Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 24 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are going to read Romans 1:9-12:

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

I will stop reading there. In our last study, we were looking at the last part of Romans 1:9:

For God is my witness, whom I serve with (in) my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

The Greek word translated “without ceasing,” Strong’s #89, is used a few times in the New Testament, especially in 1Thessalonians. Let us turn to 1Thessalonians 1:3:

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;

Here is our word translated as “without ceasing,” but if we back up, it says in 1Thessalonians 1:2:

We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers;

This is just like what it says in Romans 1:9. Then it says in 1Thessalonians 1:3:

Remembering without ceasing…

So in our prayers, we are making mention of you, and as we do so, it says, in 1Thassalonians 1:3:

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love…

This is one of the verses in the Bible that tells us that faith is a “work.” So the Thessalonians were performing a “work of faith.” To find a definition as we read the Bible, we see that God commands Laws, and the response to the command is a good work or attempted good work. It is certainly a work when God commands and man makes a response to try to obey that command, that is a “work.” God commands, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and, therefore, a response of belief is work.

When God saved His people, He gives us His indwelling Spirit as we are saved by the faith of Christ through His grace and mercy. Then we will be moved within to do good works and to will and to do of God’s good pleasure. God tells us this in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

It is the faith of Christ by which we are saved, as it says. It is not our faith, but it must be the faith of Christ, and that is because God’s salvation program cannot be performed by the faith of man, or else that would be a work. So God says, “Not of works, lest any man should boast.” But then notice what it says in Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

That is what the Apostle Paul is thanking God for in prayer: “Remembering without ceasing your work of faith,” and that would be by the faith of Christ, and by His mercy and grace. Everything that has to do with salvation is completely of the Lord. Then we have the Spirit within, and the fruit of the spirit will begin to show itself. There will be evidence of it. You can have the fruit of love, joy, peace and faith. Therefore, it says, in 1Thessalonians 1:3:

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ…

It is the “fruit of the spirit,” and that is the point that God is making as He is moving the Apostle Paul to write this Epistle to the Thessalonians.

Then in 1Thessalonians 2, we find our word again, in 1Thessalonians 2:13:

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

Again, thanking God is a form of prayer: “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing.” Why? “…because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God…” Remember, we talked about that before, but no man can receive anything except it be given to him from above, or from God, as it says in the Gospel of John. So even the “receiving” of spiritual gifts can be traced back to God, the giver. “To receive” is part of the gift of salvation. Nobody can say, “Well, I have to exercise my will to receive it – that is my part.” No – that would be a work, if it did originate with them, but it does not. The “receiving” of the gift is part of the overall package of God’s magnificent salvation program, and it all comes down from above to the sinner below. And that is how God had arranged for things to work out.

And we find this word translated as “without ceasing” one more time, in 1Thessalonians 5:16-18:

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

“Pray without ceasing.” That is what the Apostle Paul is expressing back in Romans 1:9:

…that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

He was praying without ceasing. There is a related Greek word to the word we are looking at, and it is Strong’s #88. It is closely related, so it is also translated as “without ceasing,” in another opening address of an Epistle, in 2Timothy 1:2-3:

To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;

You see, he was continually praying for Timothy, as well as for the Thessalonians and the Romans. That is, when he would pray, they are brought to his remembrance: “I have remembrance of thee.” He remembers sharing the Word of God in this place and that place, and he remembers certain individuals, like Timothy, and he prays for them at that time: “O, Lord, may the Word of God continue to work within them, and may it continue to bless them.” This is the idea of “praying without ceasing.”

We find this particular related Greek word, Strong’s #88, translated as “continual” back in the book of Romans, in Romans 9:1-2:

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

I will read the next verse so we can see what his sorrow is about. It says in Romans 9:3:

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

There was continual sorrow or sorrow without ceasing in his heart because they had not bent the knee and submitted to the Word of God as God made a change in His program from national Israel to the establishment of the New Testament churches and congregations, as God had further made it known that the Gentiles were fellowheirs with the Jews. They refused these things and resisted them, so when Paul prayed, he remembered the Romans, the Thessalonians, faithful men like Timothy (and that brought him joy), but then he remembered his own people, the nation of Israel, and he could see that, for the most part, his fellow Jews remained in rebellion against God. So there was this continual sorrow – it did not leave him. He could even wish that he himself were accursed if his brethren could have their eyes opened and, yet, that was not the case.

Let us go back to Romans 1:9:

… that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

We saw in the verses we read about “without ceasing,” it accompanies thanksgiving and prayer in those Scriptures.

Also, the word translated as “make mention” is used in Ephesians 1:15-17:

Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; hat the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

Again, this is the Apostle Paul, as Ephesians is another Epistle God moved him to write, and he is expressing that there is continuing prayer. In this case, he would “cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” The word “cease” here is a different Greek word that is expressing a similar idea as the other verses we looked at, regarding it being continual in nature.

