The Certain Hope of God’s Love

Transcript

GR 2219
The Certain Hope of God’s Love
10/13/2019
Romans 5:6-11
Gil Rugh

Romans chapter 5 in your Bibles; Romans and the 5th chapter. We are in that section of Romans that focuses on our justification, having established that we are all guilty and under God’s condemnation. He moves to talk about justification that began in chapter 3, verse 21, which said, “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested…” The righteousness of God, justification basically means to be declared righteous that’s what we’re talking about. How can guilty condemned sinners come to be viewed as righteous in the sight of a holy God, acceptable in His holy presence? In Chapter 4 I spent an extensive amount of time showing that the gift of salvation is applied to us through faith and nothing else. Works of any kind are not included. The gospel is faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. It’s by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Who He is and what He’s done he showed that from the Old Testament. Important to see to the consistency, there has always only been one way of salvation.

The book of Hebrews in chapter 11 takes us back to the early part of our Old Testament and shows us the different individuals of faith. Chapter 4 of Romans has made clear using Abraham specifically as the example, and he’s crucial because Abraham comes to the fore in Genesis chapter 12. Abraham is about 2,000 years before Christ. The Law wasn’t even given for about 500 years after Abraham, so the Law and any of its parts including the Ten Commandments couldn’t be necessary for salvation. Abraham was not circumcised until years after God had declared him righteous, so circumcision could not be required, those kinds of things. Chapter 4 ended that this salvation, verse 24, these truths of the Old Testament were written “…for our sake also, to whom it will be credited…”

God’s righteousness will be credited to us Paul writes. Now 1,500 years after the Law, 2,000 years after Abraham, these things are recorded for clarifying for us that salvation is for us, as well by faith in what God has done for “…those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.” He went to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin, which is death. In paying that penalty, He subsequently is raised from the dead, because the work necessary to free us from the condemnation and penalty of sin was done. Our penalty was paid, so righteousness could be provided and credited to us, and it will be to those who believe in Him who raised Jesus from the dead as a testimony of the completeness of our salvation.

Chapter 5 began, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” We’re going to come into that more fully in the section before us in a few minutes. Reconciliation has taken place. We have “…peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and it’s through Him that we have entered in “…by faith into this grace, in which we stand;” and now we have the “…hope of the glory of God.” What God has promised to those who have His Son as their Savior, glory in His presence, a heavenly inheritance as the Scripture talks about, so even the tribulations of this life. Then we have a summary here, but it fits with what we studied in Ecclesiastes, which this life is a place of tribulation and trial. They can be multiplied for believers because Jesus said, if they hated Me, they’ll hate you, as He spent His closing time with His disciples during His earthly ministry. But God has a purpose in the tribulations and trials we go through.

Remember He’s sovereign in those He brings into our life, what He wants to use to refine us, to strengthen us in our faith, and to sharpen our focus on the hope that He has promised. And it’s a hope that can’t disappoint. We have it confirmed to us by the Holy Spirit, who in verse 5 is “…poured out within our hearts…” He’s the seal of God for us, God’s guarantee to us as Ephesians chapter 1 talks about that God will bring to completion the work that He has begun in us. Our salvation has been completely accomplished by Christ fully applied to us, but we haven’t entered into the fullness of the benefits of that salvation. Then he’ll talk about that in Romans chapter 8. So, it brings us to verse 6 as he explains, and you can see it begins with that preposition for; he’s carrying on what he started in verse 1 of chapter 5.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” As he’s developed that, then he picks up in verse 6, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” In verse 5, you’ll note he said “…hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts…” that confirmation of the greatness and depths of God’s love for us. Confirmed to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit who now dwells within us, and now he elaborates on that love that God has for us. It was demonstrated while we were still helpless in a situation that was a hopeless situation. Since we were helpless, it was hopeless. There was nothing we could do to rescue ourselves. That’s why the opening chapters of Romans are so important, it starts out that you must understand the seriousness of your condition.

There is no hope unless God intervenes. “For while we were still helpless…” The point being, you can do nothing to make yourself acceptable to God; you’re already condemned! You’re already guilty! “Well, I’m going to do better, I’m going to get baptized. I’m going to clean up my life.” You’re condemned, you’re guilty, you couldn’t be any more guilty than you are, and there’s nothing you can do to lessen the guilt. It’s like somebody in a court who’s done horrible crimes and is guilty, and they say, “Well I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” It doesn’t take care of the problem! “…we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” At the right time, remember we’re studying Ecclesiastes. We don’t control the time, God does. Now Abraham lived 2,000 years before Christ. God provided salvation for Abraham and all the Old Testament saints and there were indicators of that salvation. It came to them through faith in what God promised them.

