The Book of Romans is one of the main books in the New Testament,
and one of the greatest books in the entire Bible.  The Book of
Romans is the doctrinal book on salvation in the New Testament.

That's why you hear so much preaching these days on the Book of
Acts.  You turn on the radio, and all you get from morning till
night is "Acts," "Acts," "Acts."  The reason why is that Acts is
NOT the doctrinal book on salvation.  The doctrinal book on
salvation is Romans.

Now, the theme of the Book of Romans is justification by faith.
That's the theme of the Book of Romans--once again, justification
by faith.  Martin Luther had two favorite epistles.  His favorite
epistles were Romans and Galatians.  You might say that Martin
Luther brought in the Reformation on those two epistles, Romans
and Galatians.

He called Galatians his "Katy" (which was the name of his wife),
so he called the Book of Galatians his wife.  The Reformation
came in with the emphasis on justification by faith.  The Book of
Romans teaches that a man is saved by grace through faith plus
nothing; the Book of Galatians teaches that a man is kept saved
by grace through faith plus nothing.

So you don't hear much preaching on Romans and Galatians.  Now, a
Campbellite will hit Romans 6 because the word baptism occurs in
it.  He'll hit Galatians 3 because the word baptism occurs in it. 
But the rest of the epistle he doesn't know anything about.  When
a Campbellite sees baptism, naturally he thinks water.  And
there's no water baptism in Romans 6, and there's no water
baptism in Galatians 3.  So all that business is out.

The Book of Romans is actually broken down into five parts.  I
realize it's a pretty crude outline to say, "Chapter 1--The
Gentiles Are in a Mess," but that's what it is about.  "No. 2--
The Jews Are in the Same Mess, No. 3--You Can't Get Out of It." 
That's about how it goes.  That's the Ruckman outline; you
probably could think of something better.  My outlines sometimes
are kind of thread-bare.  I've got an outline of a sermon on the
text, "No man said, `What have I done?'" And the first point is,
you've done something, and the second is, you've done it more
than once, and number three is, if you don't quit it, you'll be
in trouble!

I've got a message on "What to Do if You Miss the Rapture."  And
the first point is, don't get excited, you're going to hell
anyway!  There's probably a more cultured way to say it, so you
figure out your own outline.

But that's what those chapters are about.  They're about those
things. 

This Book here was written by Paul.  Paul writes to seven
churches.  He writes to seven churches, just like John writes to
seven churches.  When you figure those things out, Paul writes to
Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians, and Thessalonians.  So Paul writes to seven churches,
and John writes to seven churches.  I don't know what
significance there is in that, but the ones that Paul writes to
are laid out two, four, and one--which is time, times, and half a
time.  They're laid out so there are two first--Romans and
Corinthians--and the next four come in a group, Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians--and Thessalonians is
sticking out over there in the end.  Those things come two-four-
one, which matches time (two), times (two times two), and a half
time (one).

Now the book has 16 chapters in it, it has 433 verses, and it has
9,477 words.  The date on the book, according to most authors and
most scholars, is 58 A.D.  It's almost impossible to date the
Pauline epistles exactly, because one thing is for certain, and
that is Paul wrote the Book of Romans some time before Acts
chapter 25.  That's for certain, because in the Book of Romans he
has not yet come to Rome, and in Acts 25 he heads out to Rome. 
So he wrote this book somewhere in the latter part of the Book of
Acts, probably around chapter 21 or 22, along in there, and most
scholars say 58 A.D.

If you have a New Scofield Reference Bible, you don't have any
marginal date, because the editors of the New Scofield Reference
Bible were kind of chicken-hearted, and they were afraid that if
anybody knew they believed in Ussher's chronology, they'd get a
lot of criticism.  So they threw it out.  But if you have an Old
Scofield Reference Bible, you have marginal dates.  For example,
the date for Acts chapter 26 in the margin there in the Old
Scofield Reference Bible is 60 A.D.  The marginal date for Acts
24 is the same date.  So even Scofield would have to say it's
written before Acts 24.  So, it's written somewhere back in Acts
20, 21, 22, along in there.

Now, that's very important to remember, because the Book of
Romans has in it the revelation of the "Body mystery" at the end
of Romans 16.  Which means that Paul knew about the Body mystery
long before Acts 28.  So when the scholars and dry cleaners try
to make you think that there was no Body until Acts 28, they
don't know what they're talking about.  Paul writes about it
before Acts 22.  He may have written about it before Acts 20.

All right now, there's a key term that occurs throughout the Book
of Romans that you need to write down.  The key phrase is two
words, and those two words are of God. "Of God." That thing
occurs more times in the Book of Romans than any other book in
the Bible.  It occurs so many times that there isn't enough space
to list them all within the confines of this commentary.  In the
first chapter, it occurs in verses 7,10,16,17,18,25,32.  In the
second chapter, it occurs in verses 4,5,17,24.  In the third
chapter, it occurs in verses 2,3,17,18,23.  In the fifteenth
chapter, verses 7,8,13,16,19.

In the Book of Romans you'll find the righteousness of God, the
faith of God, the truth of God, the salvation of God, the gospel
of God, the power of God, the love of God, the wrath of God--
those kinds of expressions.  And that expression "of God" occurs
well more than 25 times in that epistle.

All right, the epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans.  Now,
the reason why this is important is because the old Roman Empire-
-and he's writing to Romans--with all of its Roman citizens in
it, included nearly all of Europe, or Western Europe as you now
know it.  At the time Paul writes this, the Roman Empire includes
Italy, Spain and France.  So, if you're one of the Latin people
who speak the Romance languages, that's aimed at you.  It
included Switzerland and Yugoslavia and part of Bulgaria and
Austria, and western Germany and England and part of Ireland. 
So, if you're Teutonic or the Germanic people and speak the
northern languages, it's aimed at you.

In better words, the epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans is
the one first and main book that's aimed at people in America. 
It's aimed at Gentiles in the Roman Empire, and the people in
America are Gentiles who came from the Roman Empire.  If there
was one book that was aimed right at America, it's the Book of
Romans.  Americans, after all, are not Americans--they're
Europeans.  You people are not Americans--you're Europeans.  The
Lord said he would spread out Japheth, and when the Lord spread
him out, He spread him out all over the universe, and the people
in America--the native Americans--got crowded out on the
reservations.  The true Americans are penned up in reservations
out in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.  You folks are
not Americans; you folks are Europeans.  You're Gentiles.

Now, Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles.  Turn to Romans chapter
15.  Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles.  I'm not saying he is
equal to Christ, and I'm not saying he's a substitute for Christ. 
But he's so close to a continuation of Christ, that he compares
his ministry to the ministry of Jesus Christ.  Look at Romans
15:16:  "That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the
Gentiles...."

All right, then, Paul is the minister of Jesus Christ to the
Gentiles.  Continuing in Romans 15:16: "...that the offering up
of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy
Ghost."  Now it's in contrast to Christ's ministry; look at verse
8: "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the
circumcision...."  Verse 16, "I'm the minister of the Gentiles." 
He compared his ministry as a continuation of Christ's ministry.

Now, let's take 1 Timothy on this again.  I'm giving you this so
you won't be constantly snared by Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews. 
Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews are going to have to be interpreted in
the light of the Pauline epistles.  Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 1
and look at verse 16: "Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy,
that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-
suffering, for a pettern to them which should hereafter believe
on him to life everlasting."

Then Paul is a pattern of suffering for the Christian, and Paul
is a pattern for the Gentile Christian to follow.  If you want a
strong argument for getting baptized in water, that's one of the
strongest in the New Testament.  Paul is your pattern, and Paul
is baptized.

All right, Romans chapter 1.  Now the Book of Romans, then, is to
Gentiles, and we're Gentiles.  Now, of course, if you're saved,
you're no longer a Gentile, you're a Christian.  So when you get
to Romans, you're going to find that things in the Book of Romans
are not only aimed at Christians in the Body of Christ, but just
plain ol' unsaved Gentiles.  When you read a verse of Scripture,
always ask yourself this question: "Is this thing aimed at a
saved person--he's neither Jew nor Gentile--or is it aimed at a
Gentile or a Jew?"  Everything in that Bible is aimed at a Jew or
a Gentile or a Christian.

God divides people into three classes: unsaved Gentiles, unsaved
Jews, and in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile.  One, two,
three.  It'll come out three every time you pick it up.



1:1  Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle,
separated unto the gospel of God,

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

3  Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of
the seed of David according to the flesh;

4  And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

5  By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience
to the faith among all nations, for his name:

6  Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ:

7  To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:
Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.



"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ."  Now, that's Paul's favorite
terminology for himself.  Many times he talks about his
apostleship and speaks of it, and sometimes he starts out, "Paul,
called to be an apostle."  But his favorite term for himself is a
servant--a servant, a servant.  And he calls every child of God a
servant, and tells the child of God he is to serve Christ and not
serve man.  He said, "If I would please men, I'd not be the
servant of Christ."

"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ."  The Bible says, "Ye are
bought with a price."   You know what kind of a servant that
means you are?  That means you're a slave; that means you're
knocked down on the block.  You are bought with a price. 
Therefore, be ye not a servant of men, but a servant of God. 
Every Christian is a slave knocked down on the block.  That may
not be very flattering, but that's how it is.  And it means that
your life is no longer your own.  You are bought with a price;
therefore glorify God in your body and your spirit which are
God's.

We have a thing today where a fellow gets saved, and then
somebody says, "Join the church of your choice."  Don't ever do
that.  Somebody says, "Well, take the Bible you prefer."  Don't
ever do that.  If you prefer a Bible, it's probably the wrong
one.  It isn't what you prefer, it's what God prefers.  It isn't
what you like; it's what God likes.  It isn't what you don't
like; it's what God doesn't like.  Southerners are bad about
that.  They say, "I like it." "I don't like it."  "I like him." 
"I don't like her."  "I used to like him."  "I don't like him." 
"I like that."  "I don't like that."  "Do you like that?"  "How
do you feel?" "Well, I feel good.  How do you feel?"  "Well, that
makes me feel good."  "How are you feeling?"  All that stuff, you
know.

You are supposed to feel like God feels and like what God likes
and not like what God doesn't like.

We have a guy here in town called the Old Gospel Man--whatever
that is.  J.G. Woodfield, "The Old Gospel Man."  And he'd come on
the radio and say, "Now how are all you good folks out there?  We
hear of all you good folks feeling fine.  I'm feeling fine.  How
you feeling, George?  I'm feeling fine, but how are you feeling? 
Well, we sure have some good music here for all you fine folks
out there, and we hope all you fine folks enjoy this music--"

At that point I feel like saying, "Aw, shut your mouth, man!"  I
mean, what a thing, man!  There isn't any liberal preacher in the
country any worse than that!  "All you fine folks..."  Fine, your
foot!  We'll find out about how "fine" they are about the time we
get down to the end of this chapter.

Romans chapter 1, verse 1. "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God."  All
right, the first thing here is that he says what he is.  He's a
servant. The next thing tells what he's called to be.  He's
called to be an apostle.  And the next thing tells how he's going
to handle that situation.  The way he handles that situation is
by separation.  "Separated unto..."

Now some people have a job instead of a calling.  A fellow said,
"I never had a call," and a man said, "Maybe you're not within
calling distance."  You can't expect God to call you unless
you're within calling distance.

Now, that's one advantage you're going to have while you're here
at this school.  While you're here at this school, the frills and
the ornaments are going to go.  You're going to get down to what
we call basics.  That is, the telephone bill, the gas bill, and
the light bill.  And the car when it breaks down.  When you get
down to these basics and get to dealing with the word of God day
and night and night and day like you're going to get into it,
you're going to move over to where, if the Lord wants to tap you
on the shoulder, He can tap you and reach you--where otherwise,
under some other situation, you may be kind of hard to get to.

