes sense because it's grounded ultimately on God and so from God flows all of reality this is the best of philosophy and here we have it in Romans so I've tried to share some of at least my best understanding of these things it gets deeper than me that's for sure but I've shared my best understanding of it as we've gone through it talks about instructions for sanctification for obedience for spiritual health for unity warnings about false teachers and keeping to sound doctrine and how to handle it when people try to invade into the church to lead people astray either morally or doctrinally to lead them astray and so now here we are at Romans 16 verse 19 he just finished the warnings about false teachers and says in verse 19 for your obedience has become known to all therefore i'm glad on your behalf but i want you to be wise and what is good and simple concerning evil this is actually interesting place to start because romans 1619 is a good example of a verse that almost doesn't make sense out of context for your obedience has become known to all i wouldn't know what to do with that statement except the context is he just warned them against false teaching and people who embrace sin and influence others to sin and divisive individuals so he's like the three things christians are to watch for right false doctrine sin in my life for those who are trying to influence me to sin and also divisive people so to keep and let doctrine be the thing that showed me who's who and then he after telling them to be warned against those things he says your obedience has become known to all i think what he's saying is I'm warning you about false teachers people drawing you towards sin because guess what you are known as Christians and so that puts a bull's-eye on you that I think is the context of your obedience has become known to all where there are followers of Christ there is a target right God looks and sees his church you know being washed and sanctified and being this beautiful thing well the world looks and they see a mission field because the world wants us to be more like them it's funny how they say you know Christians we're sick of you trying to be missionaries and change everyone to be like them instead you should change and be like us the irony is the world really does look at Christians like a mission field they want Christians to change change your theology change your practice you can still call yourself Christian but be the be our version of Christian the one that we like that's okay the world looks at you and sees a mission field Satan looks at you and he sees something else he sees a bull's-eye you know God sees his church Satan sees a bull's-eye he sees his target consider the following in fact if you would turn there Matthew chapter 13 this is the parable of the sower where Jesus tells this this parable of a man who goes out to sow into the into his field sow seed good seed in his field and while he sleeps somebody comes in so as bad seed I think there's something interesting about this that relates to the idea that you're the target of Satan in a very real way so Matthew 13 verse 24 he says another parable he put forth to them saying the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field but while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way you know simply but I'm not going to do a full study on this parable but simply put tares are things that look very much like wheat until they're fully grown and then you start to see the flowering and when the flowers when it when it's really budding and flowering you go oh that's not wheat those are tears tears you could try to make food out of tears like you do with wheat except it would have a mild poison in it because tears will put you to sleep they have like a said a sedative type of a other thing going on which I think there's some spiritual parallels that are going on there so there's this this enemy comes and sews tares amongst the wheat and goes his way in the new verse 20 but when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop then the tares also appeared they were there but it became obvious because that's the season for it to be clear from the budding so the servants of the owner came and said to him sir did you not sow good seed in your field how then does it have tears and he said to them an enemy has done this so the servants said to him do you want us to go and gather them up and he's like no no let them grow together and at the end at the end and then Jesus explains this parable if you keep reading he explains the parable is the seed is is ultimately referencing God's sowing the gospel into people's lives people getting saved and now his church is this field of wheat and we're the wheat and the tares are the sons of the end of the sons of the enemy basically the those who are ungodly unsaved individuals now here's the thing I just want to point out where did the enemy so his seed wherever God sewed his that's the thing that kind of gets me the kingdom of heaven is like this like here's God goes out so is the seed people get saved people are born again their lives are transformed and following Jesus and Satan's like I need to infiltrate that so he sews his tares amongst the wheat no look like Christians perhaps claimed to be Christians not that it's up to me to figure out who's who that's not Mike that's not my calling nor am i able ultimately to make that discernment nor do I want to in all honesty my default position is if I don't know