0;00;10;27 – 00;00;31;08
She wasn’t gonna sing tonight and and kind of last minute decided to sing, and I’m glad she did. Amen. Administered my heart. It really always does. When. When I get a chance to hear her sing. But especially minister’s in my heart when I hear about the pit that he lifted us out of. And it’s a sure cure. Your past is a sheer cure for your pride.

00;00;31;10 – 00;00;52;04
If you get to thinking too much of yourself and fluffing your lapels out on your coat and thinking you’re something, just remember God’ll take anybody, right? And thank God he loved us when we were unlovable and saved us when we were unsalable and and did all those wonderful works in our hearts and lives. Amen. Thank God for the music.

00;00;52;07 – 00;01;24;20
Okay, Tonight, we’re opening our Bibles to the book of Romans chapter number one. Verse number one, Romans Chapter one, Verse number one. This is going to be our new study, and it’ll shift around a couple of times. I’m sure sometimes it’ll be on Sunday nights. In fact, I know for sure that it’ll start on Sunday nights. And then my ambitions are somewhere around a third of the way through the book to push the fast Forward button and talk about Romans on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights, potentially.

00;01;24;22 – 00;01;51;02
But we’ll see how that goes. We’ll see how the Lord leads. We just concluded our verse by verse study of the book of Matthew. That’s 28 chapters. Romans is a little shorter, 16 chapters. But it is such a profound book and such an important book to the Christian faith that we’re not going to rush our study of this wonderful book.

00;01;51;04 – 00;02;14;09
And I have for some years I’ve been writing on Romans behind closed doors. That’s not unusual for you, Pastor. I’ve always got some kind of irons in the fire when it comes to writing. In fact, I’ve got three right now that I’m writing and a host of other things. And on top of all of that, I’m thinking about re enrolling in Bible College, because what I need is one more degree.

00;02;14;09 – 00;02;43;10
That’s exactly what I need. Right? And but I love the study of God’s Word and I love being involved in that. And it keeps my mind sharp and Romans has been really sort of in the back of my mind since earlier in our study of the Gospel of Matthew. There’s really not a particularly fond reason possibly for you that why would we be going to the book of Romans next?

00;02;43;13 – 00;03;13;23
It’s just simply a matter of it’s a different writer with a different emphasis. I thought about go into the gospel of John, and certainly that would have been wonderful, but it would have been a similar emphasis with a different writer. This is an entirely different writer with an entirely different audience and an entirely different emphasis altogether. And so tonight I want to just get a taste of the book of Romans together, if we possibly can.

00;03;13;25 – 00;03;36;16
And so let me direct your attention to chapter one, beginning in verse number one. And if you are able to stand, I’d like to ask you to do that. We will not cover all of these verses, but I’m going to read the first sentence. I’m going to read the first sentence. If you’re a grammar teacher or an English teacher, you’re looking at how long that sentence is.

00;03;36;16 – 00;04;14;01
It’s actually seven verses long, and there’s a lot of punctuation in between here and yonder in the sentence, but I’m going to read the first sentence. So. ROMANS Chapter one, verse one, if you have your place there tonight, church where you see a man, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under the Gospel of God, comma, which he had promised to for by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.

00;04;14;04 – 00;04;56;17
And there’s that punctuation and declare Lord to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, and another punctuation by whom we have received grace and the apostle ship from for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name, among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ, another colon, and verse seven to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

00;04;56;17 – 00;05;25;26
And finally we come to the end of the first sentence. You can be seated. Thank you for your referencing of God’s Word. Our English version permits us to observe this from a considerably different point of view than what Paul originally wrote in the book of Romans. An ancient letter was, in my opinion, much more sensible than letters that we have today.

00;05;25;28 – 00;05;50;18
I still write letters. I put them in the mail or put a stamp on them, put them in the mail, send them to recipients. Sometimes I do that for church members, sometimes I do that for others who may need some information or sometimes to be an encouragement or a correction, even to someone. I wrote a letter recently to North Carolina, to a pastor who was who was had become an enemy.

