The Book That Changed the World

Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ and has impacted untold numbers of lives by presenting profound truth, simply stated. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. Now, if in your life the bottom is falling out, you better examine the foundation. You need a foundation.

We need a sure word, a solid word for an unsure faith. And today we're going to talk about the book that changed the world. I have many books in my library. I believe in books. I love books.

Books are important in my life, but books have great influence. Adolf Hitler, with his twisted and warped and fevered brain, wrote a book, Mein Kampf. And in that book, he espoused his Nazi philosophies. The result of the thoughts in that book was an horrendous world war, the gas ovens, the Holocaust, six million Jews exterminated, multiplied thousands in anguish and blood. A book, Mein Kampf. Hitler got his ideas from reading another book, Nietzsche. Man and Superman, Nietzsche was a perverted atheist. He hated God. He declared blatantly, God is dead. Hitler drank from that book, imbibed that book.

His mind was warped. Another man wrote a book, Karl Marx. And Karl Marx wrote a book on communism, dialectical materialism, das Kapital. People read that book. The Russian Revolution was born, the communist revolution. Millions of people paid with their life's blood. Others were enslaved.

The world rocked and ruined by communism. A book, a powerful book. Charles Darwin wrote a book, The Origin of the Species. There he talked about blind evolutionary force and that man is not made created in the image of God.

He is an accident of nature. He has descended from the apes. People read that book and try to make a monkey of themselves.

They believe that they're an orphan of the apes. Books have power, but no book has the power that the book that you have open in your hand right now has. Power for good for God and power that has changed the world radically, dramatically and eternally and a book that will go on through the ages. It is the book of Romans. It has been called the Constitution of Christianity.

Let me tell you the power of this book. There was a Roman Catholic monk. His name was Martin Luther.

Martin Luther had tried to get right with God by ritual, by penance, by good deeds, by all of the accouterments of the church, but his heart was empty. He took a pilgrimage to Rome. In Rome, there were some stairs purported to have been the stairs that Jesus ascended in Pilate's judgment hall. They felt that the blood of Jesus had surely dropped on those stairs. Martin Luther went to Rome, got on his knees on the Santa Scala, the holy stairs, and on his knees, he began to pray on every step, kissing each step as he went up, asking God to bless him, trying to get closer to God.

But he himself said, I was no closer to God when I got to the top than I was at the bottom. His heart was hungry, but Martin Luther had been studying the book of Romans, and Romans 1.17 burst alive in his heart and mind. The just shall live by faith, and he saw justification by faith, which is the theme of the book of Romans, and he was saved, converted, born again. The Protestant Reformation began. There was a great awakening. It swept Europe.

It swept the world. We've entered into it today, the power of the book of Romans. You go down to my home state, Florida, you come to a town called St. Augustine. I understand the oldest city in America. Well, that town, St. Augustine, gets its name from a man, Augustine. Augustine was a young college professor who lived a wicked, wild, lascivious life, consorted with prostitutes. But he had a burden of sin, tried to alleviate himself of that burden of sin, and one time he was out in the garden seeking God, and he heard a little girl singing a song over a garden wall, a little song, take up the book and read, take up and read.

He thought, what is this about? He opened the book of Romans and began to read, and there he found a verse that stabbed him in his heart, and he found the Lord Jesus Christ became the man that people today call St. Augustine. One of the great theologians of the early church. Back in the 18th century, there was a man named John Wesley.

John Wesley, very religious, very well motivated, so motivated that he left England and went to America to be a missionary, to convert the American Indians. He went to the state that we call Georgia. He stayed there. He had a fruitless ministry there. He got on a ship to come back home, discouraged, dispirited, feeling a failure, and he met some Moravian missionaries, and these Moravian missionaries had the light, the beauty, the joy of Jesus. He knew they had something he didn't have. He went back to London.

There he was at a place called Aldersgate. He went into a little meeting, and there they were studying the book that you have open in your lap, the book of Romans. This man who said, I went to America to convert the Indians, but who will convert me, said there as he heard this introduction to the book of Romans, this preface to the book of Romans, he said, I felt my heart strangely warm, and I had the assurance of my salvation.

