The Benediction, No. 3
RO201-02

Romans 16. We are in verses 20b-27 at the very end of the book. This is The Benediction - Segment Number 3.

God's Provision for Spiritual Stability

Paul closes his letter to the Christians in Rome with a benediction, which is in the form of a doxology, which is an expression of praise to God. Paul, in this doxology recognizes that God's grace is able to provide spiritual stability to the believer in any circumstance of his life. That spiritual stability is a provision which God actually made for His Son in His humanity: that is a knowledge of doctrinal principles and the guidance of God the Holy Spirit. We Christians have that same combination. Therefore, whatever the ups or downs of life may be in our circumstances, we are in a position of maximum stability, unless we are violating the areas of knowing doctrine or staying in the inner circle of temporal fellowship. God's grace provides the means of salvation through Jesus Christ and the spiritual maturity through the teaching of doctrine by God the Holy Spirit.

The True Gospel Versus False Gospels

Paul ministry, of course, was based upon the proclamation of the gospel of Free Grace Salvation. This gospel, he points out in this doxology benediction. This gospel is centered on Jesus Christ and expresses the paying of the price of death for the moral guilt of every person and therefore the receiving of salvation simply as a gift by accepting what God already has provided without any human additions. It is very important that you understand that that's how people go to Heaven. It is critical that we, as ambassadors of the living God, try to enable every human being that comes in the circle of our association to understand you get to Heaven by an act of God and by keeping your hands off the system. Your part is accepting by believing that God is telling you the truth and trusting in Christ for salvation.

Somebody recently asked Sammy Davis Jr., the entertainer, near the end of his life, just before he died, whether he should not convert to Christianity. Some years ago, he had converted to Judaism with the whole concept of beliefs that are relative to Judaism: Jesus Christ laid a false claim of being a messiah Savior, Jesus Christ was not God, Jesus Christ is not a Savior born, Jesus Christ is not the only way into eternal life. Sammy Davis believed all of that. But he said he had accepted Judaism and was satisfied with it, and had the rabbi perform his funeral service because he found in Judaism: a concern for poor people, for the needs of people, and for these various social concerns. He missed the point completely. I can assure you that on the basis of that testimony, Sammy Davis Jr. now understands what the apostle Paul has been trying to explain so clearly in his whole book and has been emphasizing here in these final verses the concept of Free Grace Salvation. Now Sammy knows what an enormous mistake he has made and it is irrevocable. He cannot retreat. He cannot change his mind. His destiny is now sealed.

So, when the apostle Paul stresses that he has a gospel which God has revealed to him and which he has been proclaiming and that it centers upon trusting in Jesus Christ the Savior, that is no small thing. Paul's gospel of Free Grace Salvation by faith in Christ was revealed to him, he says, "directly by the Lord Jesus Christ," during his 3 year period of being instructed in the Arabian Desert following his own salvation. This was part of a greater revelation to Paul about what the Bible calls a mystery. That is the mystery of the church and that group of unique believers that make up the Church and the whole Church Age. The Church is a special body of believers drawn from Jews and Gentiles, and it is to be the bride of Jesus Christ forever. The Church is also described as the body of Christ and he as the head of the Church. This is a comparison to a living organism.

Now, Satan, of course, has produced many false gospels for a salvation which is based on human efforts and on the allusions, which is now so very popular, of human godhood. These systems can never cover personal sin, so the adherents are lost forever. Most of the human race has unfortunately believed Satan's false gospels rather than God's true gospel, and therefore, like Sammy Davis Jr., they have missed the narrow gate into eternal life in Heaven.

The Narrow Gate

Jesus, with great personal sadness and regret on one occasion pointed out that this would be the normal experience of the human race. People would miss the way into eternal life. He expressed this in Matthew 7:13-14, where He said, "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it," referring to entering into the destruction of the Lake of Fire. Verse 14 says, "For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it." Not many people find their way into eternal life through the narrow gate, the narrow way, which is Jesus Christ Himself, because they all make the mistake of rejecting the very entrance way, which is Christ.

