Please turn now in the Bible to the epistle to the Romans, chapter 13. Romans, chapter 13. You can find it on page 948. I'm going to be reading from verse 8 to verse 14. We're going to consider especially that second paragraph, verses 11 to 14. So Romans, chapter 13, reading from 8 to 14. Please give your attention to the Word of God. Oh, no one anything except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word, you shall Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone. the day is at hand. So then, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. You see that the general theme here is simple. We are to love one another. And as long as you sit in a cozy church sanctuary, that can seem like a grand idea. Let us love one another. But as soon as you actually have to deal with somebody, somebody difficult, somebody ornery, somebody in your way, then love your neighbor seems like something you'd rather forget. It is difficult. And so we need our minds to be fully convinced that we really have to do this. But it's not just a sentiment to be warmed by and then to be forgotten. Why do I really have to love my neighbor as myself? He gives us two reasons here. In the first paragraph, he says, because when you love your neighbor, you fulfill God's law. We talked about that last week, about how that's a little mysterious, because Jesus fulfilled the law for us, so why do I have to fulfill the law? And the answer is, well, you fulfill it in a couple of very different ways. Jesus perfectly fulfilled God's law and absorbed its penalty for breaking it on our behalf, both for our behalf, so that we can be accepted by God. And we never duplicate, imitate, or replace that work. But because we're in Jesus, our lives are to increasingly reflect that we are in Jesus. And if he fulfilled the law, then, and we're in him, we fulfill the law, too. If we're not doing that, then it must not be true that we're really in Him. So more and more we fulfill the law in loving our neighbor. More and more we are to get better at it. That fulfills God's law. That's what the law is aiming at. Aiming at fulfilling the love of God the Creator, who also created our human nature in such a way that it works best when we fulfill and keep His law. And so one more word about last week. I did discuss in some detail last week the teaching of those who say, well, since we are saved by grace, correct, and not by how well we keep the law, correct, that that means the law has nothing to do with us, and that is incorrect. And as I said, the words, remember, there is antinomianism. Not that you need the word necessarily, but just to say, ah, yes, we talked about that once. But here in the second paragraph, we get another reason. Because it's so difficult to get people to love their neighbor as themselves. The one reason isn't enough to say, well, because, you see, it fulfills God's law. He also says, and you know that God is near. That salvation is nearer than when you first believed. And that is meant to do two things for us. One is to encourage us. You will not have to continue laboring under this mixture of temptations and difficulties and pain and suffering and oppression forever. Salvation is nearer. There is an end in sight. So persevere. We're also encouraged to say, you know, the Lord is near. And how do you want to be when the Lord appears? We have here both an encouragement. It's almost over. And we have the warning. You will meet your maker. So let us meet him in the way that he assigned to us. He says here, you know the time. You know. He's speaking to the church. He's talking to Christians. And we know Jesus. We know the wages of sin is death. We know that the Lord will come in glory and judge. We know these things. And this knowledge is necessary. He said in the previous chapter, let your mind be transformed. Because your thinking drives your life. What you think, what you think is important, what you think about, what you brood on, what you spend your time ruminating on, this drives your life. And he's saying that needs to be transformed. And so make sure that your transformed life is driven by what you know is true. Not by what is easiest. Not by what is most engineered to be addictive. Not by what people are pressuring you to do. Not just by what you feel like in the moment. You know, and so be driven by what you know. I spent this week reading philosophy. Reading the old philosophical analysis of a person. You've got your reason that thinks, you've got your emotions that feel, and you've got your will that decides. It's an old philosophical way of breaking down people. And the warning is, of course, don't let the emotions drive the bus. The will drives the bus. Put reason in the front seat with the will. Emotions are great, but they better not be holding the map. And they better not be driving the bus. You know. And so act out of what you know. Live according to the truth you know. Not your feelings. Not other people's pressures. Not what's easiest. You know all the time. Act on it. He says, wake up, because salvation is nearer than when you first believe. Now, in what sense is salvation nearer than when you first believe? I mean, we have a lot of people here today. Some of you may not have believed yet. Some of you may have believed in the last year. Some of you may have believed 70 years ago. So in