I don't say the Lord is going to call you all to preach.  Some of
you finish three years, and the Lord won't call you to preach. 
That's no disgrace.  You don't come here just because you're
called to preach.  We don't limit this school to people who are
called to preach.  This is a Bible institute.  If you want to
learn the Word, you come here.  If God wants to call you while
you're here, then He may do it.  And He may call you to all kinds
of things.  He may call you to the last thing in the world you
thought He'd call you to, too.

There's a funny thing about callings. Folks say, "I feel a
calling, I feel a call," you know.  I've talked to some
missionaries, and their call to the mission field has amounted to
a desire to travel.  I mean, did you ever see some missionary
slides when the missionary comes back?  And all you got is kind
of a National Geographic travelogue.  I never support those.  I
support the guy who shows me the fellows he talked to and the
tracts he gave out and the people he baptized and what he's
trying to do--that's the man to support.  And some missionaries
are merely called to travel.  They're world travelers.  A pastor
says, "I've got a call to a new church."  A fellow asks, "How do
you know you do?"  And he says, "Well, I was getting $50.00 a
week at this church, and they're going to pay me $100.00 at the
other church."  And the guy says, "That ain't a call--that's a
raise!"  That's what we call a green lead.

"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle,
separated unto the gospel of God."  Now, look at this:
"...separated unto..."  Most of the time you hear about
"separation from."  When these modern secondary separationists
talk about separation, they're always talking about separation
from.  Separation from is not enough; you've got to be separated
to something.  Separation from means you quit drinking, you quit
dancing, you quit smoking, you get rid of the TV, you get the
beer out of the ice box, don't go with them that smoke, spit,
dip, or chew, and don't go with them that do--that's separation
from. Now, unless you're separated unto something, your
separation from something doesn't amount to anything anyway.  I
can show you right now in Pensacola where there are 10,000 people
who don't drink and don't smoke and don't dance and don't spit
and don't dip and don't chew--and don't do anything else; they're
out in the graveyard!  They're buried!  There isn't a dead man
out in the graveyard who has any trouble with movies or
pornographic magazines or anything else; they're completely
separated.  Some of God's people are just that separated and
they're just that dead.

Here's one of the hardest things you ever had to do in all your
life:  If you messed around with sin a lot before you got saved,
when you got saved, just quitting this and quitting that and
quitting this is not going to keep you on your feet.  You're
going to have to have something to fill the vacuum, see?  Now, if
you used to chew tobacco before you were saved, when you get
saved, you'd better start chewing gum--because that mouth is
going to want something to chew on.  And if you drank a lot of
whiskey and beer before you got saved, then you'd better start
filling up on lemonade or ice tea or something.  Eight quarts of
cold water a day--start pouring it down.  And if you used to read
a lot of junk before you got saved, when you're saved you better
start reading a lot of stuff that's right.

In other words, you'd better find out what it was in your old
life that you enjoyed doing and pick something to replace that
thing, because if there's a vacuum there, it'll suck you right
back into it.

Did you enjoy a lot of music before you were saved?  A lot of
music?  Well, you'd better get some good music and start fooling
around with it and trade it in for the bad music you had. 
Because, if you love music, you're not going to be able to leave
it alone.  If you're really a music fan, you're going to listen
to some music.  So you better make up your mind you're not going
to merely quit this country-and-western stuff--not just quit it--
but when you quit it, you'd better get something better in its
place!

That country-and-western stuff is the most depressing stuff you
ever heard in your life!  It's a wonder, after listening to it a
while, you don't go out and blow your brains out.  "She left me,"
"It's so lonely here," "When is my darlin' comin' back?"  "She
ran off with somebody else," "She left a note,"  "I get to
Phoenix, Arizona, and I have you on my mind," you know.  Some of
you folks ought to get yourself a cassette and buy yourself some
of that German Alpine music.  It goes "Boink, boink, boink," like
that, you know.  Happy and cheerful!

Get you some good marches! Start out at 6 o'clock in the morning
with a vibrant march and get out of bed, man--hit the floor
running!

"(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy
Scriptures)".  All right, the Lord made a promise of the gospel
of God by the prophets and the holy Scripture, but you won't find
it stated as such.  That is, the Lord promised some day a
Redeemer would come--that's in the prophets.  The Lord promised
some day He'd give them eternal life and resurrect them, and
that's in the prophets.  But the gospel as such--that Christ died
and was buried and rose from the dead--you won't find that in all
the prophets.  And, in some of the prophets that mention it,
you'll find only an outline of it.

"Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David according to the flesh." All right, when he says
"according to the flesh" he means the physical part of Jesus
Christ that wept and suffered and bled and died--that part came
from David's line.  "The seed of David according to the flesh." 
Now, He wasn't David's seed, because David's seed was cursed with
Jeconiah.  When Jeconiah got on the throne in Jeremiah 22 the
Lord cursed that seed, and the king's seed didn't proceed any
further.  That was the end of it.  So the Lord had to be virgin
born.  And Paul makes that plain by the next statement:

"And declared to be the Son of God."  See that?  So he's not
talking about the literal seed of David there, but as far as the
flesh is concerned, He was born of Mary, and Mary came from
David.  Turn to Luke chapter 3.  Mary is in David's line.  Luke
3:23 looks like it's Joseph's line.  And, just as you're going to
learn in Problem Texts before you get through, the Bible has its
own way of talking about "sons."  Saul calls David, his son-in-
law, his "son."  And Christ is called the Son of David, and David
is called the son of Abraham, and they're not even great-great-
grandsons.  So when you get to Luke 3:23 you read this:  "And
Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as
was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli."` 
Now, Joseph is not the son of Heli, because Joseph's line is
given in Matthew 1.  And Joseph was the son of a man named Jacob
in Matthew chapter 1.  So, in Matthew 1, you have the king's line
from David to Joseph.  And in Luke 3 you have the line from David
to Mary.  And Joseph in this passage here is a son-in-law of
Heli.  You say, "How do you know that?"  Because none of the
names match in the genealogy, clear back to David.  But Mary goes
back to David, as you see in Luke 3:31: "Which was the son of
Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha,
which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David." Now in
Matthew 1, Joseph's line goes "David, Solomon, Rehoboam"--down
through the kings.  In Luke 3 it goes, "David, Nathan"--down to
Mary.

"...which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh."
As far as His physical life goes, born of anybody on this earth,
He's connected with David. 

"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."  Notice,
not the son of David, but "the Son of God."  Then the
resurrection is proof of the virgin birth.  And the fact that
Christ came up shows that He wasn't Joseph's son, and He wasn't a
literal seed of David.  Otherwise, He would have stayed down. 
Because David stayed down.

When Peter gets to preaching about these things, he says, "...let
me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both
dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this
day....He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of
Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did
see corruption" (Acts 3:29,31).

So the resurrection proves the virgin birth.  Now the reason
that's important is because there are modernists who say they
believe in the resurrection but don't believe in the virgin
birth.  And there are people who say, "Well, Paul didn't talk
about the virgin birth.  It just taught that Luke talked about it
and Matthew talked about it."  Paul says that He's the Son of
God, and the resurrection proves He's not Joseph's son.  Now if
He was Joseph's son, brethren, you know where He is right now? 
He is dust and ashes in a tomb in Jerusalem, and the worms got
Him 19 centuries ago.  If He was Joseph's son, He didn't come up,
because nobody's son comes up like that.

Somebody said, "What about Moses?  He was buried, and he came
up."  Yeah, but he's the exception to the rule, and he has to die
again in the Tribulation.  So, the thing won't work.  If you're
born of somebody and you're not raptured, the worms get you.  So,
the resurrection and the virgin birth stand and fall together. 
If Christ was virgin born, and God gave birth to Him, then He can
come up because He's superhuman.  If Joseph begat him and He's
human, then He couldn't have come up, because humans don't come
up--they stay in the ground.

A man said one time that you could find all of Buddha's bones and
still be a good Buddhist; you could find all of Mohammed's bones
and still be a good Mohammedan; and as far as that goes, you
could find the bones and corpse of every religious leader who
ever lived, and you still could be a good, faithful adherent to
that religion.  But if you found one bone of Jesus Christ, you
could no longer be a Christian.  Now, that's what you call
scientific, empirical data, man.  You can't argue with what I
just said.  I mean, there it is--just like a wet towel.  Somebody
said that all religions are the same.  Whoever said that is
mentally disturbed!  They're NOT the same!  If you possessed a
bone of Jesus Christ, you couldn't be a Christian at all!  In the
first place, you'd be a liar.  If you are going around saying
Christ came up from the dead, and you had a bone of Jesus Christ,
then He didn't come up from the dead!  Well, would a Christian
lie?  You can't be a Christian if you have any bones of Jesus
Christ around!  If there are any bones of Jesus Christ around,
you're going to have to get some other religion.  That's why
they're always trying to find them, always digging around,
saying, "Here's something that looks like someone might have been
crucified."  You have to read into it that it was Christ, you
know.  "Here's an old rusty nail that we found near Golgotha." 
You're to pretend that it went through His foot, you see; they
always have nice ways of doing it.

"By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to
the faith among all nations, for his name." Now, notice: "...for
obedience to the faith..." Notice how faith is connected with
obedience, and obedience is connected with faith. "...Obedience
to the faith..."  Now, a Campbellite says that salvation is in
water baptism, and water baptism is a part of salvation, and you
can't be saved without water baptism.  The Baptists say, "Well,
water baptism is not essential for salvation, but it is essential
for obedience."  I don't go quite that far.  If you're going to
talk about what's essential for obedience, there are all kinds of
things that are essential for obedience.  It's essential to read
the Bible for obedience.  It's essential to be generous with your
giving to be obedient.  I wouldn't limit it just to water
baptism.  The trouble is, once you say that, then the Campbellite
says, "Well, to obey the gospel is to be baptized."  Water
baptism, according to the Campbellites, is obeying the gospel.

Now, let's get this straight.  Get Romans 16 in one hand and get
Romans 10 in the other.  To obey the gospel is not to get
baptized.  These heretics have been preaching Acts 2 for so long,
they have the whole Body of Christ all confused.  And the whole
Body of Christ thinks to obey the gospel is to run down and jump
in the water.  That isn't to obey the gospel; that's to disobey
the gospel!  Romans 10:16: "But they have not all obeyed the
gospel.  For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath..." gotten baptized?? 
What is it to obey the gospel?  It's to believe the report!!
Verse 17, "So then faith..."  See that thing?  Faith!  To obey
the gospel is to exercise faith in it, not run down and get
baptized and prove that you can do it.  To obey the gospel is to
admit that your water baptism can't get you to heaven.  Romans
16:26: "But now is made manifest, according to the commandment of
the everlasting God, made knownh to all nations for the obedience
of ..." baptism...right??? WRONG!!! ..."the obedience of FAITH"!!

Now, this is the trouble a man gets into when he hangs around
Acts 2 longer than he should hang around there.  Some people
would rather die and go to hell in Acts 2 than go to heaven in
Romans chapter 5.  Acts 15:8 finds Simon Peter preaching many
years after Acts 2.  Beginning at Acts 15:7:  "And when there had
been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and
brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among
us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the
gospel, and believe.  And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare
them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;
And put no difference between us and them, PURIFYING THEIR HEARTS
BY FAITH."  All right, now that ought to be clear.  To obey the
gospel is to exercise faith in the gospel.  Now, the problem you
have is in Acts 2, when Simon Peter is preaching to Israel, he
says, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost.  For the promise is unto you, and to your
children," and so on and so on.  And, when he says that, then it
looks like if a fellow believes, he's obedient and goes down and
gets in the water.  So Acts chapter 2 is read clear through the
rest of the New Testament by everybody, including some of the
Baptists.  You can't do that.