Out of that experience, the great Wesleyan revival began that swept across England, and out of that experience, the Methodist church was born. John Wesley, whose hymns we read and preach and sing and enjoy, John Wesley had an experience with the book of Romans. Coleridge said, the book of Romans is the greatest piece of literature ever written. If I were shipwrecked on an island and could only choose one book of the Bible to take with me, I wouldn't have to stutter, stammer, think about it. Oh, yes, I would, but anyway, after I thought about it a lot, I'd take the book of Romans, to be very honest. Boy, thank God we don't have to take just one. Hallelujah.

Thank God we've got all 66. Praise God for that, but what a wonderful book. What a wonderful book. A masterpiece is the book of Romans. Now, we're going to look at the book of Romans, and we're going to think about it as the book that changed the world, for indeed it did, and we're going to look at it like we might look at some other books. For example, we're going to look at the table of contents. What is in the book of Romans?

Well, let me just give you a little outline here. This is just the table of contents. Now, we're not really even getting in the book yet, but just the table of contents of the book. The first three chapters deal with sin. Okay, chapters one through three, they deal with sin. They tell us what's wrong with the world, and then chapters five and six deal with salvation.

Thank God. God doesn't just show us our sin. He shows us the way out, and then verses five, six, seven, and eight deal with sanctification. You found out as I found out, it's one thing to get saved, isn't it, but it's another thing to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which means becoming more like Jesus.

That's all it means. And so you go from sin to salvation to sanctification. And then as you continue through the book, when you get into Romans 9, 10, and 11, that deals with sovereignty. It shows how God is sovereign over the universes, how God from eternity past to eternity future is in charge. What comfort we're going to find when we get in this passage that deals with the sovereignty of Almighty God. And then when you go from right on beginning chapter 12, where we present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, right on through the end of the book, it deals with service.

And it shows us how to serve this sovereign God and how to be in a very practical and a very real way the Christian will to be. So we've got a book. That's the preface to the book. That's the table of contents. That tells us what this wonderful book, this Constitution of Christianity is all about. Now, we've talked about the table of contents and the preface. Let's talk about the author.

Who is the author of this book? Well, we know ultimately the Holy Spirit is the author, but who is the human author? Well, let's begin in chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

Now, folks, I want to tell you, we could just stay here for a week just in this one verse. This is the man who authored the book of Romans. Now, let me tell you about him. This man named Paul was a Jew. He was a privileged Jew. He was born in a place called Tarsus. He was a very brilliant young man.

He was an honors graduate of the University of Tarsus. He was fluent in many languages. He was a world traveler. He was very strict in his religion, very much a student, and very much aware of world affairs. This man was also, besides being a Jew, he was a Roman citizen. That meant that he had the privileges that Rome had at this day, so he was a free man. He was not subjugated like other Jews.

He could come and go, and he could travel as he wished. Beside all of that, he had the privilege of doing graduate work under a professor named Gamaliel. Gamaliel was one of the best teachers, if not the best known teacher in all that part of the world. Paul was his prized student. On top of all of that, Paul was a part of the most strict religious sect in Judaism, the Pharisees.

And not only was he a Pharisee, but he said later on, he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was the highest of the high. He was at the very top. This man was prized and petted. This man had a pedigree a mile long.

He was a blue blood. But now I want you to learn some things about him, what happened to him. He met the Lord Jesus, you remember, on the road to Damascus, was gloriously, wonderfully saved, and now what do we learn about him? Well, let's just start with the very first word in the first verse, Paul. Paul, do you know what the name Paul means?

It means little. You see, his name wasn't always Paul. At first, his name was what? Saul. His name was Saul.

And when the Lord met him on the road to Damascus, he said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Now, who was the original Saul? King Saul of Israel. King Saul of Israel was a big guy. He was head and shoulders above everybody else.

He was tall and handsome and arrogant and carnal. King Saul. The very name Saul reeks with pride.

It means big one, successful one. That was his name. That's the name of the guy who wrote this book. But he doesn't call himself Saul. He changed his name from big guy to small.