00;05;50;20 – 00;06;13;23
And I was saddened by the results of that. But nevertheless, I felt like the best thing for me to do is sit down and write a letter. I like letter letter writing because it allows you to think a little bit instead of just saying what comes into your mind first and then sending a text message. Letter writing takes more exactness.

00;06;13;23 – 00;06;48;05
It takes more thought, and it sometimes kind of tumbles around in your heart and mind, and your mood may change before you write a letter. In response to something that may have been taking place. But when we write a letter, when I write a letter, and when you write a letter, we were taught in grammar that you write the letter, you put a salutation at the beginning of the letter to whom it may concern or to brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so, or to my beloved, or to this individual or that individual that’s at the head of the letter.

00;06;48;07 – 00;07;19;21
And then at the very close of the letter, you close with some form of a closing salutation. Sincerely, Brad Bailey or always Brad Bailey or something of that nature. Well, the ancient letters were very different. They, I think, were more logical. They put the person’s name writing the letter at the top, and then often they would include other names towards the end.

00;07;19;23 – 00;07;50;07
And that’s what happened with this. Paul signs the letter to the Romans. First you see the very first word in the book of Romans is the name Paul. Now he goes on and he mentions considerable other names in the book of Romans. And I know it’s premature, but if you go all the way to the end of the book, Chapter 16, you’ll notice that there is a long list of names at the end of the book as he writes to the Romans.

00;07;50;14 – 00;08;11;13
He is now closing his letter. And this is sort of like a postscript. He says in chapter 16, verse one, I commend unto you, Phoebe, our sister, which is a servant of the church, which is in sin Korea. And he goes on and mentions in verse three, Priscilla and Aquila, a couple who had been especially helpful to him.

00;08;11;15 – 00;08;41;08
And then in verse number five, he salutes his well, beloved empanadas, which is of the first fruits of a cake. He says in verse six, Great Mary, verse seven, Salute and draw Andronicus and Junior, my kinsman in verse eight, it’s amply said in verse number nine, it’s stack. Yes. And verse number ten, it’s applies. And you see in verse 11, there are names and in verse 12, a couple of interesting names here.

00;08;41;10 – 00;08;58;21
If you’re having twins, maybe this would be a good one. Salute tri fino and tri fossa. If you haven’t selected a name for a pair of twins, I’d be good. I don’t even know if that’s boys or girls, but there they are, tri fino and tri fossa. Then this important person in verse 13, Rufus, did you know that name is in the Bible?

00;08;58;23 – 00;09;28;19
So Paul was a man of names and he shared names in, in all of his books. He’s constantly saying hello to Harry and goodbye to Mary, and he’s constantly mentioning the names of people because he had a personal love for most people. There are other people, however, that the Apostle Paul had to warn the church about him. For example, in one of his letters, he wrote a warning about a fellow named Alexander the Coppersmith.

00;09;28;22 – 00;09;49;20
We don’t know a whole lot about Alexander the Coppersmith, other than what Paul told us. He said he did me much evil. He said, You beware of that man. You be cautious. If that man shows up at church, remember to mark Alexander, the Alexander the Coppersmith. He’s a troublemaker. And there are other names that the Apostle Paul mentions with a negative tone.

00;09;49;22 – 00;10;19;03
But when we come to the first name and chapter one of Romans, we are introduced to a biblical reality, which is the principle of a changed name. Now, my name since the beginning of my birth has always been Joshua Brad baling I go by bread and there’s a story behind that. My brother’s name is Jason Chad Bailey. We’re identical twins.

00;10;19;06 – 00;10;44;10
He was born first and then I was born 12 minutes later. I was nearly £9. He was a little over £8. Mama said when she got to finish delivering us the doctor who delivered us, he said, This is the biggest set of twins I’ve ever delivered in my life. And we went to school in a tiny little town called Norman Park, Georgia.

00;10;44;12 – 00;11;08;00
And when we went to elementary school, they’re come to find out there was another set of twins. If you can imagine the likelihood of this, a very unlikely event. But there was another set of twins in the exact same town that went to the exact same school. And we’re in the exact same grade as us. And guess what their names were Jason, Chad and Joshua.

