The Letter to the Romans: Message #2 – Background on the Book of Romans (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1 –

…and Paul wants to raise up another church, but he doesn’t want Barnabas with him, and he doesn’t want Silas with him, and here, brothers and sisters, to me, is the greatest genius ever revealed in the Holy Scripture that had to do with practical things. Every time I do this, I thrill to my toes, so let me do it.

When Paul finishes his 18 months in Corinth, he’s going to go back home to Antioch again, but he says to Priscilla and Aquila…have we got a married couple in the room, both of you present…okay, Paul comes to Priscilla and Aquila. Here’s the Sherman tank, y’all, and this is a very quiet brother, and he says, “Priscilla and Aquila, I’ve never done this before. I want to go to Ephesus and raise up a church, but I’ve got a very special purpose. It’s the raising up not only of a church but Gentile workers. I’m going home to Antioch for a short time; I’m going to bring some men back with me. Would you go to Ephesus first? Get there ahead of me and start a tent business, a tent repair business, so that when I come, I can join you and we’ll expand it a little bit. I’ve got to support these men that I’m bringing with me. Would you go do that for me?”

Now, wait a minute, y’all. Listen, I have to do a little advertising here. Are you willing for a little group of you to leave here as they did in Jerusalem and go to another city, and be a seedbed? Are you willing to see men go out of here as workers to other places and back them, to raise up churches? Are you willing to be left alone and go through the struggles that that is? Are you willing for some half-crazed madman like Paul of Tarsus to walk up to you and ask you to leave and go to another city to make preparation for his coming? Are you willing to do that? These ought to be the kind of things that are in the hearts of all of us.

But now comes—here comes genius, here comes genius of the highest order. I don’t know how Paul ever thought this up I don’t know how God ever got it in his head. It is so beautiful. Paul is now going to raise up Gentile workers. Antioch, you’ve got a history that’s unique, totally unlike any other church anywhere. Pisidia, you got a unique history because you’re the first truly heathen Gentile church—no Jews, nothing, never saw Jerusalem. Iconium, you have a wonderful history. Lystra, you’ve got a wonderful history and a real firebrand of a church. Derbe, you do too. And so do you, Thessalonica. You’re Greeks, you’re not like these people; you don’t even look like them, and you don’t speak their language. You’re Greeks. Thessalonica, you have a wonderful upbringing, and you had a lot of problems, and you got off course, and you got back on, and you learned some lessons. Berea, you’re a wonderful fellowship of believers, and you’ve got some really neat brothers. Corinth, you’re a bunch of drunks, but you’ve got one really—one class act here. One.

Do you know what the word cross-pollinate means? Do you know what it means when you take parts and put them together, and the whole is greater than the parts? Sometimes we speak of the parts being greater than the whole. There’s a situation where the whole is greater than the parts. Those of you in Thessalonica have never been to Antioch. Those of you in Iconium have never been to Berea. Those of you in Derbe have never been to Thessalonica. You don’t know what a Greek church looks like or a Galatian church looks like, and you don’t know the difference in your experiences and the lessons God has taught each of you uniquely. And none of you have ever been to Antioch for the wonderful, unique situation there—and of course, none of you have ever been to Jerusalem.

Paul of Tarsus, if you please, let me use this term to communicate. Paul wants 12 Gentile apostles, and he wants to send those men out to the ends of the world. Now, this is what the Lord Jesus did, and then this is what Paul did to raise up workers; it’s exactly the same thing—just a different setting and a different time. This is what should be instead of seminaries, and this is what must be instead of Bible schools, but what has to come before you can have this is that you’ve got to have about eight Gentile churches. And this is what he did. He went back to Antioch, and he said, “Titus, you’ve been here from the beginning, haven’t you? Do you understand this word, ‘from the beginning’? Titus, I’m headed for Antioch, and the Lord has called you. You come with me. He then goes to Pisidian Antioch, followed by Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Now, may the Lord help me here—I can’t tell you where each one of these people comes from. He gets Timothy from Lystra. Who’s going to be Timothy? Come on, Timothy from Lystra. Now we have this intimate relationship. Yeah, he was one of the first converts in Lystra. He was there from Titus. We got Timothy. We got Gaius coming from Derbe. Secundus from Thessalonica. Could someone open to Acts 20 and help me here, please? Somebody’s coming from Berea, and I can’t remember who it is. I don’t know why I can’t remember these names right now. Sopater? Where’s he from? Berea? Come on, Sopater of Berea. Aristarchus is from Thessalonica. I need Aristarchus, but I want to remind you, I want to warn you right now; you’re going to be dead in about four years. Who wants to die in four years? Who wants to be Aristarchus? Okay, come on, brother. Praise the Lord. Aristarchus does not know he’s going to be one of the first Christian martyrs. Praise the Lord.