Now, I'll put the cards on the table face up.  If you repent and
are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
sins, (1) you will NOT get the Holy Ghost, and (2) you'll go to
hell just like a bullet or a ball bearing on a greased plank. 
Repenting is not getting saved and being baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ is not getting saved.  Somebody's been pulling Acts
2:38 in this country for so long, that some of you fellows who
believe the Bible actually think it's the plan of salvation. 
Boy, you pick up that radio, and all you hear is, "Acts 2:38,
Acts 2:38, Acts 2:38."  Why, you couldn't find salvation there
with a flashlight!  Turn to Acts 2:38 and let me show you
something.  I'll give you a little time here.  You start along
about where Peter begins to talk there, around verse 14.  You all
just spend some time there and look over verses 14, 15, 16, 17,
18, 19, 20, and 21, and you tell me when you see the blood
atonement for sin.  "Without shedding of blood is no remission"
(Hebrews 9:22).  See if you can find a place in those verses of
Acts 2 where it says that Christ died for anybody's sin.  There
are probably more people going to hell in Acts 2:38 than in any
other passage of the Bible.  There is no blood atonement in Acts
chapter 2.  Peter doesn't know about the blood atonement yet! 
There's nothing there about Christ dying for anybody's sins. Look
at verse 37; is anybody asking what to do to get saved?  Look at
verse 37.  Do you find the words, "What must we do to be saved"
in Acts 2:37?  Well, why would a fellow give Acts 2:38 as the
plan of salvation, when nobody's even discussing it?  Wild, isn't
it?

Now, what does it mean to obey the gospel?  All right, the Lord
says, "My Son died for your sins, according to the scriptures,
was buried, rose from the dead according to the scriptures, and
you trust Him and He'll save you."  Why if the Lord is right
there, then hell is right underneath Him.  "Of course, now, if
you don't want to fall into hell, then you lean on my Son, and
trust my Son to save you."  I obey.  Do you know what I do when I
obey?  I lean on Him!  Do you know what I'm counting on?  I'm
counting on Him to keep me out of hell!  Now, if He gives way, do
you know where I go?  I go to hell.  But I'm leaning on Him! 
That's what it means to exercise faith in the gospel!  You rest
your soul on it!  Now, you want to know how to go hell?  Just go
over there and rest on baptism.  And when baptism gives way,
you've had it!  In plainer words, getting baptized is NOT to obey
the gospel; it's to DISOBEY the gospel!  You haven't obeyed the
gospel unless you've exercised faith in the shed blood of Jesus
Christ as your personal Saviour.  And, when you've done that,
you've obeyed, and when you haven't done that, you have not
obeyed.

"By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to
the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also
the called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome, beloved of
God, called to be saints."  You can read it either way.  You read
"called to be saints" or leave out the italics and make it
"called saints."  Both statements are true of God's people;
they're called saints and they're called to be saints.  

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ."  Now, Paul has started out here and he put faith in
verse 5.  Verse 17: "faith..." There it comes again.  Do you
realize that the word faith only occurs two times in the Old
Testament?  Isn't that a strange thing?  I'll bet you thought it
occurred a lot more times than that.  The word faith occurs two
times in the Old Testament.  I mean, when you thought about that,
you probably thought about, "By faith Abel did this, and by faith
Noah did this, and by faith--"  but that's in the book of
Hebrews!  It occurs one time in Deuteronomy 32:20, and there it
says, "children in whom there is no faith."  And the other time
it occurs is in Habakkuk 2, where it says, "The just shall live
by his faith," and those are the only two times the thing occurs. 
There's a remarkable difference between the Old and the New
Testaments.  In the New Testament the word faith occurs 300
times.



8  First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that
your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world."



"Your faith."  There we go.  "For you all."  That's a Southern
expression, "you all."  Of course, Southerners abbreviate it;
they spell it "y-a-l-l."  "Y'all."  Paul is from the southern
tribes.  He's a Benjamite.

"That your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world."  Now,
that brings up a problem.  Is the faith really spoken of
throughout the whole world?  Do the American Indians know about
it?  Obviously not.  All right, so when you find these words like
this in the Bible, you have to look at them carefully.  That is,
sometimes you have to look at them carefully, and sometimes you
don't.  When you find "whole," "all," "every," and those kinds of
words, sometimes those words mean "all without distinction," and
sometimes they mean "all without exception."

For example, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish but have everlasting life"--that's all without exception. 
That's anybody who believes.  Now, even then you have to be
careful--"whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have
everlasting life."   Let's say a baby dies just before he's a
week old.  He doesn't come under "whosoever believeth."  He
didn't have a chance to believe, see?  Even when the Bible makes
a blanket statement, you'll have to be careful.  You'll have to
be careful, too, that you don't cut them in half.  Let me
explain.  Lorenzo Dowell, a great preacher, once said the five-
point Calvinists are "whole-part" men.  Where the Bible says
"whole," they read "part."  And here's what he meant by that;
when God so loved the world, the Calvinist says, "God so loved
the elect"...Gentile.  So you have to be careful here.  But by
the same token, you have to use some sense.  Let me show you
something about the mess you get into when you don't use common
sense along these lines.

Turn to Ephesians.  The context will tell you whether it's all
without exception or all without distinction.  Now, suppose you
come home from work and your wife says, "I cleaned the whole
house today--from top to bottom."  Now, what does she mean?  Does
that mean you couldn't climb up the chimney and find some dirt
under a shingle?  Or, you go underneath the house and go across
the water pipes and bring out a cobweb, and you say to her, "What
do you mean you cleaned the whole house?  You didn't get this
cobweb, see?"  Now, when your wife says she cleaned the whole
house, she means all without distinction.  She means she didn't
pick out just one room to clean; she cleaned all of them without
distinction.  She may not have meant all without exception.  She
might have missed something on the hinges of the back door,
something like that.

I'll show you the mess you can get into if you don't get this
principle down. Ephesians 6:21: "But that ye also may know my
affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother, and faithful
minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things." Well,
how about the date of the rapture? You reckon he told him that? 
How about the number of hairs on Sitting Bull's head?  Or your
telephone number?  Do you see what I mean?  Obviously, when it
says all things he didn't mean all things without exception.  He
meant all things without distinction; that is, he's not going to
just talk about one thing; he's going to talk about a number of
things, and the context is the things that concern Paul, see
(verses 20,21, and 22).

So, in Romans 1:8, when Paul says "throughout the whole world,"
he means without distinction.  There might have been some place
in the Caribbean that hasn't heard about him yet.  But everybody
in the Roman Empire has heard about him. That is, the whole
speaking world, the whole inhabited earth that they knew about at
that time, that is the testimony of those saved people in Rome
who got out to Gaul and Britain and France and all over Africa--
the whole world in that sense.  And that's the sense he uses it. 

Some examples of all without exception: "There is one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." "Christ gave himself
as a ransom for all to be justified in due time."  That's
everybody.  That's all without exception.







The thesis is this: The baby gets the blood, the blood is
manufactured inside the child, and eventually must be traced back
to the seed--the father instead of the mother.  So not even
Christ's physical life, as far as the blood is concerned, is
Mary's.  It's God's.  It's called God's blood in Acts 20:28.









SUPPLEMENTAL



Now, this is a little ahead of time.  I tried to get the letter,
but couldn't get it.  But I thought you might like to hear a
letter from Robert Sumner, that I got day before yesterday. 
There was a fellow named Paul Matthew in Martinville, Indiana,
who wrote Robert Sumner a letter and asked him, "Do you have an
inerrant, infallible Bible?  Where can you get an infallible,
inerrant Bible?  Do you believe there IS an inerrant, infallible
Bible?"

Answer:  

"Dear Brother Matthew,

"Thank you for letter of August 29th.  I'm glad to know that you
saw a copy of our magazine, even though you're not a subscriber. 
I am amazed, however [oh, boy--oh, goody, goody, gum drop!] at
the tone of your letter and the implications."

This is a bunch of fancy pants, boy.  "I am amazed at the tone of
your letter."  I'd like to see a letter written about the word of
God that can amaze you!  

"In the first place, to compare the deceit and trickery of
Armstrong with the fundamentalists and their treatment of the
Bible is one of the most astounding things I have read in a long
time.  Please do not do that with anyone else, or he will doubt
either your honesty or your intelligence."

Well, Rice classified me with Armstrong.  I guess Sumner better
doubt his intelligence.  They get themselves in a mess, don't
they?

"Now, you have a perfect right to disagree with my position about
the King James Version, but you have no right to question my
honesty about it."

That is, you're dishonest, but you have no right to question my
honesty.  See that business?  Why, they are a bunch of
egomaniacs.  If those people are saved, you couldn't follow those
people 35 feet.

"In fact, I just finished answering a layman in Alabama who wrote
to object to my statement in our September issue concerning a
faulty translation of John 16:13 in the King James.  `Howbeit
when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all
truth: for he shall not speak of himself.'  I pointed out that
the proper translation is not `of' himself but `from' himself, as
most reliable margin-reference Bibles point out.

"Obviously, in every place in the word of God which speaks of the
Holy Spirit and His work, the Holy Spirit, the Author, is
speaking of Himself, but never did He speak `from' Himself--that
is, independent of the other members of the Trinity.  So, I'm
very honest in my position.  In fact, I would say that one who
claimed the Biblical claim of infallibility for a translation,
King James or other, would be dishonest."

So, all you people are crooked, and Robert Sumner says, "...so I
am very honest in my position."

Do you know why those fellows keep saying that? Did you ever
notice in Rice's correspondence, "...you're not being honest,"
"...you're not being honest..."--you know why they keep saying
that?  Because they're as crooked as a dog's hind leg.  And the
fellow keeps saying that to try to talk himself into it, you see.

"My position on the Bible is the same as all the leaders in your
Bible Baptist Fellowship."

He didn't ask him about that; he told him to state his position;
he didn't tell him to compare it with somebody else. 

"It is the same position Christians have held down through the
years."

He didn't answer the question.  The question was, Do you have an
infallible Bible?  Where is it, and do you believe in it?

"That's my position.  Now if you want some other position, that's
up to you."

He didn't say what the position was! 

"But you have no right to call me, the leaders in your
fellowship, and millions of other good fundamentalists..."

Millions?  Why, the millions of Christians believe the King James
Bible is the word of God.  It's the scholars who don't believe
it.  There are not a million fundamental scholars in America. 
There are not ten thousand.  There are not one thousand.  In
America, I dare say if you took all the men who are real scholars
and put them together with the fundamentalists, you'd have about
eight men!  And I ain't one of them!

"...You have no right to call me, the leaders of your fellowship,
and millions of other good fundamentalists dishonest and guilty
of trickery because your position is different from ours!"

He just said you'd be dishonest if you believe the King James
Bible is the word of God!  So, what he's saying is, if you differ
from our belief that it's not, YOU'RE CROOKED!  He's saying,
"We're honest for not believing it, and you're dishonest for
believing it!"

Why, the fellow's a fascist madman!  (But I can't say that;
that's not being a good Christian!!)

"I do not know any intelligent scholar who claims infallibility
for the King James Bible.  Even that nut in Florida..."

You know that girl scout is so yellow he doesn't dare even print
my name in his private correspondence!  We'll print his!  You
talk about honesty, boy, we'll print his in public, where he can
read it back."

"...that nut in Florida would not make the mistake of saying
that--at least in writing.  I know.  I tried to get him to say
that, and he wouldn't do it!"

