Christ—the Passport into the Kingdom

Romans 1:16 says: “...for I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, because in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous shall live by faith.”

And then he continues developing that idea from another perspective and says: “...for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known about God is evident to them, for God made it evident to them. For his invisible attributes—God’s eternal power and deity—have been clearly visible since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor did they give him thanks, but they became vain in their reasoning, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Therefore—that is, as a consequence of that attitude and that stance—therefore God also—and this is God’s reaction to that attitude—gave them over to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts, so that they dishonored their own bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, honoring and worshiping created things rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

I am going to leave it there, and perhaps we will have occasion to mention some of the verses that follow, but in order to save time... You will remember that last Sunday I told you that I was going to continue with the subject of Romans. A few weeks ago, the Lord led me to pause at Chapter 8 of Romans; when I began preaching on the initial subject, it was not my intention to continue with Romans. I only wanted to touch on one text from there, but upon seeing the beauty of that Chapter 8 and the coherence of that chapter, the Lord led us into four sermons centered on Chapter 8. And I realized that there is so much richness in the Epistle to the Romans and so much potential for instructing God’s people about essential truths of the faith that I decided to continue. And so I have gone back to the beginning, and over the next few Sundays, as the Lord gives me the opportunity, I will be working with you on different texts from the Book of Romans, to continue our process of learning these very important truths laid out in this wonderful book.

So, last Sunday I began by reading verses 16 and 17. These two verses, 16 and 17, are like a summary of everything else. What follows those two verses is simply a development of that essential idea presented in the two verses, 16 and 17. Everything else is elaboration.

The Apostle Paul was a very highly educated man, and as the scholar and intellectual that he was, he states his thesis, he sets forth the essence of what he is going to develop in his lecture or treatise, and then he develops it point by point.

That is to say, what you are reading here in verses 16 and 17 is like the entirety of this very complex book, which is considered the supreme jewel of Christian theology. Romans was the book that Martin Luther, a Catholic monk, used in the sixteenth century to begin what became the Protestant Reformation, of which we are descendants more than four centuries later. It completely changed the course of Christianity in the sixteenth century, and it still has an impact.

But Romans was the book that touched that monk’s heart and led him to seek a reformation of his church, which ultimately ended in a total break that became the evangelical Protestant movement of which we are descendants today.

What was it that moved Martin Luther? What was it that caused the clash between what he read and what the church represented at that time? A revolutionary idea. The idea that salvation is by faith alone and not by works, nor by any ritual you perform, nor by affiliation with a group or a church—simply believing what God says.

And that is why here Paul, when he says, for example, “...I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to...” whom? A good question there. Is it salvation for the whole world? Is the Gospel so that all creation, all men and women of all nations and all ages, might be saved without any discrimination whatsoever? One would like it to be that way, but it is not.

It says, “...for salvation to whom?... salvation to whom? To everyone who believes,” which means that if a person does not believe in the Gospel, that person does not receive the salvation for which the Gospel was intended. That is very important.

So, we said last Sunday that he wanted to proclaim the Gospel to the Romans for one simple reason. He says, because I am not ashamed. In Rome, Christians were persecuted, shamed, and denigrated, and Paul said, I am not ashamed to preach the Gospel because I know what the Gospel is: it is the power of God.

Why do we share the Gospel with other people? It is not because we believe we are better than anyone else, or because we are insensitive to the beliefs of others. It is because we are convinced that the Gospel contains something found in no other human concept: it is the power, the energy of God; the grace of God is expressed through the truths and teachings of the Gospel.

And what is the Gospel? Good news. The Greek word evangelion means precisely that: good news, glad tidings. And what is the good news? That man no longer has to be at enmity with God because of his sin. That God is no longer necessarily angry with man, that none of us has to perish in sin any longer, because God has now opened a way and provided a means for man and God to be reconciled. And that way is Christ Jesus.

There is salvation; there is an opportunity. You see, when man is without Christ, he is condemned; he is utterly without hope. Last night, while I was preaching here to the English-speaking group, we were talking about that, about how, when a person is without God, a series of things happens.

For example, the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians... in Chapter 2. Let us look at verse 11. It says: “...therefore remember that in former times, you Gentiles, at that time were without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.”

That is the condition of the man who is without Christ, or the woman who is without Christ. That person is lost, is without hope, and has no access to God. That person cannot communicate with the Creator. That is why we Christians insist on the person of Jesus, because the Bible has told us that the only one who can bring man to God and bring about reconciliation between God and man is Jesus Christ. It is not because we believe that we are better than anyone else, or better than Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism or the other religions of the world. It is not as though we were pridefully saying, we are better than you. It is simply that the book to which we have submitted ourselves tells us that only in Christ is there salvation and hope for man. It tells us that man without Christ is lost and that only Christ can rescue him from his lost condition and give him salvation and eternal life.