I assume you're a believer if I have good reason to doubt it i evangelize you in love and in compassion and try to share Christ with you but but if I'm not sure I just I just grant that someone's a believer because I hope I get the same courtesy so I'm sure there's plenty of people aren't sure about me so the the tares are sown amongst the wheat but this continues in in Luke 22 we read this Jesus says this about Simon Peter it says in the Lord said Simon Simon indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat but I've prayed for you that your faith should not fail and when you've returned to me strengthen your brethren so we see Simon and we actually experience his whole dramatic betrayal or denial I should say of Christ and then his restoral from Christ is that a word restoral that's just I mean restoral you don't know that word so he's restored so we see we experience all this in the scriptures right but Jesus gives us behind the scenes look at this is that while there were people going like hey aren't you one of the disciples Satan was at work there were spiritual battles going on how is this happening was this a internal mental attack was there some I don't know but we know that this was a target was on Peter a target was on him Satan was asking for him I want him I want to mess with him now Jesus God knew his full plan and so he's like yes you're gonna go through this it's gonna be tough but great stuff will come out of it and when you return strengthen your brother I mean Jesus predicts the the failure and the return and the fruits from the trial all there in that one passage which is kind of beautiful and encouraging to me even Christians who feel they've really failed yet there was a purpose that God had for it it doesn't excuse my failure but get up and keep serving and strengthen others with the things you've learned but that same Peter the same Peter who is tempted by Satan or or attacked by Satan in some way first Peter 5:8 that Saint Peter said this be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour Satan is like looking for prey lions the way they look for prey is they often look for the weak the small the young the slow and they go after them us and our hardship us in our weakness in fact after Satan tempted Jesus and for the 40 days and nights and all that then Satan is tempting him and afterwards it says he left until an opportune time so after Jesus like get out of here and it says he left until an opportune time I think I think that's really profound he was waiting until he had that moment of weakness that he saw where he felt like he could pounce and so along with our physical try and our difficulties in life often comes spiritual assaults it's at those times when you're just this isn't spiritually this is just physical I'm just going through a hard time it was like yes the enemy knows that and so the enemy's rushing in for that opportune time Jesus is there he's in the garden he's he's he's you know sweating great drops of blood you know this is an opportune time this is this is a chance there's more second Corinthians 11:3 says this but I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ that now this doesn't necessarily say Satan's the one corrupting your minds but but it I feel like it's implied as Satan deceived Eve so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ the singleness of following Jesus and knowing him so the tares amongst the wheat they are the world entering the church and watering things down and putting us to sleep so to speak the attack of the enemy upon us at times we should know this when your obedience is known to all when you're serving Jesus with all you've got when you're following God with everything you have you can expect that there's a bull's-eye on you this doesn't mean that I self righteously act like everything bad that happens to me is persecution my car ran out of gas Satan's attacking me like no you're just you were responsible most likely that's probably what happened but but that that's not to say that Satan doesn't actually attack us very much so in a very real way and we can expect this but we also know this that Satan had to ask for Peter God allowed this right just as he had to ask to go after job and God allowed it for a purpose and for a season and all that so this might freak you out perhaps this scares you a little bit don't let it for the same reason that firefighters don't get scared when they hear about a fire firefighters have been training and preparing for this moment right and I don't think that they're sadists when the fire alarm goes off and they find out about some big fire and they get excited I think they're just thinking look this fire was going to happen one way or another but I'm a firefighter and I've been preparing for moment and they suit up and they get ready and they go out there now if there's a firefighter that's cowering in the corner when they hear about the fire well I have to go to the bathroom thank you know her gonna call my mom and they take off then obviously something's wrong but us as Christians we don't realize like we are there with the armor of God to fight the spiritual battle yet when you're being attacked this is the time to buckle down this is the time to step forward this is the time to go out it's it's not the gates of heaven that are being stormed here jesus said the gates of Hades will not prevail whose gates are being stormed that's right it's the enemy's so when we look at Satan Satan may