what sense is salvation nearer? Well, in two senses, the cosmic and the personal. In the cosmic sense, the time when the Lord Jesus will return in glory and judge the earth is now sooner than it was yesterday. It is coming closer because it is a real event. And so the gospel of the kingdom has continued to work in the world. The leaven is leavening the lump. The wheat and the tares continue to grow. And the harvest is coming. In the biggest sense, salvation is nearer now than when you first believed. And it's the cosmic level that's the most in view here. We start talking about the night is gone, the day is at hand. Reminded by this language that Jesus is the light of the world. And if we're in him, then we are the light of the world. And being the light, it is time to be thinking about the light and thinking about the arrival of the one from whom we draw our light. But salvation is also closer on a personal level. Scripture says, it is appointed to man once to die, and then comes to judgment. Now we have different estimates here of when we might die. Our estimates have a general actuarial validity and they really don't tell you anything about yourself at all. You do not know what year you will die. This belongs to the Lord alone. One thing is for sure, you're closer to it than you were yesterday. You're closer to it than when you first believed. And even those of you who are young and healthy, you should not be assuming that I will live until the year, oh, 2099. You do not know if you will live up to, past, or not as far as 2099. Some of you old people, that sounds unimaginably far away. Actually, a bunch of the young people here likely will make it to 2099, yes, unless the Lord returns first. For you do not know the time, but you know that it's close. This should not be controversial stuff, because this is the things that we know. We know that Jesus will return, and so we are to wake up. Salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Now, what does that imply about how to live? Just staying on the personal level. If you knew, somehow, that you would die Wednesday, how would you live between now and Wednesday? You know, there's one school of thought, one human reaction that would say, I'm not going to work. I'm going to drink. I'm going to party, like it's 1999, because I'm going to die Wednesday. And this is not a new frame of mind. It's described negatively in the Bible. It's, let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Isaiah 22, this is described. And the Lord says, I am not going to forgive this. Your circumstances that I brought on you, obviously were calling for mourning and fasting. And behold, feasting and revelry. I will not forgive this sin. Isaiah 22. We are not to meet the Lord with feasting and revelry and drunkenness. If you knew that you would die Wednesday, you should not be. getting drunk Monday and Tuesday. But should you sell all that you have, give to the poor, and sit on a hilltop waiting for Him to come back? Some Christians have done this when they really believed that the end was going to be in 1843, for example, or in other particular times. Christians have sold all that they had and given it either to the poor or to the cult leader or whatever it is, and then sat and waited. Is that what we're supposed to do? Certainly seems more pious than the first option. But what does Jesus have to say? Well, Jesus was once asked about the end of the age. And that's where we get Matthew 24 and 25 from. He says, you don't know when, but this is what you have to do. The master wants to come back to his house and find the servants doing the jobs he assigned them when he left. Woe to the wicked servant who starts thinking that if the master's a little bit late, that means he won't arrive at all. In Matthew 25, the master wants his stewards to use his money to make more money, and not to spend it or ignore it. And also in Matthew 25, God wants us to feed the hungry, and visit the imprisoned, and comfort the sick. In other words, Jesus tells us in Matthew 24 and 25 that as we consider the last day, we should live so that if we're going to meet God tomorrow, we're fulfilling our calling. The nearness of salvation deepens our duty within this world. It doesn't lessen it. I want to say that again. The nearness of salvation deepens our duty within the world. It does not lessen it, as we might think. Salvation is nearer, so live the life God has called you to live. You want to be living the life He called you to live when He appears. As a king coming back to the castle, he doesn't want the knights drunk or asleep. He wants to come back to a well-defended, alert castle. And so it is with the Lord. In other words, we have to be runners and not clocks. Runners and not clocks. What does a clock do? Let's make an old-fashioned clock. You wind it up, it ticks away, it starts to slow down, and it stops. And that's how human beings are a lot of the time. I'm going to learn Japanese. And I learn 50 words the first week, and five words the second week, and don't ask about the fourth week. I'm going to learn how to play the ukulele. And I do it with diligence for a little while, and then with occasional, and then I... Where is the ukulele? And that doesn't matter with a ukulele. There's other parts of life where you're not to do that. I'm going to return to church and