The Lord Jesus Christ himself said it: I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. And he also said that all those who came before him were thieves and robbers.

I am not the one saying that; I would not dare say that. The Lord Jesus Christ said it in very, very... words. Now, one has two options: 1) either one says, he did not say that, I do not want to believe it, and so I neutralize it and erase it from the Gospel, as though one had the right to choose whatever one wants from the Bible. Or one says, well, that is what the Word says; I submit to the Word, so I have to believe that too.

The point is, brothers and sisters, that Paul felt very, very devoted to the Gospel and proclaimed it wherever he could, because the Gospel is power to save people, to bring them out of their darkness and gloom. Every person who is without Christ is in darkness and gloom.

As we saw earlier, the carnal man, the man without God, is subject to the world, subject to the flesh, and subject to Satan. Three things; he is a slave, and the only one who can redeem...

What does the word redeem mean? It means to purchase a person out of slavery. How did Christ purchase us? Through the shedding of his blood on the cross. The blood of Christ, his life, was the payment that God’s justice received for our sins.

So Paul, understanding that, says, I am happy and proud to proclaim the Gospel because I know that the Gospel is power for the salvation of everyone who believes. Before you can receive the power of God in your life, before you can make use of the blessings found in the Word of the Lord—all the promises, all the life found in Jesus Christ, all the potential offered by the Word of God—before you can have a dialogue with God, you have to believe what God has said in his Word: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he came into the world in the flesh, that he died on the cross for your sins, and that he was resurrected to the third God. And that if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, then you too can be adopted and made a child of God.

The Word says that to those who received him, to those who believed in his name, authority was given to become children of God. That is the essence of the Gospel, brothers and sisters.

And that is why Paul says, I am not ashamed of that Gospel. You know, Paul was very insistent that the Gospel is above all a matter of power, of energy, not of words. It is not a theology; it is not a series of teachings. That is not what saves. What saves is the power of God in your life, through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

When we prayed for Brother Eloy this morning, we were making contact with the power of God. I could stand here and simply preach a religious, theological treatise to you, and you could go home exactly as you were when you came in. But what makes this time you are investing valuable is that you are making contact with the Holy Spirit through worship, through coming forward and praying, or receiving prayer, through listening to the Word of the Lord. All of that is releasing a power that is having an impact on your life and smoothing away the rough edges and impurities in your life. The Gospel is power; that is why we must always seek more and more of the power of God in our lives.

And it says that the Gospel is power for everyone: for the Jew, it says, and for the Greek. What does Paul mean by that? The Jews were already very close to salvation because they had Scripture, they had God’s revelation, and they were God’s chosen people, but they had become corrupt and believed they were better than everyone else, and they had lost contact with the Spirit of God. And God says through Paul that they need the Gospel first, and if they receive the Gospel, they are saved first because they are God’s people, and it is also for the Greeks.

And in speaking of the Greeks, he meant all those who were not Jews, all those who belonged to any other culture. Greek culture was like the essence of culture at that time; it was like the United States, a very great cultural power. Rome had already taken power over them, but Greek influence still remained, Greece being the symbol of the secular world’s power, of secular, non-Jewish man.

So Paul says it saves everyone: those who are very close through their religious life and those who are very far away, despite all their bad behavior, as was the case with Greek culture, with all its rationality and all its rationalism.

Brothers and sisters, the Gospel is for everyone. It is for the individual; it is for the drug addict; it is for the womanizer; it is for the gambler; it is for the criminal; and it is also for the respectable person who works from nine to five and would not hurt a fly. The Gospel is necessary for everyone.

You know what? You may be the most respectable citizen and the most generous philanthropist, but if you do not have Christ in your life, you will go to hell just like the greatest criminal on earth. Why? Is God unjust? No. It is simply that, in order for you to enter the perfect Kingdom of God, you would have to be perfect, and no one is perfect. And therefore, there is no such thing as good, fairly good, or a little good. The only thing that would guarantee that a man or woman could enter the Kingdom of God through his or her own righteousness would be perfection. And since no one can be perfect on this earth, everyone who is without Christ goes to hell. Only Christ can give a person the ability to acquire that quality that allows him to enter the Kingdom of God.

