A Brick in the Valley

“I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while (Romans 15:24).

Whether or not you accept that Paul wrote Romans from Corinth, he evangelized Corinth and that area, and when you look at this map you can easily see Paul’s missions strategy.  If he traveled to Rome, as we know he did, then he could hope to solidify the church in Rome and use this as an outpost to reach Spain.

Extended as they were, the boundaries of the Roman Empire would then make it possible for the Gospel to burn throughout the known world.

*I added the red stars and labels to this map.  Otherwise, it is a scan of a page from the Hammond Atlas of the Bible, the current edition is shown below.

See also, The Miracle that Was Paul

Sunday (D.V.) I will remind our people that time in Romans should motivate us to be missional: to always be living to further the cause of Christ.  We are all about spreading the Gospel for God’s glory and our joy.

Missions was a major part of why Paul wrote Romans .  He wanted to establish a base in Rome, so that he could eventually make his way to Spain.  Once he reached Spain, Paul would have planted churches like a belt across the breadth of the Roman Empire.  With this accomplished, the Gospel would spread like a fire north into Europe and south to North Africa.  Whether or not Paul made it to Spain, we know this is what happened.

Here, John MacArthur illustrates how pastors and theologians should remember the mission.  MacArthur is best known as a preacher and student of the Bible, but this is an amazing account of how he shared his faith over a 50 year time period.

HT: Unashamed Workman

Can you imagine, realizing on judgment day, that you were mistaken about your salvation and now all that waits is eternal torment without a second chance (Matthew 7:21-23)?  I’ve talked more than once to our people about what scares me most as a pastor.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (on Romans, vol 2, page 98) makes a similar point:

“. . . There is nothing, surely, which is more dangerous to the soul than what we may call a glib believism. 

And you see how this affects all our ideas of evangelism.  If we are so anxious to get people ‘through’, as we say, instead of leaving the Holy Spirit to do His own work, we tend to say, ‘But look here, it is simple – - here, you see, the Scripture says if you believe you are saved.  Do you believe?  Yes.  Very well, you are saved, it is all right’.  But it may be all wrong!  It may be terribly all wrong!  And it can be an exceedingly dangerous thing to say that to a soul, and to give people the impression that because they have said they believe and accept, all is well.  There is a sense in which we have got to say that to them, but we must not stop at that.  We must go on – - we must say, ‘All your good living and all your works can never save you.  You have got to see that, and you have got to admit that to yourself and to God.  You have got to see that you can only be saved by the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will act upon you.  He will bring into birth a new man within you; He will implant a new principle of life in you, and that will begin to manifest itself’.  In other words, we must never stop at just believing – - we must always emphasize regeneration – - the re-birth – the new man.  Otherwise it seems to me we are leaving souls in a very dangerous position.

2 Corinthians 13:5

If you have questions about your salvation, then you really need to talk to your pastor or another mature Christ SOON.  If you don’t have a pastor, then find a Bible believing, Christ-centered church.

David L. Turner:

In evangelism and apologetics the Christian should not attempt to prove the existence of God to the unbeliever.  The unbeliever, if he is honest with himself, knows this already.  The Christian should proclaim the gospel, God’s appointed dynamic for turning the lost to himself.

In an article, “Cornelius Van Till and Romans 1:18-21: A Study in Presuppositional Apologetics,” GTJ 2:1 (Spr 81).

At our church, one of the things we have seen Paul stress in the first chapter of Romans is that people are inherently aware of God.  Even those who deny God, are only suppressing something that is stitched deeply into their being.  As a result of this awareness, people are forever worshipping something.

In the article I link to here, Al Mohler, interacts with the new religion of worshipping the environment.  (And, for the record – - Christians ought to be very concerned about the environment).

The human species is inherently and resolutely religious. The Bible and the Christian tradition affirm this truth, even as we know that the religious impulse can so easily transform itself into idolatry.

Even the most cursory of world culture’s will indicate the religious fervor that characterizes humanity. The only observers who seem shocked by this universal phenomenon are the secularists and the prophets of secularization theory who were absolutely certain that religious faith and religious fervor would disappear in the modern world.

Needless to say, it hasn’t turned out that way. The theory of secularization is a shadow of its former self. Leading proponents like Peter Berger of Boston University now acknowledge that the secularization thesis was not an accurate predictor of the fate of religious belief in the modern world. The modern world is not secularized. Indeed, many of the most heated conflicts around the world today involve conflicting faiths. As Berger has commented, it turns out that a few European nations and the American intellectual elites are the exceptions, rather than the rule.

And yet, the intellectual elites are not so secular as they believe themselves to be. As it happens, their religion may not be theistic, but it is a religion all the same.

That fact is confirmed in a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Stephen T. Asma, a professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago, argues that the new religion of many secular folk is ecology. As Asma explains, many secular types suffer from “green guilt.”

In “Green Guilt,” he writes:

Now the secular world still has to make sense out of its own invisible, psychological drama—in particular, its feelings of guilt and indignation. Environmentalism, as a substitute for religion, has come to the rescue. Nietzsche’s argument about an ideal God and guilt can be replicated in a new form: We need a belief in a pristine environment because we need to be cruel to ourselves as inferior beings, and we need that because we have these aggressive instincts that cannot be let out.