The sacrifices that would be given under the Law and so on, the promises given to Abraham and how they could be realized, were dependent on the coming of Christ. But in the timing of God, Christ came at the right time, so we look back. The Old Testament anticipated it. They just believed God would do what He promised to do. It wouldn’t have the clarity that we have even with the sacrifices. You offer that sacrifice believing that I am a God who provides forgiveness and you as a guilty sinner will be forgiven when you trust Me. That trust would be manifest in their obedience, so we were told when Abraham was circumcised, he was just confirming as true the faith that he had placed in God that enabled God to declare him righteous. So that’s the point here. At the right time in God’s time, and in Galatians 4:4 we’re told, “…when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.” It’s God’s timing always. Christ came and He “…died for the ungodly.”

Now we’re going to build terms here. We were described as helpless, now we’re described as “the ungodly” and they go together because we were ungodly, we were helpless to do anything to rescue ourselves. We had hearts that were deceitful and desperately wicked above all things or as Ecclesiastes said in chapter 9 where we’ve been, that our hearts are evil from our youth. We are full of evil as God looks at us, but “…Christ died for the ungodly.” This has been stressed. Come back to chapter 3, verse 23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Hard for us to get over that, the people you share the gospel with, the seriousness of their condition. Where we are now, our eyes have been opened. We see it and we share with them, but they are like people with this dread destructive disease that can only result in the direst consequences for them, but they don’t accept that. “I feel good!” But you say, “You’re not good, you’re in a terrible condition.”

As the Old Testament prophet said under inspiration, the whole body is sick, using the spiritual analogy. But in verse 24 of chapter 3, we’ve all sinned, but “…being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus…” How did that happen? “…whom God (referring to Christ) displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.” Christ did the work in the plan of God. We were connected to it by faith, so “propitiation in His blood.” What did He do? He intervened, took our place so He could turn away the wrath of God from us. But note, His death did not save us. That death and its effects weren’t applied to us until we believed. It was through faith, and it demonstrates God’s patience in building up to the coming of Christ, and His plan, the death of Christ, would be the provision for all the sins committed back to the time of Adam. He could save those Old Testament saints when they believed God and the provision He made, the promises He gave without having the full clarity of how that would be worked out.

That the eternal Son of God would become a man, so that a point in time, in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son from heaven to be born into the human race. How marvelous! He’s talked about that and he’s back to that again because it’s foundational. We had it in chapter 4, verse 24, “…for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead…” He’s the One who was delivered over because of our transgressions. We are back to all have sinned, the penalty for sin is death. He was delivered over for our transgressions, and because He had accomplished what needed to be done for God to declare us forgiven. Our account is paid in full and we are declared righteous by Him.

So, back in chapter 5, verse 6, “…at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” The next two verses simply elaborate on that. What that means, we were helpless. “…at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Can there be any greater statement in a concise way of God’s provision of salvation? “…at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” For the helpless! That is an act of grace, an act of mercy that He intervenes on our behalf. We are not worthy. He’s not saying, well, there aren’t enough good people in the world. We already saw that in chapter 3, that there’s none good, as God looks at us. So, you and I sit here as redeemed people tonight, because of grace. I’m no better than the worst of sinners, no more deserving of the salvation He provided. He says in verse 7 that he wants to elaborate on this. Such a tremendous truth. We talked about how in Romans he just takes us step by step, piece by piece, through the wonder of this gospel of salvation. This gospel, which is God’s power for salvation. You must understand the details.

I want to talk a little bit later in my discussion time. Our discussion times, I realize most often, are my talking to you. That’s called a discussion here, but note what he says in verse 7, “For one will hardly die for a righteous man…” This is amazing! We were helpless, ungodly people. Christ died for us. Do you understand the significance of that? “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.” There have been cases, we hear of them when our troops have been overseas, and somebody throws themselves on a grenade to protect the rest of those around him. I mean that was a sacrifice! He did die for someone else and there are those occasions. These were his friends, those that he was joined with. And you would think I would die for my family members. So, someone would die for a good person on occasion. They have.

But God goes far beyond that, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” You see now, they’re building these terms. In verse 6, we were “helpless,” we were “ungodly,” now we’re identified as “sinners.” When we get down to verse 10, we’ll be identified as “enemies.” Part of what can happen over time is we begin to lose perspective that we are just as sinful as those people we look at around us. We look at the news, and somehow, we say, how can they be like that? That’s disgusting! And then we’re reminded that we were just like them. That’s how God saw us, only He saw us worse than we can see them, because He saw the depths of depravity that were in my heart, a depth of depravity that only God could plumb. It’s the heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked above all, who can know it? Those rhetorical questions that “…no one but I the Lord, search the heart” and is a reminder to us.