That is why, when you ask many people—you tell them, “Receive Christ as your Lord and Savior”—they say, “Well, why do I have to receive Christ if I do not kill, I do not steal, I do not do anything wrong, and I do not harm my neighbor?” That is not what it is about; when you come before the judgment throne, the only question they will ask you is, “Did you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior?” And if you say no, if you resisted Jesus here on earth, your passport will not be stamped; you will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God.

Look at an example. When I was traveling back just now, every person entering the United States from another country had to pass by a series of small desks, let us say, or counters where there was an immigration officer. And that officer asks you for your passport and your papers. Now, the only thing that will officially allow you to enter this nation, or any other nation, is for your papers to be in order. You need either a U.S. visa or proof of citizenship or residency.

Now imagine a person standing there before that admissions officer’s counter, and the officer asks him, “Where are your papers?” And he says, “I do not have papers, but I am an honest person, and this country can use me because I have knowledge of science and other things, and I am a good citizen, and I promise that I will obey the laws. In my country, people say that I am the most respectable person in the entire nation.” The officer will say to him, “We are very sorry. If your papers are not in order, you cannot enter this nation.” Isn’t that right?

And it is exactly the same with entering the Kingdom of God: the only thing is to have your papers in order. And who can stamp them? Christ Jesus—the blood of Jesus. There has to be a drop of blood on your passport for you to enter the Kingdom of God, the blood of Christ. And that is why we have to proclaim the Gospel, because it is power to..... It does not matter who a person is, whether good, very good, or very bad; if he is not in Christ, he does not have salvation.

Now, that is why salvation, brothers and sisters, is a matter of faith. Here it says that the righteousness of God—because in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed by faith and for faith. In the original Greek, the idea is actually from faith to faith, or from faith unto faith. What this means is that the Gospel, from ‘a’ to ‘z,’ is a matter of faith, of believing God.

That is why I do not believe much in arguing with people about the Gospel. As for me, I try to discern whether a person wants to believe or not, whether he is willing to believe. I give the person a little time and try to help with some arguments, and I have studied a little apologetics and have my own arguments for why I believe in Jesus Christ from a rational perspective. But when I discern that a person wants to get into an argument with me, as though saying, “Convince me that what you are preaching to me is true,” and when I already see resistance and a kind of rational arrogance in that person, I stop talking and go another way, or I simply say, “Look, perhaps we can continue some other time,” or, “I am going to pray for you,” or, “Let me pray for you,” or whatever. But I do not argue, because salvation is by faith; it is about our believing; there has to be an essential humility in human beings that says, “All right, I submit and bow my head.”

That is why sometimes the Lord has to take.... there are people whom God has to hit hard; they have to suffer, they have to hit rock bottom in their lives, they have to fail many times so that they reach that point of receptiveness and then acknowledge, “Yes, I have to bow my head and accept.” Because as long as a person is very self-assured, very confident, very strong, he begins, as it were, to argue against God and does not want to receive the Gospel.

So the Gospel is by faith. One has to believe it. I tell people that someone has said it is like jumping into the void. There are many people who are stuck on, “Do I believe or do I not believe?” and you see them coming to church, and they have been doing so for years, yet they still have not surrendered their lives to the Lord. You can see that inwardly their hearts are still standing proud; they still have not taken that step, and they do not have on their faces the humility of the person who has finally bowed his head before the lordship of Christ.

And you ask them, “Why don’t you surrender?” “Well, I am waiting to see whether..... because I am still not convinced.” And that is like people before they get into the water. You have gone to the cold beaches here in the United States during the summer, haven’t you? And you put in your big toe and, oof, pull it right back out because it is cold. And then you put in four toes and pull them out even faster because it is cold. And if you stand there thinking, “Should I jump in or not?” you will never do it. You have to jump in, suffer for two seconds, and then the agony is over and you are in. That is how the Gospel is. One has to jump, and then, once you are inside the Gospel, you will understand perfectly well many things that you did not understand before, because that is how one enters the Gospel. It is by faith.

That is why it says that the grace of God—that is, the justification God gives to man through Jesus Christ—is revealed through faith in what God has declared. For it says that the righteous shall live by faith. The Gospel is a matter of faith. We have to live by faith, to believe God. When we are in trouble, we keep believing God; when there is illness, we keep believing the Lord; when trials and difficulties come, we keep believing in the Lord, because the righteous live by faith. It is not by works, it is not by circumstances, it is not by what you see, it is not by what people tell you, it is not by what you feel; it is by faith alone.

