We may get through Romans chapter 16 tonight. Romans chapter 16. All right, we all there? Romans chapter 16? All right, let's pray. Father, we come to this evening, Lord, we again are grateful and thankful, Lord, that you are our God, you are our Savior. Thank you for the love that you bestowed upon us. Thank you for the blood of Jesus that cleansed us of all of our sin. Thank you for your patience with us. Thank you that you'll never take your Holy Spirit from us. Thank you for church. Lord, I pray tonight that you would come. Lord, we'd love to hear the trumpet blow tonight. But Lord, in the meanwhile, I also pray that you would feed us with that manna that you have on high that nourishes our souls, gives us the strength we need to live in this mess down here. Pray, Father, that you would sit next to us tonight, minister to us, speak to us. Pray that you'd stand behind this pulpit and take this piece of dirt fill it with your spirit, minister through it, your power, your passion, your wisdom, your words. Lord, we need to hear from heaven tonight. Lord, I do pray that you would bless our people. Keep your heads around all of us. Lord, we've got some tonight that are sick. Pray, Lord, your healing hand be upon them. But Father, we do need your blessing. And so I pray you'd bless your people tonight. In Christ's name. Amen. Romans chapter 16. You might want to keep Miss Donna in your prayers. Norm texted me earlier and said that she is a little under the weather. So keep her in your prayers and anyone else that Maybe dealing with some things tonight. Romans chapter 16. And last week we left off with, actually last week we left off with a discussion about who actually wrote the book of Romans. He's a preacher. Paul wrote the book of Romans. Well, he didn't actually write the book of Romans. He authored the book of Romans. A fellow by the name of Tertius or Tertius, however you want to say it in Greek, it's Tertios. He's the one that actually did the writing. So we looked at some scripture on that, and we understand that all scripture, the Bible doesn't say all scripture is inspired. It says all scripture is given by inspiration. And we looked at some verses where God speaks through holy men. Holy men of God speak as they are moved by the Holy Ghost. God gives them the message, breathes through them, whether they speak it or what have you. And then that message is written down. And when it's written down, that's when it becomes scripture and we looked at some issues or some examples of that in the book of Jeremiah. Suffice it to say Paul again authored the book of Romans. Tertius was the menusis, the secretary, whatever term you want to use he actually wrote it down. For Jeremiah was a fellow by the name of Baruch. He wrote what Jeremiah had put down. We also talked about the fact that at the beginning of chapter 16, Paul is greeting people he knows that were at the church in Rome. And then he went through and we started going through the list here. of some people that were with Paul, most likely in Corinth, who were also greeting the people in the church at Rome. And we did a little mini-character study last week, mini-mini-character study last week about Timothy. He was one that was with Paul at that particular time. And in verse 23, here's another list of people. Romans 16, verse 23, it says, Gaius, mine host and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus, the chamber of the city, saluteth you, and Quartus, a brother. What we understand, and I've got a note there that the actual postscript, it should be subscript, which you find after verse 27, and we'll talk about that when we're done, says it was written to the Romans from Corinthos, which would be Corinth, sent by Phoebe, the servant of the church of Sancreia. And that is pretty accurate. And so Paul is in Corinth. He is greeting people. The people that are with him are greeting people. And so we have a greeting by Gaius, Erastus, Quartus, again, all members of the church at Corinth. And he mentions the whole church would be the church at Corinth. And so he mentions Gaius. Now, we really don't know who Gaius is. There are four possibilities. The first is he was a Macedonian, a fellow traveler of Paul, who was seized by the populace at Ephesus, Acts chapter 19 and verse 29. If you don't have your notes, Acts chapter 19, verse 29, the Bible says the whole city was filled with confusion. And having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul's companions in travel, they rushed with one accord in the theater. So there's one mention of a guy He said, is that the guy in Romans? I have no idea. But it's a guy named Gaius. Secondly, there's a Gaius who was a man of Derbe who accompanied Paul in his last journey to Jerusalem, Acts chapter 20 and verse 4. The Bible says, and there accompanied him into Asia, Sopater, we talked about him last week, or his name is also Sosipater, possibly. Sopater of Berea, of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus, and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. So here's another Gaius. Is he different than the first one? Not sure. The third possibility, It says, an inhabitant of Corinth, with whom Paul lodged, in whose house the Christians were accustomed to assemble. He was perhaps the same one that we read about in number two. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 14, Paul said, I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius. And since he is of Corinth, and they were meeting, the whole church was meeting at the house of this fellow in Corinth, and he was also taking in the apostle Paul, 1, 2, 3, or 4, it most likely is number 3. Number 4 is a fellow that's mentioned by John in 3 John verse 1. He says, the elder unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. So there's another one. So, well, which one is it? Don't know. Most likely number 3. They all could be a reference to the same guy. We don't know. All we know is there was at the church there a fellow by the name of Gaius. What we do know about Gaius is this, in verse 23 of Romans 16, that Paul said, Gaius, mine host. So Paul in his travels didn't have an RV, They didn't have a lot of hotels in that day that they'd put preachers up in. And so Paul is at the mercy of staying wherever he goes. And that's why a lot of, there's a lot of guys that travel that way today. I would never recommend doing that with a family. There was, you'll have issues where you'll go to a church and they'll say, well, we'll put some of your kids at this person's house and you and some other kids can stay at that house. And it's like, no, that ain't gonna work. That ain't gonna work. Because we don't know who these people are. They claim to be good Christians, but we don't know where they are, so you can't do that. But if you're a single guy, as Paul was, that would be the way to do it. People can put him up, he can stay there. And so apparently Gaius was one of those fellows that was very hospitable and took Paul in, but apparently he also had the whole church meeting at his house. So I believe that's the thing we need to know about Gaius, is he was a hospital man, hospitable, I should say, hospitable man and was willing to take Paul in and the church probably met at his house. Then you have another fellow mentioned in there by the name of Erastus, the Chamberlain of the city. Now, what's a Chamberlain? Well, according to Josephus, it's an officer of great dignity in ancient times. This was a guy who might be referred to as a city manager. He might be referred to as a supervisor, a county commissioner, something to that effect. A very important guy, a guy that was really responsible for just taking care of things. The term Chamberlain. Means somebody that was in care of the chambers where people met we talked about the Senate chamber in Washington and it's just a chambers were places where important people met and they needed somebody there to help take care of things and what have you, and this was Erastus. He was a very important guy in the city. In England, the Chamberlain of England, an officer of the crown who waits upon the sovereign, that'd be the king, on the day of coronation, provides requisites for the Palace of Westminster and for the House of Lords during the session of Parliament. Under him are the gentlemen of the black rod and other officers. His office is distinct from that of the Lord Chamberlain of the household whose functions relate to the royal housekeeping. Suffice to say, he was an important guy. And it's always good to make friends with important people. It's amazing who God saves. You know, he saves the lowest of the low, but then he can save the highest of the high. It's just an amazing thing. And it's good to have a church where you've got that combination. where you've got common people that are there that, you know, just blue collar working folks. And then it's also good here and there to have some people that are up there. It's always helpful. And God has a way of putting all those pieces together. What we do know about Erastus, there are three verses in scripture about him. We just read the one in Romans 16, but in Acts chapter 19 and verse 22, It says this, so he, that's in reference to Paul, sent unto Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus, but he himself stayed in Asia for a season. So Paul appreciated Erastus and his ability to minister along with Timothy, and so he sent them into Macedonia, meaning that Erastus was so important in his position that his schedule was pretty flexible. If he wanted to go somewhere, He was an important enough guy to say, hey, I'm heading out for a couple weeks, or I'm taking a couple months off and I'm doing this. So that we get some understanding there. Second Timothy chapter four and verse 20 is the third mention of him. And it says, arrest us abode at Corinth. And so there he is back at Corinth abiding, which is his hometown. So he's an important guy. And this is, again, one of the guys that was with Paul along with Timothy and Gaius and so on and so forth. Now, if you would look at verse 24, Romans chapter 16, this is the third ending. This is the third ending of the book of Romans. We talked about that. Paul tried to end it in chapter 16, and then just when it looks like he's gonna end it, he brings some other stuff up. So this is the third ending. And it says in verse 24, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. And then he says, oh, wait a minute, I forgot something. So then we go down to verse 25. So let's read Romans 16, starting at verse 25. It says, now to him that is a power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith to God only wise be glory, Through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. And that is the actual ending of the Book of Romans. But you'll notice that at the beginning of verse 25, Paul refers to my gospel. And he does that one other time in Romans chapter two and verse 16. He says, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. So what is Paul talking about when he's talking about my gospel? Well, we're gonna look at that in just a minute here. But just as a side note, you need to keep in mind that there are six different Gospels mentioned in Scripture, plus the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke, Gospel of John. So you've got 10 different Gospels mentioned in the New Testament. So what are you talking about, preacher? Well, number one is the Gospel of the Kingdom. And that's what Jesus preached before the cross to the nation of Israel. He