look at me and see you bowls I write your obedience to become known to all so don't worry so there's gonna be false teachers and people trying to lead you astray but when state looks at me sees a bull's eye but when I look at him what do I see I see a bull's eye the world might look at me and see a mission field but when I look at the world what do I see I see my mission field and so go for it get to it it's like for a time such as this you know step up and and step out and live your life like I think we are craving as humans we are creating for our lives to have real purpose and real meaning beyond just the general activities of our day and this is where this is where we find it ultimately is in the spiritual battles that we have in our obedience to Christ and in our outreach to the world and our building each other up in Christ I think this is a big deal so then he says at the university 19 or partway through for your obedience has become numb to all therefore I'm glad on your behalf he's excited at the idea that people know that in Rome there are a group of following Christians who love Jesus he knows they'll also be attacked but he's glad on their behalf he's happy about it because if that target is on you it's not necessarily a bad thing it's just something that you have to know about and then he continues but I want you to be wise and what is good and simple concerning evil we learned a song when I was young when I was young those were the days and we learned a song that was be excellent at what is good be innocent of evil right for the God of peace will soon crush Satan and you'd stomp underneath your feet huh and you'd slam your feet on the ground back it was cheesy yes but but but it made me remember this first be wise in what is good be simple concerning evil I think these are the two instructions for those who have a bull's-eye on them and for those who are at the mission field of the world Christians be wise in what is good this is actually both of these things I think are taken from Jeremiah 422 Jeremiah for 22 says for my people are foolish they've not known me they are silly children and they have no understanding they are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge so they were the opposite in Jeremiah's time and we're told to be wise at what's good simple concerning evil being wise here it's it's like being excellent or skilful in something back in the day Moses gave excuse me let me know in the days of in the days of Solomon when they were building the temple this is the not the tabernacle but the temple God gave wisdom to the skilled craftsmen so they had specific wisdom for their tasks like working with this particular material in order to build the temple like sewing things or building stuff and in the same sense we're to have wisdom or particular skill at doing good like I'm good at good you might be like oh so you're a goody two-shoes that's really not the point this isn't about self-righteousness this is about being skilled at doing the right thing and understanding what is good this kind of skill has it has a head element to it and it has like a hands element to it I understand what is right and wrong so I have good teaching but I also am able to perform what is right over what is wrong and so I have good living I think this in the in the armor of God is the breastplate of righteousness I've heard teaching that the breastplate of righteousness is just God's given you his righteousness that's all it is but I think that there's an element of this where it's not me being righteous to earn my salvation but rather me following Jesus to protect myself in this world because how how will how will sin and impact my life as a Christian well in devastating ways so be wise in what is good and then be simple concerning evil and I'll be honest this is probably of the two the one that really stands out to me the most is being wise at what is good seems obvious but seeing being simple at what is evil that words simple could be translated a couple different ways untainted unmixed or pure it doesn't necessarily mean completely unaware of evil so it's like your school calls you want to hear what your son did today no simple concerning evil and his name of the phone that's not the application the application is that I'm not allowing that evil to touch me do you know I mean like where it mixes become mixed with it and this is I think where the battle lies for us nowadays big time especially we don't live in a Christian culture and surrounded by Christian environment in every way at least I don't and I don't think any of you guys do and and we're surrounded with constant outreach from the world into our lives and this is not where I try to dump my convictions on you in any way but this is where I just call us to say hey be untainted when it comes to evil be unmixed with the world be pure this is this is the thing that will help you from the bull's eye and the mission field impact that the world and the enemy have in your life and then verse 20 goes on and says and the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly this is like it one of the most ironic passages in the Bible I think the God of peace will crush secrets like he's peaceful and he's crushing the enemy I think that's really interesting there's there's a gun back in the day that sort of ruled the West for a while called the peacemaker there's a phrase peace through superior firepower that's the that's the phrase as it as it stands and as long