It is simply that you decide to believe that what God has said in his Word is true. And like Job, you say, “Though he slay me, I will continue believing in him.” That is the final card the believer plays. The righteous shall live by faith. That is the essence of.... nor is it anything you do, you know. Salvation does not come because you kneel and walk a mile on your knees, as people used to do, or because you make a vow and whip your back until it bleeds, or spend 30 days without eating cakes or sweets, or go to church every day, or tithe and give money. None of that saves you. All of that has meaning once you are saved; there are no works. The Gospel is purely a matter of believing God.

That is also why, when you have sinned, if you believe God that Christ can heal you and forgive you for your sins, you are also healed of your sin. You are saved. You repent and are saved.

In Christianity there is no such thing as a person being able to save himself by doing things. It is not possible; it is not because he is a member of the church—nothing. The only thing that saves you is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ in your life. And that is what stops the work of the devil in your life. It is by faith. Everything is by faith. The Christian life is absolutely a matter of faith. And the Gospel proclaims these things to you.

When Paul says “the Gospel,” I believe he is also referring to the whole Word of God. Everything written here is the Gospel; it is the good news to humanity. That is why it is so important for us to know the Gospel, to know the Word of God, to study it and read it, so that those truths can take hold of our hearts and become part of us.

One more thought, and then I will finish, because we are going to have Holy Communion in a moment. Here the Apostle Paul says, “...for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness....”

Here, in this passage, a new concept is introduced in Scripture. What is it? The wrath of God, the wrath of God. You know that there are Christian circles where the idea of the wrath of God is not discussed because it does not sound politically correct. Because people.... that is why I sometimes become upset with many Christians who speak only of God as the God who accepts, the God who loves, the God who receives everyone, the God who makes no distinctions.

Today there is a heresy, both outside and inside the church, that has cut away part of God’s personality and presents God only as a senile grandfather who smiles at everything, accepts everything, and allows everything, and for whom everyone is fine and everything is acceptable; and when the church says, “But that is not what the Word of the Lord says. God draws clear boundaries and dividing lines,” some people become angry with Christians. The idea that God becomes angry is something many people do not want to accept, but the Bible says that God is love and that he is also what? A consuming fire.

And look, the word “wrath” in the original Greek is the same word used for “orgy.” This means that it is wrath, a blaze, a flame of fire. The wrath of God is that: it is fire, it is something that explodes. God has a capacity for terrible wrath.

That is why, when God appears to the Hebrew people in his first manifestation on Mount Sinai, it says that trumpets could be heard, and there was fire and there was thunder; and the presence of God was so terrible that the Jews said, “Mmm, Moses, you had better go, but we do not want to go there. You speak with God and represent us and tell us what he says, but we do not want to come near.” It was that terrible. There is a wrath that God feels against man at this time. God’s heart loves and desires reconciliation, but it is also angry. And when man resists God, God becomes angry and displeased because he is sovereign.

Imagine someone going before President Bush and beginning to treat him with too much familiarity or to insult him in his own White House. How is that powerful ruler going to react? Certainly, with anger and displeasure. And God becomes angry with the human race that resists the Word of God. There is a wrath of which God is very capable, and we must be careful not to relegate God solely to goodness and acceptance.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against what? Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. You know, the word “suppress” in the original Greek conveys the idea that they hold back, resist, or oppose God’s revelation. At this point in human history, for example in this country and especially in the Western world, there is a type of resistance to God that is stubborn. It is an arrogant resistance. Modern man has a spiritual pride because of all his power, all his science, all his discoveries, and all the things his reason has brought him. And more and more each day, man resists the Word of God, resists the revelation of God, and that causes God to feel wrath.

Here it speaks of ungodliness and unrighteousness. Ungodliness is the word ‘asevia,’ for which there is a better word in English: ‘godlessness.’ It is an attitude of offense against the very person of God. It is an attack against God’s character, against his person, against his lordship, against his kingship. The opposite of that is godliness, which is respect for and acceptance of God, and submission to God.

And the other word, unrighteousness, refers to outward conduct contrary to the values of the Gospel. One is an inward attitude, and the other is outward conduct. And against those two things, the wrath of God is revealed against man. And why? It says it is because they know the essential things about God.

You know, brothers and sisters, deep in his heart man knows who God is. Perhaps he does not know all the details, but there are things people know. Because when they look at nature and look at the world around them, there are things one understands.

For example, on a beautiful morning like this, when the sun rises and one looks at the firmament, as that beautiful hymn says: “O Lord my God, when I behold the heavens, the firmament, and the thousand stars; when I hear your voice in the mighty thunder and see the sun shining at its zenith, my heart sings the song: How great he is, how great he is.”