didn't take that message of the Gentile. That's not what the Gentile was looking for. It was the Jew that was looking for the kingdom. The promises of a kingdom were made to the Jewish people and the promise of a king were made to the Jews. So the majority of Jesus's ministry was preaching a kingdom message to the Jewish people. And that's where a lot of fellows make a mistake. You go into Matthew and you're looking at the Sermon on the Mount, and then you try to make the Sermon on the Mount fit the church age, and I'm sorry, it doesn't. The principles of the Sermon on the Mount are very good. But there's some things in the Sermon on the Mount that just do not fit the church age. For example, if you've got off with a brother, leave your sacrifice at the temple and go make yourself right with your brother before he turns you in and you end up going to jail. Is that church age? Absolutely not, but that's Jewish. And so when you're reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you're not in the New Testament. So what are you talking about, preacher? Hebrews tells us that the Testament cannot begin without the death of a testator. And Jesus dies at the end of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Up to that point right there, you're listening to the kingdom message. You say, well, that was the law. Well, technically, the Bible says the law was until John the Baptist. So you've got the law up to John the Baptist, then you've got that period from John the Baptist to the crucifixion. What is that? That's the presentation of the kingdom to the Jew. And they loved the thoughts of the kingdom, they just didn't like the king. That was their failure, but that's the gospel of the kingdom. Then there is a very interesting statement in 1 Peter 4, verse 6, where it says that Jesus went and preached the gospel to those that were dead. What in the world is that all about? Well, we know that when Jesus died on the cross, his body went in the grave, his spirit went back to the Father, his soul went into the heart of the earth. The lower parts of the earth is what Paul calls it, plural. So there are two parts. There's one side, it was called Abraham's bosom or paradise. Jesus went down there. I believe he preached to those folks down there the good news. The good news is, hey, y'all can get out of here. Now they're not suffering, but they're not in heaven. So why in the world weren't they in heaven? Because the sacrifice had not been made yet. We read that verse, I think, last Sunday morning in Sunday school, where it talked about God having forgiveness for thousands and mercy. And then he said, but not clearing. There was no clearing of the guilty. Until there was the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made at Calvary, there was no clearing of sin, no possible cleansing of sin. You say, well, preacher, they sacrificed all those animals. And yet the Bible says the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. They were types, they were symbols of what Jesus was gonna do. So any believer in the Old Testament had to go into the heart of the earth, into paradise. And they waited there until Jesus Christ came after he died on the cross and said, hey, I got some good news for you. And he led captivity, captive, and the next time you see paradise in 2 Corinthians 12, it's in the third heaven. It's no longer in the heart of the earth. And I kinda have a hunch he preached over that gulf between the two to the crowd over there that were lost. I kind of have Ahunchee preach a little bit to them, but that's referred to as the gospel. Then we have the gospel of the grace of God. That's what we believe. 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ died on the cross for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. That's the gospel of the grace of God. And this gospel, by the way, as you go through your Bible, is called the gospel of God in Romans 1.1, the gospel of his son, Romans 1.9, gospel of Christ, Romans 1.16, Christ's gospel, 2 Corinthians 2.12, gospel of your salvation, Ephesians 1.13, gospel of peace, Ephesians 6.15, Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Thessalonians 1.8. Our gospel, 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 14. So all of those are referring to the gospel of the grace of God, which is Christ died on the cross for our sins according to the scripture, and he was buried, and he rose again the third day according to the scripture. Then Paul says, my gospel. So what does he mean by my gospel? Well, we'll look at that in just a little bit. Suffice it to say, it's the good news for the body of Christ. 1 Timothy 1. It's not the gospel of the grace of God, but the gospel of the grace of God is the core of Paul's gospel. I'll explain that in just a little bit. Then you have another gospel found in Hebrews chapter four and verse two, which was good news, which if the Israelites would just trust God, the Lord would give them the land of Canaan by military conquest, Numbers 13 and Numbers 14. What happened there? You had 10 spies that said, yeah, there are grapes over there as big as basketballs. There is a land that flows with milk and honey. But there's big guys there. And we can't beat the big guys. And I don't think our God can handle those big guys. And there were two of them that said, hey, we can do this. Joshua said, we can do this thing. Caleb said, we can do this. And yet the majority. The majority said, no, we can't do that. And so they blew it. But this same good news carries over as far as the millennial rest is concerned. Then there's what's called the everlasting gospel. That's in Revelation chapter 14. An angel preaches that during the time of the tribulation. And part of that message is to believe on God who is the