00;00;00;00 – 00;00;20;10
Turn with us to the book of Romans. My wife gave me the the all clear here with no special music tonight that’s going to give us an opportunity to get in the word a little bit early. And if we get in early, maybe we can get out early. All right. So find your copy of the word and turn with us to Romans chapter one, our verse by verse series Exposition, Early through the book of Romans.

00;00;20;10 – 00;00;40;20
And we have started this now several weeks ago. And we’re just now tonight going to be scratching the surface of chapter one, really getting into verse number two. So I’m going to read the first seven verses to help us to get some consideration of the context. So if you’re able to stand, please do that and we’ll we’ll get right into our teaching part of this in just a few moments here.

00;00;40;20 – 00;01;22;18
ROMANS Chapter one, beginning in verse number one. ROMANS Chapter one, Verse number one. If you have your place there, church, we see him in Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under the Gospel of God are our focus verses first two, it’s a parenthesis, a parenthetical verse, which he had promised a four by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seat of David, according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, by whom we have received grace and the apostle ship for obedience

00;01;22;18 – 00;01;43;02
to the faith among all nations, for his name, among whom are you also the call of Jesus Christ? To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that’s one sentence, and that’s going to be for our our consumption. Tonight. You can be seated.

00;01;43;03 – 00;02;15;18
Verse number two is an interesting little insert into the chain of thought that the Apostle Paul offers to us in this opening sentence of the Epistle to the Romans. And we have been thoroughly introduced to Paul the last several Sunday evenings we’ve spent with him. We have learned why he declares himself to be a servant of Jesus Christ, and we learn what servant means and and we learn more about not only him, but about the person of Jesus Christ because of his devotion to him.

00;02;15;20 – 00;02;37;03
We talked about Paul’s calling and verse number one, the necessary reality of a calling. And then we talked about him as an apostle also in verse number one, and we identified that he was certified and qualified to be able to call himself an apostle. And there are no more of those today. We are. We are all out of apostles.

00;02;37;03 – 00;02;59;29
They passed away with the with the with the completion of the New Testament. When the Old Testament was completed, the prophets were done. And when the New Testament was completed, word for word, the apostles were finished. And so we introduced ourselves to Paul in all of those ways. And then we saw last Sunday evening that verse number one says he separated unto the Gospel of God.

00;03;00;04 – 00;03;22;05
Now, that allows us to sort of get a head start into the contents of verse number two. And I think it’s a powerful verse, even though it’s parenthetical, it’s not the main theme of the sentence. But nevertheless, I think it stands on its own two feet in terms of content, he says, which he had promised of for by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

00;03;22;05 – 00;04;03;26
God promised the Gospel to be given, and he made that promise initially in the Old Testament by the prophets. So this promise of the gospel is what we’re going to be discussing tonight. And sometimes we make a mistake when we are dividing our Bible. There are people who are so firm on the two general divisions of the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament that they may be of the assumption that the Old Testament qualifies as the law and the New Testament qualifies as the Gospel.

00;04;03;28 – 00;04;36;06
But what he tells us in verse number two is that the promise of the Gospel of God, that his first mention in verse one actually finds its roots in the Old Testament. So we have one Bible, and we should appreciate it as a unit. We’re thankful for the divisions, especially Old and New Testament. But with those divisions, sometimes there are people that become addicts of the Old Testament and they reject the entire New Testament.

00;04;36;08 – 00;05;02;27
And then there are people who are addicts of the New Testament and they reject the whole of the Old Testament. It’s not suitable to reject any part of the Bible. I need to get me an amen on that before we go any further. All Scripture the Bible says, is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for corruption, for destruction and righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

00;05;03;00 – 00;05;36;28
The Old Testament is Jesus concealed the New Testament as Jesus revealed. And if we eliminate one or the other, we are eliminating an enormous and enormously important section of the Bible. The Old Testament is necessary. It is necessary. Now, I know that it contains the law, and I know that Baptist far and wide, when they hear anybody preach something they don’t like, they they tend to dismiss it by saying, Well, that’s Old Testament.