as evil is in the world it's when good people have more power that there's peace that's pretty much how it works and so God who is a God of peace we've experienced his peace but he is going to crush Satan and this is an allusion to Genesis 3 right he shall bruise your de seeds heal and the seed which ends up being Jesus ultimately will crush his head this is gonna be the fulfillment of this from Genesis 3 then all the way to Revelation where we have Satan finally cast into the lake of fire he's cast out forever so he's crushed he's destroyed but that's what's going to happen so we fight our battle from this perspective I've got to keep my heart unmixed and from the world and from ungodliness I got to be wise at what is good learn learn good teaching and theology and live out the Christian life in sincerity but then all I have to do is wait on this whole Satan issue because God's going to crush it God will do the crushing it'll be under my feet though which is interesting to think about under my feet feet here has to do not just with the device of crushing I think I think feet here has to do with the fact that you were over someone if they're under your feet they're submitted they no longer have a place of authority or control in your life Satan's ability to impact or control you or anything in the world will end so under our feet remember we will be ruling and reigning with Jesus Christ which is amazing to think about we will not just be citizens in the kingdom we're like royalty royalty in the kingdom the Dominion that Adam lost is restored in Christ to us plus some it's better it's not just restored the world will not just be restored to an eden-like condition but something better than that if we read the actual text of Scripture it seems like it's it's it's much improved right it's it's muy bueno that's French you wouldn't understand so the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly and I think the idea of shortly here may just have to do with having a present awareness of it happening that there's like this it's gonna happen it's gonna happen it's gonna happen in a sense it's happening all the time because God is constantly we're going from victory to victory in Christ even the attacks the enemy has on my life I gained victory you know the story of Peter and his struggles he's up being a massive blessing to us how many you guys have read about Peter and him being tried sifted his wheat and found incredible help in your life because of it you know and in a sense that was God crushing Satan under Peters feet you know so there's that there's that sort of MoMA by MoMA thing of gods of deliverance and victory and then there's the final final thing where it happens and we read about that in Revelation the new verse 21 he says Timothy my fellow worker and Lucius and Jay Jason and so sip etre or so saucy Pater he was at once a sea dad Peters dad anyway my countrymen greet you this is the same Timothy this Timothy's the same guy that we read about in 1st and 2nd Timothy and it's neat to see how these people we learn more about their lives as we read about these sorts of things I I'm not gonna get into every name but you're welcome to there's actually more to know about Jason and and saucy dad but I'll let you study that on your own verse 22 iter sheis who wrote this epistle greet you in the Lord now this is really interesting because this is what's called you want to hear the fancy word for the guy that wrote the Epistle for Paul the fancy word is amanuensis amanuensis yes an amanuensis or a secretary right he wrote the things that paul told him to write this was actually someone normal we see this happening several times and we read about other guys that are doing the same sorts of things Souter sheis he goes I wrote this epistle now we know the pistil open by saying Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ mother we'll look at right we read about Paul writing but then he's and then we also read in Galatians where Paul wrote at least the ending of Galatians he goes see with what large letters I write to you so they knew that was Paul's writing maybe that was maybe he's reading us like mine whenever I write on a whiteboard for the youth ministry it's like it's like it's unintentional comedy but yes but large letters and ridiculous letters so this is interesting because of this this actually enters into the issue of apologetics there are there's a popular sort of a wave going going around right now where they're saying it's not online where they're saying that several books of the New Testament were forged we're not written by Paul we're not written by Peter we're not written by those guys and one of the reasons they have for saying this is they go well the Greek styles not the same across the letters so 1st and 2nd Peter aren't example they take first and second Peter and they say oh the Greek style like we would know in English reading this right the Greeks first and second Peters the Styles too high in one and too low in the other for them to be by the same author but we see that this was this was something they did is they would have these guys help them with the style of their letter that's what the amanuensis did is he would either write just verbatim what you said or he would work with you how do you want to write that how do you under word that and then it would come out so almost like an editor helping to improve the material now how does this effect the doctrine of inspiration well it doesn't