Now then, he is going to take these men with him, as Jesus took 12 men to Galilee. Paul of Tarsus, would you come, please? You are on your way to Ephesus with Paul of Tarsus. They are here waiting for you. Alright? They’re waiting for us, and here’s what’s going to happen. As the Twelve lived with the Lord and watched how He worked, learned from Him, and raised up the church, you will now watch Paul from the beginning in Ephesus. You were from the beginning, you were from the beginning, you were from the beginning, you were from the beginning, and you were from the beginning in each of your locales. Are you following me? Now you’re going to be from the beginning again. It’s important you be there from the beginning. Barnabas was in the church in Jerusalem from the beginning. The apostles were with the Lord Jesus when? That’s the only way you could be an apostle. You had to be there from the beginning. The Lord Jesus Christ has been there from before the beginning.

Alright, so we have the apostles from the beginning in one situation, Barnabas from the beginning in another. He passes on to Paul. He passed on to Paul what the Lord did and said that went to the apostles, that was passed on to Barnabas. Barnabas gives all that to Paul, who was in Antioch from the beginning. And each of these men can tell you exactly everything that the churches went through that they were in, because they were there from the beginning. Now, all the mass of the heritage in the past is going to come together in Paul and in these men, and that’s not all. Here’s what’s the genius of it. Timothy is going to tell Secundus what it was like. Wow, Secundus is going to tell Gaius what it was like in Thessalonica from the beginning. Where are you from? Aristarchus is from where? Also, from Thessalonica. Where are you from, brother? I was Berea. Yes, the brother in Berea, who is a Greek, is going to tell Timothy what it was like in Berea from the very beginning. Where are you from, brother? Titus is going to tell these brothers all about the work in Jerusalem. He’s going to tell Secundus about Antioch and all the stories you heard about Jerusalem. Secundus is going to tell you the wonderful way the church in Thessalonica got raised up and all the mess it went through, and it got back on track, and each one of these brothers is going to cross-pollinate.

Paul is bringing in the riches of the Lord through the apostles by way of Barnabas into Paul’s life. Paul has all of Antioch with him; so does Titus. Now these brothers from Galatia are going to tell all the Greeks about what it was like in Galatia. These Greek brothers are going to tell the brothers from Galatia all about what it was like in Greece. Now the Galatian brothers are going to tell the Greeks what it was like in Gaul. All of the richness of this, plus they are going to watch Paul raise up a church from nothing—from the beginning. Praise the Lord. Isn’t that brilliant? Isn’t that inconceivable? Isn’t that great? Isn’t that wonderful? The Lord showed me this. You’ve never read that in a book. You’ve never heard this from anybody else in the world but me. I am telling you the truth. It’s not anywhere else, and it’s in the Scripture, and you can’t get it. I want to do it too, I really do, and one of these days, if the Lord lets me live long enough, there are going to be six or eight Gentile churches, and I’m going to find some brothers who are called of God, who won’t back up for hell, they won’t back up, who will go through anything. I want to go somewhere, and I want to take all the rich heritage the Lord has given me and has given them. I want to raise up a church, and I want them to be with me, and then I want to curl up my toes and die. Not really, but for the first time, I will be willing to. I will be willing to. Then I want to say to those brothers, the planet belongs to you. It’s yours, go take it. Thank God for Priscilla and Aquila, who are willing to go to Ephesus and prepare the way. Say Praise the Lord.

So, we have the Ephesian line born in Ephesus, and I want to tell you what happened. Alright, you brothers are going to watch Paul raise up the church in Colossae, Laodicea, and all sorts of small towns around Ephesus. For two years, you will watch Paul. This is in the Scripture. For two years, you will watch Paul raise up the church in Ephesus. Then Paul will say, “Here, you and I are going to go to Colossae. We’re going to stay down there for about two months. You and I are going over here to Laodicea. You and I, we’re going over to Philadelphia.” Take them in twos. And then he gets to Colossae, and he says, You two brothers there in Colossae, I’m here to help you—go do it. And they do it.