worship weekly. And you live like a clock. I'm going to love my husband like a clock. This will not do. And if you're feeling driven, you will be a clock. Maybe a clock that gets wound up once in a while, but you'll be a clock. You have to be driven by what you know. And so he says, he says here, you know the hour is nearer. You know that it's foolish in the Christian life to live like a clock. You have to be a runner. What does a runner do on the last lap? The runner runs faster on the last lap because I'm almost done. I'm in plenty of pain, but I'm almost done. And if I want to get my best time, I've got to run fast now. I can't be saving energy to slap five after the race. If I want my best time, I've got to run hard now. Besides, I have to beat the Penncrest kid who's just in front of me. I have to run fast now. The runner runs faster as he sees the line come in sight. He doesn't run down like a clock. We're to be runners and not clocks. Now in this Christian race, if the Lord takes you later in life, as is usually the case in our country, your body will not be going faster. Your body will be going slower. And so when I talk about being a runner, I'm not talking about physically going faster. I'm talking about repenting faster. I'm talking about forgiving faster. I'm talking about praying more quickly. I'm talking about cutting off the angry, obsessive thoughts faster. I'm talking about listening. Faster. I'm talking about speaking a good word. Faster. I'm talking about coming before the Lord and longing for Him faster. This is the way in which we are to be runners and not clocks. This is the area in which we need to be going faster and not slower. So in verse 12b it says, Then let us cast off the works of darkness. Let me read a little more. The night is far gone, the day is at hand, so let us cast off the works of darkness. Notice the picture that you're getting there. A picture of sleeping. You're in bed. You're sleeping in the darkness at nighttime. And you're covered up by blankets. But as the day is at hand, and the king is at hand, you've got to get out of bed. So cast off the blankets. Cast off the works of darkness. That's the picture. Get up! throw that off, get dressed the right way. And notice also the language. On one side you have night and darkness and flesh and drunkenness and quarreling, and on the other day you have day and light and armor and the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, as you contrast the light and the dark, that's one reason why in this denomination and in the Roman Catholics and in quite a few other churches We look at the order of free and whatever it is, masons, and their secret oaths, and we say, this is not where you belong. The Christian is to walk in the light and not in the darkness. We're not to take vows of secrecy. Our lives should be open. We walk in the light. We are not of the darkness. We do not hide behind vows and secrecy. If someone says to you, well, the vow is not serious, is it in God's name? If it's not in God's name, that's a problem. Because vows are to be in God's name. He's the one who knows the truth. If it is in God's name, then it's serious. And if it's not in God's name, that's a problem. We are not to be taking vows and treating them lightly. We're not to be taking vows of living a secret life when we are called to the light. Christians should walk in the light. It's not just verbiage. It should be life. Then we're not sneaky. We don't have secrets. We're not hiding behind things. We confessed our sins, we're trying to leave them behind. So what is there to be hiding? A life of secrecy is antithetical to the life described here, and in Ephesians 5, and in 1 Thessalonians 5. He says, cast off the works of darkness. Now what are they? He starts to give you a list. The list is not the complete list. There's a lot of works of darkness. but he gives you six to get you started with. He begins with blatant fleshly sins. Let us walk properly, not in orgies and drunkenness. The two go together. American universities are known for the two. Many of you are in American universities. I encourage you not to get into it. You say, ah, but then I will be left out Wonderful. It's a wonderful thing to be left out of. That is not a problem. But that is where it goes. Let us walk properly, not in orgies and drunkenness, blatant fleshly sins, nor in sexual immorality and sensuality. Now is this just repeating the first two? I think not. I think this here is more subtle and more dangerous. The first two are involved in this, sure, but I'm thinking here not of the hook-up culture, but of the long-term boyfriend-girlfriend culture, where you spend a lot of time with one person, and you love one person, and you're sensually drawn to the one person whom you have not married. And you begin to live a life of sensuality with this one person whom you have not married. This also is improper. Not so obviously so as the first, but it is still improper. And we ought to remember that as we are called to marry only in the Lord, that is, other Christian believers, let us not fall into sensuality with someone that we're not to marry. Let us take care not to go far down a road of boyfriend-girlfriend with someone who is not a believer. The farther you go, the more the sensuality will creep up on you. And if you're not to get married, why