affect it at all like the whole idea is Paul didn't write and in the and have the text inspire because he wrote it with his own hand because Paul was so amazing its inspired because the Holy Spirit inspired the process by which we got it and then gave it to us so we see the Holy Spirit is writing and impacting these things but I think that this issue of an amanuensis is important when we when we tackle the topic of whether the New Testament texts were forged it's not the only issue there's a whole lot to be talked about in it but it's one thing that the skeptics often forget and they just say things like I've heard him say it well I don't think there was any amanuensis I don't think they used him in a unity menu it they couldn't afford such a thing and you're like I purchase who wrote this if it like it's in the ancient text and you just ignore it maybe you have a motive there that's other than for truth you know when you're it's like right there in the text and there's several indications that they used these sort of secretaries in different books of the New Testament several and so I think we we have to realize as Christians when we hear skeptics attacking the Bible you have to notice what evidence they ignore and what evidence they they they focus on because sometimes what they do is they pull out of here's all the information and they just grab a third of it and they make a skewed case for their side and you study more you learn more and you hopefully get better answers so verse 23 this this says Gaius my host and the host of the whole church greets you Erastus the treasurer of the city greets you and Quartus a brother we did greetings from or to the people in Rome we already talked about that except for Phoebe she was the first cuz she probably carried the letter then there was greetings to the people in Rome this is greetings from the people in Corinth that are heading out to the people in Rome so that's Gaius he's the host we read about him in first Corinthians 1:14 actually there's probably the same Gaius he's there being greeted in Corinth he's Paul's host so Paul stays with him or possibly tercius and he's the host of the whole city or the whole church excuse me which it probably means that he had like a big estate and he had the the gathering of believers they would come a massive group of Christians would come and they would all gather there from from Corinth at his place so maybe was the first city mega church was in Gaius is a state or house or something like the I don't know then Erastus he's a treasurer of Corinth and this is where the archeology comes in more apologetics for you guys so I hope you're as excited about that as I am Erastus is said to be the treasurer of Corinth now let me give you background so you can understand why this matters in the 1700s the popular view of the New Testament texts was that they were all written way later none of them were written by the authors that Christians think dumb Christians you know and none of them were so it became very popular and became sort of the normal school of thought that like John Mark Matthew Luke act all of it was written like 250 AD like way later way later maybe in the 100's but certainly not in the first century now because of discoveries we now know that all of the New Testament was written for sure within the first century it was written within the lifetime of the Apostles and we keep getting discoveries that keep pushing those dates back earlier and earlier closer and closer to the time where Christians would have just assumed it was written so what do you know but in this case the typical college professor the guys I've encountered at least on campuses they're not aware of what's happened since the 1700s they're not there their criticisms often come from like 1753 instead of like 2018 and so they still think things like this so these archaeological confirmations little pieces of archaeology that say hey here's evidence that this was contemporary and real in the first century these are important things I remember in college being in a piano class and the piano teacher attacking the Bible with like 200 years outdated Bible attacks that are ignoring you know modern knowledge I remember being in my logic and critical thinking class and on the first day of school teacher says raise your hand and tell us your name and tell us something about you and what did I do like a good Christian I said my name is Mike and I'm a Christian and from that moment me and him were like at odds with each other I was always respectful and kind and gracious and stuff but from that moment he like set to it to try to unravel my faith that semester and it worked no I was kidding it didn't work what I did was it caused me to go do research and actually started doing more apologetics stuff because of that so what how does Erastus the treasurer of the city factor and all this stuff well excavations at Corinth in the early 1900's like 1923 or 26 something like that they were doing excavations at Corinth and they found a large area pavement that was just a big paved area a big open area and on the pavement was this massive inscription was something like seven or eight feet long and it said on it Erastus in return for his idle ship which is like a political position laid the this pavement at his own expense so it had his name it said that he did this in return because they would he was he paid for something for the city to buy a political position and that was not considered bribery