Now, this is what we call the Brownies of the Campfire Girls. 
And when you fellows get out of here you'll find these little
sissified, prissy, lace-britches, pinwhiskered mutts going up and
down this country and saying, "I challenge you to debate," and he
backs out.  "I put him on the spot..."  I don't even know who
they are--I never met them.  Some folks are hard up for
publicity.

"Now, if you have any intelligent questions you want to ask, feel
free to write and ask them."

He did!  He wrote and said, "Do you have an infallible Bible?  Do
you believe in one, and where can you get one?"  That's a pretty
intelligent question, I'd think.

"I'll be glad to answer them.  But please, no more silly,
imaginary conversations, and wild, erroneous accusations about
dishonesty, that you cannot prove.  Sincerely for souls,..."

Boy, ain't we pious?  A "soul-winner"!  "...Robert Sumner,
Biblical Evangelism."

Robert Sumner is a former editor of the Sword of the Lord with
John R. Rice, and now edits his own newspaper, and has a little
evangelistic association of his own. I wrote down,

"We are here printing a letter under the auspices of something
called Biblical Evangelism.  The writer is Bobbie Sumner, who is
supposed to be answering a letter by Rev. Paul Matthew about
which Bible is the word of God.  As you can see with the letter,
Sumner handles such inquiries exactly as John R. Rice handles
them, by shifting and sliding all over the place and speaking
generalities with no documentation, and finally never answering
the question.  The position he claims to take is the AV has
errors (see comment on John 16:13).  He also said any one of you
who believe the King James Bible is infallible are dishonest (see
end of the third paragraph).  This will come as quite a shock to
Billy Sunday, W.B. Riley, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  But then
again, there are a lot of pipsqueaks running around these days
trying to get a hearing.  The "nut" referred to in the last two
paragraphs is easy to locate.  However, the silly bluff that
Bobbie wrote to Matthew about the "nut" being afraid to commit
himself to the inerrancy of the King James Bible is so funny to
readers of this Bulletin, and fourteen books published for ninety
years, that comment is necessary.  Some folks are hard up for
publicity."

O.K., that's going to go into the Bulletin next time.

Now, if they're about calling my name, don't you be worried about
me calling theirs.  I'll call it and spell it out in block
capital letters an inch high.  You won't have any trouble reading
it.

Take what's good, and put the rest in the garbage can.  

I'm not that prejudiced, boy.  I'll tell you, if the thing's
good, I'll use it.  I don't care what's connected with it.  But,
man if it's right, then get it!  Man, if you find a Catholic
priest up here in Pensacola trying to shut down a pornographic
theater, help him shut it down!







Romans chapter 1.  Now, in verse 7 he's called them saints, and
"called to be saints."  A call shows a need.  God doesn't call a
man unless there's a need.  A call shows an ability.  The Lord
won't call a man who can't do what he's called to do.  And, a
call shows an opportunity.  There's a good three-point outline,
if you want to write that down and use it.  A call shows a need,
and an ability, and an opportunity.  And, when you're called to
be a saint, that shows there's a need for saints, and you have
the ability to be a saint, and there's an opportunity to be a
saint.  A call to the mission field shows there's a need for the
mission field, and you have the ability to go, and you have the
opportunity to go--if it's a call.

Now, once again, that word "all" can mean "all without
distinction," instead of "all without exception," as it does in
some cases.



9 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;

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.



"My spirit"--the human spirit, not the Holy Spirit--my spirit. 
Every man has in him the spirit of man, the human spirit, as well
as the Holy Spirit.  Of course, if he's unsaved, then all he's
got is the human spirit.

"I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son."  The
difference is, in the saved man, the human spirit has been
brought to life.  In an unsaved man, the spirit in him is a dead
spirit--like an animal.

"...that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my
prayers."  Now, again, look how words are used.  "Mention of you
always in my prayers."  Does that mean always without exception,
or always without distinction?  Well, obviously, it means without
distinction.  If it had meant he made mention of them always in
prayers, he wouldn't have time to preach, would he?  See, it's
not that 24 hours a day he's saying, "Lord, help the saints at
Rome, help the saints at Rome, help the saints at Rome," always. 
If he were doing that, he wouldn't have time to pray for the
saints at Ephesus.  He made mention of them in his prayers, too. 
When the Bible says, "Pray without ceasing," it doesn't mean go
to bed praying at 9:00 and then pray until you get up in the
morning.  When it says, "Pray without ceasing," it means, "Don't
quit praying!"  That is, don't knock off two or three days, or
two or three weeks, or as someone said, two or three years.

"Making request, if by any means now at length."  That means
after a long time, "now a length."  "I might have a prosperous
journey by the will of God to come unto you."  And, of course,
the thing is addressed to the saints in Rome.  At the time he
writes this, there are some saved people in Rome, and Paul wants
to see them and have fellowship with them.



11 For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some
spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;

12 That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the
mutual faith both of you and me.



"That I may impart unto you some spiritual gift."  Paul is an
apostle, and has the apostolic gifts.  He's a Jewish apostle. 
Therefore, his apostolic gifts that follow those who believe
under the Jewish apostles.  "I long to see you, that I may impart
unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established." 
Now, that kind of establishment there is something that will make
them mentally steadfast.  It isn't that you might be established
in the sense of not going to hell; they're already established
that way.  But, established in the sense of getting mentally
rooted and grounded so they're stable.  John says, "Perfect love
casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is
not made perfect in love.  Herein...that we may have boldness
today in judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." 
And that means that a person who's rooted and grounded and
established and settled in the faith may worry about a lot of
things, but he never worries about going to hell.  Because, if
you're rooted and grounded in the faith, you know that, as the
Lord is up there, so are you down here.  In better words, when
the Lord looks at you down here, as far as your standing is
concerned, you're just like His Son, Jesus Christ.  Now, as far
as your state is concerned, that may be something else.  You be
in Alabama, or Georgia, or Florida, or Ohio, or Minnesota.  But
as far as your standing is concerned, you're in Christ, and He's
in you.

Now, Christians worry about that.  And another way Christians can
get disestablished, or get wishy-washy, is by not being rooted
and grounded in the word, and let some fellow come along, and
give them a gaff.  Turn to Ephesians 4.  When a Christian is not
established and rooted and grounded in the word of God, then some
fellow comes along with some "new," "novel" thing that's contrary
to the Book and gets him all messed up.  Ephesians 4:12ff:  "For
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the
sleight of men..."  Did you ever hear of sleight of hand referred
to?  Sleight of hand is what a magician does.  The hand is
quicker than the eye.  "...sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive."  Like a letter
I read to you earlier; that's sleight of hand, that's cunning
craftiness, boy, and don't you ever listen to it for five
minutes.  A man who doesn't accept the Bible as the infallible
truth and the final authority of God cannot be ordained to the
ministry.  Because, to be ordained to the ministry you have to
sit there and lie and say, "I believe that Book does not contain
the truth; I believe it is the truth.  I don't believe it
contains the word of God; I believe it is the word of God!"  And
when Robert Sumner and John R. Rice were ordained, they had to
swear that by God--on their knees, with the laying on of hands. 
Talk about honest and dishonest.  That stuff is the sleight of
men and cunning craftiness, boy, and you better hadn't pay any
attention to it.

"For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual
gift, to the end ye may be established."  Now, some Holiness
people use this to prove what they call the "second work of
grace"; the idea being that they're waiting for Paul to come
along there and give them something they didn't have before. 
Well, that may be true.  Of course, in this case, it's said to be
simply a "spiritual gift."  But running this in with some other
verses they get a peculiar doctrine.  Let me give you the other
verses:  The first of these is 2 Corinthians 1:15, Paul writing
again.  In this passage he says, "And in this confidence I was
minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second
benefit."  Now, from that expression there, "second benefit," by
tying that up with "impart a spiritual gift," and then tying that
whole thing up with "second work of grace" (2 Corinthians 8:6),
you get the "second work of grace" or the "second blessing"
spoken of in the Holiness groups.  Take a look at 2 Corinthians
8:6: "Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he
would also finish in you the same grace also."  Now, in 2
Corinthians 8:6, what is that grace he's talking about there? 
Look at verses 3,4,5, and 6.  What is that grace?  It's money. 
It's the grace of giving.  That has nothing to do with any work
of sanctification.  It has to do with giving.  Go back to 2
Corinthians chapter 1, and look at verse 15.  What is that
"second benefit" there?  Look at verse 11.  It's financial help;
it's a gift.  Something somebody bought them, you see?  So, some
people get their Bible kind of screwed up.

Now, we won't have time to run off all the gifts tonight, and get
off into a charismatic potpourri here, but one of these nights
later in Romans, when we get to talking about the body and the
gifts, we'll go into that business in 1 Corinthians, so you're
going to have to be patient and wait, because you can't possibly
get it all in one night, or you'll miss something else.  But the
long and short of it is, in that Bible, in 1 Corinthians 12, when
those gifts are given, any one of those gifts in 1 Corinthians 12
that's not a sign to Israel is still in effect.  And you can have
a spiritual gift imparted to you.  There's no doubt about it. 
Now that's true if it's not a sign to Israel.  Now, if it's a
sign to Israel, it goes out with the apostles, because the
apostles have the apostolic signs.  We'll talk about that more
later.

Now, about the second work of grace.  Bob Jones used to say,
"Some folks worry more about naming the baby than they do having
the baby!"  What he was trying to say was, some folks always
worry about the least important thing, when the most important
thing is the baby.  Now, I don't know what you call a subsequent
conversion experience, something that happened to you after your
conversion.  And I'm not going to argue about what to call it,
whether you call it "eradication," or "sanctification," or, as
some folks call it, "the baptism of the Holy Ghost," or "the
filling of the Holy Spirit," this and that.  We're not going to
argue about terminology.  I'm certain it's not the baptism of the
Holy Spirit, because if you didn't have that before, you weren't
saved.  So I'm certain it's not that.  I'm certain your old
nature isn't eradicated, because I can see it.  So, I'm sure it
isn't that.  Now, there are other things it might be.  And, I'm
not going to be piccyunish about it.  But, nine out of ten
Christians have a greater experience with the Lord after they're
saved than when they get saved. And that makes a lot of them
doubt their salvation. When some of you got saved, it was just
the bare matter of just kneeling and praying, or just praying, or
just trying to believe, or just accepting something in your head. 
Or, if you were a little boy or a little girl, you let Jesus come
into your heart.  You don't remember too much about it.  And then
later, after a month if you're older, or a year, of if you were a
good bit older, or maybe even five or six years later if you got
saved when you were young, there came a crisis in your life when
you had a direct confrontation with the Lord about something, and
some of that stuff is more emotional and more physical than when
you got saved.  And that has led a lot of people to think they
hadn't been saved all along.  Now, you can't go by that stuff,
because feelings are not salvation.  I don't know when you were
saved, but I can tell you when you were saved.  (That's a strange
thing to say, isn't it?)  Let me repeat it; I don't know when you
were saved, but I can tell you when you were saved.  You were
saved the minute you quit trusting your righteousness to get you
to Heaven and started trusting the righteousness of Jesus Christ. 
Now, whenever that happened, that's when you were saved.  When I
got saved, I didn't feel anything.  When I got saved, I took a
preacher's hand and bowed my head in a radio station and asked
the Lord to save me--and didn't believe it after I asked!  I
didn't get any assurance until a week later when I went out and
made a public confession.  But I was saved in that radio station
just as sure as I'm standing here!  Because right at that moment,
I knew I couldn't save myself.  When I asked Christ to save me,
there wasn't a shred of doubt left in my mind that He was the
only one who could do it.