are you on the road? So take care and guard yourself. For these things are not just the blatant sins of orgies and drunkenness. There's also the trouble of sensuality and immorality. And then after the four fleshly sins, he gets to two spiritual sins. Now, really, they're all spiritual. But these last two are more purely spiritual. He says, not in orgies and drunkenness. OK, no problem, no problem, no problem. Not in quarreling and jealousy. Now that's a problem. Because quarreling and jealousy. I mean, you get older and your hormones slow down, but you can still be jealous and quarreling. You can come to church and sit there. You can still be full of quarreling and jealousy. You know, you can go to bed on time and stay away from the bottle. That helps you with the first four, but that may not help you with quarreling and jealousy. And so suddenly he pivots here from things we say, yes, yes, yes, yes, no problem, to a lifelong struggle against quarreling and jealousy. The king, when he returns to his castle, does not want his servants caught up in petty intrigues. No quarreling and jealousy. You know, it's just as gross, actually, the quarreling and the jealousy. may not look as gross. But to the person on the outside looking at it, it actually is as gross. Why are you who name the name of Jesus so consumed with your quarreling and your jealousy? I want nothing to do with that. That grosses me out. It's not the same reaction, but it's a negative reaction. And people don't want it. And so we so often see, Jesus, which of us is the greatest? And he keeps trying to slam it down again. If you're not like this three-year-old, you're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. Stop asking about who's the greatest. Let's talk about who's going to get in. He keeps coming down hard on them when they want to get into their jealousy, and their rank, and who's the greatest. To avoid the quarreling and the jealousy, he's setting the stage for the next topic, life within the church. But he says, cast off the works of darkness. Both the deeds that are usually done in the dark, and the deeds that reveal the darkness of the soul. Quarreling and jealousy. Instead, he says, get up and get dressed with the armor of light. Christos Thun got to preach in an era when soldiers actually wore armor. And so he's very helpful right here. He's like, you know, for soldiers, this is lousy. You get up and the armor is uncomfortable and heavy and hot. You don't want to have to put that thing on. But God's armor isn't the light. God's armor is light. God's armor fits you very nicely. God's armor will keep you from getting overheated. God's armor is something that you want to put on. Put on the breastplate of righteousness. Ephesians 6 is where you get this classic paragraph where he spells out what you might think of as the armor of God. He says, put on the belt of truth. The belt of truth fits you better than the belt of lies. The belt of lies, you're like pulling it in and putting it out, and then you can't remember which spot you were on. How did I lie? If you put on the truth, it fits you. You just remember what happened. The breastplate of righteousness. You know, there's no stains on that breastplate, because it's righteousness. If someone else finds fault with it, that's their bad thing. It's not that there's some sins on the breastplate of righteousness. He says there, put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace as your shoes. Yeah, when you have your shoes on, you're ready to go outside. And when you have peace in your heart, you're in a much better place to meet whatever quarreling and jealousy you'll have to deal with. You've got peace in your heart to begin with. So put it on like shoes, and you are ready, ready to go out into the world. It says, the shield of faith. You know, a physical shield is a pain. It's heavy. You start hurting right up here, all right? You start wearing out your elbow. You only want the shield on when you're actually going into battle. But the shield of faith is not heavy to carry. Instead, when accusations come flying at the Lord, where was God when that happened? The shield of faith brushes them aside. My Lord is always with me. My Lord always upholds me. The helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, these things are the armor of light. And they are light. And when we have the armor of light put on, we're not only ready to meet our Maker, we're also ready to meet the world and the temptations that come our way. So you need to make it your daily habit to put on the armor of light. Now what does that mean? Well, notice the equivalent phrase in verse 14. Verse 12, he says, put on the armor of light. In verse 14 he says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He means the same thing. When you put on Jesus, you are putting on the armor of light. That is to say, since you are one with Him by faith, put Him to good use and put Him on in your daily life. Put your union with Christ to good use. Make it a daily and real thing. Some time ago I read a book on the great awakening in Korea. There was a great movement of God's spirit in Korea about the year 1900. I don't want to call it a revival, because I think it was the first time the gospel had ever really moved powerfully in Korea. And one of the things that happened after that