“…God demonstrates His own love toward us…” This is personal between God and us. “…His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Amazing! And then when we get down to verse 10, He’ll say we were His enemies. That’s another thing, you’re in the battle, and you go out and die for your enemy. We were those who were the objects of His wrath. We were those according to Romans 1, sinners were described as those who hated God. This is our condition. We don’t want to lose sight of that, otherwise we begin to minimize the wonder of our salvation and then we look at the world around us and we see a division not brought about by God’s grace. I never was that bad. It never crossed my mind to do some of the things that I see people doing. But given the right circumstance, the right situation, I would be just as capable of the most vile and awful sins.

We see that transformation taking place in our society. People we thought that never would support such open sinful practices now are comfortable being publically identified with those practices. I was just like them. Perhaps I was spared from living in the depths of depravity in such an open way, and I thank God for that grace even before He drew me to salvation, but I wasn’t any better. If I could have been set down and God showed me what He could see in the condition of my heart, I’m every bit as bad as the worse of them. That’s the point. But He demonstrated His love for us. Who dies for their worst enemy? Who dies for those who have been such an awful offense to Him? Where do you stop? It’s indescribable! We make the love of God, could I say shallow? “Well, yeah and I appreciate that He died for us and I went to church. My parents had me baptized. Nobody was saved in our family, but we weren’t out doing terrible things, so God saved us.” We weren’t a bad family in the broad sense of the word. Understanding and believing, I take God’s evaluation as being the true one.

“…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, (and all that means) Christ died for us.” That’s the amazing thing. You want to say people talk about love, that “Oh my God is a God of love!” That’s a great contact point. Somebody says, “Oh I believe God’s a God of love. I don’t think He would send people to hell!” We have people publicly saying, “Well, my God’s a God of love, He loves me.” And they are open in their sinful practices. “That’s just part of the way God deals, and He loves me as I am!” And, that’s a good contact point. Don’t tell them no, that’s not so. You say, well, you know you’re right. God has a great infinite love, but, let me tell you what He says is the greatest demonstration He ever gave of His love.

It’s great! And if you have a little Bible with you, you can take them and show them. Look what it says, “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” You know that’s a verse that maybe you learned when you were young and in Sunday school. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” That is true, but the world has no concept of His love. He loves you as you are. Well, let’s clarify that. His love was demonstrated to you even when you were as you are. But you can’t enter into the love and what His love has done for you, if you will not place your faith in what He has done. Great verses here that we want to have fixed in our mind, that we can walk through and appreciate the detail. “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Come back to the book of Isaiah. We’re not going to other verses often, but Isaiah 53. Perhaps the greatest chapter in the Old Testament on the provision God would make in the person of His Son. In Isaiah 53, verse 4, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” They didn’t understand, they thought He’s dying for His own sin. His own people led in His crucifixion. He deserves it. We won’t have Him be our king. “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” That’s the anticipation and the full realization of what that would mean and would have to wait until Christ came. Understand this is God’s own Son, the God of glory Himself, because He’s the Son of the Father, the God of glory. He came to earth, became a man, and died for us while we were yet sinners. It doesn’t get any better than that. Well, we’re not done.

All right, we understand that. But there’s a security for the believer in this. A security provided for us. Romans 5, verse 9, “Much more then…” God is not done. “…having now been justified by His blood…” I mean that’s the basis of our being declared righteous, His death. Remember that was applied through faith. We’ve seen that so much, but that’s how justification comes. You understand when you’re sharing the gospel with someone, you cannot be righteous in the sight of a holy God unless you have His Son as your Savior. He can’t declare you righteous. You’re a sinner, you deserve to pay the penalty for your sin. “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” He’s carrying us to the future. Look back in chapter 5, verses 4 and 5, the preceding verses here. Perseverance provides “…proven character; and proven character hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit…” And what is that hope, that we have? Look at verse 9.

“Much more then, having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” Past, present, and future dimensions of our sin are cared for, and I am assured as Paul wrote to the Philippians, He who has begun a good work in you will continue to bring it to perfection, and completion. That’s what God has done. So, if God would have His Son die for me when I was an ungodly, helpless sinner who was His enemy, now that He has declared me righteous on the basis of the death of Christ, accepted as my substitute, “…we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” The wrath of God carries us to the future. We’re not done, we have a certain hope of God’s love. The hope is something that is yet future. We don’t hope for something we have, as the Scripture develops.