So, when that happens, you're saved!  Now, after that, I went
through some other experiences much deeper than that, much more
emotional than that.  And I passed through one experience one
time, which I don't talk about and don't describe, because if I
do, it would mess you up.  I very definitely had an encounter
with the Lord, which, if I want to do, I could run to the Bible
and say, "There it is!" and then get off on some heretical
doctrine and get you so screwed up you wouldn't know where you're
at!  But I have better sense than that, because those things
there come and go.  They come and go.

If you put all your faith in feelings and emotions, what's going
to happen to you when you're down in the dungeons, after the
Communists and the Catholics get you, and they take off your
clothes and hang you upside down off a broom handle or a gas
pipe, and start jabbing you with a bamboo rod and beating the
bottom of your feet, and asking you to reject Christ?  Or what if
they come into your house and take your little boy or little girl
and put their little hand down on an electric stove and turn on
the burner?  And you hear the little boy or girl screaming in the
next room, saying, "Mommy! Daddy! Stop them!  Mama! Daddy! Stop
them!  Stop them!"  How do you know what you'll do?  You cannot
depend on your feelings, no matter what they are.  

Now, it's a great thing to feel.  I like to feel, man, I would
like to get close to New Jerusalem and feel the breeze blowing,
and jump the benches and run around the building.  I like that; 
I enjoy it.  But, boy, I don't trust feelings down here, not at
all.  I trust the Book!

Verse 12: "That is...."  Now he's going to "fix things up."  He
realizes he has said too much!  "That is, that I may be comforted
together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me." 
That's a nice way to fix things up.  In verse 11, I "kind of"
said that you're down on the bottom and I'm on top, and I'm
coming there to help you out.  And they realized that that wasn't
a very charitable way to say it, so he says, "Well, the thing is,
we'll both help each other."  That's Paul.  He's very human.  You
get to reading 2 Corinthians, and you'll find he's very human,
boy.  He'll mess around just like writing a personal letter.  It
isn't all doctrine; some of it is really down to earth.

"...By the mutual faith both of you and me."  That is, you can
give me something too, you see.



13  Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes
I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might
have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.



"Let hitherto."  Now, there's a case obviously where the word
"let" means "prevented."  That's clear from the context.  He
said, "I would have come to you."  He was going to come. 
"But..."  You see?  He was going to come, "but"--then something
stopped him.  So, if he's going to come and somebody stops him,
then obviously "let" there means to hinder or prevent.  The word
"let" in the Bible, incidentally, has three meanings.  Your Greek
scholars who said it only had two--"let" and "allow"--actually
MISSED one meaning.  It's in Mark 12:1.  As a matter of fact,
they missed ANOTHER one, come to think of it--in tennis.  When
the ball hits that net, it's called a "let" ball in a serve.  You
say, when?  In the 20th century!  It's amazing how archaic some
of these scholars are; they don't get around very much.

Look at Mark 12:1: "And he began to speak unto them by parables. 
A certain man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and
digged a place for the winevat, and built a tower, and let it out
to husbandmen, and went into a far country."  See that thing
there?  That's to rent.  So the word "let" can mean "to rent," or
it can mean "to stop or hinder or prevent," or it can mean "to
allow."  The context will tell you what it is.

"...oftentimes..." Many times.  "...hitherto..."  Hither--back
there.  To--towards you.  So, the word "hitherto" means "up to
now."  The idea is, "Up to now, I haven't been able to make it."

"...that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among
other Gentiles."  Now, notice that "fruit among you" there would
not include just saints, but also unsaved Gentiles at Rome.  He
wants to win some people to the Lord there.

So the Book of Romans is not only written to the saints (verse
6), but in verse 7, "To all that be in Rome."  It's an Epistle to
Romans.  And, although some things in it may be aimed at the
saints, there's an awful lot of it aimed at Gentiles in Rome, as
you're going to see in a minute.



14  I am a debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both
to the wise, and to the unwise."



Now, that's true of every Christian.  Every Christian, when he's
saved, owes a debt he can't pay.  You're in debt, and you're in
debt to everybody.  The fact that the Lord saved you doesn't
prove anything.  There are other people smarter than you who
aren't saved, and there are people dumber than you who aren't
saved.  And God was just awfully good to you in allowing you the
privilege that you have.  And when you get saved, then you owe
the Lord something, and you owe Him to tell the Greeks the
gospel, the barbarians the gospel, the wise the gospel, and the
unwise the gospel.  Everybody!



15  So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to
you that are at Rome also.



"So as much as in me is."  There's old English.  We'd say, "So as
much as is in me."  "So as much as in me is."  Well, it may not
be contemporary grammar, but do you have any trouble with it?  I
mean, anybody have any trouble with that thing, "So much as in me
is, I'm ready..."?  You don't have any trouble with that thing!

"...you that are at Rome also."  The "you" there includes saints
AND unsaved--Gentiles.

And here's a great verse that you need to memorize:



16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the
Jew first, and also to the Greek."



"...For it [the gospel of Christ] is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth."  When you believe on
Jesus Christ, the power of God to you is that Christ died for
your sins, was buried, and He rose again the third day from the
dead.  As far as you're concerned, that's the power of God.

You had better look out for these people who are always talking
about the "Holy Ghost."  The Holy Ghost is not the power of God
unto salvation.  The gospel is the power of God unto salvation.  

"...to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."  Now, Gartenhouse
and Marx and Lieberman and some of the Jewish evangelists have
taken this verse to prove that you should not support any Gentile
missions until you support Jewish missions.  Now, I'm not going
to find fault with that teaching, but I'm going to find fault
with that application.  Because the gospel does go to the Jew
first in the Book of Acts, and then it ceases to go to the Jew
and goes to the Gentiles.

Now, in the Book of Acts, that thing goes like this.  The Jews
start on top, and the Gentiles on the bottom.  And the Jews are
by nature a good olive tree, and the Gentiles are wild by nature
and not grafted among the branches.  The Jews hear that gospel in
Acts chapter 2, 3, 4 (where they persecute 'em), 5 (persecute 'em
again), 6 (persecute 'em), 7 (kill Stephen), 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
(blaspheme against the Holy Ghost under Paul), 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
(rejection), 19, 20, 21, 22, to Acts 28.  When you get to Acts
28, the Jews, having rejected, are "out of sight," and the
Gentiles are going to hear the gospel.  Over here, they're Jewish
proselytes in Acts chapter 2.  They come along, and the Ethiopian
eunuch gets saved in Acts chapter 8, Cornelius gets saved in
Chapter 10, Paul starts preaching in 11,12, and 13, in 15 they
decide that salvation is by grace through faith to Gentiles--off
to the ends of the earth.  The Gentiles come to the ascendancy. 
It's to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile.

Now, toward the end of this age, in which you and I live, it
reverses.  And, of course, the Gentiles become wise in their own
conceit.  When we get to Romans chapter 11, we read, "I would
not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest
ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness is part is
happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall
come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness
from Jacob:  For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take
away their sins," and so forth and so on.

All right, when you come down here toward the end of the age, the
Gentiles are on top, and the Jews on the bottom.  And then, in
1918, the Jew gets his land.  And in 1948, that Jew goes back and
gets his state, and on he goes through the tribulation and the
Millennium and comes out on top.

And that Gentile gets him a different Bible in 1884 for England,
and a different Bible for America in 1901, and he starts
downhill, and the Lord says, "OK, boy."  Fourteen million
casualties in World War I, 22 million casualties in World War II,
and the biggest and best is yet to come!

So what the Lord does is make a fool out of the Jew because of
his unbelief in the New Testament, and God will make a fool out
of the Gentile for his unbelief in the Old Testament.  The New
Testament is written to mess up a Jew; the Old Testament is
written to mess up a Gentile.  The New Testament is a spiritual
grace situation that a Jew can't understand, because he's self-
righteous.  The Old Testament is a theocratic military kingdom
that the Gentile can't understand, because he thinks the kingdom
of God is all spiritual.

Do you know the Lord has a wrench to fit any nut in this world? 
I'll tell you, God's honest truth, brethren, I would cut off my
left hand before I'd mess with one word in that Book.  Bless your
souls, you can't mess with that Book!  That Book's too hot to
handle!

"I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ."  Are you?  If you're
not ashamed of it, you preach it.  If you're a woman, you'll
preach it.  The Bible doesn't speak about a woman standing up in
the pulpit and being an ordained minister; every minister in the
Bible is a male.  The deacons are males, the elders are males,
the bishops are males, the apostles are males.  But a woman
should be a witness for Jesus Christ and preach the gospel.  When
a woman tells a person how to be saved, she's preaching the
gospel.  So, every woman in this building is called to preach. 
Boy, how's that for sound Baptist doctrine?  It just didn't say
she was ordained!  You don't have any ordained women in the New
Testament, but you have women who preach the gospel.

"...to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."  Then, I wouldn't
say that you couldn't support missions until you've supported the
Jew, but I would say this.  I would say that, when you fellows
get out and get to pastoring churches, and you want the Lord to
bless your work, be sure to take on some Jewish missionaries. 
I'd do that if I were you.  I'd very definitely do that.



17  For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith
to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.



"For therein..."  That's the gospel.  All right, the
righteousness of God "is revealed from faith to faith" in the
gospel.  All right, first of all, from Old Testament faith to New
Testament faith.  The righteousness of God is revealed "from
faith to faith: as it is written," and he quotes the Old
Testament.  When he quotes the Old Testament, he quotes Habakkuk
2:4.  Turn there, and let's see if he got it right. "The just
shall live by faith."  Notice, not "on" faith.  The best way to
live on faith is at the end of a six-foot hoe handle.

Did he say in Habakkuk 2:4 the just shall live by faith?  He
didn't say it quite the same way, did he?  In Habakkuk chapter 2
he has the word "his" in there.  When Paul quoted it, he didn't
put it in.  Now the reason for that should show a fellow the
difference between Old Testament faith and New Testament faith. 
New Testament saving faith is the gift of God; God gives every
man enough faith to believe the gospel.  God doesn't give every
man enough to try to obey that Law.  Under that Law, that fellow
back in the Old Testament is saved by a works-and-faith
situation, and it's his faith in those works.  And it's his
faith!  Now, in the New Testament, "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."  Any man in the world comes
naturally equipped with enough faith to believe the gospel.  Now,
if he quenches the leading of the Spirit and defies the Lord and
turns his back on the Bible and sins against his conscience and
sears his conscience, that's something else.  

Turn to Romans 10, and look how much faith you have to have to
believe the gospel.  This is written to Roman Gentiles.  Romans
10:8:  "But what saith it?  The word is nigh thee, even in thy
mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we
preach; That if thou shalt confess..."  Every unsaved man has
that thing right on the tip of his tongue, and right down there
where all he has to do is exercise it.  

They alibi.  They say, "I can't understand."  You don't have to
understand.  They say, "I can't live it."  You don't have to
live. Folks say, "I can't hold out."  You don't have to hold out. 
Folks say, "There are too many hypocrites in the church."  We're
not talking about the hypocrites in the church.  A fellow has got
it right there, and just pretends that he doesn't.



18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
unrighteousness;

19  Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them;
for God hath showed it unto them.



Now notice two things right away.  Verse 17, "the righteousness
of God."  Verse 16, "the power of God."  And now, in verse 18,
"the wrath of God."  Now, I told you that's what this book is
about.  He keeps doing those things.  "The salvation of God,"
"the righteousness of God," "the faith of God," "the truth of
God," "the wrath of God"--it's all through the book.

"...who hold the truth in unrighteousness."  You can't find it
translated that way in any bible after 1884.  Why?  Because the
fellows doing the translating held the truth in unrighteousness. 
Whenever a translator hits a verse where the Holy Spirit is aimed
at him, he alters the verse.  Now, if you doubt that for a
minute, look at verse 18.  Do you know what they've done with
"hold the truth in unrighteousness"?  They've changed it to
"hinder the truth" or "suppress the truth."  They did that
because they can sit back and say, "Well, we don't hinder or
suppress it. We're getting it out."  But the verse didn't say
"hinder" or "suppress."  It said "hold it."  And they held it
when they messed with it.