00;11;08;03 – 00;11;33;11
Brad. So there were two sets of twins named Jason, Chad and Joshua. Brad. So they had to figure that out. So the teachers decided we’re going to call one set, Jason and Joshua, we’re going to call the other, said Chad and Brad. So we got stuck being called Chad and Brad instead of being called by our very scriptural first names, Jason and Joshua.

00;11;33;13 – 00;11;58;11
My name is never changed. Now I’ve been called by nicknames. And nicknames sometimes can be a little provocative. For example, when I lived out in the great state of California, they called me Okie because one day I was talking to them about longing to go back home and see the Okefenokee Swamp again. And that became my name Okie.

00;11;58;13 – 00;12;24;29
Some of them call me redneck, a lot of the things and I called them a lot of names to believe that. But names are an important, important assignment. And when we look at the name of Paul, it’s important to point out that that was not his original name. His original name was, in fact, Saul. And he was named after Israel’s first king.

00;12;25;03 – 00;12;58;20
You remember that there was Saul, then there was David, then there was Solomon, then there was Rehoboam and subsequent kings followed. But the very first king of Israel was Saul, and so Saul of Tarsus that we’re studying tonight, who would later became become known as the apostle Paul Saul of Tarsus, was in fact his original name. He was born Jewish, but because his father had Roman citizenship, Saul of Tarsus enjoyed dual citizenship.

00;12;58;20 – 00;13;30;23
He was not only a citizen of of Hebrew descent, but he was also a citizen of Rome, which gave him incredible open doors in his life. He was a very important fellow. If you if you are a fan of the Apostle Paul and have ever studied his childhood in his life, you’re probably aware that his early upbringing was pretty impressive if he was from that town called Tarsus.

00;13;30;25 – 00;13;56;27
If you’re not familiar with Tarsus, you might need to know that there were three universities or three schools of teaching in the region, and one of those was at Tarsus. And if you were an especially promising young person, it was likely that they would pre enroll you in the University of Tarsus and you could get early classes. Even in your elementary education, you could become a student.

00;13;56;29 – 00;14;40;12
And that university. So the name Paul is an afterthought. He was originally Saul of Tarsus. Now, let me explain a little bit about Saul of Tarsus as a child of 13 after his bar mitzvah. He was such a promising young man, such an intelligent kid, that it was decided that he would be shipped from Tarsus down to Jerusalem and would become a live in pupil of the greatest Bible teacher of the day, whose name was Gamaliel.

00;14;40;14 – 00;15;11;03
Gamaliel was an important person because he was responsible for a handful of pupils that he would teach and that he would impart this this history of Judaism, too. And he would make radicals out of these young people. He would become their hero and he would make radicals out of these young people. Now, stay with me, because where I’m going with this, I hope, will be helpful to help us better understand the book.

00;15;11;05 – 00;15;52;12
So at 13, he becomes a student of Gamaliel and at 14, 15, 16, as the years began to come in, the years began to go through catechism and repeating scripture and memorization. Saul of Tarsus, the boy, became a memorize year of the Old Testament, and he would have memorized the Pentateuch. That’s right. All 50 chapters of Genesis, all 40 chapters of Exodus, the entire book of Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy.

00;15;52;19 – 00;16;23;02
He knew it by heart. Without chapter and verse divisions, you could begin quoting a portion of Scripture and Saul of Tarsus could pick up from that point and finish it all the way to the end of the Pentateuch. Very bright when you agree. So Saul of Tarsus has this background, and as he is enjoying this teaching, he is also being radicalized by Gamaliel.

00;16;23;04 – 00;16;57;25
You see, when he was a young adult, there was a radical preacher born in Bethlehem by the name of Jesus. And this Jesus had grown into adulthood. And while Saul of Tarsus was a young man, he was observing at a distance as the takeover of Jerusalem, spiritually speaking by Jesus Christ and the followers of Jesus Christ were enemies to people like Saul of Tarsus.

00;16;57;28 – 00;17;35;27
In fact, there was a racism that existed in the heart and mind of Saul of Tarsus that would have been impossible to ignore. He despised Christians. He loathed the thought that a Gentile could be brought into the family of God and uncircumcised gentile was not welcome. And so because of that, as he graduated from the school of Gamaliel, he became an ideal tool.

