Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 6 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are going to read Romans 1:1-4:

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had 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 will stop reading there. In our last study, we were looking at the last part of verse 1 which spoke of “the gospel of God,” and we saw that the word “gospel” must be defined as the whole Bible. All Scripture is the Gospel. All of the Bible is the Word of God, and Christ is the Word, so any individual that preaches Christ, the Word, must preach the whole Bible and all that it declares.

Of course, it must be preached truthfully, faithfully, and in its proper “times and seasons.” There are people that preach a certain thing (a doctrine) that would have been very faithful in the past. For example, there are Seventh Day Adventists that say you have to worship on Saturday, the seventh day. And that was true if you lived two thousand years ago before the time of the cross in 33 A. D. But once Christ went to the cross and rose from the dead that early Sunday morning, we read in the Gospel accounts that it was “the end of the sabbaths,” or the Old Testament series of seventh-day Sabbaths, and the “dawning” was the beginning of “the first of the sabbaths,” or the first Sunday Sabbath that began a new series of Sabbaths for the New Testament era, which the people of God have acknowledged as their day of worship ever since. So now when people like the Seventh Day Adventists come and they point to many verses in the Old Testament where we were to worship on the seventh day, is that faithful and true Gospel today? No – because it is out of order. They are not seeking to obey the commandment of God in its proper “time and season,” which is critical.

It is extremely important that you are doing something in the proper time and season, like a desire to now go to a church, which would have been a faithful and obedient thing to do during the 1,955 years of the church age or almost two millenniums. You would have been correct and right to get your family dressed up and go to your local church. However, that time and season has passed, just like the nation of Israel had its proper time and season, but now it is past. God had a set time for the church age, but it has come to an end, so it is no longer faithful and obedient to go to church at this time because the “season” has passed. And now you would be going against the will of God.

Likewise, for quite a long time, God graciously, kindly and mercifully kept the door of heaven open and proclaimed through His Word, the Bible, that it was “the day of salvation,” the time when a sinner could approach unto God and beseech Him and cry for mercy and, perhaps, He would save that person because God was saving His people. So, of course, that would have been absolutely faithful. It would have been the (right) thing to do for the people of God to have encouraged others to go to God and beseech Him for that salvation. It was the thing to do to teach your family and children that God is a gracious Saviour, and He was saving in that day of salvation. “We are sinners, and we need a Saviour, and God is in heaven above and, perhaps, He will save you. Go to Him and read the Bible as much as possible, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That is, if God is going to save you, He will do so through the hearing of His Word.” We would say all those things. I have said them. You have said them. We would tell people this, and we would look for every opportunity to do so, but that time has passed.

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that to everything there is a time and a season. There was a time to sow (which would identify with the day of salvation), and there is a time to pluck up that which was sown (which would identify with the Day of Judgment). There is a time to live and a time to die. The time to find “life” was in the day of salvation, and the time of judgment is the time when the sinner dies. In statement after statement, we see God’s program for the day of salvation and His program for Judgment Day.

And now the Bible insists, as God locked in that date of May 21, 2011, that it is Judgment Day, the day the door was shut, and salvation ended. We keep studying this, and all kinds of people are studying this. There are many that have set themselves against these things, and they have gone to the Bible with a mindset to find whatever they can find to disprove these things. We at EBible Fellowship have been saying these things for several years now, and we are open to anyone calling us or joining our Facebook group and posting whatever Scripture they can find: “You say God is no longer saving, and here is a verse to prove He is.”

This does not happen so much any longer, because many people do not want to hear these things and they have given up in frustration, but I can tell you that early on, there was tremendous animosity toward this teaching and, yet, they presented very few verses – no more than a handful. And when they did present them, the Bible had an answer. In other words, they could not use the Bible in order to counteract or disprove that Judgment Day has begun and that we are now living on the earth in the Day of Judgment. They cannot reason against these things from the Scriptures because it is the will of God. It is the Bible’s teaching, and when you have a teaching that harmonizes and fits together with everything else the Bible says, people can try to use a verse here or there to fight against a conclusion they abhor, but it will quickly be seen that what they are saying is not correct because of this verse or that passage.

I am accused, and others at EBible Fellowship are accused, of preaching “another gospel.” They say, “You are preaching another gospel if you say that God is not saving.” Then they will go the verse that says, “Now is the day of salvation.” But that is just like going to a verse that tells us to offer sacrifices or to go to Jerusalem three times a year. Yes – these verses are in the Bible, but they are not for our time. Or, it is like the Seventh Day Adventists going to a verse that proves we are to worship on Saturday, the seventh day.

Yes – there was a time and season when it was the day of salvation and the door to heaven was open. You can find all kinds of verses where God was encouraging the reader or listener to beseech Him for salvation and, of course, the Bible had a great deal to say about salvation during its proper time and season. But the day of salvation has passed; it has expired. And we have entered into the time after the “shining of the sun,” which typifies the light of the Gospel. That light has been extinguished, and the light of the moon no longer shines, and the moon typifies the Law of God or the Word of God that is no longer shining its light unto salvation when the reader of the Word might see the reflective light from God and have their eyes opened. No – the lights of the Gospel go out “in those days after that tribulation,” and that is where we find ourselves.

Then after we read that Paul was “separated unto the gospel of God,” we read a parenthetical statement in Romans 1:2:

(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)

The word translated “promised afore” is literally “before promised.” It has a prefix that means “before” that is attached to the word “promised.” Of course, when we look up the word “promise,” we find it all over the place. It says in Luke 24:49:

And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

What is the promise of the Father? The promise of the Father, as Christ said, was the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and we read in Acts 2:32-33:

This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.