The rest here.

If nothing else, read the last paragraph.

Doug Moo (NIV Application Commentary on Romans, 82-83):

We do not think these verses give any grounds for thinking that salvation can be gained apart from the gospel.  Paul’s argument in 1:18-3:20 is intended to establish the reason why God has unleashed his saving power in the gospel.  Human beings are locked in sin and need to be rescued.  For Paul to introduce at this point the possibility of salvation apart from the gospel would undercut his own argument.

What, then, do we say about people who have never had a chance to hear the gospel and either accept or reject it?  Are they automatically excluded from salvation because they do not have a chance to hear?  This very question was one of my key objections to the gospel when friends of mine in college first confronted me with the claims of Christ.  The contemporary pluralistic environment has sharpened the question even further.  Influential theologians—some within the evangelical movement—are arguing that people of genuine moral commitment can be saved apart from explicit faith in Christ.  Karl Rahner, an influential Roman Catholic theologian, has coined the term “anonymous Christians” to describe such people.

While attractive for many reasons, this view simply does not square with the claims of Scripture.  Paul’s argument in this part of Romans is straight-forward: All people are under sin’s power and can escape the wrath that sin brings only by responding in faith to the gospel of God’s righteousness in Christ (See Romans 3:9, Romans 3:20, Romans 3:21-22).  To be sure, we cannot always know just how God may reveal his gospel to people.  As Paul’s own example powerfully demonstrates, the preaching of the gospel by missionaries and others is God’s normal means of making his gospel known to people.  But we must allow that God may have other ways of revealing his gospel to people that we do not know or even understand.  So, while insisting that only faith in the gospel can save, we perhaps need to be open to different ways by which people may come to know the gospel.

One final point should be made.   The problem of those have not heard takes on a slightly different complexion depending on whether one is a Calvinist or an Arminian.  The Arminian, in a sense, has the bigger problem here.  For Arminians believe that God’s prevenient grace puts all people in the position of being able to respond to the gospel.  There response is, therefore, the crucial factor.  Calvinists, by contrast, while insisting on the need for response, also claim that the ultimate cause of salvation lies in God’s election, his specific choice of certain persons for salvation.  The Calvinist can therefore argue that God will, in his sovereignty, see that every person he has chosen will also be exposed, in one way or another, to the gospel.  Having determined the end, God will also enact the means.

I must confess that I am little closer to a compelling answer to my question about those who have not heard than I was when I was first converted.  I think Scripture requires that we insist on faith in Christ as the necessary means of salvation.  And I trust utterly in the absolute fairness of the God who has revealed himself to me in Jesus Christ.  I am content to leave my questions in his hands and hope for clearer resolution in heaven.

Why are some many Christians abandoning what the Bible teaches about the wrath of God and eternal punishment?  Al Mohler has some thoughts about this that are worth considering.

The wrath of God comes up in our text for today (Romans 2:1-5).  It strikes me in reading through Mohler’s article, I need to hear Mohler’s warning that Bible believing preachers can too say they believe the doctrine of hell, but imply that it is less than good.

I really recommend reading Mohler’s article.  You can learn a great deal from this one.

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For those in our church who are in the midst of our Romans project, realize that if we don’t understand the reality of the wrath of God and eternal punishment, then we won’t be able to comprehend the message of Romans.  Already, we have see that Paul believes the essential human dilemma is that all people are in danger of the wrath of God.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. . . .2:3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

The emphasis on God’s wrath (or hell) is not confined to Paul.  One might turn to any number of passages including Christ’s summary statement in John 3:36.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Al Mohler posits that such liberal thinking begins when Christians feel that they need to save Christianity from itself.

Theological liberals do not intend to destroy Christianity, but to save it. As a matter of fact, theological liberalism is motivated by what might be described as an apologetic motivation. The pattern of theological liberalism is all too clear. Theological liberals are absolutely certain that Christianity must be saved…from itself.

LIBERALISM: SAVING CHRISTIANITY FROM ITSELF

The classic liberals of the early twentieth century, often known as modernists, pointed to a vast intellectual change in the society and asserted that Christianity would have to change or die. As historian William R. Hutchison explains, “The hallmark of modernism is the insistence that theology must adopt a sympathetic attitude toward secular culture and must consciously strive to come to terms with it.”^[1]

This coming to terms with secular culture is deeply rooted in the sense of intellectual liberation that began in the Enlightenment. Protestant liberalism can be traced to European sources, but it arrived very early in America—far earlier than most of today’s evangelicals are probably aware. Liberal theology held sway where Unitarianism dominated and in many parts beyond.

Soon after the American Revolution, more organized forms of liberal theology emerged, fueled by a sense of revolution and intellectual liberty. Theologians and preachers began to question the doctrines of orthodox Christianity, claiming that doctrines such as original sin, total depravity, divine sovereignty, and substitutionary atonement violated the moral senses. William Ellery Channing, an influential Unitarian, spoke for many in his generation when he described “the shock given to my moral nature” by the teachings of orthodox Christianity.^[2]

Though any number of central beliefs and core doctrines were subjected to liberal revision or outright rejection, the doctrine of hell was often the object of greatest protest and denial.

