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Romans 1 By Stephen Bignall

Romans 1:15

in writing to the Roman Church.
And that's found for us in the first chapter.
He says in verse 15 of that chapter, So, as much as in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you, who are in Rome also.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
for it is the power of God to salvation
for everyone who believes,
for the Jew first,
and also for the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God
is revealed from faith to faith,
as it is written,
The just shall live by faith.
He is writing to a church.
He is not writing to a pagan audience.
He is not writing to people who do not profess
to know Jesus Christ.
He is writing to the church in Rome.
Those who are called to be saints.
Those who are the beloved of God.
And he says to them,
I am ready to preach the gospel to you also,
who are in Rome.
He is not ashamed of this gospel.
This gospel is the power of God
to salvation for every type of man,
for every type of human being,
for Greek and Jew, for Gentile.
This gospel is the righteousness of God revealed.
It is the righteousness that is so needful
if we are to approach God.
It is the righteousness that is only acceptable
by which one may approach God.
It is the righteousness which is given
through the gospel from faith to faith,
as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
And so that is Paul's desire
to bring the gospel to God's people,
that they may bring the gospel to the world at Rome,
to that great city,
that city whose unrighteousness,
whose hedonistic pleasures,
whose rebellions and idolatry and sensuality
and darkness was unparalleled in history.
Those who were going to put those Christians
into arenas and be entertained by their death.
These are the ones to whom Paul is writing,
men and women and children who are going to die
for this gospel and who did die
and who as one writer put it,
their blood became the seed of the church.
Their blood became the testimony
that sealed the fruitfulness of the gospel.
These are the ones to whom Paul is writing.
And how does he begin?
He says, well, the just shall live by faith.
I'm going to preach the gospel to you
and this is where he begins in the very next verse,
for the wrath of God is revealed.
For the wrath of God is revealed.
That's what the gospel reveals.
Firstly and foremost.
See, that's the foundation that has to be laid
and you will have heard these verses expounded.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all unrighteousness and wickedness of men.
That is the foundation which he lays.
And then upon that foundation,
he places every man and woman and child on the earth
and at the beginning of chapter 2 he says,
Therefore you are inexcusable, whoever you are.
Therefore you are inexcusable, whoever you are.
And what he's done there is he's taken the Jewish hearers
that he has in mind who are there in the church at Rome,
the Gentiles who have come into the church
from their pagan idolatry and their darkness
and he's put them all on the same level.
You are inexcusable, whoever you are.
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all unrighteousness and that unrighteousness is yours.
You have no excuse.
And he proceeds in chapter 2 to lay out that all are guilty.
That the Jew cannot say to the Gentile, I am righteous.
You are a Gentile. You are unrighteous.
You do not have the promises of God.
You do not have the heritage of God.
You do not have the word of God.
You are not circumcised according to the covenant of God.
I am more righteous than you are.
I can judge you by God's law and be judged by no one.
He concludes that both Jew and Greek are under the same condemnation
and he finishes that chapter by saying to them
that he is not a Jew who is one outwardly
nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly
and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit.
In the spirit, you see, it's a spiritual circumcision.
It's a cutting away by God's spirit of a man's heart.
It's an opening up of your heart.
It's a cleansing by God through his spirit of your heart.
It's a residence by his spirit in your heart
if you are truly a Jew.
It's of the heart and not of the flesh.
This salvation, this faith by which one lives
and is justified is a work of God's spirit.
It is not in the letter.
It is not according to ordinances and commandments.
It is according to the spirit of God.
It is not according to what is done in the flesh.
But according to what God has done in the heart
that salvation comes.
Why?
That the praise that it brings in heaven
might not be from men but from God.
That its praise might ring forth in heaven.
Salvation is to God's praise.
The gospel is not just meant to save sinners full stop.
It's meant to save them for the praise of God.
That he might be exalted.
That he might be gloried in.
That he might be found to be the excellent one
in whom should be every delight and every worshipful thought.
Every thankful thought.
Every, as it were, outworking of gratitude
should not be from men or for men but from God
and return to him.
And having laid that foundation
he begins to deal with some arguments
that would come to mind.
The first argument he deals with is that
well, what advantage then has the Jew?
Why be a Jew?
Why bother?
Why bother?
Why would anybody have wanted to be a Jew
if at the end of that old covenant
when Christ has come
there's going to be no difference?
It's going to be of no account.
It seemingly put both those who had the law
and those who have not the law on the same foundation.
Well, of course, Paul's not saying
there's no advantage to being a Jew.
What he's saying is
that a righteous standing before God
cannot come by what you are,
by what you were born to,
by what you have undergone in the flesh
or by what you profess to be.