We’ll be saved from the wrath of God through Him, because we have been justified. From the wrath of God that we saw in chapter 1. Come back there, to those verses. Verse 18 of chapter 1 starts out, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…” And so that wrath of God is manifested how? In verse 24, “…God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity...” Verse 26, “…God gave them over…” Down in verse 28, “…God gave them over…” And then there’s the penalty, and He came into that in chapter 2, more specifically in verse 5, if you continue to reject the kind invitation of God inviting you to the salvation He has provided, “you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God…” He went on to talk about that coming judgment. I have no fear of it. You have no fear of it.

There’s coming a time and we have studied this in Revelation chapter 20, the great white throne, where the wrath of God will be poured out on people in its fullness. Come over to Revelation 14 since we’ve studied Revelation not too long ago. Look at verse 10. He’s speaking in the Tribulation, but it’s the final destiny and condition for all unbelievers, as we see at the great white throne in chapter 20. But here’s the preview in verse 10 of Revelation 14. “…he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger…” I mean you see the words build up there. We have them built up for our salvation. Here you have them building up for His anger. You’re going to drink, as we would use an analogy, the full dregs of His wrath mixed in full strength. Nothing to dilute this anger; the cup of His anger is full strength. “…and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever…” into the ages of the ages. “…they have no rest day and night…” and you know what He says.

Come back to Romans chapter 5, verse 9, “Much more then…we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” This salvation is a great salvation, it’s all taken care of; my account is stamped paid in full. There are no charges to be brought. Remember in the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, we will be presented in the presence of His glory as those holy, blameless, without spot, in the presence of a holy God, in the presence of His glory. Now what’s the record show? It’s clean. He’s holy. He’s set apart from all defilement. He’s without spot, there’s no charges to come. He’s blameless, but that’s us! That’s the salvation He’s talking about. We’ll be saved from the wrath of God through Him. Whereas those who have not entered the provision God has made in Christ, through faith in that provision, will not. It’s amazing! What needs to be done, has been done. What’s lacking is faith on the part of individuals in believing and through believing what God has done in Christ for them, having that applied to their account, so they will be guilty for it all. The full weight of God’s wrath will come upon them, but we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him, because from here on I’ve lived a near perfect life?

No! I will be saved from the wrath of God through Him, based on my connection to Christ. That will get developed when we get into chapter 6 and our identification, and being in Christ and dying with Him, and being raised to new life, and so He unfolds the details. For years, we were part of a religious group that believed you could lose your salvation. That’s a terrible thing! It began to depend on me. I was saved based on what God has done for me in Christ and my believing. But I was kept in that salvation by my own actions and you’re always aware. Today wasn’t a perfect day. If I didn’t explode in anger, I had some pretty angry thoughts in my heart and mind. Oh, Lord, forgive me one more time, I’ll never think that again. Now I lied. I’m going backwards because I would think it again, and I knew I would fail again. No, it’s by virtue of you are in Him.

Further elaboration, look at verse 10, Romans chapter 5, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” We have the doctrine of reconciliation and it’s a doctrine that’s good to start with when you want to look up words related to our salvation, because it’s only used in two main passages. This passage in Romans 5 and 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, beginning in verse 18. It’s two other uses outside of that one is in Romans 11:15 and it talks about the reconciliation of the world. And there’s one use of it relating to marriage reconciliation in 1 Corinthians 7. But the other uses of this word are limited both in the verb and the noun to these two verses and Romans 5. You could add Romans 11:15 because it talks about the reconciliation of the world, but then 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 18 to 20. It’s a good place to start. Get a theology book, a systematic theology, or a New Testament theology, and look up the doctrine of reconciliation because it’s not so expansive.

Now it has other implications, but it means to be brought into right relationship, to have peace with God. That’s what we had in verse 1, “…having been justified by faith, we have peace with God…” The enmity has been dealt with, now I can be welcomed into the presence of God. Everything’s good between us. You know, if somebody did an offense against you and made it right, what needed to be done, you can say there’s nothing between us. They’ve been reconciled to you. That’s what God did. We were reconciled, but it happened while we were enemies. The provision for us to be reconciled, He didn’t do it based on anything in us, and His sovereign election took place within Himself and it wasn’t based upon anything in you or me, or anyone else. Some things are left in the mind of God, known only to Him based on Himself, and His own sovereign action. He made that decision, so we can go so far. I can tell a person the provision has been made for His enemies, and that includes all the enemies.