I'll show you another one.  Verse 25: "who changed the truth of
God into a lie."  Now, what do you suppose the committee would do
with that one when they picked that up?  Every one of them
altered it.  There isn't one bible on the market that reads like
King James in verse 25.  And the New ASV, recommended by
Tennessee Temple and Bob Jones and lastly recommended by Falwell
as a second translation and as a "reliable" translation, has the
same reading in verse 25 and verse 18 as the RSV of the National
Council of Christian Churches--exactly!  If you don't believe it,
buy a copy and look at it.

You say, why is that?  Because the dirty, godless, depraved,
"good, godly, dedicated," lying, "recognized, qualified,
prayerful, sincere, serious," two-faced hypocrites who made that
thing, when they came across that passage, it just shot them so
full of holes they looked like a sieve.  So they changed it.  The
rule in modern translating is, if you don't like it, change it;
if you don't understand it, change it and make it meet the
demands of your own ignorance.

Now "the wrath of God" is revealed from Heaven against three
kinds of fellows (verse 18).  If you "hold the truth in
unrighteousness," the Lord's got it in for you.  Verse 21, if you
don't glorify God and are not thankful, the Lord's got it in for
you.  And verse 25, if you're changing the truth of God into a
lie, the Lord's got it in for you.  And verse 28, if you don't
like to retain God in your knowledge, God's got it in for you.

So, every one of those verses has been changed by every
translation on the market.  Every single one at them!  Because
the verses are aimed at Bible translators.



SUPPLEMENTAL



This is to Dr. John R. Rice:

"Dear Brother Rice,

"I've been a subscriber to The Sword of the Lord for some years. 
I appreciate your ministry.  I also respect you as an elder and
value your judgment in spiritual matters.  I have again and again
read your compromising attitude toward God's word.  I've seen you
skirt the issues through verbal flack, and attack everyone who
has asked you questions about the preservation of God's word. 
The issue is the belief in the divinely inspired, verbal,
plenary, authorship of the original manuscripts; that God
furthermore divinely preserved copies of the word through the
centuries, and during the Philadelphia church period," and so
forth and so on.

"...You answer the letter in this manner in your August 8 issue. 
Of course, you didn't answer it all but went tripping into never-
never land.  You accuse the letter writer of asking a question
which you did not raise yourself but others raised for you. 
That's a nice jog, but what's the deal?  Doesn't the question
stand on its own merit?...What Greek text does one go to?  I
notice each text varies from the others....May I ask what English
words have changed their meaning?

"Finally, let me say that I have nothing against you personally,
against your ministry.  However, I stand for God's word and hate
every false way taught about it.  `Let God be true, but every man
a liar.'  May God bless you and give you continued good health
until Jesus comes."

Answer from John R. Rice:

"Your extensive letter is before me.  I note several statements. 
You say, `Your compromising attitude towards God's word.'  You
say, `The issue is the belief is the belief in the divinely
inspired, verbal, plenary authorship of the original
manuscripts.'  You said it just as slick as any Mormon elder I've
ever heard.  You say when you stand against God's word and
judgments and try to usurp authority, you are wrong and the Book
is right.  That puts you outside the realm of honest and
spiritual discussion."

I mean, look at Pope Johnny!  I mean, the idea that if you ask
him a question and you ask it the "wrong way," the puts you
"outside the realm of honest and spiritual discussion."  Now what
he's saying is, "You people are dishonest and you're not
spiritual.  You run with a different kind of people and have a
different class!  I have no time to waste on you; I do not
believe in your sincerity."  So, "You folks are insincere,
carnal, and dishonest."  And the man who can't answer the
questions is "honest," "spiritual," and "clear."  He's a two-
faced lying hypocrite.  If you see him, tell him I said so--with
love.

And tell him to quit calling my friends dishonest and insincere
and not spiritual.  And if he doesn't like, don't be surprised if
I talk that rough or a little rougher!

Some of you folks don't get the message.  When I talk like that,
some of you think I'm just awful.  And yet you'll stand by when
another fellow like that calls you that kind of stuff!  That
fellow says, "If you believe the King James Bible is the word of
God, preserved without error, you're dishonest and you're not
spiritual, and you're not sincere."  Now, you may let him get
away with it; I'm not about to let him get away with it.  He can
go soak his head in a bucket three times and pull it out twice!

Here's another one:  Racial Divinities:  A Message of Concern to
the American People by Eman W.D. Muhammad:

"The so-called Christian religion was sneaked in on the Gentiles
by the Jacobites who were looking for political dominance.  You
can't live in America without hearing the message; the message of
white supremacy is everywhere.  You are conscious that Jesus was
in a white body, even if you don't go to church.  Every American
knows that Jesus has been given a white image by church society. 
Every American knows that all the prophets and saints were made
white by the church.  You don't have to be consciously aware of
it, as "white" Jesus or as "white" religion prevails everywhere. 
We are not to see God in a racial image.  As long as white people
think that a "white" image is the image of God, then the wedge
between them will grow wider and wider.  Remove all racial
affection and worship."

I'll tell you one better than that.  Turn to the Song of Solomon. 
Song of Solomon chapter 5, verse 10: "My beloved is white...." 
Oh, you prejudiced, bigoted, supremist racist!  How did you get
so bigoted, you bunch of white supremists!  Huh?  See that
business?  All the junk people write.  You know why those fellows
write that?  They're racists!





Once again, verse 18 has been changed in all the new bibles,
because the new revisers have the truth and held the truth and
held it in unrighteousness.  So they changed it to "suppress" the
truth or "hinder" the truth.  Which isn't the thing.  See, their
alibi is, "Well, we're not hindering the truth, or we're not
suppressing the truth, so the wrath of God couldn't be against
us."  So they changed the verse to get rid of the wrath of God on
them.  But the verse didn't say the wrath of God was upon them
for hindering the truth.  It said the wrath of God was upon men
for holding the truth in unrighteousness.  So, when a reviser
finds a verse in the King James that convicts him of his sin, he
does just like a sex pervert does.  He justifies his sins.  And
that's what's wrong with it.  I mean, "All have sinned and come
short of the glory of God," but what man, who is a Christian,
justifies his sins?  You don't justify your sins if you're a
child of God.  If you're a child of God, you confess your sins
and you judge your sins and are sorry for them and make an effort
to put them away.  Whether you can or whether you can't, you at
least work at it.  You don't justify it.

Now, when these fellows find a verse that condemns them of sin,
they just change it, so they justify the sins.  Nice bunch.

"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for
God hath showed it unto them."  Then God reveals Himself to men
inside men.  "That which may be known of God is manifest in
them."  It's inside man.  God hath showed it unto them.  Now,
what has God showed them?  



20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are
without excuse:

21  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as
God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.



"The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen."  What God made from the creation, you can see. 
The "invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen."  Now, look here.  "The invisible."  Now what does
that mean?  That means something you can't see.  All right, so
what you can't see is clearly seen.  How's that for a
contradiction?

"The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen."  How were they clearly seen?  They were
"understood by the things that are made."  So, what you can't see
you can understand by what you can see.  What you can see shows
you what you can't see.  Even what?  "His eternal power and
Godhead."  You can see the Trinity.

"So that they are without excuse."  Every unsaved man knows that
God is a Trinity--the Godhead.  Jehovah's Witnesses say it is a
Catholic teaching.  It isn't a Catholic teaching; it's a Bible
teaching.

All right, now how do you see the things that you can't see and
understand the things that are made?  All right, there's the moon
(Song of Solomon 6:10), which is a picture of the Body of Christ. 
Therefore, it follows the sun because the Body of Christ should
follow the Son.  The sun is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ,
because He's called the Sun in Psalm 19 and Malachi 4, and the
sun and the moon go opposite of the earth, and the earth goes
opposite of the sun.  The earth rotates against the sun and the
moon; the sun and the moon go contrary to the earth.  If you're
with Christ, you go contrary to the earth.  If you go with the
earth, you go contrary to Christ.

Then you have stars.  Stars are a type of soul-winners (Daniel
12).  Then you have a Godhead.  The sun has light rays; you can
see them, but you can't feel them.  It has heat rays; you can
feel them, but you can't see them.  It has actinic rays, and you
can't see them, and you can't feel them.  The sun has light rays
which you can see but not feel.  Jesus Christ, the Son of man--
they saw, felt Him, and touched Him.  The sun has heat rays which
you can feel but can't see--God the Holy Spirit.  The sun has
rays you can neither see nor feel--God the Father.  God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost.

Any man can understand the Trinity when he gets up in the morning
and see the sun come up and goes down.  For example, when the sun
sets, it sets red--Christ died for your sins according to the
Scriptures and was buried.  When it comes up in the morning, it
comes red, because, behold, he comes from Boza with garments
dipped in blood (Isaiah 63, Revelation 14, Revelation 19).  So
every heathen in the world understands the first coming of
Christ, the second coming of Christ, the Body of Christ, and the
Trinity.  A man doesn't have to know any Bible or have any Ten
Commandments, or know your language, to know the First Advent,
the Second Advent, that God is a Trinity, and that there's a Body
of Christ that follows Him, and that light reflects His light.

Take your Bible and turn to Psalm 19.  Now, this is written to
Gentiles, and this is on God the Creator.  Psalm 19:1:  "The
heavens..." plural! "...declare..."  When you declare something,
you say it.  Down south, they say, "Well, I declare!"  "The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his
handiwork.  Day unto day uttereth speech..."  Sunrise and sunset
speak!  "And night unto night..." the moon and the stars--
"showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their
voice--" whose voice?  "Day unto day, night unto night."  "--
their voice is not heard."  Day and night speak; they preach. 
Verse 4: "Their line...."  So when a fellow says something, you
say, "You're handing me a line."  When you hand me a line, you
hand me something the guy says.  "Their line is gone out through
all the earth, and their WORDS to the end of the world."  If a
man doesn't have the Bible, he still has the sun, the moon, and
the stars preaching words at him, and he doesn't have to know any
language to get the meaning.

"There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard"
(Psalm 19:3).  Any Gentile in the world can look over his head
and know that Christ died and was buried and is coming back
again.  All he has to do is look over his head.

All right, back to Romans 1.  Now, the trouble is, they have that
knowledge, but they reject that knowledge.  Now, there are all
kinds of other ways.  Do you want to see what in the world an
unsaved man is like?  Job says, "In vain man would be wise,
though man be born like a wild ass's colt."  You often hear me
refer to somebody as a jackass, and the brethren get all upset
and get shook up, you know, with their little dirty minds. 
That's what Job says an unsaved man is!  He's like a wild
jackass.  That's what he is!  Just call him what he is!  All
right, "an unsaved man is like a dog returned to his own vomit,"
"an unsaved woman is like a pig, wallowing in the mire,"
"ministers are like an oxen," 1 Corinthians 9.  Prayer warriors
are like an eagle that mounteth with wings and won't get weary,
and won't faint.  Jesus Christ is called a lamb at His first
coming; He's called a Lion at the Second Coming.  The devil is
called a serpent; the Pharisees are called a generation of
vipers.  False prophets are called wolves in sheep's clothing. 
Anything you can't understand, you can understand if you just
look around you--because it's all right there.  Christ said,
"Follow me, and I'll make you to become fishers of men."  And
what are men like?  They're like fish, and if you study fish,
you'll know how to win souls.  And if you study fishing methods,
you'll learn soul-winning methods.