that was just that was he was they were bragging about it we're like that's what you do you know it wasn't like they voted and so he had done this and and when did it date to when does that pavement day to about 50 ad and what city Corinth and where's this guy from Corinth Erasmus the treasurer of the city greets you I just think that's kind of cool because when you're making up fake books writing hundreds of 200 or 150 years later you don't write about these real people and yet over and over again we read about these real people we can talk about Gaius sometime as well as another interesting story there so I thought that was pretty good there's more to it than that if you want to go deep into that issue then there's a debate on whether idol and Idol ship is the same as being the treasurer and all this other stuff but and I feel that that debate is easily dealt with but I won't try to get into all that today I just thought was a nice little bonus so verse 24 he says the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all amen the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all amen this might be from tercius it might be Tricia so hey I tercius greet you then this guy greets you this guy greets you and the grace of our Lord be with you because it's a repeated phrase it's already been said earlier just a few verses just a few verses different few verses back so this might actually be from churches just saying I gray serve our Lord be with you this seems to have been a typical greeting back than a typical Greek greeting Karis grace be with you the difference is it's the grace of Jesus and it's like the world the world often says things like grace grace upon you bless you good good vibes sending out good vibes your way but with Christians we actually have like a basis for the grace a basis for the blessing and it's Jesus Christ and so the grace of Christ be with you all then in verse 25 he says now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest and by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith this would be Paul this would be Paul definitely speaking here and he says a lot it's a mouthful it's like a like three paragraphs of content smashed together into one little thing so let's look at it a little bit the first thing is is he's saying that God is able to establish us to establish us which means you're being grounded you're you're built on the rock so to speak do you feel established today I wonder as a Christian do you feel like you're really grounded and established spiritually strong and that sense and sufficient well this is how you can be established right able to establish you according to and then he mentions a few things my gospel the preaching of Jesus Christ and the mystery let's talk about those three things for a second Paul says he can establish you God God will establish you he does he's able to establish you through my gospel this is the foundation for Christianity is the gospel now some people attack and I remember hearing this in college too they attack the idea that that Paul had the same gospel as the other Gospels the gospel givers you know the other men Matthew Mark those guys as Peter James and one of the ways they do it is they attack his phrase he says my gospel as though I'm sorry first snickering to myself here because this is this is the kind of terrible butchering of the Bible that I hear from skeptics a lot of the time or they're like not even taking it seriously like they ignore the fact that Paul straight-up says we have the same gospel he's not trying to establish my gospel like it's different but they sometimes will grab phrases like this Paul says my gospel what he really means is his own version of the gospel is totally different from everybody else's but that's obviously not the case that's just something that a skeptic would like to believe because it would make their case against Christianity really nice so in reality when Paul says my gospel he also says the gospel he also says the gospel of Jesus Christ the gospel according to grace they're all the same gospel they're all the same gospel but what he said earlier in Romans was I wanted to write to you that you might bear some fruit from my ministry am i calling to share the gospel with the Gentiles and so he's I think harkening back to that so you can you can be established through this and then it's the preaching of Jesus Christ the preaching of Jesus Christ establishes you then he goes on he says the mystery kept secret these to me seem to be all the same thing it's like synonyms Paul's gospel is the preaching of Christ the preaching of Christ is this mystery that's been revealed now this mystery is a mysterious word let me say something about this because countless groups will take verses like this and rip them out of context and take the phrase mystery and this is not sceptics anymore this is cults and false religious teachers and they like to take these things for instance I was recently preparing for a video I'm gonna do on a guy who's they call Christ unsung home who supposedly was Jesus's second coming sorry you missed it it happened many years ago here he died but but I was proving for this and I was trying to think I was trying to find out what are the what's the evidence they offer to like prove that this guy's really Christ this case is theirs now it's completely unbiblical in every way all did you be doing a video on that soon but in their video one of the propaganda videos they say it may