The Mystery of the Church

Now Paul, in referring to speaking of a mystery here that has been revealed to him and which he has been making known, is actually referring to something which was a secret in the Old Testament times, but which God has now revealed in New Testament Times. The concept and the plan of God relative to the Church was a well-kept secret by God until he was ready to reveal it in the New Testament era, which he did to the apostle Paul particularly. The Church is never referred to in any way in the Old Testament, though, there are several passages which leave gaps where the Church Age can be inserted.

The secret of the Church was in fullest detail revealed to the apostle Paul. And so he became the great apostle to the Gentile world relative to the concept of grace, which is the core of the church age, and relative to the whole privileges of those who belong to the royal family of God as Christians in the Church Age. The Dispensation of the Church is uniquely characterized as the Era of the Grace of God. When we say that, we don't mean that there was never any grace in the Old Testament. There obviously was. But the Old Testament, while God acted in grace, was basically a rule way of life. You did this and God would bless. You did this and God would bless. You did this that you shouldn't and God would punish. It was all legalistic rules. Do you want God's blessing, keep the rule. You want God's cursing, break the rule. Everything was rules. So, the Old Testament could be summarized in the words, if you want to be blessed, be good. You want to be blessed, be good. The contrast of that is the New Testament which says, "Be good because you already have been blessed. Be good because you already have been blessed with all privileges appertaining to members of the royal family. It's a very great difference. So, this was indeed a secret. The Dispensation of the Church is the Dispensation of the Grace of God.

Paul, the divinely designated apostle to the Gentile world, therefore closes his letter to the Christians in Rome by referring to the uniqueness of the Church. The Body and the Bride of Christ, of which all of you are a part. This Church body is not an extension of the Jew's religion of Judaism. It is not a substitute for Judaism, which rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah Savior, which God had promised to the Jewish people. It is an act of God to form a different special body of saints for Himself as a royal family, mainly of Gentiles. In Acts 15:14, we have a verse that explicitly points out that the Church is something special and distinct from anything else that God has been doing. Acts 15:14, "Simeon [referring to the apostle Peter] has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name." That's what the church is, a special group of people for God's special purpose and name. They are not the same people as the Jewish people. In 1 Peter 2:9, something else is pointed out about this body of believers. 1 Peter 2:9 says, "But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION," referring to Christian, as a royal group of believers. So that's why we refer to Christians, the Church, as the aristocracy of all believers, of all the dispensations.

Four Distinct Mysteries in the Church

The Church per se, I remind you again, is not called a mystery in the New Testament, but several distinct features about the church are called mysteries. That's why we say the Church, too, is a secret. Among those we have pointed out to you, the secret about Jews and Gentiles being joining together as spiritual equals in one body, the Church. Ephesians 3:1-12, tells us that it was inconceivable that Jews and Gentiles would be spiritual equals, and worse than that, be members of one body. That was a secret. There was the secret of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, permanently indwelling every believer in the Church Age. Colossians 1:24-27 tell us about that. It was inconceivable that God Himself would live within a human being. That was a secret. It was never true of the Old Testament saints, only of Church Age saints. Then there was the secret, the mystery, of Jesus Christ related to Church saints as a husband to a bride, Ephesians 5:22-32. It was inconceivable that a member of the Godhead would be associated with the kind of intimacy that exists between a husband and wife. Such a closeness was beyond the fondest dream of any Old Testament Jew. This is a secret and it is now revealed.

Then there was the secret, or the mystery of the Rapture event, of the Church saints as part of the first resurrection, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 and Revelation 20:5-6. It was totally unknown that at some point God was going to take out part of the human race as part of a thing called the first resurrection, and that this distinct body of believers would go all together, which we call the Rapture, or the Catching Away and taking the whole body of Christian believers out of the world at one time, and then the world going on. Such a thing was never known. The Old Testament believers didn't know anything about that. This is a mystery as part of the Church.

So, these 4 distinct mysteries indicate in part why we say the Church is a mystery. Of course, history has demonstrated that the secret Church Age falls between the First and Second Comings of Jesus Christ. The Church Age and its program does not replace God's plan for the Jews as a nation, nor terminate what was promised to Abraham for his descendants. After the Church body is completed, then God will resume fulfilling His promises to Abraham and his descendants.

