The Letter to the Romans: Message #1 – Background on the Book of Romans (Part 1)

Then I saw the organic church in Isla Vista, California, and I think I’ve probably seen it more than any man living. That’s four times. I never expected to see it as long as I lived. Then I saw it once, and I figured, well, maybe it’ll happen twice. And boy, I tell you, you all get down on your faces and thank God, because you have the most precious thing in the world. Now you’ve got a living, breathing body here. I guess all I’m doing right now is seeking to get you to appreciate that and broaden your horizons.

Okay, where did we leave off? We left off with four Galatian churches, each raised up headless. Now, that’s so exciting. Americans love to hear that part of the story: “No leader? Hot dog, no leader? Wow!” But it did later get leaders. Paul did come back, and Barnabas, and they ordained elders—who immediately took control. (laughter) “Stir me a mess, the business. Stir you! No more of that! Those earrings…they have to be square, not round! You sit there and shut up, and don’t you say another word! I’m going to preach to you for fifty years!” There is no evidence in Acts, nor in the epistles to the churches written by Paul, that elders suddenly came in and took control of the meetings.

Let me try to explain something to you, saints. We have in America something that’s organic: it’s democracy. It grew out of frontier living, when your nearest neighbor was a mile away. Those were British people. You understand that? They came out of the slums of London, came over here, got out into the wilderness, and they came over talking this way, you know. “And I say”, they got in the sun, and it was hot. It was very, very hot. And they got tired. Pretty soon, they began to speak a little slower, and a little slower, and a little slower. They picked up some Indian words, like ‘crick’ and ‘moccasin’, and pretty soon, they didn’t sound like they used to sound back in England; they sounded about like they do in Texas, and they evolved from a monarchy to anarchy. That’s something that is so much a part of our nature, we can’t even comprehend that we’ve got it. It’s organic to this country. If you ever live in another nation, you’ll find people don’t think the way we do about freedom. They think in terms of the State taking care of them and doing whatever the State tells them to do. Go to Germany sometime, and find out that the only way you can get anything done is if somebody’s got a title, then anything gets done. That’s not true in America. You know, we’re all the sons and daughters of John Wayne. Now, I don’t want any trouble, because I’m a peaceable man. That’s Americanism.

Well, I’m making a point here, and that is this: those people in Galatia had won something organically when those apostles left them alone. They won the functioning of the Body and the headship of Christ, and those elders were not imported in from out somewhere in Judaism, from legalistic backgrounds. They were the farmers, the merchants, the illiterates who had been saved right along with you. You can’t take the functioning of the Body of Christ away from those people just because you’ve been called an elder. They’ll bite you in the knee! “What do you mean by pulling this off on me?” Some of those sisters…” I knew you when you were a shrimp! Six months ago, you were a blood-drinking pagan, and now you’re trying to tell me what I’m supposed to wear?” Are you following me? There was something organic to their nature. Those men who became elders were there to take care of things that had nothing to do with the meetings, things like people who wouldn’t work, people who lied all the time, cheated, stole, got thrown in jail for getting drunk, adultery, robbery, or whatever.

Now, I’m taking longer than I thought I would, but I’m enjoying this. I’ll throw in a little story here, and that is, the day they met some more Christians, and this is probably one of the great weaknesses of an organic expression of the church, and that’s when someone from outside comes floating through. Now, can you imagine? Let me talk to you, saints, over here. This is the church in Iconium. Can you imagine that you’ve been led to the Lord by Barnabas and Paul? They were precious, weren’t they? Weren’t they neat? You really loved them; they were loving and caring, and you caught it; now you’re loving and caring. They were open; you’re open. They were normal and natural, and you’re normal and natural, and you think that all Christians are like you and like them. You hear that some brothers have come all the way from Jerusalem, and they have been in Pisidian Antioch, and now they’re coming up to you. You’ve got the rumor. Some more Barnabases and Pauls! Yeah Really! You’re so excited. You make all these wonderful preparations, and boy, here they come.