Why? Because God cut him down to size. I mean, if there's anybody who'd had a reason to boast, if anybody had a reason to strut, it would've been this man Paul, but he did not do that. He introduces himself as Paul. And by the way, I like the way that he introduces himself.

He starts the letter Paul. Have you ever gotten a long letter and don't know who's written it? You read and read and read. What do you do? You go to the end and say, who is this?

Who's writing? Well, the ancient people didn't do that. They put their name up front. That's a good idea.

We ought to start doing that. That's sort of a caller ID. You know, look, this is Paul that's writing to you and he gives his credentials. You need to know who the letter's from. I heard about a preacher who was preaching. There was a man in the congregation who didn't particularly like him. Thought he'd play a little practical joke on him and so he wrote a note to the preacher, handed it to an usher and said, this is for the minister. The usher thought it was legitimate, brought it to the platform. The preacher unfolded it and there was just one word on it in big block letters, F-O-O-L, fool. Preacher looked at it, came to the platform, said a remarkable thing has happened today. He said, many times I have received a letter from somebody who forgot to sign their name. This is the first time a man ever signed his name and forgot to write the letter. Well, Paul signs his name up front. He lets us know who he is. He is a man who has been cut down to size.

Let me give you a couple of verses that give an indication of why he changed his name. Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 8, he says, unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given. Unto me, less than the least. Less than the least. I'm talking about this big shock. I'm talking about this towering genius.

I'm talking about this blue blood. He calls himself less than the least. Then he says in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 9, for I am the least of the apostles. You know, he saw himself in the sight of God as a nobody. Doesn't mean he had an inferiority complex.

He just knew that he was what he was by the grace of God. Do you know who Reggie White is? Reggie White is a friend of mine.

He plays defensive tackle for the Green Bay Packers. Now, let me tell you about him, ladies. It'd be just about as simple to stand in front of a moving locomotive as to stand in front of this guy when he lines up and try and block him out. It takes a couple of men to hold this dude down.

He is big and he is strong. But I heard this man who is a passionate Christian stand in front of a group of young men and say this, I am a nobody telling everybody about somebody who can save anybody. I'm like that, a nobody, a nobody telling everybody about somebody who can save anybody and that name is Jesus. Now, you may be sometime too big for God to use, but you'll never be too small for God to use you. So this man just begins his name, the little guy.

The little guy. So right away it tells me he's saved. He's saved for if any man be in Christ Jesus, he's a new creature.

This man even got a new name, but not only is he saved, continue to read. It says here a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle. Now, look at the word servant. Do you see the word servant there? Well, the word servant is not as strong perhaps as it could be because it's the Greek word doulos and that word means slave. Now, slaves were called servants in that day, but we may miss it sometime in our English. The word means slave and not only does it mean slave, it means a particular kind of slave. It's a word that means bond slave. Well, who were bond slaves? Well, if a man got himself in debt and he could not pay the debt, he became the property of the man that he owed money to in Bible times. He was what they called a bond slave and he had to work for that individual because he had indebted himself to that individual. But the Bible in mercy set a law and it was the law of Jubilee that after seven years, all the bond slaves had to be set free.

Now, there would come a time when sometimes a bond slave at the moment of his freedom would say, hey, wait a minute, I don't want to be set free. I'm better off under this man than I was by myself. He feeds me, clothes me, cares for me. He loves me.

I'm like one of the family. I don't want to be free. I love my master. I want to stay under him. I want to be his bond slave.

Well, if he made that decision, he wanted to do that, they called the judges of Israel. They said this man wants to stay as a bond slave. He wants to be a willing slave.

He loves his master. They would say, all right, let's put a mark on him. And they brought him to the doorpost, would take his earlobe and take an awl, A-W-L, and put it through his earlobe. The Bible says, thou hast opened mine ear.

That's what it's talking about right here. And there'd be a hole there. It would be the mark that he's a bond slave. The apostle Paul said, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

He became a bond slave. That means he is a willing slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, you say, well, then you count me out, pastor. I don't want to be anybody's slave. You already are.

You already are. Either you're a slave of Christ or you're a slave of sin. Everybody is in bondage somewhere.