seem hard to believe that that christ ahnsahnghong is the second coming of Jesus but the Bible says that it's a mystery like that proves something now let me take a second explain why this is not how you can use this passage the mystery in verse 26 is now made manifest meaning that the mystery he's talking about is a mystery that has already been revealed and that's actually what the greek word means this is where sometimes the greek matters here's here's what it means it mystery something that was hidden but has been revealed not mystery like riddle me this Batman and it's not revealed you know not like not like that like what's in his pocket prejudice like that's not the kind of mystery it's a mystery fully discovered fully disclosed that's the mystery of Christ and then what was he really talking about verse 26 but now made manifest and by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith so it's made manifest according to scripture and all the nations know it now the mystery was fully revealed and well known in the first century some guy that comes later in nineteen fifty sixty seventy doesn't get to fulfill this mystery because it's something that first century believers were well-acquainted with and fully understood anybody else would be an imposter I really cannot stress too much the genius of prophecy I think that prophecy is something that we've neglected in the church not entirely not like everybody has but overall maybe we've neglected this somewhat and we've got to like remind ourselves that one of the foundational things in the Christian faith is the tying of the old and new Testament together through prophecy to realize that prophecy is something that ultimately speaks of Jesus and so it's part of knowing who he is as understanding some of the prophecy in the scripture relating to him and it's such genius this is why nobody today can come and pretend to be Jesus because there is no prophecy that they're gonna fulfill unless they come I don't know like on the clouds with judgment and every eye sees them like unless they come like it's prophesied then you can't trick me so it's just the genius the genius of prophecy and and prophecy if it feels like such a big subject cuz we go like you know 67% of the Bible's prophecy I don't know if that's accurate or not like I don't know how'd you figure that out but but let's say it's 67% of the Bible's prophecy and you get overwhelmed by it what I want to encourage you is at least have one prophecy just one to start with one that you could actually take a stranger to in conversation and go did you know this was written before Jesus came and take him to Isaiah 53 or take him to Psalm 22 and and be able to walk them through it at least have one and let the Lord work as you share his word and you open the scriptures to show them who Jesus is and just let the Holy Spirit to work in them but know this that it was God's design that prophecy would be there with the mystery and then the fulfillment of it through Christ pretty powerful stuff so so God can establish us according to the gospel that's that's all it's needed and then according it says to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith there the universe 26 this is saying God is commanding all nations to come under Christ obedient to the faith this is an important point as well sorry the Bible is full of important points and I like to point them out the faith remember what the phrase the faith means generally speaking when you see the faith with with the article t-h-e in front of it it's different than faith faith is my belief right the faith is what I believe it's my doctrines it's my teachings of Christianity I believe there is one God who exists eternally in three persons Father Son and Holy Spirit I believe that mankind has sinned against God and then we have a future judgment that's coming and that the only way we can be forgiven and transformed is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and we need to put our faith and trust in and these are doctrines of Christianity this is the faith and what does it say here at verse 26 that the that that this mysteries been made manifest to all nations according to God's commandment for the obedience of the faith all nations obedient to the faith what I'm saying here is that Christians by nature are a missionary religion and the world wants to say it's so messed up that Christian missionaries would go into some foreign country and try to take away their religion in their culture and I'll just say this I don't care about your culture keep your culture I don't want to import or export my culture anywhere but the faith is not a cultural reality it's just reality I mean there's there's a group called life water that goes into foreign countries and they try to educate the people on how to have sanitary healthy water supplies now couldn't I respond to them you know what for generations they've been drinking this nasty water with diseases and stuff in it and you're trying to change their culture that's very insensitive of you you with your with your Western superiority complex I just I just want to ignore that person and move on okay that's fine like you can you can soap box preach against people who try to save people's lives that's go ahead and do that that's fine now we're gonna go and we're gonna teach these people I don't care about changing their culture if elements of their culture are killing them then those things need to change and any culture where