We’ll get to this when we get to the last part of chapter 5, which is one of the greatest theological sections in all the bible. We were reconciled to God while we were enemies. The provision was made. Now, he doesn’t make any mistake. Before I believed, I was just as lost as anyone. I wasn’t reconciled before I believed. That’s why you have to take Romans in an orderly, systematic fashion. Otherwise, you’ll say, well see, I was reconciled when I was an enemy. The work of reconciliation was done, that’s the context. Verse 6, “…while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” It’s through faith, through Him that we’ll be justified. That’s why everything he’s dealt with up to this, he took so much time explaining “by faith” through chapter 4, to understand that work has been done. I take it, it’s been done for everyone, but it’s not been applied to anyone until they believe. And so those of us who have believed at one time in our life are described as those who were dead in their trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of the world, under the leadership and direction of the prince of the power of the air, as Ephesians 2 talks about. But He made a provision when Christ died for His enemies.

We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, and it’s the provision of that work that enabled us to be brought into a right relation with God, a relationship of peace. As I said, we can stand in the presence of God, holy, blameless, without spot. There’s nothing between God and me, it’s all been taken care of in Christ. “…we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Look back to verse 9, “Much more then...” I’ll say that another way, “having now been…” reconciled. You think God reconciled us now, to let us be lost again. No! We will be saved by His life. We’ll get into this in chapter 6, because you see as He’s done, very orderly the Spirit has directed him to bring these truths in, and then they get further developed. How we’re identified with Christ, not only in His death, but in His life, will be the development in chapter 6, but He leads us into that. He expects us to understand not only the statement, but how the statement is accomplished, because God expects us to know the wonder of this salvation in its details.

The fact that Christ is alive is God’s guarantee to me that I will have a life in His presence, eternal life. Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25, says that He ever lives to make intercession for us. That assures our life. We are connected to Him in a spiritual, supernatural way. Back to Romans 5, verse 11, “And not only this, but we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” You see, it’s something that has to be received and we’re going to end here so I can talk about some other things with you. But we’ll pick up here and I want to look at the other major passage with you in 2 Corinthians 5 on reconciliation. But we exalt in God. We’re back to where we talked that we could exalt in our tribulations in verse 3 of Romans chapter 5, because it sharpens our hope and it’s all coming together. Now we ought to grasp this with such clarity we never move from it. “And not only this, we exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” It was received when we believed in Christ.

We had what Christ did, now credited to our account. The details, God walks us through. He wants us. This is a great demonstration of His love for us, it’s the difference between an eternity in hell and an eternity in the glory of God’s presence. It’s important to God that we understand it and the beauty of its details. It’s sad that some Christians seem to be satisfied with, well, I’ve trusted Christ, I know I’m going to heaven. That’s good enough for me. It must not be good enough, it’s not good enough for God. It’s like our children; they can’t tell you, Well, this is good enough me! You tell them, No, that’s not good enough! It won’t be good enough until it’s the way I told you! And so, we will be held accountable for knowing these truths, and wouldn’t we want to know them. Isn’t this the most precious thing to us? We don’t want to lose the handle on that great truth. Well, let’s break here. I have some things that relate to the gospel that I want to talk to you about. Let’s pray.

Thank You, Lord, for Your grace. Thank You for the wonder of this salvation, its power. Lord, we ought to grow in amazement that the gospel is the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes. What a great salvation it is, that it has to be, to save such great sinners. And that is the salvation we have that we give you praise for it. Lord, may we stand fast and hold it tight. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.


I want to talk to you a little bit about some matters I’ve talked to you before and they’re not new. But I’m concerned where, if the church loses its hold on what the gospel is and what it means. We have no place to go, so some things I want to talk about. Some of you are studying neo evangelicalism and current things with Don. Some of you have read in this area, I’ve talked about it before. Some things going on and it seems Spurgeon in his day talked about the Down Grade and we quote Spurgeon but you know Spurgeon got voted out of the Evangelical Baptist Association, like 2,000 voted against him to 6 who stood with him and he said, “It’s the Down Grade,” you’re on that slide down and it is. Look at England today. There are a couple of books been written by a man in England, all is not lost; in fact he attends Spurgeon’s old church. It burnt down, but it’s been rebuilt on that site in a much more limited way. There are things going on, that come right to the center of the gospel. What is the gospel?

Now we are walking through this. Why? If you don’t have a handle on the details, then soon, you hear things and they seem to make sense, but I have to come back and say, what is the gospel? Because these men are saying there’s more to the gospel than just salvation? In fact, I’m going to read you a quote if I can put my finger on it quickly where one of these writers who claim to be an evangelical, and certain evangelicals claim him as a man who had a great and wonderful impact in evangelicalism. He says if you just preach the gospel of salvation through faith, you’re a heretic, because that’s not the gospel. Now, how do we get confused on this? There are things going on. Neo evangelicalism, you’ve been exposed to that where they’ve changed the view of the kingdom, and with that, what is the gospel? To have the complete gospel you end up having to do kingdom work and that’s social action, that’s political action.