You see, here's the thing. The unsaved man says, I want to be free. I will be free.

I am my own man. He goes down into the worst degradation and bondage there is, the bondage of sin. Satan and sin and self are cruel taskmasters. But when a man says, I will become the bond slave of the Lord Jesus, I love my master, then the Bible says, if the Son shall make you free, you'll be free indeed. He discovers the most glorious freedom in the Lord Jesus Christ. If I had 10,000 lives, I'd give every one of my lives to the Lord Jesus Christ because it is Christ through that perfect bondage that sets us free. You see, what is a bond slave? Now, listen very carefully.

Are you going to miss this? A bond slave is not somebody who says, all right, since I'm his slave, it's no longer my will. I'll do his will. No, no.

That's good, but that's not good enough. A bond slave doesn't say his will instead of my will. It says his will is my will. His will is my will.

It is not laying down arms. It is taking up arms for the one that you love. You see, have you ever thought of the scripture that says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart? That's over in Psalm 37.

Well, that sounds like too good a promise for God to make, doesn't it? You say, okay, Lord, I love you. I want a million bucks. No, because if you say, Lord, I love you, now give me a million dollars, what was the desire of your heart? Money, money.

You say, Lord, I love you. Give me the desire of my heart, fame and popularity. No, the desire of your heart is fame and popularity. But when you say, I delight myself in the Lord, you can have the desire of your heart because your desires are his desires and his desires are your desires and therefore you can be a Christian and do whatever you want.

Be a Christian and do whatever you want. Let me tell you something. I get drunk every time I want to.

And boy, I hope this doesn't have just a sound bite out of this message and that's all. I get drunk every time I want to. I don't want to.

Never been drunk, never intend to get drunk, just as soon eat dirt. I don't want to. Don't want to. You see, people say, oh, if I believe in eternal security, man, I'd get saved and I'd sin all I want to. Well, I sin all I want to. I sin more than I want to. If you still want to, you need to get your wanter fixed.

If you're a brand new wanter, you need to be born again. Paul says, I am no longer big shot. My name is now Paul, not Saul. I am saved. I am surrendered.

But let's continue to read. Look at it again here and we're going to find something else about the author. He says, called to be an apostle. Literally means a called apostle.

He didn't say, well, I just believe I'm looking for a profession. I just believe I'll be an apostle. No, I believe in a called ministry. And he says, thanks to God who counted me worthy, put him in the ministry. I believe God put me in the ministry. I've sometimes thought about what I might do if I weren't in the ministry, but I can't think of anything. Somebody asked a preacher, said, do you take Mondays off? He said, no. Said, I don't want to feel that bad on my own time.

I really enjoy what I'm doing, but I would never choose it as a profession. I believe God put me in the ministry. But you see, this same chapter says we're all called. You know, not just the apostle Paul, but we're all called. Look in verse six, among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ? God has called every one of us to our own particular sphere. We're the called. God has called us and he set us apart. So now listen, you say, why are you telling me all this about Paul? Because Paul said, you follow me as I follow Christ.

He's an example for you. So he was saved. Yes, he was. And he was surrendered. Yes, he was. And he was sent. Yes, he was. He was called of God.

He had a purpose, a mission for his life. And I'll tell you something else now. Watch it very carefully. He was separated. Now, don't miss this.

Don't miss this. He says here, separated unto the gospel of God. Now, it's very important. The key word there is not separated. The key word in my estimation is unto the gospel of God. Now, Paul had already been separated. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. You talk about people who lived a, quote, separated life. That is, all of the outward sins of the flesh he abhorred.

He walked the straight and narrow. The very name Pharisee implies separation. They were so careful that they paid tithe of mint, anise, and cummin', that is, when they were paying tithes. They had a little mint plant. They'd count all ten leaves, take one of them, take the tithe and give it to God, one-tenth of every sprig of mint, for example.