There are things, brothers and sisters, that one can derive from looking at nature, looking at human order, watching a bird care for its little chicks, and seeing—I do not know—the love of a mother for her son, for her child, or looking at this world, which was created to sustain life. One understands that this must have been created by a thinking God, by a God of order, by a just God, by a God of love and affection, by a fatherly God, by a God who loves life. There are many things, many values, that one must conclude when one observes nature and sees the order of creation.

And there is something called the human conscience that speaks of certain fundamental truths, of a certain morality shared by all the religions and all the cultures of the world. Throughout the centuries, despite all the differences among religions, they have shared certain moral ideas. And all of that is because God has written his style, his personality, into the world; and today humanity, like the humanity that existed in the time of the Apostle Paul 2,000 years ago, is once again returning to that same kind of rational resistance, and people are imposing their own values above the values of the Word of God.

Next Sunday we will see that in all of this, the Apostle Paul is like a prosecutor who is.... I am going to ask the brothers and sisters if you could please sit down for a moment. We are about to finish, but let us remain here for an instant; we are about to conclude, so let us be quiet for a moment.

Brothers and sisters, in this case Paul is like a prosecutor making a case against man. Over the next two sermons, we will see that he is building a case against humanity. First he addresses those who do not know God, and then he even addresses those who believe that they know God, in order to show that all are guilty, all are under condemnation, and that the only one who can save them is the person of Christ Jesus.

So that is what Paul is saying here: all humanity in its natural state is resisting God; they resist God’s revelation, they resist what they see and the arguments from nature, and therefore they are guilty, they deserve death, they deserve wrath, and the only one who can save them is Christ Jesus.

And that is why Paul says, therefore, I am not ashamed to preach that Gospel, because it is man’s only hope; it is humanity’s only hope of salvation.

Brothers and sisters, this morning I want each one of us to recognize the fact that without Christ we cannot be saved. Without Christ there is no hope for any of us, because God has made it very clear that we have all sinned, we have all offended God, and every human being needs to actively submit his life to the principles and teachings of the Gospel.

Brothers and sisters, there is a world out there that is perishing; there are people going to hell every day without knowing where they are going. There are people who have been given a false sense of security, and they believe that simply because they go to church, or because they give money to good causes, or because they are citizens who love dolphins and love the poor and are working for justice, that somehow all of that makes them acceptable before God. And we have to be a humble but very clear voice telling humanity, look, no, that is not how it is. The only thing that guarantees that you can have peace with God is the Gospel, the person of Christ Jesus: that you believe in him and surrender your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, because otherwise you are under the wrath of God. You are a child of wrath.

It says in Ephesians that we were all children of wrath before knowing Jesus Christ. So we honor God simply by saying, Father, we acknowledge that without you we are nothing and that without you we cannot receive salvation.

Let us stand for a moment, and I would like to invite everyone here to say yes to the Gospel in their heart and to renew our faith in Jesus Christ. But before doing that, I want to ask whether there is anyone here this morning who has not yet taken that step of surrendering their life to Jesus, receiving the Gospel of salvation, receiving the word of Christ in their heart, and accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior. If so, may they have the opportunity to do so this morning, so that we may pray for you and commend you to the Lord.

First, I want to ask whether there is anyone who has not done this before and who would like to surrender their life to Jesus this morning. I would ask you to raise your hand wherever you are so that we may pray for you and so that you may enter into that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Is there anyone who has not done this before for whom we can pray this morning? If so, please raise your hand wherever you are.

Let us take a moment; in order to be saved from the wrath of God, we first need to make our covenant with Jesus Christ. Is there anyone who has not yet taken that step and would like to do so this morning? Amen. Yes, sister, God bless you, Iliana, amen. Is there anyone else who would publicly like to say to the Lord, Lord Jesus, I receive you as my Lord and Savior this morning; I want to have peace with God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Is there anyone else? Amen.

Now I also want all of us, together with that sister who expressed her desire to receive Jesus, to say these words in our hearts. Repeat them softly after me:

Lord Jesus, I acknowledge that you are the Son of God, the Savior of my soul. You are the master of my life; through your death I have been saved and can have peace with God. I submit my life to you and surrender all that I have and all that I am to your lordship, and I renounce Satan and all his works. I renounce the world, and I renounce my own flesh, and I embrace the values of the Kingdom of God. Thank you, Lord, because through your death on the cross, I am saved. I praise you and bless you, in Jesus’ name. Amen and amen.