creator, who created all things. proving that evolution will hang tight there and hang tough until we get into the tribulation. So that's something we'll have to bear with, even though there are so many books out there, so many good men of God that have published DVDs, videos, what have you, refuting evolution time and time and time and time again. It's still going to be there. Say, preacher, how can that be? If you've got people refuting answers in Genesis and creation moments and Institute of Creation Research and a multitude of other organizations that refute it. Say, preacher, why do people still believe in it? Because they want to get away with sin. So that's what you need to understand. A fool has said in his heart there is no God. Why? Because they're corrupt. They have done abominable things. There's none that do with good, no, not one. That's why a man says there's no God. He wants to try to find a way to justify or get out from judgment. And that's the same way it is in evolution. So anyway, that's an angel preaching there. And then, of course, there are false gospels. Galatians 1, verse 8, if any man preach unto you any other gospel than that which we have preached, let him be accursed, Paul said. In 2 Corinthians 10, I believe it is, Paul said there's another Jesus, another gospel. another spirit. So there are false gospels around. Now, let's talk about what Paul meant when he said, my gospel. Again, the core of Paul's gospel, 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, that I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died on the cross for my sins according to the scripture that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scripture that's what we believe that's the church age gospel that's the only way a person can get to heaven that gospel right there however When Paul uses the phrase, my gospel, he's going a little bit beyond 1 Corinthians chapter 15. In verse 25 of Romans 16, it says, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the beginning of the world. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ was not a secret since the beginning of the world. You find that in Isaiah chapter 53. I mean, it's not, preach that way but if you want to find the gospel you can find it Isaiah chapter 53 talks about wounded for my transgressions bruised for my iniquities and so on and so forth made his death with the transgressors and buried with you know buried with the transgressors what have you and then you find him alive again at the end So you've got the gospel in Isaiah chapter 53, and Philip, when he encounters the Ethiopian eunuch, the Ethiopian eunuch is reading Isaiah 53, and Philip says, let me tell you what that means. So Philip understood the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection. That's what was not, that wasn't hid that Paul said. There was something beyond that. And so when Paul talks about his gospel, he's talking about something that the Lord showed him. Galatians 1, verse 11 says, but I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. Verse 12, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. So the interesting thing about Paul is, after he gets saved, there's a period of time he is in Arabia, there's a period of time where he goes back home, and in that time frame, Jesus Christ will reveal himself to Paul and give to Paul the doctrine of the church age. That's the thing that was unknown of. Unknown of? That was the thing that was unknown. The aspect of the church. So what Christ revealed to Paul was the whole body of doctrine that accompanied the gospel. That body of revelation which incorporates Christ dwelling in you. That was a new thought. Christ dwelling in you through the Holy Spirit. Nobody experienced that in the Old Testament. Now all of a sudden in the New Testament, a person trusts Christ as their Savior, the Spirit of God actually lives inside of you. That's new. You're becoming a member of one living organism called the body of Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body. So when you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are placed into the spiritual body of Jesus Christ. And that's not the local church. That's the spiritual body of Jesus Christ. I didn't say invisible body, because I'm in it and I'm visible. And the more I'm eating, the more visible I'm getting every day. It's spiritual, the spiritual body of Christ. So we're part of that. It's a living organism that we are a part of. That Jews and Gentiles are in that thing. They're one in Christ. That's a new thing. You saw a preacher, Gentiles got saved in the Old Testament. They were proselytes. Yeah, they were, but it wasn't the same. They weren't on equal footing. If you went to the temple in the Old Testament time, the Gentile could only go to a certain point. I think it was the outer court. But then there was a wall of partition. And the Gentile could not go past that wall of partition, or they'd defile the temple. So the Gentiles, they were converted, they were proselytes, but they were second class. Now all of a sudden in the church age, Jew and Gentile are equal. So that's new. The believer has eternal security. Once the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within you, he stays there. We're sealed until the day of redemption. It says, grieve not the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God can get grieved with you, but he ain't leaving. So there's a lot of things going on. There's the fact that we are adopted into the family of God. The fact that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. We're not predestined to be saved, but we're predestined after we get saved to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. So all of us, and I don't care what you look like now or