Ye pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin'. The Lord said to these Pharisees, he was already separated from sin. You see, if that's all the separation you have, you know what's going to make you a proud, bitter, haughty Pharisee like the apostle Paul was when he was persecuting the church before he met the Lord Jesus and before he found the grace of God.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And so if you get these things out of your life but you don't get Jesus Christ into your life, if you're separated from but not separated unto, you're going to become nothing but an old Pharisee. That's what you're going to become. And you need to ask yourself, is there a little Pharisee in me? Ask yourself that question because, you see, we're to be separated unto the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, what some people have as separation is I don't smoke and I don't chew and I don't go with the girls who do.

Okay? Neither does a fence post. You've got no more religion than a fence post. And I'm going to tell you, listen carefully, giving up things will not make you one scintilla of an iota, more like Jesus Christ.

It'll make you a Pharisee, but it won't make you like Jesus Christ. You've got to be separated unto the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, of course, when you're separated unto, you're separated from. But how do you get separated from by being separated unto, but you don't get unto by being separated from? I can't say it again, but it's true.

Now, listen, it is absolutely true. The word separated here, the word separated is the word we get our word horizon from. It's a Greek word that we get our English word horizon from.

And so, and it's a compound word. It literally means separated off from unto, off horizon. Well, what does that mean?

Well, let's see if I can explain it. You know what the horizon is? If you go up to a tall building somewhere and look around 360 degrees, you'll see as far as you can see, that's what? The horizon. That's where the earth just tails off, and that's your world. Now, do you know how to change your horizon? Change your location.

You just change your location. Every time you change your location, you change your horizon. So what determines your horizon is your center. What determines your horizon is your center. So, when Jesus Christ is your center, then that horizon is your world, you see. His life is the boundary of your life. You're separated unto him. An old boy may be dating some girls, looking for that girlfriend. He's dating Susie and Melody, and he's dating Ann, and he's dating Debbie, and then one day he meets Jane, and she becomes the center of his life. And she's the center, and so all these other girls are just kind of out of bounds. They're out of bounds.

They're off the horizon for him because his horizon is now, so far as his dating life, his love life, he has found a new center. And, friend, when you find the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going to find a new center. And it's not, you're not going to be talking about what you gave up for Jesus.

That's foolish. You're going to understand what you have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Who was the author of this book? His name is Paul, and because of the name Paul, we know he's saved. We know that this man is separated. We know that he has been surrendered. We know he's been sent.

He's just the author of the book. Thank God for the apostle Paul. I believe the greatest Christian who ever lived, and one day in heaven, I'm going to sit down and let Paul teach me Romans. It'd be wonderful. It'd be wonderful.

Won't that be great? All right, now, here's the third thing. We talked about the author of the book that changed the world. Now let's talk about the hero of the book. Every good book has a hero, and the hero of this book is the Lord Jesus Christ. We can find out what this book is about by reading verses 1 through 4. Paul, watch it, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. I mean, right up at the beginning of the book, he moves it to the front burner.

He says, folks, folks, I'm the guy who's writing the book, but let me tell you who I'm writing about. It is concerning God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you don't know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not going to understand the book of Romans until God turns the light on in your soul.

It is a book about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Christianity is. Christianity is Christ. Now, let's see what Paul says about Christ. He says, first of all, he's the promised one.

Do you see that? Which he promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, verse 2. Paul didn't start a new religion.

What we're talking about was before the foundation of the world. And Paul is just telling us in the book of Romans what he learned in the Holy Scriptures in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is about Jesus.

I wish our Jewish friends knew that the Old Testament is about the Lord Jesus. Paul was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a pedigree, but one day God turned the light on in his soul and the Scriptures burst to flame.

You remember after Paul met the Lord on the Damascus Road? He went out into the desert, out into Arabia, and he spent a couple of years out there studying. One wise man said he put in his knapsack the writings of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He put in his knapsack the words of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, all of these. He put in his knapsack the Psalms, and he came out of the wilderness with Galatians and Ephesians and Romans in his heart and in his mind. Where did he learn all of that? Well, he learned it from the Old Testament. He said, this is what God has promised. Jesus told those people of his day, he said, search the Scriptures.

These are they which testify of me. The Old Testament is not about the Jewish nation. It's about Jesus, the Messiah of the Jews. The New Testament is about Jesus. All the Bible is about Jesus, and he is the promised one, and one of the ways, precious friend, that we can know the authenticity of the Bible or the authenticity of Jesus is fulfilled prophecy.