00;05;37;00 – 00;06;04;29
And I understand there are certain things in the Old Testament that we do not do. For example, we don’t sacrifice anymore animals because Jesus is the lamb that takes away the sins of the world. And so that’s not necessary. There are other ceremonial binds, bindings, and the old Testament that we are not committed to anymore. For example, we don’t have those feast days like Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles and Feast of Trumpets and Rosh Hashanah and Feast of Passover and all of those things.

00;06;04;29 – 00;06;37;14
We don’t celebrate those things because why? That’s Old Testament. We are not bound to rituals as they were in the Old Testament. We’re not bound to the calendar of the Old Testament. I do understand. I’m not a I’m not a newcomer to this. I do understand that there are things in the Old Testament that we do not do any longer, but those are only things that were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.

00;06;37;19 – 00;07;09;01
The rest of it is still for us. For example, first mention of cornbread is in the Old Testament. Can I get a hallelujah on that one? Do you like corn bread? And you’re an Old Testament fan. It’s important that we are able to rightly divide the word now when we cross the threshold from the Old Testament into the New Testament, we still have the same God.

00;07;09;03 – 00;07;42;03
He’s the same. What? Yesterday, today and forever. So although we are in a new covenant in 2022, we still have great lessons that can be taught to us and great things that can be learned from the old covenant. Right now in my Bible reading, I’m in the Old Testament and I am thoroughly enjoying it. And in my career as a teacher of the word, I’ve taught the Old Testament of in colleges and different places and schools and such and in church.

00;07;42;05 – 00;08;17;25
And I’m telling you what you will find Christ manifested in the Old Testament in unique ways. If you’re if you have an ear to hear and you have an idea, see it, you’ll find him in the Old Testament. So one of the IDs that is given here by Paul Enrollments chapter one, verse number two is he says that this gospel was first mentioned or mentioned beforehand, at least we could say in verse number two it was mentioned and promised a for by his prophets.

00;08;17;28 – 00;08;46;05
Now the prophets are most assuredly Old Testament personalities. We’re talking about Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joseph, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Mark and they whom are back. As Jeff and I have got Zachary and Malachi, those are the writing prophets. But then there are prophets that did not write. There are preaching prophets like art, like Elijah, who never wrote a book, but yet was a preacher and a performer of miracles.

00;08;46;05 – 00;09;27;06
Same with Elijah. So there are preaching prophets, there are riding prophets, but that’s not the point today. The point is they are certainly Old Testament characters. And Paul builds a bridge between these two testaments. Tonight. He tells us in verse number two that the gospel verse number one, the Gospel of God had been promised of four by God’s prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and He’s talking about the Holy Scriptures here in reference to the Old Testament.

00;09;27;09 – 00;09;48;13
Now, do you see the introduction and where we’re headed with this tonight? So now what are these promises and what connection do they have to us? I want to be as brief as possible, but I want to give you a three things. If the Lord will help us this evening. The first thing I want to point out is the Gospel was an impending promise.

00;09;48;15 – 00;10;18;28
The Gospel of the Old Testament was an impending promise. When the Gospel was spoken of in this text, it was reference by saying which he had promised for. It is impending because it has this futuristic reference to it. Now, this is important. I want you to understand that the gospel is not about the past and it’s not about the present.

00;10;19;00 – 00;10;47;18
It’s always about the future. You get that there are some people that run or flee to the gospel all because they think it’s a cure all that’s going to make their life better. Right now, somebody who’s going through a horrible divorce, divorce, so they go to church, make a profession thinking that’s going to fix their current marriage, that’s not promised.

00;10;47;21 – 00;11;12;04
Are you with me? Church on this? Someone who has been caught in some legal matter, maybe a grandson or a granddaughter, has been arrested for possession of alcohol as a minor, or maybe they’ve been arrested for possession of drugs or something of that nature. And a lot of times they will sober up really fast and they’ll start saying things like, man, maybe I ought to go to church.