00;17;36;00 – 00;18;19;15
He would be used to persecute the church Saul of Tarsus. He would become a pursuer of a genocidal persecution that would hopefully destroy the church of the living God, destroy the people of God, eradicate them, exterminate them, and bring Judaism back from the brink of extinction in Jerusalem. So Saul of Tarsus, if you can imagine this with me, would have on numerous occasions received warrants for the arrest and the execution of Christians.

00;18;19;21 – 00;18;48;17
He’s zealous, he’s bright, he’s young, he’s educated, he knows his stuff. So as he goes out and begins to investigate and find these Christians, he starts in Jerusalem. And then when he found a group of Christians meeting together, he would gather them all up and he would do what he called later, forcing them to blaspheme, forcing them to blaspheme.

00;18;48;19 – 00;19;17;26
In other words, he would say, you must use the name of Jesus as a curse word. And there were some of them who did. Because when you’re facing death, you don’t know what you’re going to say. So he would hold a sword to their neck, or in some occasions he might hold a sword to the back of the neck of a group of children and compel their parents.

00;19;17;28 – 00;19;46;20
You curse the name of Jesus, and then he would personally curse the name of Jesus and ask them to repeat after him. You call Jesus. Will you excuse me for just a moment? Well, you he would say you call Jesus a bastard because it was assumed that Jesus had been born illegitimately from a Roman soldier. And Saul of Tarsus was capitalizing on that assumption and spreading that information.

00;19;46;28 – 00;20;22;15
Jesus is illegitimate, Jesus is bad seed, and he would curse the name of Jesus and say, Now you say that I’m going to kill your kid. And when they didn’t say it, Saul of Tarsus killed their children. He on occasion would also bring a wife before her husband. Sometimes it started very methodically with the youngest child being killed, the next child the next and the next, all the way to the oldest child.

00;20;22;17 – 00;20;56;04
And when a dad would not deny the name of Jesus or curse or blaspheme or renounce the name of Jesus, Saul of Tarsus with Peter would either personally give the order for a soldier to kill his wife or Saul would do it himself. Some some people have told the stories in Fox’s book of Martyrs of women who were martyred before their husbands, and they started by cutting off their left pinky, then their right pinky, then their ring fingers on both hands, their middle finger, their index finger, their thumbs, then their left breast, then their right breast.

00;20;56;04 – 00;21;26;28
And if she survived all of that, the husband still having not renounced the name of Jesus, they would chop off her head in front of her husband and then kill her husband. Saul of Tarsus was that kind of persecutor. He hated Christians. I want you to get that in your mind. I hope the next time you read one of the Apostle Paul’s letters, you remember that he wasn’t always Paul.

00;21;27;01 – 00;21;58;20
He used to be Saul. He went to a school that taught him this hate. He went to a school that persuaded him that these Christians, the world would be better off without them. So one day he had received a warrant from the priests of Jerusalem because he heard that in Damascus there was a group of Christians huddled together, meeting and studying the scripture.

00;21;58;23 – 00;22;29;16
He got his warrant from the authorities in Jerusalem and on the way to Damascus. He goes while he’s on the road to Damascus, to Damascus with a caravan of executed persecutors and executed as Saul of Tarsus is astonished by something he saw. No one else saw it, no one else heard it. But Saul of Tarsus is smitten by a presence.

00;22;29;18 – 00;23;12;03
It’s a very spooky encounter for him because this person whom Saul meets on the road to Damascus, he announces himself as Jesus Christ. Wait a minute. You’re that Jesus that was dead and buried? You see, Saul of Tarsus didn’t believe in the resurrection. You’re that Jesus is that I have been cussing. You’re that Jesus, that I have been killing the followers of Jesus speaks to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, and he says, Yes, it is me.

00;23;12;05 – 00;23;45;16
Then he says something to Saul that haunted him. He said, Saul, Saul, why persecute us down me? It is hard for the to kick against the pricks. Understanding the manners and customs of that is important to understand. The conversion of Saul to Paul. The pricks were an ox God that had been designed to persuade Ox to continue working, even after they were tired.