was that the devil was permitted to bring in forces that tried to crush the church. First you had the Japanese trying to crush the Koreans in general, and the church in particular. And you had the North Korean regime And one of the people I remember reading about, I think he was a pastor, he's in prison under one of those governments, and every day he's being brought in and told, sign this renunciation of the faith. And every day he's saying no, and they're beating him up. They're bringing him back in the next day, sign this renunciation of the faith. He said no, and they beat him up. And so it went. But one day, for some reason, he didn't pray when he woke up. He didn't do his normal, quiet time, whatever you want to call it. And so when they brought him in and said, sign this form, he just signed the form. And they were surprised. And he was surprised. And then they set him free, and he was heartbroken. He had not put on the armor of light that day. Yeah, put on the armor of light, he doesn't mean once. The imagery is getting up in the morning. You've got to put on and get ready for the day. And so obviously we put it on with Bible reading and prayer, whether with the family or by ourselves. But another way in which we put on the armor is by confessing our sins, repenting of our sins, forgiving anyone if we have anything against someone. That's a crucial step. Because if we don't do that, then the devil already has an agent inside our castle. If we're carrying bitterness, we can put on the armor, but the problem is inside the armor, because it's inside our own hearts. He says, do not let the sun go down on your anger, do not give the devil an opportunity. The one who lives with anger has the devil's agent inside. He says, get up and get dressed with the armor of light, walk openly, without a hidden hedge. He says, make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. Make no provision. There's a reason he says flesh and not body. You have bodily needs and you are to provide for them. You are to make provision to provide for them. Please keep breathing. It's good for you. And if you find yourself not breathing, you'll find you have a great desire to breathe. That's a good desire. You need to breathe. And eat and drink and sleep. The body has needs and they are to be met. These needs for life. Because we're not to take life. But he used the word flesh here. And when he says flesh, he does not mean the body exactly. He means sinful human nature. Which also makes its desires known through wanting. It can feel similar, and yet it is different. For it is not aimed at life, but aimed at some perversion of life. These are the things that wage war with your soul. So it says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for how you're going to satisfy your lust. No. Make no provision for how you're going to satisfy your greed. No. Make no provision for how you're going to satisfy your sloth. No. Eat for health, but not for greed. Sleep for health, and not for sloth. Care for your body, but make no provision for the desires of the flesh. When you live this way, you have no need for secrets. Do you have secrets? How long are you going to carry secrets? They're heavier than the armor of life. If they're secret sins, there's a way to deal with them. It's called repenting and confessing. There's an old psalm about that. When I kept silent, I got old quick. When I confessed my sins, then you forgave me. And when the sins are habitual, then you need to come out of the shadows and get help from somebody. That's how the Korean Revival started. There was this confession and prayer and prayer and confession and people confessing to one another and there was this great movement of the Spirit. And if your secret is rather how you were sinned against, well, that's a whole different matter. But you have to run to the Lord and not away. Run to the Lord and not to a bottle or a pill. But come to the Lord and mourn with God, before God, for what you have suffered. And then rise and dress with the armor of light. Because when you do so, you put on Jesus Christ, the man of sorrows. who was acquainted with grief." It says here, love your neighbor, because God is near. And the nearness of salvation deepens our duty within the world. When the Lord comes, or when He summons you, let Him find you at your post. That requires that you live by what you know, not by what you feel, so that you can be a runner and not a clock. And so daily, cast off the works of darkness. and put on the armor of life. It is Jesus that you need. You do not need to be appeasing sinful desires. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word and for its power. And we thank You for Your Spirit, that by Your Spirit You comfort those. You comfort those who are in need. You raise up those who have been trampled down. So Lord, we pray for the work of your spirit today to give us help and relief, to bring us to confession or through mourning. Help us, Lord, to stand before you in truth, in the light, in the light that Jesus gives, in the light that Jesus is. Lord, I pray that you'd help each one of us to cast off the work of darkness that most entangles us, that we may come to you truly, and that we may rejoice in you, finding your burden light, finding your yoke to be easy. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.