Jesus authenticates the Bible, and the Bible authenticates Jesus. He is the promised one, but not only is he the promised one, he is the provided one. He says there, he comes, he's promised, he is of the seed of David.

Do you see that there? He's of the seed of David. The Messiah was of the house and lineage of David. He is the royal heir to Israel's throne. He is Israel's Messiah according to the flesh, it says.

That is in his humanity. He's of the seed of David, but then the next verse says in verse 4, he is declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. So you see both his humanity and his deity at the same time. He is of the seed of David according to the flesh, but he's the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.

Now, listen, he is the provided one. God provided a Messiah. Jesus was not a divine man. He was not a human God. He was the God-man. Perfect humanity and perfect deity.

It's as much a heresy to deny his humanity as it is to deny his deity of the flesh. He's the seed of David, born of a virgin, flesh and blood, but declared to be the son of God with power. He is the provided one.

Now watch it. Jesus Christ, the promised one. Jesus Christ, the provided one. Jesus Christ, the powerful one.

Look in verse 4. Declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. How do we know he was not just another wild-eyed fanatic? How do we know he was not just another religious teacher, some guru? I'll tell you how we know he walked out of that tomb. Well, you say, well, how do we know he did that?

It's a good question. He showed himself alive by many infallible proofs, and people with good minds far better than mine or yours have said that there is inescapable evidence that Jesus Christ came out of that grave, more evidence than the Julius Caesar ever lived. And to say that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead is to fly in the face of sheer reason apart from revelation.

Yes, he showed himself alive by many infallible proofs. He's declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead. We serve a mighty Savior. He has conquered death, hell, sin, and the grave.

And that's what the book of Romans is about. He rose and came out of that grave. He, Jesus, the promised one. He, Jesus, the provided one. He, Jesus, the powerful one. And he, the pure one.

The Bible says this in verse 4, that he did this by the spirit of holiness. Never been a man like the Lord Jesus. How holy, how pure, how sinless is the Lord Jesus Christ. John Phillips, a dear member of this church, wrote some words that deeply stirred me.

I want to share them with you. He's talking about our Savior. He said his life was perfectly holy. He never looked with lust. He never uttered a hasty, unkind, untrue, or frivolous word. He never entertained an impure thought.

He was never accused by conscience. Never inflamed by wrongful passion. Never out of step with the will of God. His time was never wasted. His talents never debased for selfish ends. His influence never bad. His judgment never wrong. He never had to apologize for anything that he did or retract a single word. He said he was never too late or too soon.

Never upset, never insipid. He was never too shallow or afraid. He lived on earth approximately 12,000 days, and every one of them was a marvel of holiness. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, Hebrews 7 26. From the summit of the Mount of Transfiguration, he could have stepped straight into glory. He had absolute victory from the moment he first drew breath in that Bethlehem barn until the moment he closed his eyes in death on the cross of Calvary. He was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness.

Don't you love that? He's the pure one. You're looking for a hero?

Let me suggest mine to you if you don't have one. His name is Jesus. Oh, what a Savior! The author of the book, Paul. The hero of the book, Jesus. The theme of the book, the gospel.

Notice how it begins. Again, verse 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under what? The gospel of God. And right there he tells us the source of the gospel.

Paul didn't think it up. He said, I didn't receive it from man, neither was I taught it by man. It is the gospel of God, so don't tamper with it, don't pervert it. Paul said to the Galatians, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which I preached unto you, let him be accursed. And Phillips translates that, let him be damned.

Why? Because a false gospel will lead to a synthetic salvation that will lead to a very real hell. Now, Paul did not equivocate with the gospel.

Paul is not trying to be politically correct. He's just saying it is the gospel of God. He said, if an angel comes and preaches any other gospel, let him be accursed.

Paul said, if I preach any other gospel unto you than that which I preached, I need to be accursed. It is the gospel of God. But the source of the gospel is God. The subject of the gospel is Jesus.

