GYC 2014: At The Cross

Romans: Power To Face The Final Conflict

Jay Gallimore

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

5. Romans: Power To Face The Final Conflict

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at the Cross in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

I'm going to pick up in Romans 5 today and hope to get into Romans 6.

I don't know that I'm going to get to Romans 9 and 10.

I think We only have 2 more sessions left, and I do want to get into 7, and a little bit of 8.

The Jewish connection may have to wait for another time.

If you read Romans 9, 10, and 11, and think about some of the predictions that Paul makes there, and then couple that with the spirit of prophecy, and what she says about Jewish people in the end of time, I think you'll arrive at some very fascinating conclusions.

The mark of the beast will not necessarily stand on its own without the context of anti-Semitism.

Alright, I would love to get into that, but those of you who came early get the hints.

All right, we're just kind of waiting around here for the time to start.

Anybody have a question or something you want to ask about before I get started?

Well, I'll repeat just what I just said, yeah.

Yeah, if You read Romans 9 and 10 and 11, and you read it thoughtfully and carefully, and you watch the predictions that Paul makes, and you couple that with predictions about what Ellen White says about the Jewish people, And you'll understand that there's going to be a great revival among Jewish people at the end of time.

And I'm also sure it's not going to be a parallel movement that will not merge with the third angel's message.

And she talks about them energizing the church.

And the church today could sure stand some energizing.

On the cross hung a Jewish man because it was God's purposes to bring the gospel to the Gentile through the Jewish people.

So even though it appears sometimes that Satan triumphs, he does not triumph.

And then I don't have time to get into the parallel movement of Zionism, but Zionism, with much of the evangelical Christianity, they think that's the actual fulfillment of the prophecies, And it's not.

Because the fulfillment of the prophecies are based on the if, and the if is used all through Deuteronomy.

And it's based on a revival and a reformation.

But both Paul and Ellen White predict a returning of the Jewish people to the Savior.

And when they return to the Savior, they will also bring Sabbath with them.

And then I think we're all going to get clumped in together in the end of time.

And the last mark of the beast will be a movement against anybody that's considered to be Jewish.

And if you don't eat unclean foods, and you keep the seventh day Sabbath.

I'm telling you this thing could come like that.

And that whole Zionist movement, I'm not against Israel, I'm not against all that.

But, there could be do some things that could turn right now that exists because of the backing of the United States of America.

If you don't believe that, then you need to do a little research on that.

And you let the population of the United States turn in another direction, it could be very interesting.

I got a lot of things to say about it, but I'm not gonna say them now.

That gives you something to do some study on your own.

But read carefully, so he says, All right, my clock says it's that time to start, so let's plunge in for the grace of God and let's bow our heads.

Father in heaven, as we open your word, we pray that you will be our teacher and our helper.

Thank you for these great and mighty promises that we have.

May we understand it fully and completely.

And may we understand that we're living in the end of time.

And I thank you for that in Jesus' name, amen.

I left off yesterday with Romans 5, 1 to 5.

But 1 thing I did not talk about, I did not talk about Jesus, the substitute, and I want to talk about that.

A lot of people have a hard time understanding how Jesus becomes our substitute.

I don't like where I get the illustration, but it provides a good point.

If you look in chapter 5 and you look at verse 1, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Who is this Lord Jesus Christ who now becomes our substitute?

I've already told you he became, he was able to stand in our place because He's worth more than all of us put together.

He's worth more than the whole universe because he's the creator.

It's not 1 human life for another human life.

It's the creator's life for the creation.

That's why an angel could not take the place on Calvary's cross, because an angel is not the creator.

You need, in order for us to have a substitute, we must understand a couple of things.

Every human being can trace their ancestry, male and female, back to Adam and Eve in the garden.

Adam was, and I know this is a big controversy in some places, it ought not to be, you ought to be able to read the Bible and figure this out pretty quick.

But Adam was charged with a leadership role of being the leader of his family.

And Eve was charged with being his help meat, his corresponding 1.

That also maintained itself after the fall.

Some people say, well, there's no headship, no male headship before the fall, and I smile and I want to say, let me go to what happened at the fall and just ask a couple of questions.

This is a little side journey, so you can do what you want to do with this, but it all figures in, you'll see my point in just a moment, and it figures into chapter 5 of the book of Romans.

Would there have been babies before the fall?

Last time I checked, you got a man and a woman, you're gonna have babies before the fall.

So the curse was on the childbearing issue.

Well, There's only 1 more thing that God cursed.

I say God cursed, I'll explain that in a moment.

But that was on the relationship between the man and the woman.

So if there was headship after the fall, is there headship before the fall?

All the fall did was interject pain into what God had already established.

So the big problem that we have in the current world and the culture that we live in is its rebellion against the divine order that was set up in Genesis.

God knew what he was doing when he set up male and female.

And if men want to understand the role that they're to play in the leadership of their home, in the church and so forth, they need to read Ephesians 5, where the model for male leadership is given by Jesus himself.