“Are you circumcised?” I’m sorry, but that’s what happened. “Do you eat pork?” And so, it goes. And in just a few weeks, these people are living in absolute confusion. Some of them are getting circumcised. They start observing the Sabbath. They didn’t even know what the Sabbath was! It had never even been brought up. They’re trying to figure out whether they should go to the synagogue. They’re memorizing the Ten Commandments, and they’re not allowed to go over a few feet on Saturdays and Sundays. And you know? They’re all loving this! They’re eating this up—because “Boy, this is going to make God love them more.” Boy, I think the Lord…I hope you get control of yourselves.”

Paul writes a letter, and you just go home and thank God tonight for the Galatian letter. In fact, that letter is in direct contradiction to some of the things he says in Romans, which is very befuddling. And that’s wonderful, too, that Paul can contradict himself so totally! That way, we can never fall into any…I don’t care what you decide you’re going to believe, other than the cardinal things of the Lord Jesus: the virgin birth, the resurrection, and so on. I don’t care what you decide to believe. Something in the New Testament will contradict it, and that’s wonderful.

He wrote this book of freedom—incredible freedom. And these people were truly set free. You don’t really have freedom until you have it, lose it, and get it back. By the way, that’s what happened in America. We didn’t win our freedom—we got it from the organic nature of the frontier. Then the British started taking it away from us, and we found out what we had. Then we fought for it, and then we really got it. These people were free and didn’t know it. They had it taken away from them by the Judaizers, and then they got it back, and in the process, they really did get Barnabas and Paul as their church planters—as the men whom they would look to—because they suddenly realized they had something wonderful and incredible in those two men. The Gentile churches were the free churches. They were the place to be, saints, and they would become what God would eventually have on this earth.

The Jerusalem church and the Jewish churches in Palestine pretty much ended by the year 70 A.D. I’m jumping ahead of my story, but if you were a Jew living in the first century and you were a Christian after 70 A.D., you would have to humbly walk into a Gentile church in order to have fellowship, because that was all that was left. Isn’t that wonderful? You see what the Lord was doing in Barnabas and Paul.

Okay, we have four churches organically raised up. After they are raised, they have organic fellowship in Christ. They eventually get their local leaders. We’re not talking about workers, we’re talking about local leaders, and one day Paul and Barnabas will circuit…you understand what I mean by “circuit”? They’ll make a circle, come back, and build them up every once in a while—just like the apostles did with the dispersing of the Christians all over Israel. This thing follows a pattern.

Now Barnabas and Paul leave your church, and leave your church, and leave you—and they go home. They’re planning on staying just a short time, but there’s a big stink over this business of circumcision and the Law, and they end up going to Jerusalem. They’re home for two years. So, they were out for two years raising up four churches—about four months in each city. Then they come home for two years. Now you put that together—that’s four years, right? Alright, let’s see if we can put that together in years. Let’s say that this happened. Somebody write this down! Is nobody taking notes? You are really illiterate, aren’t you?

Alright, if they go out on their first church-planting trip—did you notice I didn’t call it a “missionary journey”—church-planting trip; if they leave in 44 A.D. and are gone two years, what year is that? 46. That doesn’t work out. Make that 42 A.D. They go out in 42 AD, gone two years, back home in 44. And now they’re going to go out again for two years. So, they’ll be gone until 46 A.D.? Alright, let’s try that on. We’ll see how that works. What year did Paul get to Corinth? Okay, let’s try that again. Make it 44. Two years out, two years home. 48 A.D. Aha, that’s it! They leave in 44, go out for two years, raise up four churches, come home for two years, and then they go out on their second church-planting trip. Now, don’t feel ashamed if none of you can tell me what the first church was. Oh, by the way—they went back and visited your four churches. You’re doing fine. After that scorching letter you got, some of you who had gotten circumcised tried to get uncircumcised! You gave up the Law! Boy, you went back to freedom just as fast as you could! Hallelujah!