A righteous standing before God
can only come from him,
can only come as his gift,
can only come through this gospel.
But there is an advantage to being a Jew.
There is profit in being one of the circumcised.
As a matter of fact, Paul says
what advantage is there?
What profit is there?
Much.
Much in every way.
Why?
Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.
That was the advantage of the Jew.
Not his circumcision in itself,
not his innate Jewishness in itself,
but that to him and to his nation
and to his children
were committed the oracles of God.
God's spokesman, God's word and God's revelation.
Now as we're gathered here tonight,
if a stranger was to walk in tonight
and we were to say to them,
what do you see?
He would probably be relatively informed.
He would see a man leading in worship.
He would hear hymns being sung.
He would hear the name of Christ and he would say,
I see Christians gathering to worship.
I see churchgoers coming to worship.
But I would put it to you tonight
that he is not a churchgoer who is one outwardly.
He is a churchgoer who is one inwardly.
What advantage do you have in being here tonight?
Much in every way.
Chiefly because tonight are committed to you
the oracles of God.
When we gather to worship like this,
what is being committed to us are the words of God,
the message of God.
They're not some arbitrary sort of counsel
from men to help us come through our lives.
They're not some trite little platitudes of morality
to help us live at peace with our neighbour
or to build a better nation.
They're not some list of rules by which
we can gather others into our club
and show them what a wonderful way of life we have to live
that makes life on earth much more bearable
and much more purposeful.
They're to declare to us the word of God,
His counsel, His will, His desire,
His provision, His purpose.
What a great advantage the Jew had.
The Jew had the oracles of God.
Do you think what it must have been like
in those early centuries, two and a half,
three and a half thousand years ago?
All the nations on earth.
There were people in Australia then.
There were people on the American continents then.
There were people in England then.
People in Russia then.
And where is God's word?
It's in one nation, in the Middle East.
And all the nations around it are in darkness.
And there is the word of God.
There is God revealing Himself to man.
There is the only hope of salvation.
That one nation, that small group of people.
What advantage the Jew had.
Much because he had the oracles of God.
And we want to look tonight, I think,
at these oracles firstly to find out
what it is that they are.
And I think it's quite appropriate
that we should go to the book of Acts in the seventh chapter.
We're reading an epistle that was written by Saul of Tartus,
Paul the Apostle.
And this very Saul of Tartus was a witness
and a consenter to the death of a man named Stephen.
And this Stephen went to a synagogue of the freed men
and preached the gospel.
And those people who were Jews were so angered
by Stephen's preaching.
This was fruitful preaching.
This was fruitful gospel preaching.
This was spiritual empowered preaching.
And what is the result?
That they to a man cry out for his death.
And they lay their hands upon him.
But what was he committing to them?
Well the answer for us is in verse 37 and 38.
This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel,
the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet
from your brethren, him you shall hear.
This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness
with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai
and with our fathers, the one who received
the living oracles to give to us.
He's declaring Christ as Don preached
from that text this morning.
That great promise from the book of the covenant
that one would come like Moses
from the brethren of Moses, from the nation of Israel.
That this one had received the living oracles
and had given them on the mount.
This prophet was there with Moses.
This prophet was the angel who spoke to him
and committed to him the living oracles.
And Stephen was preaching from the Old Testament.
He was preaching the gospel to these Jewish people.
And the first thing we want to note
is the advantage of Christ preached.
What advantage is there in these oracles of God?
The first advantage is this, that Christ is preached.
It didn't seem very advantageous to Stephen, did it?
Who would wish that that should be the result
next time we go into the community to preach the gospel?
That to a man they should cry out for our death.
Who would wish that?
And yet Stephen saw heaven opened
and the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power.
Stephen cried out to the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit.
He was preaching powerfully.
He was stirring hearts.
And what was the fruit?
He was killed.
It wasn't like the day of Pentecost.
Three thousand were added to the church that day.
No one was added to the church that day.
And yet it was preaching in the demonstration
of the spirit and of power.
What advantage is there in that?
Well, there's one advantage.
It says in chapter 8 and verse 1,
After Stephen had knelt down and cried out with a loud voice,
Lord, do not charge them with this sin.
Now Saul was consenting to his death.
There is the fruit.
Here was Saul of Tarsus.
Oh, this gospel had stirred him up now.
It was bearing fruit in him at the moment.
He was railing against it.
He went and made havoc, we're told, of the churches.
He entered every house.
He dragged off men and women.
He committed them to prison.
The living oracles had stirred up the heart of Saul of Tarsus.
He had stirred up the enmity that was there.