And the apostle Paul says that Christ so loved the church that he gave his life for it.

So men should so love their families in the leadership role that they're ready to give their life for their wives and their children.

That's the divine picture, And what God created in the beginning has never been overthrown.

And it never will be overthrown, no matter how badly people try to overthrow it.

Women, by the way, were also given a leadership role.

4. Romans: Power To Face The Final Conflict

I apologize for that, but I want to get right back into it here.

There were, do we have any more of those, lessons?

Okay, somebody was wanting, I need 1 up here and somebody, another 1 here.

If you just hold your hands up, he'll make sure you get 1, and I'm happy for you, we've got some extra, so I'm happy for you to have them.

Alright, if you, don't mind, just, yeah, hold your hand up, Lady right up here wants 1 on the front row.

All right, let's go back to the text right now and see where this is going to take us.

Verse 24, being justified freely by His grace.

And I want to say this, that there is nothing that Jesus saves, let me put it this way, that Jesus saves you, Jesus justifies you, plus nothing.

Verse 24, chapter 3, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as perpetuation to satisfy his justice, but God set it forth, God provided his own sacrifice by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness.

Somebody was just asking me, again, if Jesus, when Jesus says, not my will, but thy will be done, didn't Jesus have to go to Calvary's cross?

God could have destroyed the world and still been just, yes or no?

He went there of his own free will because it was the only way that you could save.

Look at 27 verse, just reading down through the, verse 26, to demonstrate if the present time is righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier.

I want to go back up to 24 again, verse 24, being justified freely by His grace.

In this context, grace is not something that is poured into you.

In the Roman church, grace is something that's poured into you and then you do good works and that becomes the justifying factor.

That's not true according to the apostle.

The grace here is grace that was something done for you, outside of you, and without your permission.

When Jesus died on Calvary's cross as the sacrifice, the perpetuation, that was God's grace doing that outside of us.

So in this context of justification, It's something that God does for us because we cannot do it ourselves.

And there's nothing you can bring for God to do that for you.

Now that doesn't mean that there's not another context of grace where God gives you His grace to be obedient.

But that's not a grace that justifies, that's a grace that is sanctifying.

And I'll talk about the difference between justification and sanctification just a little later, because a lot of people have got this confused.

In fact, I worry nowadays that people don't get sanctification and they don't understand the relationship between justification and sanctification.

All right, I want to make sure that I didn't miss that somewhere.

All right, verse 27, Where is boasting then?

Is there anything that you did to offer that sacrifice on Calvary's cross?

So there's no boasting not by the law of faith, no, but by the law of faith.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith, and we could put in Christ, justified by faith in Christ, apart from the deeds of the law, or is he the God of the Jews only?

Paul is saying this because he wants everybody to understand that when Jesus died on Calvary's cross, that he did not die just for Jewish people.

He died for everybody in the whole world.

Yes, Jews, Gentiles also, verse 30, since there is 1 God who will justify the circumcised, or the Jews, by faith, and the uncircumcised, the Gentiles, by faith.

Then he asks this powerful question, which I think is kind of the punchline in the book of Romans, Do we then make void the law through faith?

And he doesn't just say no, he doesn't just say God forbid, he doesn't just say certainly not, he says God forbid, yea, we establish the law.

And here's where Seventh-day Adventists need to be sharing with our friends and our neighbors.

The truth is, the law of God is established on Calvary's cross and by what Jesus did on Calvary's cross.

Well, if I'm that fish again and I'm out here in air, the law is going to do what to me?

It's not going to be established in my heart because it's going to kill me.

But if I am in Christ on Calvary's cross, Jesus established the law by doing 2 things.

First of all, He wipes out my sins, hallelujah, and then He gives me power to obey Him, and to obey Him is to obey the law of God.

In other words, it's the living Christ who comes into my heart and into my life supernaturally and produces in me a living faith, a living obedience.

That is impossible to do if I have just the law alone.

But if I have Christ, He's the living law, He's the sum of the law, He's everything the law is and more.

He's not only the moral law, He's also the ceremonial law.

Because you cannot be saved without the ceremonial law.

That's why I don't all do respect to those who do.

That's why I don't believe in people going back and celebrating all the old sanctuary feast days.

Every feast day, we're celebrating now the reality of the Day of Atonement.

If I'm going to go back to that, why don't I drag a lamb out and sacrifice that somewhere?

Jesus didn't fulfill just part of the ceremony law, hallelujah, he fulfilled all of them, because he is.

If Jesus is done away with, the moral law is done away with.

And that's the message of the Adventist church to the world around us.

I've had some friends who say to me, Oh, but the law's been done away with.

I said, just for sake of argument, let's just say you're right.

What are you going to do with the heavenly 10 Commandments that John saw and envisioned in Revelation chapter 11 in the heavenly sanctuary and the ark of the testimony.

If you want to say Moses' law was done away with, go ahead.