It is very exciting for you and me to live in the times that we live in. We are seeing before our very eyes, the world being prepared for a conflict over the Jewish people, and the Jewish people being prepared to accept a strong man who can protect them against the Arab world, namely the antichrist. It is coming together. It is coming together. And each day we are coming closer and closer to where that conflict is going to explode and God's program is going to be set in motion. That cannot happen, the antichrist cannot come on the scene, though he is alive I'm confident today, he cannot come on the scene of human history until all of us have been removed from the face of the earth. But once we're gone, he can move in and take over.

The Church Does Not Replace Israel

So the Church does not replace the promises to Israel. There's no justification then in the Bible for mixing the elements of Judaism with Christianity. This creates a false religion of legalisms instead of grace. Part of the mystery associated with the Church Era is God's decision to leave the Jews spiritually callous toward Jesus Christ until His Church is completed. We learned that in Romans 11, the terrible judgment that rests upon the Jewish people today. They did not know in the Old Testament, it was a secret, that God was going to put them at a certain point in history where a Jew could look at Jesus Christ and he could not grasp that He was the Savior. We know that every human being born into the human race is born to spiritual darkness, spiritual blindness. You cannot understand spiritual things. But the Jew has a double whammy on him. He not only has that natural blindness, he also has blindness imposed on God as a punishment because his forefathers murdered their messiah Savior.

Romans 11:25, Paul says, "I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, [secret, you know what the word mystery means,] lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." Fullness of the gentiles means until God is through with His program with the Gentiles, which are now in the dominant position, including mostly the Church being made up of Gentiles. Paul says, "There is now a hardening" or another way of looking at that is a blindness upon the eyes of the Jews. Any Jew that you speak to, you will very quickly discover, has a hard attitude toward Jesus Christ. He doesn't like Jesus Christ. That condition is going to continue with its result of Jews going into the Lake of Fire. That is going to continue until the Rapture takes place. Then God will remove that blindness, that hardness from them. We are also told that this condition of blindness upon the Jews is going to continue until the church is removed.

When the church is removed, then will come in another phase of the mystery called the mystery of lawlessness. We need to point that out to you in 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10, 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10, Paul says, "For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; [Right away, you know that the secret of lawlessness, there's some kind of a great outburst of evil that was never conceived of or understood in the Old Testament. God says, I'm going to let you in on this secret.] only He who now restrains [which is God the Holy Spirit, who holds back evil,] will do so until he is taken out of the way. [When is the Holy Spirit taken out of the way? His presence on this earth is removed at the Rapture when the church leaves. So, Paul says, "There is a secret about an outburst of vileness, evil, the lowest kind of human corruption that the world has seen since before the Noahic flood, that is coming. It's on the horizon. Only God the Holy Spirit keeps it from breaking out now. Once He's removed with the Church, then all hell will turn loose and Satan will have his field day on this earth. Then verse 8 says, "And then that lawless one [the antichrist] will be revealed whom the Lord will slay [eventually] with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; [at the Second Coming of Christ, finishing off the antichrist and his power base] that is the one who's coming, is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders."

You know what is interesting? There is a new level of charismatic expression and it had permeated even Dallas Seminary. It's called the Signs and Wonders movement. I think it is interesting that here in this passage in 2 Thessalonians we're told that that's the very thing that Satan is going to be deceiving people with called signs and wonders, false wonders, false signs, the very words by which this movement has named itself.

Well, the time is coming then when the Spirit of God, the people of God, the Church is removed. Once the Holy Spirit is removed from this earth, then lawlessness will be unrestrained and everything that's possible against God's authority will break out. The antichrist will then promote evil worldwide. The power of Satan to lead people into unrestrained immorality will move into high gear and everybody can be as nasty as you like. People will believe the lie of the New Age religion of the Godhood of man. So, they will perish in the Lake of Fire. Religious people will be deceived by the signs, the false wonders, the miracles of the antichrist performed through Satan's power. This evil system of religion of Satan and his antichrist will then be destroyed at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus. So, what I'm telling you is the promise of liberals and of New Agers of an earthly utopia with man discovering his own godhood is a false hope. Jesus Christ himself has promised to come on to this earth to crush the whole thing.