00;11;12;07 – 00;11;39;21
And they’ll flee to the gospel, thinking that the gospel is going to dismiss their charges. That’s not the way that works. You see my point? If you broke if I broke into your house tonight and and you shot me, you should, right? If I break in, can I get a witness on that? We’re in Florida. Hello. And you shot me in my leg.

00;11;39;24 – 00;12;03;21
And then you turn on the light, you say, Oh, no, I shot my pastor. Now I’m not breaking in your house, so don’t shoot me. All right? But if you say, Oh, no, I’ve shot my pastor. Pastor, what were you doing? I was coming in. I was going to try to steal some valuables. And I say, Will you please forgive me for all I’ve done?

00;12;03;23 – 00;12;34;21
And you know what? You could kneel over my body and say, Pastor, I forgive you. I forgive you, I forgive you. But I still got a hole in the leg and so the gospel does not fix the nasty. Now. And now it’s about sweet. Bye bye now. There are so many people that are caught up in the concept of your best life now, or they’re caught up in the concept of of this is the best it’s going to be.

00;12;34;21 – 00;13;02;10
Listen, let’s get theological for just a moment. If this is your best life, that means the world to come is hell. No, no. This is not my best life. This is my worst life. I got great news for you, church. Whatever you’re going through, whatever struggles you’re experiencing, health or financial or domestic or whatever the case is, this is as bad as it’s going to be.

00;13;02;11 – 00;13;29;12
Just hang on a few more years because Jesus is coming and our future is bright. And you see the gospel has always been about the future, not the past or the present. I’m sure it touches on the past and it touches on the present. But I didn’t get to say because I want this life to be better. I got say because I love Jesus and I don’t want to go to hell.

00;13;29;15 – 00;14;00;17
So you understand that when the gospel is discussed as it was in verses one and two, it is almost always discussed in future terms. It is almost always discussed in terms with art, which isolate the benefits and the blessings of it to the future of whoever is in question. Now, Paul said that the prophets, who, by the way, are an interesting group of people, they spoke of these promises beforehand.

00;14;00;19 – 00;14;40;14
And then second, Timothy, we learn that people who receive the gospel do not get better in this world or do not do not improve their situation in this world. But in fact they make it worse in Second Timothy Chapter three Paul would later say in all that lived Godly in Christ, Jesus shall not suffer persecution. So receiving the Gospel identifies you with a persecuted able lifestyle all in Romans eight.

00;14;40;14 – 00;15;09;26
Paul said The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God join heirs with Christ. What is if so be that we suffer with Him. Part of the gospel that has been left out century after century by churches that are that are that are soaked with an easy believe ism type message, is that the gospel produces persecution and the gospel leads to suffering.

00;15;09;28 – 00;15;39;05
If you don’t believe that, ask the prophets. Every one of them died prematurely except for three, and they live to be old. But it’s because they were exiled. The gospel produces a certain lifestyle, a certain change of life. Don’t, please don’t try to feed this foolishness to your to yourself or to anyone else that you can get saved.

00;15;39;05 – 00;16;06;18
But your life never changes. That has never been the arrangement. If you’re in Christ, you’re a new creature and old things pass away. And what behold all things become the Philippians Paul would later say for unto you is given in the behalf of Christ. Not only that, we believe in Him, but also that we want suffer for His sake having the same conflict which he saw in me and now here to be in me.

00;16;06;22 – 00;16;40;25
Jesus was not constantly opposed and ridiculed and and nor worthy of. Jesus was constantly opposed and ridiculed. And so were the apostles. And every faithful believer is going to have a similar experience If you don’t think this is the case, put a saved wife in the same house with a lost husband. I have, over the years of pastoring, had numerous cases of women who were trying to pray for their husband to be a Christian.