You know all these movements go to the same place. We have what are called the New Calvinists today. There’s a little booklet if you want to know what the New Calvinists are. If you want to know who are involved in the New Calvinists this book will talk to you about Tim Keller. He’s a pastor in New York City, very popular, thousands of ministry people under his ministry both in his church, and then through his expanded writings and so on. John Piper. I know some of you have shared you’ve had some exposure to, and Mark Driscoll. The New Calvinism. I wrote a definition that you don’t have to write it down, I’ll make a slide for it. The New Calvinists are Calvinistic, neo evangelical charismatics who promote a form of Liberation theology, so that’s my definition of New Calvinists. They’re very similar to the neo evangelicals but they have a Reformed input. Probably the most familiar name would be John Piper who pastored in Minneapolis for many years, retired from there but still does his Passion Conferences. The last one I read about in this book they had 60,000 young people there. Has broad influence but he’s a new, a neo or a New Calvinists which are very similar to the neo evangelicals. And that is a great concern, because it moves us to things like social action, political action, exposure to Charismatic theology.

Men that we would have thought that being Reformed would not have made them, in some ways it opened the door to it, because they’re not clear on the kingdom, but then they move into charismatic things and are open to that even if they don’t say I’m a practicing charismatic. They say I don’t deny that you could have the charismatic gifts today and then they begin to talk like John Piper did, that God spoke to him directly one day, and it’s repeated in here of what God said to him. Some of you have read that in other places. I’m using John Piper, he’s one of the prominent leaders in the new neo Calvinist Movement, which moves even more strongly into social, political, racial, and even charismatic issues and there is a statement, let me read it here and this is what concerns me about men like him.

This man makes a good observation and it’s about his chapter on John Piper. He concludes it with this: “When a measure of doctrinal soundness is accompanied by such serious mistakes, (which he’s talked about) the damage to God’s people is far greater than where the erroring person is altogether unsound in doctrine.” Remember Paul warned the Ephesian elders from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things. The man that I used as an example this morning who brought destruction to one of the bible teaching churches in our city came after getting advanced degrees at evangelical seminaries. It became but you could see the deterioration of it. I had contact during that time with someone else on the staff, who followed him, and he recommended a book to me but that book was all about spiritual formation and returning to the ancient ways, and it reminded you of Roman Catholic mysticism. Where are you going with this? This is not founded in the Scripture.

As soon as we move off from that “hold fast” to these things, we are open to be moved all over. The shocking thing is what it says about our view of what is the gospel. This book is available in Sound Words. You won’t agree with everything. They are more strict perhaps on contemporary music because he attends Spurgeon’s Tabernacle where Peter Masters has been a long time pastor and Spurgeon was very restricted on music. He didn’t believe in choirs. He said when the devil was kicked out of heaven he landed in the choir loft. He didn’t believe in musical instruments being used and all of those things, so we would maybe not be so conservative. He said that after my death I know you’ll get an organ and a choir, and he sometimes moved outside the bounds of the Scripture, but he had some good things.

If you want a brief summary of what New Calvinism is and some of the things they are involved with, but you realize we may not go as far as music but some of where they’re going with contemporary music has crossed into the world. We’ve got Hip-hop music, we’re putting on this Passion conference, 60,000 people and you’ve got the Hip-hop music, you’ve got the lights turned out, it’s dark and everybody’s up moving around. You don’t know--what’s the difference, and then John Piper gets up to speak. I sit there and think, could I say with this all going on and now I present to you the apostle Paul. I mean is that the context—at any rate these are some of the things going on in the New Evangelicals and it’s moving in.

I was reading an article by one of those who would be moving in this category and the inspiration of Scripture now. Well, we don’t have to hold to the complete inerrancy of Scripture and they always word it in a way, I don’t deny inerrancy, this man was saying, but that doesn’t mean we have to close ourselves out to other evangelicals who are scholars who don’t hold to inerrancy, so let’s just open the door. Of course, I don’t hold that, but we should open the door and be open minded. No, we shouldn’t! We should decide what the truth is and I’ll die on that spot. I shared with you one of the pastors that came to see me during one of our battles. He said, Gil, the problem with you is, you’ll die for every doctrine. Hmm, I think that’s an accurate evaluation. Now, let me ask you, which ones will you die for? You pick and choose. All right, I like these discussion times. I may read you what they say in case we don’t understand.

