The Letter to the Romans: Message #8 – Chapter 14

It obviously is a very strong problem here, possibly between the Jew and the Greek, but I think not. Whatever it is, Paul is saying…I think he’s saying…it’s peripheral. Now I would ask you, is the length of a man’s hair major or peripheral? Would you agree with that? The length of a woman’s hair: is that peripheral, or is that a major matter there? It’s major, isn’t it? Somebody said over here that’s a major matter. Over here—who said that? Right? What about tattling? Is that major? You don’t know the word “tattling”? Major? Okay, major. Alright, tattling is major. Okay, what about a big car or a small car? Is that major or minor? Is that peripheral? That’s major; somebody thinks that’s major. What about different kinds of food? Is this a central doctrine, or is this peripheral? Peripheral. The second coming of Christ—premillennial, amillennial, or postmillennial—is that… that’s peripheral. His coming is important. As far as I know, I’m the only person outside the organized church who preaches today on this earth who’s not premillennial. I am not a premillennialist. I do not believe that Jesus Christ will reign on earth for a thousand years. How do you take me?

Well, I’m going to talk to you about that for a minute, because I think you ought to feel very uncomfortable for a moment. Most Southern Baptist ministers are amillennial. It’s really funny to meet a premillennial—stick your hand out and say, “I’m an amillennialist.” He’ll almost always say, “You think the world’s getting better.” And I say to him, “You’ve been listening to somebody who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” He’s talking about a postmillennialist when he says it. You know, Revelation says there will be a beast rising up out of the earth, out of the ocean, with horns and all sorts of things. I think most people would agree that that’s figurative. Well, then, the amillennialists will say the thousand years are figurative, while the premillennialists say they’re literal. If he won’t say it’s literal, that’s fine with me, but he is not happy that I think it’s figurative. I can tell you that premillennialists are ready to leave you out in the cold if you do not believe as they do about the second coming. I threw this out, and I did it deliberately. I’m going to ask you again, have I dropped in your eyes because I do not believe in a thousand-year reign on this earth?

By the way, just to throw out my doctrine a little bit longer than that, see, a thousand years in that day was incomprehensible. If John had been writing in our day, he’d say the Lord would reign for a trillion years, or a hundred trillion years, or whatever. A thousand was incomprehensible; it’s not now. In fact, it would just barely buy a donut. Million. Did you know that the word million was only invented about 150 years ago? It’s a brand-new word. Billion, I think, is a word that came into existence in our century. In fact, I think it first became widely used during World War I. Trillion came into use—I know in my lifetime, I remember when you’d say trillion and people wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

That’s got nothing to do with anything. I just want you to know that you should accept me. I’m not denying anything in Scripture. Everybody thinks that if you’re not a premillennialist, you’re a modernist. Do I look like a modernist? I don’t even know what that is, but I see books written and sermons preached so dogmatic that the general idea is assumed that all people on earth are not only premillennial, but they believe in a rapture in a certain way, at a certain time, and they just go pell-mell down that building, side doctrines all along. Did you know that probably half of the evangelical ministers in America are not premillennial? Now, I’m going to make a statement that I’ve got no statistics to back up. Virtually all evangelical ministers outside the Southern Baptist Convention are premillennial, but Southern Baptists have half of the evangelical ministers of America, so it’s about half and half, but you have to get inside the monolith called “Southern Baptists” to even discover that they are. I’ve often heard it said, “If a man is not premillennial, he’s not evangelistic.” Then you don’t know anything about Southern Baptists. That’s all they are, evangelistic! The most evangelistic people on the face of the earth. I don’t think anybody would challenge that, unless it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I want to get off of this, but I’m throwing it out. Are you going to accept me for not being premillennial? For years, I didn’t know whether I was premillennial or amillennial. I just wouldn’t make up my mind. One day, I decided I’d become an amillennialist—just to make everybody uncomfortable. So, I took a firm stand in favor of amillennialism, and I’ve got no use for a man who attests my fellowship on the basis of how Jesus Christ is coming.

Let me throw another one in while I’m doing it—for those of you who are out there having apoplexy in your living room—any scheme on how the Lord Jesus is going to return is baloney, and I’m going to tell you why. Because when one of the seals was opened, the Lord—or was it an angel? I think it was an angel—told John not to write what he saw, and one-third of the Book of Revelation was not written down. So, your scheme, whatever it is, is missing one-third of the information necessary to put it together. Chew on that. No matter what your scheme is—until John tells us what it was, he didn’t write down that he saw and heard—well, we need to know what we’re talking about. If he told us, I might even become a premillennialist, but that’s a place to be humble. It’s a place to be humble. I have noticed that as men get older, even the dogmatic premillennialists…I’m talking about when they get up to their seventies or eighties… they get where they don’t care. It’s only young people. Dallas Theological Seminary just loves this. Dallas Theological Seminary students, when they graduate, make them sign a paper that they will be dispensational premillennialists for the rest of their lives, and if they ever change their doctrine, they are to turn in their ordination paper and send back their diploma. I think that’s correct.