The sending forth of the Holy Spirit was by promise of the Father. We can read the verses in the Gospel of John where Christ said that the Holy Spirit would come, and He also mentioned that the Holy Spirit would come and guide us into all truth. It would take much more study (and a great degree of carefulness as we study), to see that God not only sent the Holy Spirit the first time, but a second time at the time of the end. And now we are living in a time when He has fulfilled both events. The Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost and did His work primarily within the congregations over the course of the New Testament church age in saving the firstfruits. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at that time is likened to the early rain.

Then at the time of the end during the time when God brought judgment upon the churches and congregations, He poured out the Holy Spirit outside of the churches upon the nations of the world to save the great multitude. That second outpouring of the Holy Spirit was a much shorter period of time, about the last 17 years of the Great Tribulation, but it saved far more people than were saved during the church age over almost two thousand years.

So God did fulfill these things regarding the promise to send forth the Holy Spirit. There are so many verses that have to do with “promise,” so let us go to Acts 26:6-8:

And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

The Apostle Paul is making his defence. He had been caught and imprisoned, and the Jews wanted to destroy him. And he said that it was all due to the fact that he was standing “for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers,” and that has to do with the promised Messiah and the work of the Messiah, which was to go to the cross to demonstrate the atonement performed from the foundation of the world, and to demonstrate the resurrection. You know, we pretty much have it drilled into us that Christ going to the cross was a demonstration, and we know there are several verses that use the Greek word, Strong’s #5219, in connection with Christ going to the cross, and that he did this to “make manifest” these things, which identify with the demonstration. But the same word is also used of Jesus after His resurrection, as He was making manifest the resurrection. That was the promise made by God to the fathers that the Messiah would come. It was also a promise made to the people of God that as Jesus rose from the dead, we would rise from the dead. And this is one of the promises God has yet to fulfill. There were a handful of people that rose after Christ’s resurrection and they went into the “holy city,” which is heaven, and showed themselves. And there were others, like Moses, that have received their resurrected bodies. And Enoch and Elijah received their resurrected bodies, but they never died. The Bible refers to them as being “translated.” So there were a handful of believers, but most of the Old Testament and New Testament saints await that promise on the last day. On that last day, God will raise up their dead bodies and transform them into new resurrected spiritual bodies. For those of us that are still living at that time, we will experience more of a “translation,” in the manner of Enoch and Elijah, and our bodies will be transformed into new spiritual bodies on the last day.

And this is all according to the promise of God, and when God promises, He fulfills. He fulfills. He sent the Holy Spirit the first time according to the promise of the Father, and the Holy Spirit did the work He was sent forth to do. He sent Him a second time, and it would have been according to the promise of that verse in John 16 where Jesus said He (the Holy Spirit) would guide us into all truth. And we are currently experiencing that part of the promise as the Holy Spirit is guiding us into all truth, especially God’s program of righteous judgment.

Yes – there are a couple of things that were promised that have not yet been fulfilled, but take heart. Take heart, because God is faithful. If He has said these things, He will do them. He is faithful and true, and His Word is faithful and true, and He always accomplishes that which He has spoken.

We read in Ephesians 1:13:

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation…

By the way, here is a reference to the Gospel, and it would be synonymous to the previous statement that referred to “the word of truth.” The Gospel is the truth, as God determines it and states it in its proper time and season.

I will keep reading, in Ephesians 1:13-14:

…in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Now, this is a “mouthful,” and it is really giving tremendous hope, as well as insight into the great assurance that God has given His people, each elect child of God. We have been “sealed” with the Holy Spirit of promise. God promised to send Him, and the Holy Spirit has done His work. As far as salvation is concerned, He has completed His work concerning the souls of men. He has now saved everyone who was to be saved – bar none! Every person God predestinated to receive salvation and whom Christ died for at the foundation of the world has received that salvation. Their sins have been forgiven. The blood of Christ has been applied, and the evidence of this is that we have received new, born-again souls and the indwelling Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of the Father that indwells each one of the elect. And this is according to the promise that promise that God has sent for us and nobody else. He sent it for you, for me, and for each individual elect child of God, and we can witness to the authenticity and to the genuineness of this gift of the Holy Spirit. You can look at your life, and if God has truly saved you, you should see a big change. You should see a major change in desires and a major change in the things that are goals in your life in everything. We have been transformed and made new in the inner man as God has given us a new heart and a new spirit.

What has brought about this change? What has caused it? We can only look to the Word of God, the Bible, and the things it says about God’s salvation program and how He would send His Spirit into our hearts, transforming us and changing us. So we would have to acknowledge this, although not everyone has this assurance, and we would have to say, “I do personally witness.” (Nobody else needs to hear us, and whether they would believe it, or not, is immaterial – it does not matter.) But, personally, this is a witness between God and you and God and me and God and each person He has saved, and we can say, “Yes, Lord, I do see this incredible change in me, considering the person I used to be. And I do see this ongoing desire to do the will of God and this unusual desire to seek after your Word, to read it, to follow it, and to obey it. And I never had that desire before. I was the opposite, and I cared nothing for it, and I was just like everyone else that is unsaved. So I do recognize that the Holy Spirit has entered into me and, therefore, you have sealed me with that Holy Spirit of promise. And this is the earnest of our inheritance.” It is the down payment, or earnest money, like when you buy a house; you put money down which is signaling that you will pay off the full debt, and that house will one day be totally yours. (Whether that will actually happen in this world is not the point.) But with God, it is the point. He has given us the earnest of the Spirit. He has changed us within. And He will fulfill the rest of His promise which involves our bodies and our eternal fate. We will receive the promise of eternal life. We will live forever. That is what the presence of the Holy Spirit within us now is testifying to – that all these things will come to pass just as God has said.