The fruitfulness of Christ preaches is firstly,
it stirs up the enmity that is there in the heart of man.
Remember how Paul started his gospel?
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness.
We have to be very careful today.
There's a teaching today that doesn't want to major on that wrath of God.
Doesn't want to major on the provocation that men and women commit every day.
Doesn't want to see an enmity there.
Only wants to see a need.
Only wants to see a need.
But it's an enmity in the heart of man that caused the wrath of God to be revealed.
God responded to provocation.
Hell did not occur randomly or merely for the devil.
It was prepared for the devil and his angels and for all those who love not the gospel,
who will not have Christ to rule over them,
who have provoked God and war against him every day of their life
and will not have him and will not have his Christ.
And such was Saul of Tarsus.
Hell loomed large beneath the feet of Saul of Tarsus.
Saul wasn't wandering around trying to have his needs met.
Saul was wandering around raging against God because he hated the gospel.
He hated what Stephen said.
It was a fruitful preaching because the first thing that a person has to see
is that they're bound for hell before they can be saved.
But Stephen's sermon did more than that.
I believe it was a fruit of Stephen's sermon
that caused Christ to be revealed to Saul of Tarsus.
When the Lord Jesus came to him and struck him to the ground,
the moment that he was told who it was, he knew.
He said, Who are you, Lord?
And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
And Saul closed his mouth.
It was this same Jesus that Stephen had preached.
It was this same Jesus that Stephen had seen.
It was this same Jesus for whom Stephen died.
And Saul shut his mouth and he was saved.
Christ came to Saul of Tarsus,
but he came firstly through the preaching of the gospel
and personally through his own presence
as the work of that gospel made its way deep into Saul's heart.
And it's interesting that Stephen uses the same words as Paul.
Paul got them from Stephen.
Where did he find these words, the oracles of God?
He heard Stephen's sermon.
He was taught by Stephen's sermon.
The living oracles that Moses had committed to the children of Israel,
Paul is now speaking of as having been committed to them.
You see, there's a continuity in the church of God.
One generation lies down in the dust and another generation rises up.
One generation goes to Christ in heaven until the restoration of all things
and another generation takes up what has been laid down.
One man builds and another man labours on that same foundation.
Other men have laboured and we have entered into their labours.
And the first fruit that we should look for
in the great advantage that we have in this day,
that we have the oracles of God,
is that men and women should know Christ.
And that is the fruit that firstly must come tonight.
The fruit from Christ being preached tonight, you must know Him.
You cannot serve Him.
You cannot worship Him.
You cannot offer to God anything acceptable until you know Him.
What advantage there is in the oracles of God.
That's where Paul's going to take us
as he goes through this third chapter of Romans.
That's where he's going to end up.
He's going to end up presenting Christ to this church.
He's going to end up presenting the righteousness
which is beyond the law and outside the law,
the righteousness which is of faith.
He's going to present, as he says here in verse 25,
God setting forth His Son as a propitiation,
a turner away of wrath,
a turner away of judgement,
a one who makes peace.
Christ has got to be preached
if the oracles of God are to be of any advantage.
And the Jews had an advantage.
They had the oracles of God
but they never saw fruitfulness
because they did not believe those oracles.
And that's the challenge firstly and foremostly.
Do you believe the oracles of God?
Do you believe the gospel of Christ?
Are you saved?
And will you serve in the light of God's counsel
and the light of God's oracles
or in the light of other things?
Men have always served in the light of other things.
The great danger for the church has always been
that the oracles of God won't be heeded.
That's what happened in the Dark Ages.
That's what happened to the nation of Israel also.
That's what happened at the turn of this century
less than a hundred years ago.
God's Word was impugned.
Unreliable, fallible, superstitious ramblings
of primitive people with a cultic religion.
Liberalism swept away.
It swept such destruction through the ranks of the church.
It swept away a whole generation of churches.
It emptied the pews.
And then God had mercy.
He had mercy.
And one by one, little groups of Christians
begin to spring up here and there again.
Men who believe the oracles of God preach.
Men and women who have the oracles of God in their hand
go out once more into the community.
They will not yield.
They cannot yield.
They must preach Christ.
We are the beneficiaries of God's mercy in these days,
of something that he began 40 or 50 years ago
when it seemed that liberalism was going to sweep the church
into the dustbin.
God raised up men to whom were committed the oracles of God.
That's how Paul saw his own ministry.
He saw himself as one who had been entrusted
with the gospel of Christ.
As one who had been given to preach Christ.
So this is the greatest advantage that you have tonight as a Christian.
You have the gospel of Christ.