Take your Bible and turn to Job.  This Book's a balm, people. 
You're not just going to get it, you know, in a 15-minute study,
in an outline.  It always tickles me to have the International
Sunday School lesson available every Sunday morning.  And when I
get ready to pick that thing up, and they'll say in there, "Our
lesson for today is..."  And then they'll give you the lesson
from Romans chapter 8.  Imagine somebody teaching Romans chapter
8 on the radio in 30 minutes.  Or, imagine somebody even trying
to teach Romans chapter 8 in an hour of Sunday School.  There's
no way in the world you can teach Romans 8 in less than three
hours!  Three hours is flying for Romans 8.  The Book has a lot
more in it than they think it has in it. Now, go back to the Book
of Job.  In Job 12:7, Job is talking, and he says this:  "But ask
now the beasts, and they shall teach thee."

You want to learn?  Go down and sit in front of a dog a while,
and talk to him.  That's right.  You want to learn?  Go out to
the field and talk to a cow for awhile.  "Ask the beasts, and
they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall
tell thee."  You want to learn something?  Go out and talk to the
cardinals and blue jays and and crows and sparrows for awhile;
they'll show you something.  "Or speak to the earth, and it shall
teach thee."  I mean, go on around and dig down into the layers,
and see if they're telling you the truth about Mesozoic,
Cenozoic, Paleozoic, and all that baloney.  The earth will teach
you.  "...and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea
shall declare unto thee.  Who knoweth not in all these that the
hand of the LORD hath wrought his?  In whose hand is the soul of
every living thing, and the breath of all mankind."

So a man can learn by studying nature.  When you study nature,
you can learn the Bible, because the Author of the Bible is the
Author of nature; they work together.  Like I said, I was raised
in the city, and I don't know but a very little bit about farm
animals.  I'm like those two sailors arguing, and one of them
said, "What's the difference between a Majorica and a Rhode
Island Red?" and the other one said, "I don't know anything about
cows!"

When I was a boy, I thought that cows laid milk bottles.  I asked
my mother one time about it.  I said, "Where do we get the eggs
from?"  And she said, "The chicken lays them."  And I said,
"Well, where does the milk come from?"  And she said, "From the
cow."  So, I just put two-and-two together and figured the cow
came by and left a bottle on the porch.

They had a milk wagon come by and leave you a bottle there about
6 o'clock in the morning; I figured a cow came by and laid that
thing.

We've had fellows down at the school who have not seen a real,
live cow for 15 years.  We've had guys in here from downtown
Detroit and downtown Chicago that have not seen a live cow until
they were 15 years old.  And one of the reasons why we've raised
a nation of atheists is because they have never seen God do
anything.  There's nothing in the world that can cure you of
atheism like planting a garden.  I mean, you just plant a garden
and watch that thing grow, and you cannot explain it.  I don't
care what the agricultural station says about the chlorophyll
cycle and the hydrogen cycle, and all that junk; you just can't
explain, man, who you can take something that is smaller than the
size of your fingernail, and put that thing in the ground, and
that thing comes up to a vine, and that thing has hanging on it
anywhere from 12 to 21 things, as big and heavy as apples.  And
that vine holds those things up, and each one of those things has
50 little seeds in it like the one you planted!  I mean, you try
to explain that naturally.  You won't believe your explanation
when you explain it.

A farmer once told me he can hear the corn growing at night in a
big field.  I didn't know that.  But in watching my own corn
grow, I'd be tempted to believe it, whether I knew about it or
not.  Because you can go out there one day, and that stuff would
be so high, and the next day, that thing will be six inches
higher.  So it grew six inches in twelve hours!  Well, that's a
half-inch an hour.  Well, something is splittin' when it's going
like that!  I wouldn't doubt it.  I haven't got a big enough
field to hear it.

Some time in your life, every one of you ought to plant something
and watch it grow.  That's something God does.  

"...So that they are without excuse."  The masses of Gentile
nations are lost; they have no excuse.  At one time they knew
God, and then turned their back on God, and turned their back on
God, and rejected His revelation, and now they have no excuse. 
When you get over to Europe, you'll see that thing over in Europe
so plain it'll make you groan.

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as
God."  Now everything that follows, follows that.  The list that
follows, including sex perversion (verses 24,25,26,27),
unrighteousness, wickedness, envy, debate, deceit, backbiters
(verses 28,29,30,31), ALL follows verse 21.

The first two steps that begin all apostasy and begin all
rejection of truth and begin all other sins are these:

1.  Failure to glorify God.  "Because...when they knew God, they
glorified him not as God."  If you know God, give Him the glory. 
If you know God, glorify Him as God.  What does it mean to
glorify God?  It means to brag about God, elevate God, raise Him
up.  It means to brag about Him.  It means to show Him off,
demonstrate Him, praise Him.  One way to glorify God is to just
get out in a big field where nobody can hear you and just run
around in a circle and yell, "Praise the Lord!" about 15 minutes
till you're hoarse.  Did you ever do that?  You ought to try it. 
There are some experiences in life some of you folks never even
have.  You ought to try that; just get yourself out in a field
some time, about 20 acres where nobody can hear you, and just run
around in a circle and praise God till you're hoarse, and watch
what happens.  Some of you are afraid to try it, aren't you?

2.  "Neither were thankful."  That's the next step.  When a man
doesn't glorify God and he's not thankful, then anything can
happen after that.  I was told when I was over in Germany that,
when you went into East Germany and anybody saw you in a
restaurant asking a blessing at the table, they'd often laugh. 
The country now is almost 100 percent atheist.  So, when those
people sit down at a table to eat, they don't thank anybody. 
They just sit down and shovel down the food.  Now, there's the
Lord up there, and He grew the food and gave the rain to grow it,
and gave them the strength to harvest it with, and gave the money
to buy it with, watching that thing, and the fellow grows it and
eats it and doesn't thank God.  You know what God will do?  He'll
cut off the crops.  If you really want to know why China and
India and Russia have such a terrible time with their starving
population and lack of crops, it's because they've turned down
God, and God has turned them down.  It has nothing to do with
British imperialism and white imperialism, and all this junk. 
It's the fact that if a nation turns off God, God turns them off.

"...but became vain..."  Stuck on themselves.



22  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.



"Professing..."  There's your professor, see?

Paul said, "If any man wants to be wise in this world, let him
become a fool, that he may be wise." Paul said, "We're fools for
Christ's sake."  Paul said, "The foolishness of God is wiser than
the wisdom of men."  Paul said, "As it is written, He taketh the
wise in their own craftiness."  

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."  Now what
did they do?  They taught evolution--see verse 23?  That's the
characteristic of a man who thinks he's wise, who's a fool.  He
teaches evolution; that's how you spot him. 



23  And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image
made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed
beasts, and creeping things.



"Corruptible man"--top; "birds"--lower; "four-footed beasts"--
lower; "creeping things"--lower.  Just like an evolutionary
scale.  Creeping things up to four-footed animals; four-footed
beasts up to birds; up to man.  One of the skeptics said, "God
made man in His own image, and man returned the favor."  Which is
a skeptical way of saying it, but it's very true.  That is, man
now creates God in his image--in man's image.  Gods can be found
on bargain counters; men go bargain shopping for gods.  The Bible
says, "There is none that seeketh after God; no, not one."  Yet,
there are a lot of people who profess to be seeking after God.

How do you account for the fact that everybody professes to be
seeking God, and nobody finds Him, and the Bible says nobody's
looking for Him?  The answer is that every fellow is looking for
a god after his own fashion.  Each guy is looking for a good that
will suit him.  They go bargain shopping.  "We have specials
today; two for fifteen cents; four for twenty-five cents.  And
this god will allow smoking, but he won't allow drinking.  And
this god will allow drinking and smoking, but he won't allow you
to eat meat.  And this god won't allow drinking or smoking or
eating meat, but he'll allow you to think the Book of Mormon is
from the Lord, when it's from the devil.  And this god here will
allow you to drink, but this god here won't allow you to believe
the Bible."  And so men pick the god that will choose their
family or their business or whatever it is.



24  Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the
lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between
themselves;

25  Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and
served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for
ever.  Amen.



Underline verse 24.  "God...gave them up."  Underline verse 26:
"God gave them up."  Underline the middle of verse 28: "God gave
them over."  Three times.  God gave them up, God gave them up,
God gave them over.  Now those three things indicate the Lord
abandoning a man's body and his soul and his spirit.  And the
first "giving up" (verse 24) is the body--"to dishonor their
bodies."  So God gave the bodies up.

Verse 26; there goes the soul: "For this cause God gave them up
unto vile affections."  The seat of affections and emotions is in
the soul.  And, finally, their mind (verse 28), the spirit:  "And
even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God
gave them over to a reprobate mind."

Now, there is God completely abandoning man and giving him up. 
The first thing is letting his body go, and then letting his soul
go, and then letting his spirit go.

In the Book of Jeremiah it says, "The Lord will bring judgment
upon this people; even the fruit of their thoughts."  The worst
judgment God can bring upon man is to let him have his own way. 
That's the worst God can do.  The worst God can do is to let you
do what you want to do.  That'll fix you.  Blessed is the man who
is always under restraint, and always chafing under the yoke. 
That sure sounds old-fashioned, doesn't it?  Talking about "yoke"
and "discipline" being good.

But let me ask you something; just be honest with me.  If you had
done everything you had wanted to do in the last ten years, where
would you be?  Now think about it.  Everything you wanted to do
in the last ten years--where would you be?  I'd be in the
electric chair or the gas chamber!  

Isn't it a wonderful thing to have God prevent you from doing
what you want to do?  The Bible says, "Reproofs and instruction
are the way of life," and "He that abideth in the way of life
heareth reproof," in the Book of Proverbs.  And the man who
doesn't is headed for death.

"Who changed the truth of God into a lie."  Uh-oh.  Now, if you
were a reviser and hit that, could you let that one stand?  They
wouldn't dare let that one stand, because they're busy changing
the truth of God into a lie.  So that's been changed in all the
new versions.  Take any bible and pick it up, and you'll find
that has been changed and altered around to suit the translators-
-"the truth about God," or something else to fix it up just
right.  

"Who changed the truth of God into a lie"--which is what the
revisers did--"and worshipped and served the creature more than
the Creator, who is blessed for ever."  Now look at the subtle
change.  They served the creature more than the Creator.  The
first commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind;
this is the first and great command.  And the second is like unto
it; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  Now, if you put the
second commandment ahead of the first commandment, you're serving
the creature more than the Creator.  That shows how subtle the
devil is!  All a man has to do to violate the commandments of God
is just obey the second commandment instead of the first one. 
All Communists live by the second commandment.  The whole purpose
in Communism is to make this world a better place to live in to
help people out--right?  Sure, man, sure!  Ask any of them!  You
ask 5,000 Communists what their motive is, and they'll give you a
good motive.  They'll say, "To help people out, adjust the
economic system, give everybody a fair share, and bring in peace
on earth, good will to men."  Just as sure as you're sitting
there.  That's serving the creature.

Once you serve the creature more than the Creator, what follows
then is not peace; what follows is concentration camps and
torture and cannibalism and starvation and war and poverty and
famine and revolution.

Watch it again:  "Glory to God in the highest"--one.  "...And
peace on earth, good will to men"--two.  Every Communist in the
world believes in "peace on earth, good will to men."  Every Pope
on earth believed in "peace on earth, good will to men."  Every
President every Christmas says, "Peace on earth, good will to
men."  

Get this:  There is NO peace on earth and good will to men UNLESS
there is glory to God in the highest!