So, the apostle Paul closing down Romans speaks about the mystery which has been kept secret for so long past. And then in Romans 16:26 he goes on to indicate that it is been manifested now in Scripture, the mystery that he's referring to, the mystery of the Church.

So, what's the purpose of the church? This is the great tragedy with Christians, with Christian communities, and Christian groups today. They do not understand the distinctiveness between Israel and the Church. They lose sight of what the purpose of the Church really is. The purpose of the Church, I hope that by now you have learned, is not to fulfill Israel's promised covenant blessings. You can be associated with certain denominational groups where you hear a term like this repeatedly used, "bringing in the kingdom." When you are with a group of people and they talk about "bringing in the kingdom," boy, your antennae should fly up, your radar system should go on, and you should sense a false religious direction. It is not the call of you people to bring in the kingdom of Jesus Christ on this earth. That is a false concept and is one of those rabbit chasing operations that Satan gets Christians into. It is not the call of Christians to bring about the fulfillment of the promises made in the Mosaic, the Palestinian, the Abrahamic, the Davidic and the New Covenants which had been made to Jews only, which have not been fulfilled up to this time. These covenants promised that there would be a king who would rule over Israel forever. They would have eternal possession of the land of Palestine from the Nile to the Euphrates. They would have great spiritual blessings. They would have the blessing of New Birth, the filling of the Holy Spirit. They would become the leading nation of the world, and they would rule over a world of peace and prosperity. The source of all their capacity would be their knowledge of God. You can't tell me that the Jewish people are in that condition today, yet they will someday have that condition. But it is not our job to bring that about.

It is the Lord Jesus Himself who came to fulfill these covenant promises, and thereby the Bible tells us at the same time to provide the basis for salvation. In Luke 2:30-32, that mission is stated. Luke 2 beginning at first 30, "For my eyes have seen Thy salvation; which Thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples. [This is Simeon's adoration of seeing the infant Jesus,] A LIGHT OF REVELATION TO THE GENTILES, and the glory of Thy people Israel." This was the summary of what God said to Abraham, 'Abraham, I'm going to make you a blessing to all people.' The New Testament tells us that that blessing was a spiritual blessing of salvation. Here, when Simeon saw the infant Jesus, he said, "this is the light of revelation to the Gentiles. This is the glory of the people of Israel.' Jesus had a twofold mission, but the Jews rejected Him, crucified Him. Therefore, their kingdom was postponed. So, don't run around trying to talk about bringing in the kingdom because God is not interested in establishing the Davidic kingdom now.

When that happened, the Lord Jesus turned to a new mission that is of building a new body of believers called the Church, related to Him as a body is related to a head and as a bride is related to her bridegroom. God's purpose today is not the fulfilling of the covenant promises to Israel. This is not the Age of the Kingdom. Israel's kingdom has been postponed through the rejection of Jesus Christ, her king. In Acts 1, that principle was made clear. And I stress this because here's where the Reformation leaders went astray. They all missed this point and therefore the churches descended from them, are still wallowing around in misconceptions about the Church and Israel. In Acts 1:6-7, "And so, when they had come together, [Jesus and his disciples,] they were asking Him, saying, 'Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" You see, these men finally caught on. Jesus is the Messiah Savior. The Jews rejected Him. They killed Him. They murdered Him upon the cross. Their question was, 'now that they have done that, are you still going to set up the Davidic Kingdom that you promised in the Old Testament, beginning with the promise to Abraham?' And "He said to them, 'it is not for you to know the times or the epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.'"