how you are right now, all of us are gonna be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That's what we have to look forward to. All of that was new. Paul said it was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest. You know, you could go back into the Old Testament now and see types and symbology. You could say, well, I think that looked like it pictured the church there. You can do that, but it was not revealed until Paul revealed it. So how can that be? How can it be possibly in the Old Testament, but not revealed until Paul? Well, I could have 50 cents in my pocket. You wouldn't know it until I got it out and showed it to you. And so the truth may have been there all the time about the church, we just didn't see it until God decided to reveal it. In fact, the Lord chooses when to reveal certain things. Look at Daniel chapter 12 and verse 2, if you don't have your notes, Daniel chapter 12 and verse 2. all the prophecies Daniel got in the book of Daniel. There's some incredible prophecies in the book of Daniel. And when it gets to the end of that, and they're about ready to wrap it up, in Daniel chapter 12 and verse 9, the Lord says to Daniel this, go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. So God gave him all these prophecies, and he said, now seal the book up, because you ain't gonna figure that out until the time comes. But then you read Revelation 22, last chapter in the New Testament, in verse 10, it says, he saith unto me, this is the Lord speaking to John, he saith unto me, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. So now we can understand it. And 2,000 years after that statement, we're really understanding the time of the end. And I've told you before, the day and age in which we live is unique than any other day and age in the history of mankind, other than what they possibly were doing before the flood. But this is a most unique day and age that anybody could live in. And I've gone through it before, you know, for what is it, 5,000 years, man could travel as fast as he could walk, run, or the horse or camel or donkey could run. And within a matter of less than 100 years from Orville and Wilbur Wright would have men standing on the moon. Now you figure that one out. 5,000 years, none of that happened, and all of a sudden, shh. You talk about technology. I mean, what was technology 3,000 years ago? You standing on a hill yelling over there, hey, can you hear me? Can you hear me now? And the other guy on the hill said, yeah, I can hear you. And now what? We have these little things we hold in our pocket that send a signal to a satellite revolving around the Earth, bouncing the satellite back to the person you're trying to text or call or what have you in less than what, a second? This is the only day and age that has been like this. I think we're at the time of the end. There are many things in scripture that are there, we just don't know it or we're not finding it. That's the interesting thing. There are some fellows that say they believe that the time of the rapture is somewhere in the Bible. and they'll search it, and search it, and search it, and then make fools out of themselves trying to predict it, and yet they have the idea that it's there, we just have to find it. One of the interesting things I heard, and this is not in your notes, but if you'll go to Song of Solomon, chapter six, people have figured out at least the season of the rapture, supposedly, based on these two verses. Now, these are guys trying to find stuff. The Song of Solomon, chapter six, in verse 11, And I believe this is the groom speaking. One of the hardest things about reading the Song of Solomon is figuring out who's talking now. Is it the bride or is it the groom? Is it the woman or is it the man? And so you have to try to sort it all out. I believe in verse 11 of chapter six, it is the groom speaking. And the groom would represent Jesus Christ. Who would the bride represent? The church, okay. So it says in verse 11, I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley. Now that isn't the groom talking about coming here. We are the garden of nuts and we are the fruits of the valley, amen? And it says, and to see whether the vine flourish, the pomegranates budded. When does that happen? Well, around here, I can't really say that. But there, it happened when? Springtime, right? So he's going in there around springtime, and if you look down at verse 13, here's the statement, return, return, O Shulamite, that's the bride, return, return. So it's time to go. So some fellows say, well, you know, at least the rapture's going to be in the spring based on that there. Maybe not, but it's fun to try to figure this stuff out. But again, there are people that try to figure stuff out, thinking it's there, it's hidden, and I'm gonna dig it out, I'm gonna find it. Well, knock yourself out. Cornelius and Peter, I remember Acts chapter 10. Cornelius, an angel comes to Cornelius and said, you know, your prayers have gone up as a memorial, and because of that, we're gonna get the gospel to you. And so you're gonna meet this guy named Peter, And then the Lord appears to Peter. Peter's in his house, he's on the roof, it's time to pray, so he's up there praying, and God gives him a vision. And three times in the vision, it's a blanket, a sheet, you know, tied at all four corners, dropped down, that has all kinds of stuff in it. I mean, it's got clean and unclean animals in it, and the Lord says, Peter, rise, kill and eat. And Peter looks at that stuff, he's seeing pigs, he's seeing stuff in there that he ain't supposed to eat, and he said, not so, Lord. Three times the Lord has to try to get that point across to him that, you know what? Things have changed. Under the law, there were things