But it's a Christ who must not only be preached,
he must be planted.
He must be planted in your hearts.
There must be a planting of the good seed
so that a fruitfulness can come.
The second place where the oracles of God are mentioned
are in Hebrews 5 and verse 12.
Or if you like, it's the third place,
counting what we have read in Romans 3.
Hebrews 5 and chapter 12.
Now this may be the apostle Paul,
or it may be his friend Barnabas.
The writer of the Hebrews doesn't identify himself.
But what he does say to these people who are struggling,
they're struggling, they want to return to the form of things.
They want to return to the circumcision.
They want to return to the sacrifices.
They want to have a religiosity.
They want some comfort in carnal ordinances.
And he says this to them in verse 12,
for though by this time you ought to be teachers,
you need someone to teach you again
the first principles of the oracles of God.
That's where he brought these wayward people
who were in danger of wanting to go back
when God had gone forward,
who were in danger of wanting to return to shadows and types
when the fullness of God's Messiah, as we heard this morning,
had come into the world and had laid down his life
as the once for all sacrifice
and had by himself, when he'd purged our sins,
sat down at the right hand of God.
They wanted to go back.
They wanted to trust in something less than Christ.
And he says you need to be taught again
the first principles of the oracles of God.
And my dear brethren, that is where we need to come,
time and time again.
We have to come back to the first principles of the oracles of God.
Our walk is only going to be fruitful
if it is principled according to the oracles of God.
These people have become so weakened in their faith,
so burdened and heavy laden.
They were as helpless as children.
They were like little babes, unable to support their own weight,
unable to speak, unable to grasp,
unable to move towards what they needed most.
Their Christian witness had fallen to the ground.
They had no strength to go on.
They had feeble knees. They had weak hands.
He'd had to feed them with milk.
He'd had to nurture them and suckle them like a mother to the breast
because they didn't have the strength to bear solid food.
And he says to them that they need to be taught again.
Everyone who partakes only of milk
is unskilled in the word of righteousness,
for he is a babe,
but solid food belongs to those who are of a full age.
That is, those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised.
Christ's word, the oracles of God, need to be planted.
There needs to be an exercise.
That's what Paul's telling these people,
who were in such terrible danger.
That danger becomes more apparent in chapter 6.
They are in danger of an apostasy.
They are in danger of having so turned
that if it were possible,
it was as if Christ had never been crucified for them.
It was as if Christ would have to be crucified for them again.
They needed to use their senses
and they needed to exercise their senses.
And the way that they were going to do that
was by using the first principles of the oracles of God.
We need to use the scriptures, brethren.
The scriptures are the power of God to salvation
and they are the teacher
by which we are instructed by our Heavenly Father.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom.
We're told there in Colossians in that reading that we read.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
It needs to be planted.
It's in all wisdom that it's planted.
It has a fruit to be born in our lives with one another.
The church of God is the planting of the Lord.
It's the planting of the oracles of God
in the hearts and in the lives of men and women.
It's men and women drawn together, unified in Christ
and in the oracle, the gospel, the word.
And that is why there's such an advantage
to having the word of Christ dwelling richly in our hearts.
Christ needs to be planted.
What does Paul say will happen if Christ is planted in our hearts?
He says in verse 16 of Colossians 3,
let the peace of God rule in your hearts
to which you were also called in one body and be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.
There'll be teaching, teaching
and there'll be admonishment and admonishing.
There'll be singing in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
There'll be gracious singing.
There'll be singing that knows the favour of God
and it'll be in your hearts to the Lord.
How long is it since you've sung with grace
in your heart to the Lord?
Oh, I hope you can say today.
Today, he's put a new song in my mouth.
Praise to my God.
I can see that today again Christ has been lifted up before me
as he is every day,
as he has been from the time when I was taken from darkness
into his marvellous light,
as he has been from the time that I knew
that my sins are the bliss of that glorious thought,
my sins not in part but the whole are nailed to the cross
and I bear them no more.
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul.
Can you remember that day? Is it today?
Is it today?
There is the strength of Christ planted in the hearts.
There is the strength of the church
to minister to the present generation.
There is the answer to the wrath of God revealed from heaven,
the salvation from God revealed from heaven,
the one who bears the wrath of God
and bears the sin that provoked that wrath,
the Son of God whose word we have
and it should dwell richly.
It should dwell richly in our hearts.
We need not look to anything else.
The good old confession puts it this way,
all that is necessary for faith and for practice
is found in this word.
This word is meant to dwell richly,
abundantly, fully, fruitfully.
There is great advantage in this
and there is great advantage in Christ thereby
being professed in the world,
preached, planted and professed.