I've heard great preachers. I can't mention it because you'd know him in Dallas, great preachers read this passage of Scripture and thunder from his magnificent pulpit with his thousands of people sitting out in front of him, read this passage and say, 'Ya see these poor simpleton disciples still thought he was going to bring in an earthly kingdom.' But is that what Jesus said in verse seven? Jesus did not say unto them, 'You poor simpleton disciples, how is it that you still do not understand that my kingdom is spiritual in the heart and it is not visible in earthly and outward?' He didn't say any such thing. He didn't rebuke them. All He said was, 'No boys. Not at this time. Something else is going to happen. Because of what the Jews have done, the whole prophetic clock, that time period of 490 years that was revealed to Daniel, and the 7 years left to the very day, the prophetic clock is stopped ticking. Israel is being pushed aside for the moment. And some very marvelous, dramatic, wonderful things are going to take place because God is going to form a new body of believers, the most magnificent group of human beings that have ever graced the face of the earth, the Christians. And I'm just going to tell you that you don't need to know what the time schedule is when the clock starts ticking again on the Jews program.'

Anybody who reads Acts 1:6-7 with an honest, open mind will see that Jesus did not rebuke them for asking Him whether He was going to set up a kingdom. He just told them they did not know the time. He was not going to reveal that. In fact, He says, "That's with the Father, it's His decision now as to when to terminate." And they didn't fully understand what He was talking about, to terminate the body of Christ, complete the Church, pull it out, and then go back to Israel and complete its programs. So, Israel's program has been postponed. It has not been taken over by the Church. It has not been amalgamated with the Church.

Israel's promises are yet to be fulfilled, but they will all be fulfilled apart from the Church. We learned that in Romans 11:25-27. Paul says, "For, I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." Israel is going to be resistant to God until His program with the Gentile world is completed. Verse 26, "And thus [when that program is completed,] all Israel [that is all believing Israel] will be saved; just as it is written, 'THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. AND THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.'" God says, 'The time is going to come when I'm going to take my Jewish people and I'm going to give them a new heart. The Bible in the Old Testament referred to this as the New Covenant. They will have a spiritual perception. They will now trust in their Savior, Jesus Christ. Everything is going to be removed from against them that was brought upon them by their forefathers when they rejected their Savior.

The Unearned Blessing of Grace

So, God's program today, please understand, is the out-calling of the Church from Jews and Gentiles to form a special aristocratic body of believers, to be the body of bride of His Son, Jesus Christ: Ephesians 2:18 makes that clear, Romans 10:12-13 make that clear. The church itself, you see, is a product of the divine grace of God alone. Grace, that unearned blessing of God, God free now because of the death of Christ to act with blessing upon people, the Church to show forth the glories of God's grace, Ephesians 2:6-7, that's why God is so pleased with the salvation that does not require human doing. For all eternity, God is going to take a great deal of pride in pointing to lost sinners, who had no way of getting into Heaven, and showing that they reflect the brilliant glory of God. Ephesians 2:6-7, "and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, [Where are you positionally? You may be down the dirt in your daily living, but in your position with God as a child of God, you are already seated with Christ Jesus in Heaven.] in order that in the ages to come He might show the surprising riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." So that for all the ages, God can show how kind He was, the grace that He exercised by pointing to you and me and saying, can you believe that I was able to bring this slob into Heaven?

Now you see how Lordship Salvation wants to undermine every bit of that. MacArthur and his boys and all the rest of them who are out there humping for 'behave yourself to prove your salvation,' are undermining the very thing that Jesus says, 'My Father is going to take great pride in being able to point to you as a trophy of His grace, something that was impossible to imagine from the depths of the sin of a Mary Magdalene to the brilliance of an aristocrat in the family of God, full of the glory of God.' That is the magnificence of the riches of grace. That's why we say that the Church Age and the Church is a product of the grace of God.

The death of Christ has removed all limitations which sin had imposed on the love of God. His justice is satisfied, and He just cannot love you enough. And don't sit here and say, 'That's nice.' The Father has had all barriers to His love removed; He cannot love you enough. It's easy for you to sit here and be pleased to hear that. But when the difficulty comes into your life, when the physical breakdown comes, when the financial crisis comes, when the kid problems come, when all those terrible things that come in a world that's contaminated by sin and is going to hit us, that's what you need to learn, that God just cannot love you enough. All of you know what that means. You've seen a little baby, and you've held a little baby. You say, "Oh, you're so precious, I could just eat you up! Cootsy, cootsy, coo!" What do you say? 'I just can't love you enough. I'm just overwhelmed by it. I just can't express it.' That's exactly what this verse is saying. He just can't love you enough. But it is salvation as a free gift with no human obligations that makes that possible.