Considering hell and its related doctrines, Congregationalist pastor Washington Gladden declared: “To teach such a doctrine as this about God is to inflict upon religion a terrible injury and to subvert the very foundations of morality.”^[3]

Read more here.

For our people, it would be a great idea to prepare for tomorrow by prayerfully reflecting on last Sunday’s sermon.  You can go to the church web site to listen to sermons: www.theredbrickchurch.org .

(Romans 1:18-23) – In Romans 1:18 Paul stated that God’s wrath is being revealed.  The judgment of God is seen already in some measure, but his awful wrath will be poured out fully at the final judgment.

The fact of God’s wrath begs the question, "Is it fair that God should reveal his wrath?"  The answer to that question is an emphatic "yes" because since the creation of the World God has plainly made himself known to all people.  Everyone knows that God is (1) All-mighty and (2) All-righty.  Quoting Schreiner:

God has stitched into the fabric of the human mind his existence and power, so that they are instinctively recognized when one views the created world.

Humanity’s problem is not that it doesn’t know about God.  Rather, God has made himself known yet, humanity suppressed that knowledge.  The problem isn’t ignorance; it is rebellion.

So, our response must be to confess our sin and humble ourselves before the Lord Jesus Christ.  Even those who know Christ, should recognize that in their battle with the flesh, we still battle rebelliousness in one way or another.

God is almighty and al-righty and it is obvious from his Creation (Romans 1:18-20).  There is no excuse for not believing in Him.

Take 15 minutes and watch the, “Just Stop and Think,” video by Francis Chan, or read the below.

Francis Chan in his book, Crazy Love.

Did you know that a caterpillar has 228 separate and distinct muscles in its head? That’s quite a few, for a bug.

The average elm tree has 6 million leaves on it.

And your own heart generates enough pressure as it pumps blood throughout your body that it could squirt blood up to thirty feet. (I’ve never tried this and I don’t recommend it).

Have you ever thought about how diverse and creative God is? He didn’t have to make hundreds of different kinds of bananas, but He did. He didn’t have to put 3000 different species of trees within one square mile in the Amazon jungle, but He did. God didn’t have to create so many kinds of laughter. Think about the different sounds of your friends’ laughs—wheezes, snorts, silent, loud, obnoxious.

How about the way plants defy gravity by drawing water upward from the ground into their stems and veins? Or did you know that spiders produce three kinds of silk – when they build their webs, they create sixty feet of silk in one hour, simultaneously producing special oil on their feet that prevents them from sticking to their own web. (Most of us hate spiders, but sixty feet an hour deserves some respect!) Coral plants are so sensitive that they can die if the water temperature varies by even one or two degrees.

Did you know that when you get goose bumps, the hair in your follicles is actually helping you stay warmer by trapping body heat? Or what about the simple fact that plants take carbon dioxide (which is harmful to us) and produce oxygen (which we need to survive)? I’m sure you knew that, but have you ever marveled at it? And these same poison-swallowing, life-giving plants came from tiny seeds that were placed in the dirt. Some were watered, some weren’t; but after a few days they poked through the soil and out into the warm sunlight.

Whatever God’s reason for such diversity, creativity, and sophistication in the universe, on earth, and in our own bodies, the point of it all is His glory. God’s art speaks of Himself, reflecting who He is and what he is like.

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their measuring line goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,(Ps 19:1-4)."

This is why we are called to worship Him, His art, His handiwork, and His creation all echo the truth that He is glorious. There is no other like Him. He is the King of Kings, the Beginning, and the End, the One who was and is and is to come. I know you’ve heard this before, but don’t want you to miss it.

I sometimes struggle with how to properly respond to God’s magnitude in a world bent on ignoring or merely tolerating Him. But know this: God will not be tolerated. He instructs us to worship and fear Him.

Go back and reread the last two paragraphs. Go to the web site www.crazybooks.com and watch the “Just Stop and Think” fifteen minute video. Close this book if you need to, and meditate on the almighty One who dwells in unapproachable light, the glorious One.

Some may claim ignorance about the existence of God, but according to Romans, the reality is another matter.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.(Ro 1:19-20)."

The problem isn’t that people don’t know about God.  Rather, the problem is that they do know, yet suppress that knowledge of the truth.

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I continue with the Romans series tomorrow (D.V.).  Having covered the introduction (Romans 1:1-17), we now move into the beginning of Paul’s argument.  In this section, Paul asserts that all people know something of God whether they admit it or not.  Hence, God is justified in revealing his wrath.

Here are a few quotes to think about before the sermon.

Schreiner:

God has stitched into the fabric of the human mind his existence and power, so that they are instinctively recognized when one views the created world.

Calvin:

That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. Certainly, if there is any quarter where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilisation. But, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who, in other respects, seem to differ least from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion; so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart.”

Or, as I recall hearing Mike Wittmer summarize, “All people know that God is almighty and ‘al-righty.’”