00;23;45;19 – 00;24;15;09
And on occasion they would hook an ox to a plow that had these spikes. They called him the pricks, but it was spikes that had been designed for when the ox is as the ox moved forward and his and his back step his butt, the back of his calf would often rub against that prick, rub against that steak, rub against that spike and that ox was reminded, I have to keep moving forward.

00;24;15;16 – 00;24;47;01
I cannot go backward. And on some occasions that Ox would get so exhausted that he would buck. He would, as it’s called, kick against the pricks. And all he was doing was injuring himself because the person driving that team of oxen was not going to give in. So the spirit of God, through the words of Jesus Christ, convicts Saul of Tarsus in his first experience, true experience with God.

00;24;47;08 – 00;25;15;02
And he says to him, Saul, Saul, why persecute us now? Me It is hard for me to kick against the bricks. In other words, you have only been hurting yourself. It’s time for your eyes to be closed and then opened and a blindness comes over. Saul of Tarsus. The Scripture describes it as scales over his eyes. It could have been some physical condition.

00;25;15;02 – 00;25;48;19
There’s all types of optimal, optimal, logical issues that people have assumed that Paul had. Some believe that he had eye infections which would cause a glaze or a smokiness to be over his eyes. There are other things that people assumed that he had. What we do know is that he was he was almost entirely blind, and there were on that occasion, scales placed over his eyes and it was told him that he had been chosen to be the evangelist to the Gentiles.

00;25;48;22 – 00;26;23;23
Now, remember, he hates Gentiles. He calls them dogs. That’s like us using a racial slur about some other race. Paul Saul of Tarsus, excuse me, hated Gentiles, especially Gentile believers. So it was later that he was brought in again and heard from Jesus. And he was commissioned to become the evangelist who had reached the Gentiles and the scales fell from his eyes.

00;26;23;26 – 00;26;59;10
His eyes were opened to an entirely and completely different new world. Everything I’ve just told you is the conversion of Saul to Paul. God changes lives, but that starts with God changing minds. You see, in my one of my newest books that I’m writing right now called the Persecuted Pastors Manual, I have a chapter in there on Can you win the persecutor if you get arrested or if I get arrested?

00;26;59;13 – 00;27;27;04
And if those circumstances existed, I and you possibly may have an opportunity to stand before the court. And in that opportunity, that is when Jesus said, don’t fight, don’t take any thought about what you’re going to say, because the Spirit will tell you what to say in that hour and in that opportunity, we have a chance to speak the truth before magistrates and before advocates and before attorneys and before juries.

00;27;27;06 – 00;28;00;07
That may be our last chance to preach, but that would be an opportunity for us to share the truth on that occasion. And let me take you on just one more brief little journey, and the time will be out. When Saul of Tarsus was persecuting those Christians, there were some Christians who denied and blaspheme the name of Jesus to escape it, and Saul would just laugh because he persuaded them to renounce the name of Jesus.

00;28;00;09 – 00;28;25;11
But there were others who would not. He hemmed up one guy and caught him and said, We’re going to have a time with this one. He’s going to be stubborn, but I’m going to break him. He’s not going to renounce the name of Christ, but I’m going to make him pay for it. The fellow’s name was Stephen. You remember him?

00;28;25;14 – 00;29;00;21
Stephen was a deacon in the church, and Stephen was especially spiritual, bold. He had a real case of holy boldness. Stephen had condemned people like Saul of Tarsus. When they got him, Saul did something that customarily would have been an insult to Stephen. He said he he allowed people to gather around Stephen and stone him to death. That’s the way Stephen would die.

00;29;00;23 – 00;29;26;18
But the Bible says the young man who was there supervising all of this was Saul. It’s Saul of Tarsus, and it says he was holding the goats of those who stoned Stephen to death. That’s an insult. It means you’re not worthy of my personal attention. But I hold the code of somebody else while they kill you. And so Saul laughed.