You know, we are limited creatures, and we have limited time, so at some point, we have to “get on with our day.” There is literally enough to pray about (if we were to pray for all the things we could pray for, like all the people we could pray for, in a very serious and thorough way), that we probably would not get going with our day to do all the other things we need to do. So we are aware when we do pray that God knows all things – He knows everything about everything. The Lord Jesus told us that very thing when He taught the disciples how to pray. Remember, it said in the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew 6:5-8:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

So we are aware of that as God’s elect children. Actually, we want to be careful. We do not want to go to God with flowery speech and much speaking, especially if it is any kind of public prayer. But God knows of everything we would bring up. As a result, we can pray to God for this person we care about and love, and for this person we are concerned about, and for their situation. Sometimes we can just pray, “O, Lord, having had mercy, have mercy on this person, or help this other person who has lost his job or is in some trouble. O, Lord, may you bless them and help them.” And even though there is a great deal more you could say, it is bringing them into remembrance and “making mention” of them to God, and our desire is for their very best. We always desire the best for everyone, and as God lays it on our hearts and we are thinking of what we would pray about, then we think of this situation or of that person, and we “make mention” to the Lord.

Let us turn back to the end of the verse, in Romans 1:9:

……that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

Then going on to verse 10, we get a bit of insight into what the Apostle Paul is praying and insight into the Spirit of God who led Paul to pray this way. So that is helpful to us when we can get this kind of look into a very private conversation between an elect child of God (who is a pattern of the believers) and God Himself. It says in Romans 1:10:

Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

Again, this is addressed to the Romans, so Paul was making request, “if by any means,” and that is a translation of one word, Strong’s #1513, and it is only found four times in the New Testament. For example, it is used in Romans 11:13-14:

For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.

So this is the second time it is used, and a third time is in Philippians 3:11:

If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

That is an extremely important thing to the Apostle Paul who had that heaviness and continual sorry regarding his countrymen. It was also an extremely important thing that he provoked them to emulate the Gentile believers that were believing and trusting the Word of God. So we can see in these areas, there was great importance.

The fourth time it is used is in Acts 27:12:

And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west and north west.

Again, it was important that they depart and attain to Phenice. It was bad weather, so it was necessary for them to do this.

As we look at this phrase, we see it really points to that which is of great significance or great importance. It is not a light matter, in other words. It is something major and of extreme importance: “Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.” This is rather unusual because God is giving us a glimpse into Paul’s prayer life and what he was beseeching the Lord for, and it had to do with a prosperous journey by the will of God to come to the Romans, so he was talking about coming to Rome. And, yet, we just read a verse in Acts 27 that also used this phrase, “if by any means,” and that ship is a ship that Paul was on in traveling to Rome. And did they have a prosperous journey? No – they met a storm at sea, Euroclydon. It was a vicious, violent storm that, ultimately, broke apart their ship. The ship became shipwreck, and all the crew and prisoners (276 in all) had to abandon the ship. And, yet, by God’s grace, they all made it safely to land, and the land was the island of Melita or Malta. We have talked about this before, but that shipwreck was a picture of God’s judgment on the churches and congregations. Coming out of the ship and arriving at the land where there were barbarians is a picture of God’s people leaving the churches and congregations and going outside into the world.

So how do we answer this question: Was his prayer answered (affirmatively) by God as he was “making request if by any means now at length…” And, by the way, “at length” is a Greek word that is translated in numerous ways. It is translated as “times past,” or “at any time,” and in several other ways. Also, it is translated one time as “at the last,” in Philippians 4:10, and that is the translation that would fit best with what we are reading in Romans 1:10. And, you know, the Bible allows this because these are all synonyms in English, and we can use them interchangeably. (And that is a way that God has hidden truth.) So let me make that substitute in Romans 1:10: “Making request, if by any means at the last I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.” We know that he was referring to his journey by ship wherein Acts 27 describes as shipwrecked, and we know that was at the time of the end “at the last” of the church age when God began to bring judgment that began at the house of God. At the time of the end, the final judgment of God began with the churches, so that fits, does it not? Again, his prayer is that “now at the last I might have a prosperous journey to come unto you.”

But, again, it depends on the perspective and how you look at it whether, or not, his journey was prosperous. From one perspective, his journey was literally a disaster, as his ship was made shipwreck and there was a long delay in getting to Rome. So was God blessing that journey? Was He prospering Paul’s journey? We do not see that all too clearly, historically. However, when we look at the deeper spiritual meaning and we understand what happened alongside the end of the church age (which the ship and shipwreck typified), then we began to see the “prosperous journey” that Paul, the pattern of believers, truly experienced “at the last.”

Lord willing, we will continue to look at this passage in our next Bible study.