00;16;40;27 – 00;16;59;01
I remember this one lady here in our church. Her name was Carol, and she came to service one day and she said, just weeping and crying. And I noticed her burden. And I went to her and I said, Carol, is everything okay, sisters? Anything we can pray with you about? And she said, Pastor, today is going to be my last day at church.

00;16;59;04 – 00;17;17;27
And I said, Well, you got saved. You got you’ve been baptized. You’re part of the why. Why is today your last day? And she said, my husband, my last husband has forbidden me to go to church. He has told me the gas is too expensive. He has told me that he found out that I’m tithing. He found out that I’m giving a portion of our income, the missions.

00;17;18;02 – 00;17;40;27
And when he found those things in the check ledger, he all of them, he automatically said no way that church is not getting a dime of our money. You are forbidden to go and you are forbidden to give. So in her very sheepish and young Christian mind, she said, Today’s going to be my last day. I have to do what my husband tells me to do.

00;17;40;29 – 00;18;10;22
And I said to her, No, that’s not true. She said, What? And I said, The Bible says that you are to obey your husband only in the Lord. And I said, If that man is forbidding you to be godly, he has no jurisdiction over your godliness. And she said, So I should I should rebel. And I said, No, it’s not rebellion, it’s obedience.

00;18;10;25 – 00;18;41;23
It’s better to obey God rather than man. And there comes a time when the gospel is introduced into a home like that where decisions have to be made and that lost that that same wife is going to have to make difficult choices. Or that saved husband with a lost wife. He’s going to have to make difficult choices. This is the cost of the gospel and this is why I get so infuriated when people cheapen it.

00;18;41;25 – 00;19;00;12
The Bible does not teach a cheap gospel. The Bible teaches a gospel that requires commitment. The Bible teaches a gospel that may cost you. And I our lives. You do the math. Do you want to die in a nursing home? You want to die in a car wreck. You want to die of cancer. Why do you want to die of?

00;19;00;15 – 00;19;22;09
I would rather die preaching the gospel. I’ve done the math. I don’t want to die in any of those other ways. Now, this is not a death wish. Come on. But I’m almost positive. Sooner or later, what I do will not be approved. And that’s when you have to make the real choice, right? If you’re Jesus said, if you’re ashamed of me.

00;19;22;09 – 00;19;50;02
What? I’ll be ashamed of you. So the apostles are part of this story. The prophets are the other part. It’s interesting. If you if you study the prophets, the gospel did not save their lives. In fact, it killed them. Yeah. Does this come as a shock to you? It did not save their lives. It did not improve their lives.

00;19;50;05 – 00;20;19;18
It made it worse. In reality, the Gospel endangered their physical lives in much the same way that it has endangered every believer in every age. So I’m not sure if I’m in full agreement. I kind of had that feeling. Let’s let’s talk. Let’s put two people in the same home. One’s a believer. One’s not a believer. One’s name came one’s name, name of somebody.

00;20;19;18 – 00;21;00;13
Finish that story for me. What did Cain do to Abel? Cain rejected the Gospel, hated God. Abel was a believer, and even though they were blood brothers, the hatred became so intense between the two of them that Cain killed Abel. Yes, you see that? That’s in Genesis. If you fast forward to the apocalyptic speech of the Gospel of Matthew, he starts talking about divided homes that will be predicted either before or during the tribulation period.

00;21;00;15 – 00;21;25;00
And he says in those days, it’s going to become so intense they’ll be saved. Children in the home with lost parents and the parents will what, deliver up the children unto death and they’ll be saved. Parents with lost children and the children will deliver up the parents unto death. It says the mother will rise up against her children and the daughter against the mother and the son against the father and the father against the son.

00;21;25;00 – 00;21;55;19
Let me tell you something. When you put the gospel in side of a room with people who hate it or inside of a world with people who hate it, what you have to expect is persecution. It did not save the prophets. They preached it in faith, never having seen the gospel, never having heard of Jesus. Never excuse me, never having heard Jesus personally with their own ears.