00;29;26;21 – 00;29;57;05
Every time a stone cut through the scalp of Stephen Saul of Tarsus, mocked and said, Speak up now, big boy. You’re so bold. You are so devout. Let’s see how devout you are when those stones break through your head and the Bible says that Stephen lifted his head to heaven. Listen to me church very closely. Now Stephen lifted his head to heaven.

00;29;57;10 – 00;30;24;12
And as those stones were pelting him over and over and over, and as the pain began to fade and turn into death, Stephen looked up into heaven. The Bible says that he could see all the way to the third heaven. What is he? See? You remember the story Stephen reported and said, I see Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father?

00;30;24;12 – 00;30;53;17
Understand with me that since Jesus died and went to heaven, he had been seated at the right hand of the Father. But on this occasion he’s standing. Why does he do that? We could suppose that every time a faithful martyr pays the price and dies for his feet, Jesus stands up to receive them like a hero. We could suppose that.

00;30;53;20 – 00;31;27;19
And as Stephen sees Jesus standing up, I think Saul of Tarsus heard those final words that he spoke as Jesus received Stephen up into heaven. And Saul of Tarsus looked at that faithful man who would not renounce his faith, and he was smitten right here in his heart. And the conviction process began as Saul of Tarsus began at that point to question, am I doing the right thing?

00;31;27;21 – 00;32;19;00
Killing husbands, killing mothers, killing children? Am I doing the right thing? But he could not resist his upbringing. And so it was on the road to Damascus. He was going to kill Christians. And that is when Jesus confronted him and Saul became Paul after Paul was converted. I’m done now. After Paul was killed, after Saul was converted and became Paul, he became the evangelist to the Gentile church and he wrote Romans first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians is Colossians first and second Thessalonians.

00;32;19;03 – 00;32;47;07
Then he wrote pastoral epistles like first, the second Timothy and Titus. Then he wrote the journal Epistle of Philemon, and there are speculations that he wrote Hebrews. I do not believe that he did. He wrote a large portion of our New Testament. The last book that he wrote is Philippians, and he wrote it from a jail in Rome.

00;32;47;10 – 00;33;17;24
It’s interesting how the tables turned. This Saul of Tarsus, who used to persecute Christians now becomes persecuted. His dream throughout his whole life was to go to Rome. If you read his writings, he was confident. He was confident. I’ll be in Rome one day. Wait for me. I’m coming to Rome. You’ll see my face one day. His anticipation, his ambitions to go to Rome were never fulfilled until the end of his life.

00;33;17;24 – 00;33;42;13
And he did not go there as a preacher. He went there as a prisoner. He went there in chains. And when he arrived in Rome, he was tried and prosecuted by a tribunal under the leadership of Nero. You know that name and he was condemned as an insurrectionist and they cut off his head.

00;33;42;15 – 00;34;10;09
But before they cut off his head, he wrote him a letter. And that is the book of Romans. It’s the words of an old preacher who’s just about to die. Now, I want you to understand that with me, Paul is not a neophyte. Paul is not a rookie. Paul is no young Sprout. He’s not green. He has been beaten and persecuted.

00;34;10;13 – 00;34;43;02
He has preached thousands of messages. He has written thousands of words. And Romans is, in the estimation of some, the greatest book he ever wrote. So if you can’t tell it, I’m just a little bit excited about Romans and I hope you’ll get excited with me. Father. I pray that you will open our hearts and make room in there for us to receive the teachings of the book of Romans.

00;34;43;04 – 00;35;11;17
Thank you, Father, for Saul becoming Paul. If he had never become Paul, we wouldn’t have much to talk about. This is a monumental conversion. This stands head and shoulders above every other conversion in the New Testament. The transitioning of Saul to Paul is probably outside of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is probably the greatest gift that was ever given to the church.

00;35;11;19 – 00;35;34;05
Thank you for the Apostle Paul, and I pray that as we discover him as a servant, as we discover him as a writer, as we discover him as a as a visionary, as an evangelist, as a missionary, I pray that you will help us, Lord, to fall in love with the man, but additionally, help us, Lord, to have an appreciation for what he says.

00;35;34;07 – 00;35;36;12
In Jesus name, we pray.