Look, if you will, in verse 3, concerning his son Christ our Lord. It's not a gospel that alludes to him. It's not a gospel that mentions him. For in Jesus is the gospel, his death, burial, and resurrection for our sins, that is the gospel. It is the gospel, the good news of Christ. The word gospel means good news.

And it is good news concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, why do we have churches that are filled with moral whirlings who've never been born again? You know, a church is supposed to be a sheepfold. It's more like a zoo.

Why? Because people have met religion. They've not met Jesus. They've met denominations. They've not met Jesus.

They've met programs. They've not met Jesus. They've met causes, but they've not met Jesus. Christianity is not a creed, not a code, not a cause. It is Christ.

Did that get in? It is Jesus to know the Lord Jesus. Christ is your personal Lord and Savior, not to know about him, but to know him. You can take Confucius out of Confucianism and still have Confucianism. You can take Buddha out of Buddhism and still have Buddhism. You can take Muhammad out of Islam and still have Islam, but you cannot take Jesus out of Christianity and still have Christianity. It is not just simply some truths that a man taught.

It is a vital relationship with him and to take Jesus Christ out of Christianity would be like taking the water out of a well, the blue out of the sky, notes out of music, and numbers out of mathematics. I'm telling you, folks, Christianity is Christ. The source of the gospel is the gospel of God, the subject of the gospel, Jesus Christ, and the supply of the gospel.

Let me show you what that is. Verse 5, By whom we have received grace and apostleship. Do you know what grace is? Grace is what makes God save people like we. Apart from works of any kind, it is the sheer, absolute gift of God. The just shall live by faith. By faith I receive the gift of God.

By faith I receive the grace of God. Folks, you're not saved by good works. You're not saved by religion. You're not saved by baptism. You're not saved by church membership.

You're not saved by giving you money. You're saved by the grace of God. And we're going to learn about that in the book of Romans.

What a wonderful, wonderful book this is. A little boy came forward in the church service and wanted to be baptized, and they said, Well, son, tell us how you got saved. He said, Well, I did my part, and God did His. Well, they didn't like that. They said, Well, tell us about your part. He said, I did the sinning, and He did the saving.

And that's it. Oh, in my hand no price I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. When I was a teenage boy, in a revival meeting, they gave an invitation, and I went forward. They said, Well, Adrian, why did you come?

Did you want to be saved? Yes, sir. Be seated, Adrian.

A kind person whose name I cannot remember sat by me and said, Now, how do you spell your name? A-D-R-I-A-N. Rogers, is that right? Yes. Adrian, you're coming, accepting Christ as your Savior. Yes, sir, I am. Check that and so forth. I just sat there.

That's all they told me. Later on, they said, Adrian has come. Those of you that rejoiced that He's come, would you lift your hand and say amen? Of course they rejoiced. I'd been a terror in the neighborhood. And they said, Well, we're glad that He's come. And, you know, I was sincere. I meant business. But, folks, I didn't have assurance.

You know why? I'd still not learned about grace. And I rode a spiritual roller coaster for a couple of years. But I learned the truths that I'm sharing with you today from the book of Romans. I learned about the grace of God. And one night after I'd walked Joyce home, I stopped on the corner of 38th Street and Calvin Avenue in West Palm Beach, Florida. And I said, God, I don't know whether I'm lost and the Holy Spirit has me under conviction that I'm saved and the devil's trying to make me doubt it.

Have you ever been there? Because I don't know where I am. But, God, I'm going to get it settled. And I know now that I'm saved by the grace of God. And I look straight up into that Florida sky and to those stars and I said, Dear God, right now, with all of my heart, once and for all, now and forever, I trust you to save me. If I am saved, this can't take it away. But I'm going to nail down a stake now. I trust you. I don't look for a sign.

I don't ask for a feeling. I stand on your word. I receive the grace of God. And, friend, a river of peace started to flow through my heart and through my life.

And it's flowing this very minute. It's the river of grace. That is the supply of the gospel. And we're going to be learning about this marvelous, matchless, infinite grace. The author Paul, the hero Jesus, the subject, the glorious gospel of the grace of God. We're going to have a good time together as we examine the foundations of our faith. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with Him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org, or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.