religious like lies are embedded in the culture those lies have to change and Christianity is a missionary religion where we try to bring people to Christ obedience all nations obedient to the faith because it's true because it really does bring forgiveness and because I think you knowing the true God is more important than you worshipping a false one shock and awe you know and so as as Christians do absorb this worldly mentality that makes us ashamed to spread our faith because it's true then in verse 27 finally we conclude the book of Romans to God alone wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever amen God alone wise one of the things that has blown me away in our study of Romans has been the wisdom that is in the text that is revealing God's wisdom and I'm just I mean legitimately blown away like His perfect plans for how to deal with like weird things that pull us apart like division and conviction issues as we talked about that he's plan of how he how he redeems us and saves us he's committed all to judgment that he might have grace on all like that that in his wisdom he's made it so that creation itself screams that there's a God so that men are without excuse give us an internal conscience to bring us awareness of our of our sin and our need for him just the wisdom the wisdom of prophecy right that that prophecy becomes a way of proving the Bible true I hate when people say things like you can't prove the Bible and I can't you can't prove it's true and I can't prove it false and wait wait stop yes I can you can accept it or reject it but yes we can prophecy is the proof it's the most beautiful timeless proof for the fact that God has spoken and we have that in the scripture the genius of God the absolute genius of God and so where does it end Romans has the book end worship to God be glory alone wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever amen and that's how it ends it doesn't actually end with grace and peace to us and I think it's notable that it ends with glory to God because that is a higher thing than grace to me is glory to God and how could it be any other way I mean how could how can I make my life as a human the focal point of reality like I'm the most important thing in this world and ultimately what pleases me what brings me happiness what brings me joy the number-one goal like this is just self deification really but God's glory the thing so as as we close this book let that be the things just echoes in your mind that the glory of God is the ultimate purpose of you and of me and of the gospel this is one area where I think the Calvinists have it completely right they love talking about the glory of God and I get excited when they do I we all should be talking more about God's glory God's glory that's what this ultimately comes down to when you look at the world and all you see as humans it's hard to make sense of everything but when you look at creation from the perspective scripture gives us and you see God's glory being revealed in every aspect in hardships and difficulties and pains in allowing evil for a time in judging and punishing it in redeeming and saving those who want him in making the gospel available to all you see God's glory in all this it changes everything so we're gonna pray well make a quick announcement cuz I want this to be on our video as well next week we will start Jesus in Genesis now that we finish the book of Romans we're just gonna go through the book of Genesis looking at pictures of Christ types of Christ answering tough questions that come up when you try to dig into these issues we're not gonna do a verse by verse studies through the whole book I'm not gonna try to handle all the controversy in Genesis we're specifically looking at Jesus in Genesis in light of the idea that that all scripture ultimately speaks of him so that'll be fun that'll be exciting and I'm really looking forward to getting to it it'll be a several weeks of just taking our time working through Genesis looking for Jesus and trying to be trying to change the way that we read the Old Testament so that we can thoughtfully and carefully find the things that God has placed there for us yeah so let's pray father God we thank you for your word we thank you for your glory Lord your goodness your love your kindness and even your wrath because it is right and it is proper and true thank you for the incredible philosophy doctrine encouragement rebuke all these things that we get out of the book of Romans that we've been studying for this time we pray Lord that next time we read it we would we would just pick up where we left off even more we know we have not exhausted your word but we have definitely scratched the surface and it's been beautiful and solar we just thank you for this incredible incredible time this incredible book we pray as we get ready to study Genesis that you give us great wisdom and insight and you'd reveal Christ to us more and more in Jesus name Amen [Music]

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 5,968

Rating: 4.9593906 out of 5

Keywords: The end of romans, Romans 16, Romans 16:19-27, what simple concerning evil means, Erastus the treasurer, archaeology and romans 16, archaeology and Erastus, mike winger, Bible thinker, be excellent at what is good, amanuensis, tertius, what is the mystery in the Bible, what is the end of romans about, book of romans, romans 16 19

Id: xaDSP6I_Hl0

Length: 47min 23sec (2843 seconds)

Published: Mon May 21 2018