I was told that, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, because the brother who told me didn’t get to graduate because he wouldn’t sign it. Isn’t that unbelievable? Yes, sir. All rapture is confined to premillennialists. Pre-, post-, or mid-trib—any tribulation is a premillennial doctrine. So, you’ve heard a lot about that, something that was popularized by my dear friend and fellow combatant, Hal Lindsey. I knew Hal way back before I was bald and before he was famous. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with accepting the premillennial, no matter what he believes, but they really have a hard time accepting anybody who’s not into one of these schemes. I’m not going to get off on all that, because I’m really loaded. I am loaded with information about all of this stuff. I was never much into doctrine, but I’m a historian, and I love to get into the history of doctrine. Forget the doctrine—find out where it came from. Find out the history behind the doctrine, and you will probably give it up because of the human motives that have brought most of these peripheral doctrines to the surface.

I am in Romans chapter 14, and I am talking to you about how to get along with one another here in the church in Rome, in Priscilla and Aquila’s home. It is good if you will lay down your strong beliefs on peripheral things. So, brothers and sisters, it is obvious that there are vegetarians and there are meat eaters in the church of the living God who have squared off against one another, and they are really on one another’s case. It seems the meat eater is telling the non-meat eater to eat, and the non-meat eater is either refusing to, or he is eating, and it’s causing him to stumble.

Well, how can I lift your eyes beyond all of that to say to you—either be very careful about your peripheral beliefs or don’t have any anyway. Be very careful with them if you have them. Now, it’s all right to have them. It is not a wise thing to become evangelistic about them. Or, to put it very succinctly, you’ve got no business trying to force your beliefs on anybody else, either your beliefs or your convictions. But what if this brother or sister is going to go into sin? Whose sin? By whose standard, sin? Is it a sin to eat a pizza? A hamburger? Well then, is it a sin to only eat vegetables and fruits? No, no. Is it a sin to go to a motion picture? Well, is it a sin to dance? If you’re a Baptist, by Henry, it’s a sin to dance! It’s not for anybody else—that’s what you call local sin. Same with going to a motion picture? The answer is that’s really none of your business. It’s none of your business. My own personal conviction is, you ought to have a conviction about that and settle it, and then keep it to yourself, but don’t judge another person as to whether they should or should not go to a motion picture.

Are you with me so far? We’re just going to pick up a few little things here because there’s more to it than this. You see, this is the man who wrote Galatians, and in Galatians, he pretty well just did away with moral issues, except for this matter of adultery, drunkenness, and stealing; he pretty well cleared the deck—sexual immorality, drunkenness, witchcraft, and out-and-out theft—just the worst kinds of things, the things of the flesh. Other than that, Paul said you’re free to do whatever you want to. You’re free of all law. How are we going to get along in the church when each one of us has a different level of conscience? Now, this brother may have a very strong conscience. This brother may have a very weak conscience, but I’ll bet you a nickel that if we examine these two brothers enough, we will discover there are things he has the liberty to do that he does not have the liberty to do. Now, this brother’s conscience is very active; everything bothers him. This brother…he can do anything. His conscience is pretty much dead. It’s not only weak; it’s just pretty much dead, but I’ll bet you that there are things that this brother has the freedom to do, even though his conscience is wide awake, that this brother wouldn’t dare do. Even though this brother is looked upon as much more liberal, it is so inconsistent.

Now, I am telling you that you have to follow some kind of inner sense, but if you don’t follow an inner sense, you’re in big trouble, because there really is something here between you and the Lord as to what your conduct will be and what your values are. You need to know within you that which you feel the Lord is leading you to do. But, my dear, dear friend, the fact that the Lord has led you to do that in no way is an indication that He has led someone else to do that, or that just because God told you that you shouldn’t do something, that does not mean God told you to tell everybody else on this planet not to do it.

Now, I think that we can clearly say a few things—that adultery is wrong, that the real fleshly things are wrong. We have a new issue that we as Americans have never faced, and that is abortion. I think the general consensus among all of us is that that is some type of murder, that this isn’t proper. I would question whether the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ has any business trying to change the Supreme Court’s decision on it. Then you have ceased to be a Christian, and you’ve become an American. I wonder if I can help you here. The greatest tragedy that ever overtook the Church was when it moved from being a minority to a majority. We ought right now to be living in a city with temples to Zeus and Apollos and Aphrodite and Venus, and who are those other people? Jupiter and Mercury, Hermes, Hercules, all these people, and we ought to be down here, a little bitty group of despised people. That’s where we ought to be. They threw babies into the Tiber River during the first century. If a man didn’t like what his wife delivered, he just tossed it, and the Christians did not march on downtown Rome protesting that; they did not consider themselves citizens of that nation. Now, if you really feel strongly that you ought to get out here and campaign for abortion, then hot dog, brother—take it on! But will you please love me if I don’t? Will you love me if I don’t? Sure, Gene, we’ll love you—but not my roommate. Some of us are going to get politically involved; some are not.