00;21;55;21 – 00;22;26;12
And yet they proclaim the Gospel. What happened to them? Read your Bible. They were stone sewn asunder, imprisoned, drowned, burned, mutilated, starved, exiled in the lake. Not many of them died. Natural deaths. Why? Because the gospel kills people. Right? Fast forward to the New Testament. The Apostle Paul is in this case writing to the Romans. He always dreamed of going to Rome and he never had that chance.

00;22;26;12 – 00;22;56;11
He, in fact, on several occasions he told the Romans, he said, I will come and visit you if you’ll just give me 24 months. I’ll be there. I’ll visit with you. He never made it to Rome until the very end of his life. And guess how he went in chains? What are the gospel do for him? It brought him before Nero and a sword flashed in the in the air in Paul’s head was cut off a tie down.

00;22;56;14 – 00;23;21;17
By the way, if you don’t know much about Nero, he wrapped Christians in pitch and set them on fire and use them as living torches to light his garden. Parties. He sold them in skins of wild animals and sent his set his hunting dogs after them to tear them to pieces. They were tortured on the rack. Molten lead was poured on Christians by Nero hot brass.

00;23;21;19 – 00;23;47;18
Brass plates were fixed to their tenderest parts of their bodies. Their eyes were torn out. Listen to this. Parts of their bodies were cut off and roasted before their very eyes. Receiving the Gospel is not some cheap transaction receiving. The gospel says, Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down for this? Receiving the gospel says, I’m ready to die now.

00;23;47;18 – 00;24;11;28
No, We rejoice about that and we walk around all the time walking up these good feelings and saying, Oh, I’m ready to go meet the Lord. That’s not what we’re talking about necessarily. Thankfully, you will go and meet the Lord, but you may do it earlier than you intended to. The irony is that the child of God in Scripture is known as a peacemaker.

00;24;12;01 – 00;24;15;06
But we never make peace. Do we?

00;24;15;09 – 00;24;42;27
Our peacemaking attitude is met with hatred, hostility, persecution. Concerning this persecution. Jesus made this comment in the Gospel of Matthew. We’ve studied it recently. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake. Listen to it again. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake. He goes on and says, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In other words, it’s bad now good later, persecuted for righteousness sake.

00;24;43;04 – 00;25;06;03
But yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you. When men shall Jesus said rival you, persecute you say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice, he says and be exceeding glad for great is what your reward in heaven bad now, but a reward in heaven for. So he adds, and Matthew five four so persecuted they the prophets.

00;25;06;10 – 00;25;45;23
Why do we get persecuted the way the prophets get persecuted? There’s one common denominator. It’s the gospel. You’re a Bible toting, God fearing Christ naming him singing Christian, and you will be hated for that. He said, Well, I’m not experienced in that. You need to classify yourself. Maybe you’re not as devout as you boast that you are. If we lived as Christ live will suffer the persecution that he that he suffered.

00;25;45;25 – 00;26;10;07
It’s always been that way. Are you with me so far? Church all who have lived godly in Christ Jesus have received persecution. Hebrews 11. I think I’ve given adequate Scripture. But let me let me go further. Hebrews 11 is the whole of faith. You remember it. My faith, Abraham, My faith. No one by faith in it walked with God by faith.

00;26;10;08 – 00;26;37;04
Able Houdini being dead yet. Speaker by faith. By faith by faith. But then Paul says there were others. There were others. And they didn’t get the notoriety of Noah. They didn’t get the reception of Enoch. They did not they did not get the they did not get the reputation of able. There were others. And and the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11, he says, and others had trial of cruel mock mocking and scourging.

00;26;37;07 – 00;27;06;15
Yay. Moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were torn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins, being destitute and afflicted, tormented, he says in parentheses, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and Indians and caves of the earth. In quote, the writer of Hebrews knew the history of the Gospel, and he knew that it killed the prophets.