God has declared furthermore, so there will be no question about how you can get into Heaven, God has covered all possibilities of anybody thinking that he had some merit, some way of making it with God. I always find Galatians 3:22 a very sobering verse. Galatians 3:22 says, "But the Scripture has shut up [or contained] all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." Do you understand what that's saying? God has, as the judge, taken one more step. It isn't enough that we have demonstrated we're sinners. God has said 'I'm going on official record as a judge of all the universe to declare that every one of you is under sin. As you are born into the human race, you are doomed to the Lake of Fire.' That removes all questions of arrogance. That removes all hope. That removes all Lordship Salvation: I can do good and gain salvation, I can prove salvation by doing good. God has removed any possible way for you to have anything to do with your salvation, except one thing; believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. As the Lord Himself on one occasion to one of His inquirers put the question, "Believest though this?" God's program is a program of grace in the Church Age, and God has declared us all to be under sin, and so that we have no way out except through His free grace salvation.

Grace Versus Legalism

God's New Testament world of grace is the one in which we live. This is in contrast to the Old Testament way of life, legalisms to get blessings. Grace in salvation, and in the Christian life is the way we now live. Therefore, we want to be sensitive that we live under grace. As a church organization, we want to be sensitive that we do things in a way that preserves the freedoms of grace. Grace means freedom. See, grace means Fourth of July! Freedom means you are your own priesthood. You walk before God with just you and He dealing with you. So, therefore, we do not try to interject ourselves in any way between God and the individual believer. How we teach the Word of God has to be governed by grace. We have to do this on the basis that all of you are taught and you are taught in the privacy of your own mind here. We don't know whether you're accepting or rejecting, whether you're complying or not. All we can do is treat you with the grace that you deserve to be informed of what God has to say. How to secure finances for the Lord's work, we cannot put pressures upon you. We cannot shove an offering plate under your nose so all of us can watch and see which one of you bums are not helping out. It has to be a personal private you do it, because it's part of the spiritual sacrifice of substance that is your great honor and privilege. You don't want to do it, fine!

In summer camp, we had one counselor [with a] particularly sensitive heart. She had some younger girls. And it's kind of scary for these little girls to be away from home there in the forest at night. It does get dark out there. I was telling the staff about the Bible cabins, to turn off their lights at night. Because when I make my rounds around 11:30 or midnight, and I see this cabin light in the forest. It's scary for me to go out there by myself to turn that light off. But these girls the first night or so, this is kind of awesome, so, they come up and say, 'can I sleep with you?' And they crawl in bed with her. Those are not luxurious beds we have up at Lake Murray. Those are something that were bought from Attila the Hun, from his surplus division. And Attila was not known for running a lot of luxuries for his boys, ya' know! They were being on the move and go. So she crawls in and pretty soon one night, she had 3 of them in there. So, I said, 'OK, that's the end of that.' So, the next morning I told the girls that 'you cannot sleep with your counselor. You cannot ask your counselor to sleep with you. If you feel a little upset, you want to be close to her. You may sleep on the floor next to her bed. We have other people whom, little things, tarantulas that may want to sleep with them as they come in there. They're furry. They'll help warm you up if you want to sleep on the floor by your counselor's bed, but you are certainly free to do it.' I said, 'Listen, we're coming to the Fourth of July and I want you to know this is a free country and you can go to bed. If you want to go to bed crying, fine, you can do that or you can go to bed without crying. It is your freedom as an American to go to bed any way you'd like, but you go there in your own bed.' I see the counselor's heart is beating because this little kid is weeping. Well, that only goes to the first night. By the end of the first night, we have run them so ragged they're groggy and they fall into bed. And we have to tell them to take their clothes off before they go to sleep. So, after that, we don't have trouble.

But the principle of freedom and of doing things with preserving your freedom, whether you want to do things to make you happy, or to do things to make you unhappy and cry, it's your freedom. That is so hard for churches to understand.