This is a chapter on Ralph Winter. Now you may not be familiar with him but if you’ve read in missions and so on, you can’t avoid Ralph Winter. In the evangelical, in fact this starts out that he died in 2009, he’s recognized as a giant in the field of Christian missions. One professor writes, “Dr. Winter was perhaps the most influential person in missions of the last 50 years and has influenced missions globally more than anyone I can think of.” Now here’s John Piper. John Piper said, “Winter’s vision of the advance of the gospel was breathtaking.” Now keep that in mind, John Piper said, “Winter’s vision of the advance of the gospel was breathtaking” when I tell you what Winter had to say about the gospel.

“Winter firmly believed that evangelism should be concerned with defeating the works of the Devil.” Now there’s a sense where we may say, well yeah, we bring the gospel in and that defeats the devil because he doesn’t want the light, but that’s not what Winter is talking about. We want to defeat the works of the devil--let him define the works of the devil for you. “One of the great works of the Devil that needs to be overcome is disease.” Wait a minute, so you see where he’s going. If you’re going to have a true gospel and defeat the works of the devil, you have to be involved in overcoming disease. He goes on and writes, and this is Winter writing, “In my theology, Satanic disruption, distortion, and destruction of God’s good creation is so extensive and pervasive that it even extends to what are often called “genetic defects.” So, now we want to defeat the devil we have to deal with disease. We have to deal with genetic defects and then he goes on to say, Winter is still speaking, “The same goes for destructive viruses, bacteria and especially parasites. “These represent incredibility ingenious evil.”

Now wait a minute, is this what the gospel is, this is the work of the devil that is so serious today. This is where I’m concerned with where is John Piper, who says “Winter’s vision of the advance of the gospel was breathtaking.” Is he advancing the gospel? We’ve been studying Romans. Have you had anything that’s come up about dealing with disease, parasites, bacteria? These are the incredibly ingenious evils of the devil that we have to deal with, and Winter didn’t think the Reformation was a good thing because it was heretical. The Reformers were just as bad as the Catholic’s because the Reformers believed, they emphasized you’re saved by faith alone, and the Catholics were teaching you’re saved by works and both sides were heretical.

Let me read you, here is Ron Sider if you’ve read anything in the social development you’ve read Ron Sider, but if you haven’t he wrote Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and some of these men I don’t classify as truly saved but I don’t have to deal with that. God deals with that I have to deal with what they are promoting as theologically acceptable. If it comes from a believer, it’s still not acceptable but you really have serious doubts that you’re dealing with believers. He’s writing about Ralph Winter and he says, “What I want to underline and celebrate with Ralph Winter is that (now note this) historic shift in the modern evangelical world in the last 40 years or so.” Now we just celebrated my 50th anniversary here. These things have happened within that time span in the last 40 years or so.

There has been a shift in the evangelical world, “Forty years ago, most evangelical leaders would have agreed that the primary mission of the church is “saving souls.” In other words, evangelism is our primary mission. “Ralph Winter rightly celebrates the fact that things have changed dramatically. Today almost all evangelical leaders agree that we are to do both evangelism and social action.” We don’t want to live in a bubble here. Understand the seriousness of this. He said this has been a change in evangelicalism in the last 40 years. We don’t want to have missed it. I don’t like to in sermons spend a lot of time on these issues but sometimes I think we don’t grasp the seriousness of having a firm grasp on the bible and our theology that he can say “Forty years ago, most evangelical leaders would have agreed that the primary mission of the church is “saving souls.”

That’s ancient history. You understand young people are growing up being influenced by evangelicalism as they get out there listening to people like Piper. A lot’s going on in evangelism, so he can say that this is true, almost all evangelicals agree with this change. You know what that makes us a very small minority. My concern is soon we are thinking, well, why are other bible believing Christians doing this and we’re not? Why are we the narrow ones? Why are we exclusive? They seem to be reaching more people. I mean can it be bad if you get 60,000 young people to get together. Well, is the gospel, the gospel? We don’t want to begin to compromise the gospel.

I did this. The Lord blessed me with the opportunity to do some doctrinal studies at Fuller Seminary back in the 1970s and exposed me at the early stages of the Church Growth Movement. Part of that I had to read and analyze every book that had been written on that subject, and it was in the School of World Missions, so I had to read the books like Winter and so on, where missions are, and where we want to go. It was good to be involved in that because I was constantly struggling back to say, what about the theology? What about what the Scripture says here? We’ve come to a theology of what works. If you can get 60,000 young people in a stadium, also include a presentation of the gospel, I don’t care what else they do. Soon, the leaders become the leaders that move us away.