00;27;06;19 – 00;27;29;24
He knew that it killed Jesus. He knew that it was going to kill the apostles. Why would we be any different? No, God fearing individual can escape persecution. Jesus himself warned his disciples. John, Chapter 15. If ye if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If he were of the world, the word would love his own.

00;27;29;27 – 00;27;44;11
But because you’re not of the world. But I have chosen you out of the world. Therefore, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you? The servant is not great of His Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept. If you have kept my saying, they will keep Excuse me.

00;27;44;11 – 00;28;07;20
If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours. Also, every passage and I’ll just read is proof positive that the Gospel is not intended to make this world better. It makes this world worse for the child of God. The message of the prophets was validated when it was signed in blood. Do you believe what you listen? Can I get a witness on this?

00;28;07;28 – 00;28;33;17
Give me a name in ready? You say you believe something. Are you willing to die for it? If you’re not willing to die for it, you don’t actually believe it, right? So now wait just a second. If they if they fire me from my job, I’m going to have to compromise. That’s being ashamed of Jesus. I was talking to a brother this afternoon.

00;28;33;19 – 00;29;12;14
He’s a business owner locally in the franchise that he is involved in has turned strongly in favor of the LGBTQ agenda. And this man spoke to the founder of the franchise and he said to him, I don’t know what you expect of me, but be it known that if you expect my restaurant to accommodate that lifestyle, I’ll give you the keys tomorrow?

00;29;12;16 – 00;29;46;14
There’s nothing in this world worth gaining when it causes you to lose your soul. This is the power of the gospel, the power, the benefit of the gospel. As you say, Pastor, this is a gloomy message. Wait a minute. The benefit of the gospel is that if it gets bad in this world, it just makes graduation closer and you get to go to heaven.

00;29;46;17 – 00;30;30;11
Is it David Brainerd, Brother Thompson, that you and I love? That’s the old praying missionary to the Indians. Yes, I got the name right. I just finished reading his biography, and David Brainerd experienced intense sickness from traveling on horseback through New England states and spring, summer, winter fall. He wound up dying, I think at 29. And he was so devoted to communicating the gospel to the native Indians in that area that he, in his diaries, which he protested when they said they wanted to publish into a book, he would he would not agree to it, he said, only if it exalts the Lord.

00;30;30;13 – 00;31;01;25
But in his diaries that were later published by John Wesley in his diaries, David Brainerd testified that numerous horses died under him from exposure. He just kept riding on and riding on and riding on. He talked about the the the difficult task of finding an interpreter when he would preach in his native language. And there are all these Indian dialects he had to communicate to them.

00;31;01;25 – 00;31;24;15
So he would oftentimes have to find an interpreter. And he said, I find him very suspicious. I remember reading in his biographies, and I found him very suspicious because I was afraid he was not saying exactly what I was saying. He said I had a lost interpreter. And David Brenner was concerned that a lost person cannot thoroughly communicate the gospel.

00;31;24;18 – 00;31;55;25
And he just kept going and kept going and kept going until it killed him. Listen to me. That’s my plan. Are you with me or not? It’s time to draw the line and understand. The prophets died for this. The apostles died for this. Our forefathers died for this. This cannot be cheap in our generation. That’s right. As a I don’t.

00;31;55;26 – 00;32;17;27
I can’t tell stories about myself. I’ve been on the end of persecution on occasion, and I can tell you it scares you to death. It scares you to death for 12 months. I got shot at one time and for 12 months, every time a car door would slam, it would scare me. For 12 months after I got shot, I felt.

00;32;17;28 – 00;32;37;27
I felt like. I felt like I needed to be home at all hours because I was afraid if they knew where and they did know where I lived, that’s where they shot at me. And I knew that if if my family was there alone, something could happen to them. If you ever read the great story, Pilgrim’s Progress, do you know where it was written from?

00;32;37;29 – 00;33;10;06
John Bunyan Pilgrim’s Progress. You know, it was written from a prison cell. And John, his number one grief, his number one concern. When you read John Bunyan’s diary, you know what it was. He says, I have a blind daughter. This being raised without a daddy because I’m in prison. The prophets died, the apostles died, the disciples died. And we go on In this passage, he says it was an eminent promise.