The same famous preacher in Dallas has an annual sermon called his tithing sermon, and he's very proud of it. All the radio stations get there, and all the people come to church to hear for the 430th time his tithing sermon while he pounds the pulpit and talks about tithing. And I wonder, in that vast congregation, heavens, good heavens, is there not one person that doesn't know that tithing is not applicable to Christians, and that this sermon is an undermining of the royal family of God's magnificent privilege of freedom, to walk up and talk to God the Holy Spirit, to give all my paycheck, to give half of it, to give what my heart is burdened for, to remove the problem I see, to walk before God not on some legalistic basis. Because, in the Old Testament, you know, tithing was not an invitation. You did it, or you were in big trouble with God. Now, that's not grace. That's legalism.

Grace Living

How we give an invitation to salvation - salvation, you see, is a matter of belief. It's not a matter of you walking an aisle and making a public confession like some kind of an open demonstration. The New Testament Church Age is an age of grace and everything has to be controlled by grace. Unfortunately, most of you have not been contaminated by much legalism. So, you're not as sensitive about this problem. Most of you were saying, yes, sure, I agree with that; but you don't know the grinding legalisms that are out there among the average Christian group who talks about grace and doesn't have the foggiest notion.

How you receive members into the local church organizations... 'Bring 'em down and I'll sign a little card.' Boy, did I ever inherit a church here, 39 whatever years ago it was. A nice, sizable congregation, two thirds of them never seen. Several of them not the foggiest idea of salvation. Some preacher had invited them down the aisle, they signed the card, and they were in. Grace requires that the principles of salvation be respected by a private conversation with the individual before he is given the privilege to make decisions by voting in that congregation for its well-being or for its ill treatment: how we treat the priesthood of believers, barging into your privacy, butting into that which is your personal business and nobody else's business, leaving you with the Lord in those areas where you must be left with the Lord. When you become part of an organization and you step across the line and break our rules as an organization, then you have entered the territory of our authority. And then we have the right to bring the boom down on you and to call a halt to what you're doing. But what is you and God personally is you and God personally. There's no one else that stands between you and the living God.

How we treat visitors in the service... to be able to make use of gimmicks, to be able to call attention to people because you come into a service, to zero in on the unbelievers. A very famous evangelist, you would know his name, was preaching in Dallas many years ago. This church asked our band to come and play, our concert band. And we did. When we were through, we sat on the front row. I sat at the end, and in those days it was an all-boys band. They were lined up down the row on the front row with me and on the row behind. This evangelist got hot and warm and came to the point. He said, 'Now, I want every one of you who is a Christian to raise his hand!' Out of the corner of my eye was the funniest thing I saw. Every head of every boy snapped and looked at me like somebody had pulled a string. These kids had already been trained enough in the Word of God that this bugged them. They knew that, 'Wait a minute! This is privacy. This is invasion. This is public exposure.' I don't know how many of them really understood what he was doing. The evangelist just wanted to know which one of those dudes to zero in on. But all those heads popped and looked at me and I didn't raise my hand. Then the heads slowly raised and they put their hands in their laps. Boy, did he ever preach to that front two rows from then on! He thought he had a gold mine of unbelievers there right under his nose to zero in on! This business of privacy and respect for the Age of Grace in you, as a member of the royal family of God, is such an unknown quality in Christian circles that people are suspicious of it. So, we don't treat visitors by calling attention to them.

How you view the leadership in your local church structure from the pastor-teacher on down: there are authority lines, and there is a leadership responsibility. And it's treated with the respect that it deserves when it is compatible with the Word of God; because then you know you have leadership which is also speaking for God and grace demands that authority be respected.

How you deal with the Old Sin Natures and the failures of our members... we have no heroes in the Christian life. But we do have the grace of 1 John 1:9 and we treat each other with that grace. So you've stumbled. So you've acted foolishly. So you have acted stupidly. You come back and you use 1 John 1:9. When people have taken care of their missteps, you're back in the family, you're on the team. It's all forgotten. That is grace living.