But what are you going to do with the heavenly 10 Commandments?

What are you going to do with the Heavenly 10 Commandments?

What are you going to do with the living Christ, who you say you accept in your heart and He declares Himself to be the living law?

3. Romans: Power To Face The Final Conflict

And we want to open our Bibles and we're going to move right into Romans chapter 3.

1 of the clearest statements of the gospel is in Romans 3.

And another 1 will be in Romans chapter 5, end of 4 and 5 will be another very, very clear statement of the gospel.

And 1 or 2 coming in, getting their seats, and then we will plunge in and go.

Gracious Father in heaven, thank you again that we can open your word and as we plumb the depths of this, We pray that Jesus will be our real teacher, the Holy Spirit, Spirit of truth will be here with us.

He opens up with chapter 3 and he starts with these words.

Verse 1, what advantage then has the Jew?

In other words, if everybody, if God is not partial and everybody is under the law, so to speak, then what advantage does the Jew have?

And then here is his answer, or what profit of circumcision, verse 2, much in every way because of them were committed the oracles of God, or the truth of God.

So is it an advantage, is it an advantage to have the law of God?

It's the law of life, and I'm gonna talk more about why it's the law of life and not arbitrary.

So to have, for the Jewish people to have both the ceremonial law as well as the moral law is a huge advantage because in the ceremonial law was held in essence the gospel and the law of God was the way of life, the way of truth.

Once again, this is a note if you have it in your book, and I'm under Romans chapter 3, and I'm looking at the note under number 1, verses 1 and 2.

Once again, Paul is in no way rejecting God's law.

The law of God serves a very important function.

Often people down the law or put it down when they should be downing its misuse.

It's the abuse or misuse of the law of God that leads to problems.

The law is to help us in our sinful condition to understand how much we need to trust the Lord.

Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?" Who are the some who do not believe that is referring there?

It's not referring to the Gentiles, it's referring to Jews.

And because some of the Jews didn't believe doesn't mean that God is not going to be faithful.

Just because everybody didn't believe doesn't mean that it's going to nullify God's plan.

So will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?

I like the old King James that says, God forbid.

Indeed, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written.

This is a quote from Psalm 53, and it's a mysterious quote, and in 1 sentence, it's a quote most people don't think about, but here it comes.

That you, God, may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged.

Why is it important that even though there are some people that are unfaithful and God judges them in the end of time for their unfaithfulness, why is God being judged?

And what reasons is God, for what reason is God being in judge?

And why is it important for God to be judged on His judgment?

If God, if God takes people that are in the end of time and he pronounces judgment against them, why is it important that God's judgment be judged?

If it's not just, what does that kind of problem, does that produce for God and his children?

If the devil had his way, no 1 would trust the Lord.

So the reason that God's judgment is judged, the reason God's judgment is looked at, and that's 1 reason there's a thousand years, the millennium.

We'll be able to look and see the reasons why God was just in making the decisions that He made.

And all the information is going to be there.

There's not going to be any information that's not there.

So the answer to that, if I get the right place there, in verse 3 and 4, number 5, it's number 5 under that chapter 3, why do you think it's important for God to be found righteous when He's judged?

Because fairness or justice breeds trust.

Does God want us to trust Him through the ceases and ages of eternity?

Are we going to be able to trust Him through the seasons and ages of eternity if we feel that His justice is unjust?

So the only way that God can make sure that we understand that His justice is just and build trust between us is to open the books.

So he opens the record and you have the right to go there, push the button or whatever it is, and you can get Aunt Susie's whole life or Uncle Bill's whole life there, and you'll find why God said no.

And that very ability to do that, that your trust in your Heavenly Father is built because the just will always live by faith.

Now I want to go down to, I threw another text in here and for sake of time I'm not going to read Ezekiel 18, 21 to 24, Ezekiel 18, 30 to 31, but I want to talk about it just a little bit.

And Ezekiel 18, you'll find something very interesting going on.

Israel is pictured as being very unhappy with God's justice because God said this.

He said, if a person is righteous all of his days and he ends up sinning at the end, he's going to be lost.

Or if a person is wicked all of his days, and at the very end, turns to God, he's going to be saved.

And the Israelites said, that's not fair.

Where were they coming from to say it wasn't fair?

Well, I'll tell you where, because in their concept, your good deeds, it was like a balance.

That your good deeds had to outweigh your bad deeds.

So if all your life you had more righteous deeds than you had bad deeds, you should be saved.

If you had more evil deeds than righteous deeds, you should be lost.

So they said it's not fair for a person who's wicked all of his life and at the very end he turns righteous and his wicked deeds are still more than his righteous deeds, he should still be lost.

If it's just the other way around, he's been righteous all of his life, but at the very end he turns wicked, he should still be saved because his deeds, his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds.

How much of the world still thinks that way?

Yeah, I mean the average John Doe that you meet in the street out here, if he's just kind of a Christian in name, he'll tell you, well, you know, I've been a good person, so God should accept me.

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