00;33;10;09 – 00;33;40;24
He says, verse two, which had promised a four by his prophets. And then he says this In the Holy Scriptures, there are four ingredients to this gospel The Holy Spirit. First, Peter, Chapter one versus 11 and 12. The New Testament Apostles First Peter, Chapter one, Verse two All the Angels according to First Peter Chapter one Verse tool and the Old Testament prophets and the Old Testament prophets are the ones that are emphasized here.

00;33;40;24 – 00;34;13;17
So let me just mention to you that these prophets foretold a greater thing than themselves. They were living for something bigger than themselves. You don’t know joy until you start doing their a message bigger than yourself, a church, a ministry enterprise, bigger than you. That’s worth sacrificing for the third and last thing. And I’m going to close early if I can.

00;34;13;17 – 00;34;41;23
I think you all had about all you can take. The gospel was an inscribed promise. What does he say at the end of verse number two, which he had promised for by his prophets? What does it say next in the Holy Scriptures? That’s hagiography. That’s the two words Holy Scriptures there. It’s a very important term. The word holy is best understood as an otherness.

00;34;41;26 – 00;35;19;20
The word holy or Hagia, as in most New Testament passages, is a term that it refers. It’s describing something that is pure blame, loss and ceremonially consecrated. If you’re married, you might recall that you entered into holy matrimony. Do you remember that term? Holy matrimony? Meaning what? It’s game over. There’s no more searching for a spouse. I have found her, and she has found me.

00;35;19;22 – 00;35;54;19
And that’s it. There are no others, right? Holy matrimony means that there is an exclusivity to that relationship. And till death do us part, it’s her and me or him. And now listen to this. Why is that term wholly attached to matrimony? Because when a person gets married to someone, they see to look for another. And that’s what he says about the Holy Scriptures.

00;35;54;21 – 00;36;18;08
He says, There is an otherness to the Scripture. It is the only scripture for me. There is not the Bible plus the Book of Mormon, plus the writings of Joseph Smith, plus the Koran, plus the Talmud. It’s not that at all. It’s the Bible, it’s the Holy Scripture. It’s the only book for us. And he uses the word growth because it means writing.

00;36;18;10 – 00;36;46;10
But graphing is an interesting word. If you look at the the grammar of the word, it’s deeper than just a writing. It’s there’s different forms of writing. And I’ve in my own personal life, I’ve I’ve been trained and in a couple of forms of writing, I can write, print, I can write cursive. I don’t know why, but kids are not being taught that anymore.

00;36;46;13 – 00;37;11;08
I can write calligraphy. I pick that up in high school. I can do a little bit of Greek alphabet and little bit of Hebrew alphabet here and there a little bit. I have several forms of writing. All of that has been done on paper, and paper is a very disposable form of writing, isn’t it? Now, that’s not the word here.

00;37;11;11 – 00;37;42;02
The word here is not calligraphy or cursive or print. The word here is at it and it comes from a picture that depicts a grave. Now, when you die, do you want to just stick up a post with a piece of paper for your gravestone? Now, that paper’s not. That’s too temporary, right? Can I get some audience participation here?

00;37;42;02 – 00;38;10;21
We can do it the cheap way if you want us to now. But if you. If you die, you have a headstone. And on that headstone in unchangeable, etched marble or granite or something. Is your name your birth date, the day you died? And maybe some message of the salt along about one of my put from my message.

00;38;10;23 – 00;38;40;04
I think I’m on put. I told you I’m sick and I’m not 100% sure, but what’s there is there forever? You get that. So that’s the graphic. It’s not cursive or print or calligraphy. It’s the word etch. And it means that you carve it in stone. You carve it in such a way that it never gets altered, it never gets changed.