This takes us to the last place
where the oracles of God are mentioned in the New Testament
other than in our text
and that is in the first epistle of Peter,
the fourth chapter and the eleventh verse.
And here we are told how to profess Christ in the world,
how to practice righteousness,
how to be the church of God.
You remember what Peter called them?
He called them the pilgrims of the dispersion,
dispersed into all the world.
Stephen's death led to that dispersion.
Stephen's death caused them to be scattered everywhere
and they went preaching the word of God.
That's also there in Acts 7 and 8.
And Peter tells us here in chapter 4
and particularly in the eleventh verse,
how we are to profess Christ in this world.
If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.
Funny, until I had the task of bringing the Word tonight
I'd never looked at this.
It's amazing, isn't it, this term, the oracles of God.
The oracle is the one who speaks with authority,
who speaks with knowledge, whose words are truth and wisdom,
unneedful and appropriate.
When we speak, we're speaking as the oracles of God.
Why? Because the word of God should not only dwell richly in our hearts
but come forth from our lips in this world.
That is what is going to save people.
That is what is going to cause them to fall on their knees before God,
to feel the weight of their sins and to feel that weight removed.
That's what causes people to follow hard after Christ.
Their burden is lifted.
A new song is in their heart.
A new strength is in their hands.
A new light is before their eyes.
A new person has emerged.
A new companion dwells with them
and never leaves them nor forsakes them.
Christ by His Spirit comes and they speak as the oracles of God.
If anyone ministers, that's the word for service.
They're all ministers of Christ, if you're a believer tonight.
They're all ministers of Christ.
And if you are to minister, if you are to undertake,
let him do it with the ability which God supplies.
Did you know you can't do it with your natural ability?
You can't do it without the ability that God supplies.
As you are helpless for salvation and to be acceptable in God's sight,
so you are helpless for ministry unless you have the oracle of God,
unless you have the presence which God supplies.
Himself, Himself empowering you, Himself going before you,
Himself giving you the words that you ought to speak.
That's what Jesus, our Lord, told His disciples,
that in that day they weren't to worry what they would speak
because their Heavenly Father would give them the words to speak.
Those Roman Christians, who was going to give them the words to speak?
What would you say as your wife and children stood beside you
and a thousand, a hundred thousand screaming Romans were baying for your blood
and the Caesar raised his hand and they fell silent
and the gate flew up and the beasts began to stalk in to the arena?
What would you say?
What would you say?
That's where these people were headed.
They were headed for a persecution beyond belief
and Paul was preparing them.
He was preparing them for that and he told them the oracles of God.
That's what advantage the Jew had and that is the advantage that you need
because they speak of Christ, they preach Christ, they plant Christ
and they're the only means by which you will profess Christ.
Why does Peter say that we must minister with the ability
that God supplies here in verse 11 of 1 Peter 4?
That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Turn back to Romans 3 and just go up one verse from the beginning to Romans 2
and verse 29, whose praise is not from men but from God.
That's how it works.
The one who preaches Christ, in whom Christ is planted,
who professes Christ in the world, their praise is from God
because their profession has brought glory to God.
The excellency is of God, you see.
Where the oracles of God are preached.
It's the word of God and not the word of man.
It's something in which we cannot glory.
It's something in which people cannot say,
what an excellent speaker he is.
I wonder where he learnt to do that.
What wonderful arguments this man has come up with
as he seeks to persuade us to follow after this God.
They won't be able to say that.
Why? Because it will be declared to them that what has been professed
is from God. It's written in a book and that book will be given to people.
The oracles of God will be committed to more and more and more people.
What an advantage there is in the oracle of God being committed
to the hands of men and women.
Are you prepared tonight to commit those oracles into the hands of men and women?
Are you prepared as the Church of Christ to profess him in the world
according to the power, the ability which God supplies,
that the glory might be to him through Jesus Christ?
That's the challenge.
The Jew had the advantage and he squandered it.
He squandered it.
He came unto his own and his own received him not.
But to as many as received him gave he power, authority,
to become the sons of God.
You need to know that power.
You need to have that authority to be called the son, the daughter,
the child, the heir, the beloved of God.
You need to have Christ planted in your heart to be fruitful in his church
and to profess him in the world.
Remember what Paul is preaching.
He's preaching the gospel to them.
He's ready to do that to this church in Rome.
Are you ready to do that to the world here at Ellimold Vale
and here to the church that is at Ellimold Vale,
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
making melody in your hearts to the Lord,
with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
May God grant that it would be so,
because only then will the glory be given to him.
And then, as David said in Psalm 51,
then sinners will be converted unto you.
Amen.