Israel and the Church Are Not the Same Thing

There are certain distinguishing features we summarized this morning that distinguish the Church from the Jewish Israel system. Of special importance when dealing with local church practices, it is very important that you do not mix the elements of Judaism: rituals, altars, holy days, sacrifices, priestly vestments, tithing, all these elements, candle burning, incense; these are all things from the Old Testament system. Here are some distinct distinguishing features between Israel and the church that I think will help you to summarize that Israel and the church are not the same thing.
1. About four fifths of the Bible deals with the nation of Israel. About one fifth very distinctly deals with the Church. You can't help telling the difference.
2. Every covenant, promise, and provision for Israel is earth centered and continues as a nation in the New Earth, while every promise to the Church is Heaven centered and continues in its heavenly citizenship forever. Israel is earth centered. Christians are Heaven centered, very clear.
3. Abraham's seed is described as the dust of the earth, referring to Israel and the stars of the Heaven as referring to the Church. Because Abraham is 2 spiritual seed lines: one as the dust of the earth, referring to Israel, one of the stars of Heaven, referring to the Church.
4. Israelites hold that position as Israelites by physical birth. The Christian holds his position by spiritual birth. An Israelite wasn't saved just because he was born a Jew, but he received great personal benefits from God because he's a Jew. A Christian only receives benefits as the result of the spiritual blessing of his spiritual birth.
5. Abraham is the head of the Jewish race, while Christ is declared to be the head of the Church, the New Creation.
6. Israel is made up of one nation on earth, while the Church is drawn from all nations on earth.
7. Israel is present on earth in all ages from Abraham on, while the Church is restricted to the present dispensation only: Pentecost to the Rapture.
8. Israel faced inward to its own worship and service. While the Church is told to face outward to the world with doctrine.
9. God was not known as Father to the individual Israelites, but He is known as such to the individual Christian.
10. To Israel, Christ is Messiah, Emmanuel, and King. Those are the terms that are used. But to the church, He is known as Savior and Lord, Bridegroom and Head, very distinctly different terms.
11. The Israelite was not permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but the Christian is.
12. Israel functioned under the Law as a way of life, the Mosaic Law, as a way of life. But the Church is totally freed from the Law system as a way of life. We are not freed from the righteous principles, but we don't keep the Jewish way of life.
13. Israel, under the law, had no divine power for keeping the rules, but the Christian has the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit that enables him to do right. Big difference!
14. The Olivet Discourse is Christ's farewell message to Israel while the Upper Room Discourse, a distinctively different discourse, is the farewell message of Christ to the Church.
15. Christ returns as King to regather Israel from every part of the earth into her own land, but He returns as Lord to gather the Church into His Heavens glory.
16. Israelites are servants of Jehovah, while Christians in the Church are members of the Royal Family of God.
17. Israelites will be subjects of the King in the Millennial Kingdom, while Christians will reign over Israel with Christ in the Millennial Kingdom.
18. Israel had a priesthood, but the Church is a priesthood.
19. Israel will be a restored wife to Jehovah, a restored sinning wife. But the Church is the promised virgin bride of Christ, always true to Him.
20. Israel will pass through the Tribulation, but the Church will be removed in the Rapture beforehand. Big difference. Finally,
21. Israelites in the New Jerusalem are called "Just Men Made Perfect," while Christians in the New Jerusalem are called "the Church of the Firstborn."
You couldn't be any more distinctively different in identification.

So be pleased with the fact that for some reason God chose you to be part of this magnificent group, the Church, the Body and soon to be Bride of Christ.

Closing Prayer

Our Father, we thank You for this time in the Word of God, enormous areas of truth that we have rapidly sought to touch upon to refresh our thinking and our memories and to give us a deeper sense of what Paul meant when he calls our attention to the mystery revealed to him as he closes the Book of Romans, that mystery, that secret, the Body of Christ, the Church, of which we are now a part of.

Bless this word to us and may it enable us to have a little better perspective that we need to be in the right place to serve Thee. We need to be in the right place to be instructed in the Word of God. We need to be on the right channel to make our lives count for eternity rather than being deceived by those who never can make, and have never been able to bring about, the distinction between Israel and the Church.

Thank you for making us part of the Royal Family of God. In Christ name, Amen.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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