00;38;40;07 – 00;39;07;09
And that says a lot about our Bible, doesn’t it? You know what we got? We got a Bible from the prophets that was in stone. I love the idea of that. It’s not plastic because can bend plastic, but you don’t bend stone. What’s in stone? You either keep it or you break it. Illustration The tin Moses comes down from the mountain and they had already violated commandment number one.

00;39;07;09 – 00;39;23;14
Commandment number two, they made a golden calf. So what did Moses do? Oh, I’ll tell you what. We better get a committee together and go. Think about how we need to change the wording on those first two commandments, because I can tell they’re not participating. It’s not what he did. What did he do, brother? Right. You remember Charlton Heston.

00;39;23;14 – 00;39;53;17
Haven’t you seen the movie? Come on, people. You remember him raising them above his head and throwing him down. And what happened to the Ten Commandments? They shattered. Why? Because you can’t bend them. You can only break them. That’s this Bible. It can’t be altered and modified. You either keep it or you violate it. You either cherish it or it’s broken.

00;39;53;19 – 00;40;25;09
And that’s what he says. The prophets gave us the Holy Scriptures. Let me ask you a question. Do you want to do something outstanding for God? It requires the highest commitment. If you want your life on paper, you can be a low octane Christian. But if you’re going to give us something like the prophets gave us, you have to be willing to go all the way.

00;40;25;11 – 00;41;05;20
You get that. Now, I know there’s a struggle in the United States because American Christianity, mercy. How do I go any further without without cursing it? American Christianity is a mess. American Christians are not concerned about dying for him. They won’t even live for him. It is so it is so virtually optional to behave like a Christian. The time in America we have this version of it.

00;41;05;20 – 00;41;20;15
I don’t even know if you can call it Christianity. We have this version of Christianity that permits people to just treat the Bible like a buffet. And I like a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But I don’t want the vegetables and I don’t want that. None of these things. That’s not that’s not the way this works.

00;41;20;17 – 00;41;55;03
You have been given the holy Scriptures and it is washed in the blood of the prophets, in the apostles. When I was, we invited a biblical scholar to our church one time. His name was Dr. Jewel Smith, and Dr. Smith was from the Orlando area. He was a multi, multimillionaire and he had spent his fortune buying ancient Bibles from auctions.

00;41;55;05 – 00;42;19;15
And when we invited him to our church, he said, I’ll come, but every service has to be under armed guard, open carrying armed guards. And he said, someone has to be at the property 24 hours a day without interruption. There has to be armed guards over this collection of Bibles. And there were millions and millions and millions of dollars of Bibles and manuscripts in our sanctuary.

00;42;19;17 – 00;42;44;24
And there was, for the most part, signs and glass covers that said, do not touch these things. But after service, since I was the pastor, Dr. Smith told me, he said, Do you want to touch one? And he handed me this Bible that had a chain on it. It had this big, beautiful wood back cover and a very primitive ring with a chain hanging off of it.

00;42;44;27 – 00;43;01;09
And he said, This is the chain Bible, Pastor Bailey. And he said they used to chain it to the pulpit because people would steal them. They were worth a lot of money. And when he handed it to me, I just stood there. I didn’t want to open it for fear that I would damage. And he said, Go ahead.

00;43;01;09 – 00;43;30;00
He said, open it up to so-and-so passage. And I don’t remember the exact passage, he told me. But I took that Bible and I laid it down on that table. When I opened it, there was blood splattered all over it, and he said, This is the Bible that a European preacher was holding in his hand when they came in and said, Stop your preaching or die.

00;43;30;02 – 00;43;57;17
And he said, Die. And when he grabbed the pulpit and leaned over that Bible, they clubbed him over his head and killed him. And his blood was on the pages of that Bible. And I looked at Jewel Smith and I said, Dr. Smith. I said, That’s his actual blood. And he said, Yes, how cheap is American Christianity when that’s what our heritage was?

00;43;57;19 – 00;44;08;18
The prophets died, the disciples died, the apostles died. Why in the world do we think this is going to be so easy for us?