that were not clean. Now, that's changed. When did it change? Well, did it change when the Lord dropped that blanket down to Peter and said, rise, Peter, kill and eat? Or did it change earlier? Colossians chapter two and verse 14. It says, blotting out the handwriting of ordinance that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. When did it end? At the cross. When did Peter find out about it? Acts chapter 10. Now, here's a thought. Maybe if these guys would have been a little more open, You know, we've followed them through discussing the life of Jesus, you know, in Sunday school. And we'd followed the disciples through with Jesus. And so many times, they just don't get it. We've talked about how lonely Jesus must have been. The crowd didn't like him. Of course, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the common people liked him because he was doing stuff for them. But on one occasion, he said, I know all men. He said, I'm not going to commit myself to men because they're following me because I'm feeding them. The Pharisees, Sadducees, what have you, they didn't like him. His own family didn't believe on him. His brothers, the Bible says they didn't even believe on him. Then he's got his disciples who can't even figure it out. He says to his disciples time and time again, oh, he had little faith. He must have been very alone those three and a half years he was ministering because he was just having a hard time with everybody. If the disciples would have actually figured this thing out, I've mentioned before, Jesus said, I'm going to go to Jerusalem, they're going to beat me, they're going to mock me, they're going to spit upon me, they're going to kill me. And on the third day, I'm going to rise again from the dead. What's so complicated about that? What does it mean to be dead? To be dead, right? What does it mean to rise from the dead, to come back to life? What is the number three? It's a little greater than two, a little less than four, right? What is so hard about that? And yet they couldn't get it. And I've told you before, if they would have got it and understood he's rising from the dead the third day, where would they have been? Where would you have been? At the graveside, man. I mean, you'd have to hide behind some trees because the Roman soldiers are there, but man, what a place to be, what a thing to see. And what are they doing? They're hiding in somebody's house. You think about what we just talked about here. If they would have understood that when he died on the cross and the handwriting of ordinances, what have you, were done away with at that point right there, they could have stood back and said, well, okay, he's dying. He just died. He had a terrible death, but he's coming back on the third day. And they can watch Joseph and Nicodemus take him and put his body in the tomb and the door, the stone being rolled in front of the tomb. They're looking at all that stuff. Now, if they would have understood everything, they would have said, okay, he's going to rise to the third day. We want to be here when that happens. Well, what are we going to do until then? Well, since the handwriting of ordinances have been nailed to the cross and done away with, you know, Aunt Millie's Catfish Bar is just down the road, and then we can go to Red Lobster's going to have their all-you-can-eat shrimp thing. That'll go to that, and then we'll find Sonny's Barbecue, and we'll go to that. And then when we're done with that, we'll wait for the resurrection. I'm pretty sure they couldn't have done that. The handwriting of the ordinance was done away at the cross. They could have eaten catfish, they could have eaten shrimp, coconut shrimp, man, you go to Red Lobster, the coconut shrimp, oh my. And barbecue, and everybody's been to Sonny's Barbecue, I've even heard of Sonny's Barbecue, that's from Tennessee right on down into Florida, but that's, you know, you wanna get some good pork ribs and pork chops, what have you, that's the place to go. They could have done that. if they would have believed and understood, but they didn't get it. They just didn't get it, so they missed out on a lot of stuff. Anyway, now verse 26. I'm trying to get through this real quick here, but now I'm hungry because I'm thinking about catfish and shrimp. Verse 26, Paul made this statement, made known to all nations. So the gospel was made known to all nations by the first century. Colossians chapter one, verses five and six says, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, wherever you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is coming to you as it is in all the world. Now that's all without distinction, not all without exception, but all without distinction. Every nation would have had a representative that would have heard the gospel. Imagine that. Colossians 1, verse 23, he says it again, if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven. Again, every, meaning not without exception but without distinction. So the gospel was around the world by the first century. In fact, by the time Paul wrote Colossians, the gospel had gotten around everywhere it could go. You say, preacher, how can that be? Because you had people getting saved in those days that said, you know, let's just get on our horse or our camel or our donkey and let's go down this road right here and let's go and preach to people and let's go down that road till that road ends. They did that. I told you, on foot, and I figured it out, on foot, somebody could walk from Jerusalem to Korea in less than a year, on foot. And if you're walking that Silk Highway, because that did exist at that time, you're walking or riding down that Silk Highway, you're running into a lot of people, you have a chance to do a lot of preaching, and