I just can’t believe a statement like this, “Forty years ago, most evangelical leaders would have agreed that the primary mission of the church is “saving souls.” You don’t agree with that I wonder. Where are you, are you really a saved person? You add anything to the gospel, are you saved? He’s not saying that we exclude the gospel, but if you just have the gospel, but now they’ve changed what the gospel is, and I’ll show you where this is going. It’s the gospel and social action, but once you include something with the gospel you know where it goes. What Winter goes on to say is, “The gospel of saving souls is no longer the primary issue, it is an issue to support the primary issue.” The primary issue in a true gospel is meeting the needs and destroying the works of the devil, which he described. Fixing the social, political, physical issues of our day and the gospel of the salvation of souls is just a support for that.

Now you see what we’ve done. We’ve turned it around now. Well, saving souls is important and then we do these other things. Now we turn it around, it’s these other things that are important and saving souls can just help us do that better. You’ve lost the gospel, it’s gone! Now we ought to be aware of that as a church. People say Gil’s always harping on these things. Maybe he ought to move on, but you know part of what they want us to do is move on. Don’t be so narrow we can disagree on things; we cannot disagree. We can disagree on the length of hair, and clothing styles and some of those things. We can’t disagree on what the word of God says, and if we don’t agree on the gospel, we don’t agree.
A man who believed the Reformers were heretics just as much as the Roman Catholics, because the Roman Catholics believed that you were saved by your works, and the Reformers believed you were saved by grace through faith only, they were just as much heretics as the Roman Catholics. He and I have nothing to do together and how can John Piper who is credited with many as being a strong Reformed theologian say Ralph Winter has done great things for the advance of the gospel?

I say Ralph Winter has done all that he could to destroy the true gospel, then I wonder where is a man like John Piper? Now I know, and I’ve had discussions with some of you, and you say, why are you picking on Piper? Aren’t there worse people to pick on? The worst people aren’t the problem, the people who seem enough like us that we don’t have to pick on them. We had this when we battled psychology. Well, you know they’re close enough to us. I think they’re true believers. I don’t have to decide if they’re true believers. I can’t, I have my doubts obviously when you can’t get the gospel straight why would I think you’re a believer, but I don’t have to resolve that. This is what I used to tell people. They’d ask me, do you think so and so is a real believer? I don’t know. I think there may be reason for doubt, but that’s not the issue.

The issue is what he’s teaching is wrong and that is wrong whether it’s a believer teaching what is wrong, or an unbeliever that’s teaching what’s wrong. Unbiblical is Unbiblical; it’s not sanctified because a believer teaches error, so it’s a secondary issue. Oh, I think he’s a believer. I think he’s a good person. I think he means well. That’s why we’re going through Romans again. I read this and I say if we lose our hold on this and it’s closing in, it’s in our city don’t make any mistake about it. Now we talk about that it’s the normal view of evangelicals, it’s the normal view here in town. I’m not saying every single church, but I do talk to people. It’s here. If we’re not strong, our people get caught up in it. They go to churches and say, well Indian Hills is so narrow they’re against everybody. I could tell you one prominent person in the city that everybody knows I had some contact with many, many years ago. Somebody passed on a letter they wrote to him and expressed something I believe, and he wrote a letter back and said, well that doesn’t surprise me. Gil thinks he’s right on everything.

Well, if I’m not right on the Scripture I want to make the correction, but I think the Scripture is right on everything, and I want to be where the Scripture is on everything, but you can see where it goes. Now it’s the gospel has changed, and we’re heretics because we only believe the gospel, and we’re a minority now on what is called evangelism, because the vast majority of evangelicals now agree that the true gospel is salvation by faith, plus social action. Winter thinks it should be turned around because we’re not really doing the work of destroying the devil, until we deal with diseases, parasites, and genetic issues and there is no gospel. John Stott said, there’s nothing wrong, it is social action, plus salvation. That’s the true gospel. We’re a minority. Get used to it. Plant your feet and here we go.

Let’s pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the truth of Your word, and Lord the beauty of being able to have Your word in our possession. To be able to work through step by step, word by word, the truth of the beauty of the gospel that is truth. Lord, it is disappointing to look around us and see such erosion and departure by their own admission, that they are proud that things have changed. We’re not those narrow, exclusive, fundamentalists, but we are open and now we do those things that can be admired and appreciated in the world and make us accepted. May we be faithful Lord. The week before us will have its trials, will have its challenges, but in it all You will be sovereign because You are sovereign, and we can take each day as it comes with our feet firmly planted in the truth of Your word as we walk wisely in representing You wherever we go. Bless the week we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
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