depending on how much time you spend with the people, in a year or two years, you could be all the way to the Korean Peninsula and preaching in China. Or you go the other direction. We talked about those that went to England, got as far as England. And then we don't know who got on the ships with the Phoenician sailors that sailed across the Atlantic. And now we have found Hebrew inscriptions in the United States. Nothing to do with Mormonism. These people were evangelistic. Think about it. They didn't have to worry about visas. They didn't have to worry about passports. They didn't have to figure out if this airplane is going to get me there and how I'm going to get my little suitcases from this airport over to here. They didn't have to worry about any of that stuff. They just got on the road and went. Now, there's two ways to get the gospel around the world. The one way is to either be a missionary or send missionaries. We got all these people on the wall talking about the Andrew Aaron family tonight. They were missionaries God sent to Ghana, West Africa. And that's the traditional way when we think about missionaries. Here's somebody from here, they go over there. But there's a second way. And the second way is minister to foreigners in your country. And then when they go back home, they'll take the gospel with them. This is what happened on the day of Pentecost. If you look in Acts chapter 2 and verse 5, it says, and there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. That's the crowd that's there in Acts chapter 2 that hears Peter preach. And verses 9 through 11, they give you a partial list. The Parthians, which were Persians, Medes, which were the Indo-Aryan people that lived in the northern Indian subcontinent across South Asia. Elamites, which would be northern Iran, dwellers of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, which is easternmost Turkey, to the south, Pontus, easternmost, Pontus, I'm sorry, easternmost Turkey, to the north, Asia, western Turkey, Phrygia, Asia Minor, Pamphylia, Asia Minor, Egypt, parts of Libya, North Africa, strangers of Rome, Cretes, Arabians, and that's not an inclusive list. You've got people from all over the world that are there in Jerusalem in Acts chapter two, seeing the miracle that took place on Pentecost, hearing the message preached by Peter, and then taking that message and going back home with it. And wow, you've got the gospel spread pretty quick. And then you think about the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter eight. In Acts chapter eight, verse 39, it says, when they were come, this is Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, when they come up out of the water, and in other words, he got saved and Philip baptized him, The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. This is the eunuch. He went on his way rejoicing. Where did he go? Back to Ethiopia. So there's the gospel going into Africa. And this is all early first century stuff, mid first century stuff. It's an incredible way. I think back one of the times we went and preached at the University of Toledo, and we were all done there. And I had packed up the briefcase that I had literature in and stuff like that. And I was leaving and a guy approached me from Turkey. He said, I'm from Ankara. Ankara, what's Ankara? Ankara, the capital, I think it's the capital of Turkey or one of the major cities in Turkey. He said, do you have any Turkish music? And I just so happened to have a cassette tape in my briefcase. This is going back, cassette tape. You young people ask your parents when you get home what that is. But I had a cassette tape that had Turkish preaching on one side, and I forget where I got this from, and had Turkish music on the other side. I said, sure, I gave him the cassette. He said, what happened? I have no idea. Last I ever saw the guy, never heard from him. I have no idea what happened, but here's a guy from Turkey at the University of Toledo. In fact, one of the main things about the University of Toledo, and it's probably true with ASU and any place else, that there were a couple thousand, almost 2,000 foreign students enrolled at the University of Toledo. 60% of them were from what we call the 1040 window. Now, if you're not familiar with the 1040 window, you picture the map. Europe, Africa, Asia, you picture that side of the map. You look up 10 degrees latitude, that line right there, 40 degrees latitude, that line right there. Then draw a line from the beginning of the far western edge of Morocco to the far eastern edge of the Korean Peninsula. and you've got what they call a window, the 1040 window. In that window is the worst place in the world to be a Christian. You've got China, you've got Iran, you've got Saudi Arabia, you've got Morocco, Libya, worst places in the world to be a Christian. And yet 60% of the students at the University of Toledo were from the 1040 window. I thought that's incredible. We can't go there and preach to them. Well, we could, we'd be dead in five minutes. But here they are. Why don't we preach to them while they're in the United States? And if they get saved, they take that back home. That's the idea. Now, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. There was a young couple, Iraqi couple, I believe, or Syrian, in Haines City, Florida. And there was a missionary going to that church at that particular time named Raji Barudi. And Rajiv Baroodi was the real deal. He'd converted from Islam, he was on fire for his people, he had done a lot of stuff in Iraq and what have you, told some incredible stories of things that they had done and things God had done and what have you. So here's this young Muslim couple that gets saved and they're going to the church at Haines City. And they got burdened for their parents. And they said, we wanna go back for a couple weeks and we want a witness to our family. And Rajiv said, don't go, don't go. you're gonna get, they're gonna kill you. And they said, oh, we gotta go back, we gotta go back, and they went back. And they were dead. So that's one of the cases where, you say, well, it didn't work. Every attempt to witness works one way or the other. But the idea is that's the burden they had to go back home. And when you lead foreigners to Jesus Christ, the natural response is, I wanna go back home and tell my family about Jesus Christ. So that's the second way there can be foreign missions. Now, let me give you the summation very quickly of the message of the doctrine of salvation in the Book of Romans, all right? In the book of Romans, as far as the doctrine of salvation is concerned, it teaches this, the person is saved if they believe Christ died on the cross for their sins, believe their sins were placed on Him, believe He shed His blood as the means of cleansing, Believe he generally died physically in their place. Believe he was buried. Believe that the same body that died and was buried is the one that arose from the dead. Believe that the death, burial, and resurrection from the dead is sufficient for salvation and nothing else. And here's an important point. The New Testament, especially the Pauline epistles, are the definitive works on this subject, with Romans being the consummate book on the subject. Now did you hear what I just said? I said the definitive work. Now if I say definitive work as far as the book is concerned, do you understand what that means? There are books upon books upon books upon books, thousands and thousands of books. But there are some books that are so good and so well done, we call them definitive, that they have covered the subject so thoroughly that these other books probably got their information from that book. In the days of the writing of our Constitution, the definitive law book was Black's Law. That was definitive, and therefore, aside from the Bible being the most quoted book in the writings of our founding fathers, Black's is second. I believe it's second. That's a definitive work. There's a lot of books written about Babylon, mystery Babylon and all that stuff, but Alexander Hislop did the definitive work on that subject. So what's the definitive work when it comes to going to heaven. What's the definitive book? That's the New Testament. And the most consummate part of that definitive work is the Book of Romans. So other people can quote whatever they want to quote. Other people can talk about whatever they want to talk about. They can talk about Socrates and Plato and Confucius and they can talk about anything they want to talk. We have in the Book of Romans the consummate definitive work on the subject of how to get to heaven. And we've spent the last two, two and a half years going through the world's most important book on how to go to heaven. So what you have in your lap is the book that contains the most important, the definitive work on how to get to heaven. Just thought I'd throw that in there. Verse 27, here's how he's going to end it. He says, to God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. I've given you a couple of verses there where Paul has used that. I just want to cover the subscription. Some of you have a Bible. that have a subscription at the end of the Book of Romans. I'm not sure if this one does. My computer program did, and so I checked into these. It's called a subscription. And let's see if I have it. Yeah, I do have it right there. It says, Written to the Romans from Corinthus and sent by Phoebe, a servant of the Church of Sancrio. How many of you have that at the very end of your Bible? Okay. That's called a subscription. Say, is that inspired? No. No, it's not. In fact, some subscriptions are wrong. But this subscription, and I'm gonna give you two quotes and we'll be done, this is what John Gill said about this subscription. He said, nor are the subscriptions at the end of the epistles always to be dependent upon, yet this seems to be a right and true one, both with respect to the place from whence and the person by whom it was sent. We've already talked about Phoebe. as well as with respect to the persons to whom it is inscribed, of which there is no doubt. And Poole, in his commentary, said this, quote, this was not added by the Apostle Paul, nor by Tertius, his ameniasis, but by a later and unknown hand, yet there is nothing in the epistle itself, nor in any ancient or modern writer, that may induce us to question the verity thereof. So the commentators are saying that this subscription is pretty accurate, and this letter was sent from Corinth to Rome at the hands of a young lady by the name of Phoebe, who was not a deaconess. She was a servant of the church, okay? Thus endeth the book of Romans. Any questions? Any questions at all? If you want to go back on some stuff, this is all on sermon audio. And you can go back and listen to my wonderful voice all day long if you'd like. All right, any other questions or comments? All right, let's be dismissed in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you again for the book of Romans. Lord, we have the definitive work on the subject of salvation. And we thank you for it. Lord, we thank you for everything you did at Calvary. We thank you that we live in the church age. What a time to live. We thank you Lord that we live at the end of the church age. Lord, you're going to come back soon and Lord, we pray that as John did come quickly, Lord Jesus. When we thank you bless our people now, I pray bless our events coming up this weekend. And thank you again for being such a wonderful Savior in Christ's name, Amen.