Now, you watch that thing next Christmas.  When next Christmas
comes down, and they start ringing the bells, and Rudolph the
drunken reindeer and all this comes out--you watch all of these
fellows get up and say "Peace on earth, good will to men," "Peace
on earth, good will to men," and "Peace on earth to men of good
will," "Peace on earth to men of good will."  And you won't find
one fellow who will open his mouth one time and say, "Glory to
God in the highest."  And THAT'S the first part of it!

God is God without man, and man without God is nothing.  Now
that's how that thing goes.  If everybody in the universe died,
God would still be God.  And if God died, you'd be a hill full of
maggots.  And that would be all there'd be to you.



26  For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for
even their women did change the natural use into that which is
against nature:

27  And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men
working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that
recompense of their error which was meet.



"Vile affections."  The word "vile" from filthy, defiling.  Our
word "defile" is from that word.  Our words "villain,"
"villainous, villainy," come from that as well.  So the word
means "filthy" affections.  Then, according to the word of God,
some things are dirty.  And the affections are dirty.  Now,
according to the world, nothing is dirty; it's all in your mind. 
I mean, if you can read pornographic magazines without a bad
thought, then of course they're all right--according to the
world.  I don't know what the reason for that is; it probably
means there's something wrong with your glands or you're about
half-crazy, I imagine.  You've got people with funny ideas about
things.

You know what I think?  I think the last generation that came up
must have grown senile before they were 30.  Do you know what the
Marcus syndrome is?  It's being unable to distinguish between
things.  When you get old and get senile, the colors lose their
distinctions, and the tastes lose their distinctions.  And you
can't judge distance and time right, because you lose the ability
to discriminate and tell differences.

Now the most recent generation thought that men were women and
women were men, and high was low and up was down, and Heaven was
hell and hell was heaven--they're senile!  Talking about "over
thirty," they were dead before they even got to be thirty!

Do you know what Elvis Presley died of?  It was hardening of the
coronary arteries!  You know what that's characteristic of?  Men
over seventy-five.  Went a little too fast there, Elvis, didn't
you?  You burned out before you were 40!

Now you take that business right there, and in the Bible certain
things are vile; they're said to be dirty.  Now, you live in a
generation in which, every time they bring a pornographic issue
before the Supreme Court, it looks the material over and says,
"Well, if it's artistic it's not dirty."  Now, what do they mean
by that?  They mean that if the camera is set right, and there
are beautiful colors, and someone has taken the trouble to
present it in an artistic fashion, then it's all right.  That's
what they mean.

You can get away with anything in the name of art or opera.  If
you want to get away with murder and adultery, sing it!  Then get
out there and listen to it!

When I went to Bob Jones I never went to the artists' series. 
And, of course, if you didn't go to the artists' series, you'd be
shipped.  It's compulsory.  They called me and confronted me with
it; my argument was, "What's the sense in going to that?  You got
any Pavarochi coming up? Arustacogna?  Muscogna?  Any of those
fellows?  I saw all that stuff back in the old days.  That stuff
is just full of adultery and murder, and you know it!"

And Bob Jones Jr. said, "Yeah, but our students need culture."

I said, "I don't need any culture.  I already had it."

Of course, I don't act like it, but I've sat in the orchestra pit
and broadcast that stuff in Tokyo.  I know what stuff is going on
there in that; it isn't going to do me any good.  You know that
if you sing the thing, you can get away with murder.  Or, if you
paint it, you can get away with murder.

Now, in the Bible, certain things are said to be filthy.  The
Bible says, "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness and the fear of God."  Now
it wouldn't have said that unless there were some filthy things
around.  What's the point in saying it?

So, these college educated people try to pretend that there's
nothing filthy.  I suppose if they had a life verse, it would be,
"To the pure, all things are pure, and nothing is impure in
itself"--I guess.  But it overlooks the fact that affection can
be filthy, and things that affect the spirit and soul can be
filthy.

One time a fellow was going to put on a shirt to go some place,
and he said to his wife, "Is this shirt clean?"

She said, "What do you think about it?"

He said, "Well, it looks clean to me."

She said, "Well, are you sure it's clean?"

He said, "Well, it's kind of doubtful."

She said, "Well, if it's doubtful, it's dirty."

That's a good rule to go by!  If it's doubtful, it's dirty.  Bob
Jones, Sr., used to say, "You never have to guess whether a man
is a Bible believer or not.  If he is, you'll know it right away. 
If you have any doubts about a man being a Bible believer, he
isn't."  If he is, it'll come out real quick.

Talking here about dirty things and foul things, in the Bible
certain things will defile your spirit and defile your body. 
"That which cometh out of a man defileth the man," Christ said. 
"Out of the heart proceedeth..." and then He said, "They'll
defile you.  They'll make you dirty."

Now, I'm the last fellow in the world to blame all disease and
all sickness on sin.  I know perfectly well that many of God's
people are sick to keep them humble, and they're sick to make
them love Heaven, and they're sick to draw them close to God, and
they're sick to get the power of God--and there are all kinds of
things.  But this nation as a whole has too many people in the
hospital.  The hospitals are too full.  Did you ever go by and
try to make a call at a hospital these days?  Watch those line of
cars out there double and triple and quadruple?  Did you ever go
up to talk to some of those folks in the hospital?

I've talked to ladies up there who weighed about 220 pounds and
were about 5-feet-7, 5-feet-6.  "Man, Brother Ruckman, I just
don't know.  My feet have been hurting me.  Last time they took
some tests, and my liver isn't doing too good.  It was my kidneys
last year.  I get these dizzy spells, and my ear kind of rings." 
Well, what do you expect?  If you knew how much an effect filthy
things have on your adrenalin, and charging up your metabolism,
so as to wear down and break down your nervous system ahead of
time--you'd leave them alone.  I'm sure you know what effect
alcohol and tobacco has on you, but what about the other things? 
The filthy things that effect your spirit?  That kind of stuff
can make you an old man before your time.

Now, I say this because we're about to hit a passage on gay
liberation here.  I say this to show you that the gay liberation
issue is not a political issue, or a tolerance issue; it's a
moral issue. They called Anita Bryant the Adolph Hitler of the
gay liberation movement.  What a bunch of fakers, man!  Why,
Anita Bryant isn't a Roman Catholic.  Adolph Hitler was a Roman
Catholic.

I know they put homosexuals in concentration camps in Germany;
they gave them a pink stripe to mark them in the camps.  They
gave a yellow for the Jew and a pink for the homos.  Someone
said, "Anita Bryant would put them in concentration camps."  No,
she wouldn't do that.  Cronmer was the commandant of Bergen in
Belgium; he was a Roman Catholic.  Koche was commandannt of
Buchenwald; he was a Roman Catholic.  Eicher was commandant of
Dachau; he was a Roman Catholic.  Kurt Franz was commandant of
Treblinka; he was a Roman Catholic.  Rudolf Hess was commandant
of Auschwitz; he was a Roman Catholic.  Every commandant of every
concentration camp in Germany and Poland was a Roman Catholic. 
Not a Baptist orange juice drinker!



SUPPLEMENTAL



Now, a lot of people make a mistake with these verses concerning
the word "reprobate."  The Five-Point Calvinists have a little
trick they call the decree of reprobation, or the decree of
election.  Once they get to verse 28, "God gave them over to a
reprobate mind," they pretend that's an unsaved man who's been
damned by the decree of reprobation.  That's a five-point
Calvinistic teaching by the Sovereign Grace group, and that's
heresy!

The entire passage is talking about the Gentiles as a group. 
Look at verse 21:  "Because when they..."  Verse 24: "God gave
them...."  Verse 26: "God gave them..."  Verse 28: "Even as they
did not like...." and so forth and so on.  It's the history of
the Gentile people.

I imagine half the people who get saved today have reprobate
minds when they're saved.  A "reprobate" mind is just a mind
that's been on probation, and has failed.  To "reprobate" is to
break probation.  And I'm sure many a fellow who got saved broke
his probation 50 times before he ever got saved.  So you can't
use it to prove a decree of damnation.

When God "gave them up" in those passages, the Lord quit dealing
with them at those points.  It means the Lord just let them
alone.  You can't read when God gave up their soul, He dropped it
into hell, because hell is not even in the passage.  Nobody has
any chance of getting saved unless he repents!  "Except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish."



28  And even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those
things which are not convenient;

29  Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder,
debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30  Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters,
inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31  Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural
affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32  Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such
things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have
pleasure in them that do them.



Now, he's been talking here about God giving up the heathen,
which is the past history of the Gentiles.  You're living 'way
ahead of this.  This was already done years ago.  This was the
past history back before the time of Christ.

So the Gentiles have been in rough shape for thousands of years,
and they've been given up.

Now, Calvin taught what was called the decree of reprobation. 
And, because of that, anybody who has been schooled in hardshell
Baptist churches, or the Primitive Baptist churches, has the idea
that a Christian can be given over to a reprobate mind--in which
case he's no longer a Christian.  He's done lost it.

Or else, they teach that an unsaved man can be given over to a
reprobate man.  Therefore, an unsaved fellow can't ever get
saved.

That's nonsense!

In this thing here, every unsaved man before he's saved if he's a
Gentile has a reprobate mind which he has given over to.  A
reprobate mind is a mind that's been tested and failed.  If a
man's on probation, it's because he failed, and they're checking
him to see if he'll fail again.  If he's "re-probate," then he
went back on probation, broke the probation, and failed twice.

Which of you didn't fail twice before you were saved, hmmm?  Do
you see how foolish that business is?

He's talking about the general condition of the mass of unsaved
Gentiles.  They're all given over to a reprobate mind.  That
doesn't mean they can't be saved.  That's reading Calvin into the
Scripture.  Calvin isn't in the Scripture.

"...To do those things which are not convenient..."--and then
follows the church roll!  And you don't want to think you're a
Christian just because you haven't hit the bottom yet!

One fellow left after hearing this list read one night.  He said,
"That preacher never gave us a chance, man.  He not only
suggested we were bad, but he proved we were!"

And what follows shows the depths of depravity in people's
hearts.  Now, you don't see the depravity with the naked eye;
instead, you look at it through a microscope.  When you drink
water, it doesn't look like anything.  A missionary went to the
Ganges one time and noticed people drinking out of it.  He took a
cup full of that stuff and put it on a slide under a microscope,
and then let one of the natives look at it.  When he saw it, he
almost had a heart attack, after seeing all of the stuff crawling
around in there.  The thing is, you can't see that just by
looking at it.  You have to magnify it.  You can't tell how dirty
this room is until you open that window over there, and the
sunlight shines through the window.  When the sunlight shines
through the window, you'd be surprised what's in this room!

If you ever want to see it, you ought to see a theater that's
opened up for a day of cleaning.  One of the dirtiest places in
the world is a theater.  That sun comes through there, and you
think you're looking at a projector light coming through the
window, with all that dirt in there.

That's the way the word of God is.  The word of God puts light
into the room.  You don't realize what a rascal you are until you
get exposed to the Word.  That explains why many Christians get
saved when they're four, five, or six years old, and then later
on when they are 20 or 25, they get to studying the Word, and
then they think that they weren't saved all along, and get saved
all over again.  It's because their sense of depravity is greater
at 25 and 30 than it was at five or six.  Hardshell Baptists
capitalize on that.  They try to show that if you're not living a
sinless, you've never repented.  And if you're not living a
sinless life, you've never really been saved, and you're not one
of the "elect."  And they get down to the altar, bawling and
crying to live a sinless life--which is Arminianism, not
Calvinism--and then you still don't know whether you're one of
the "elect," and that's how it's done!

You fellows should have been over here at this fellowship over in
Crestview a few months back and heard one of them.  They had a
genuine, hardshell, Primitive "foul ball" up there.  When he got
through, you wouldn't know whether he was saved, or you were
saved, or anybody was saved.  When he got through, you couldn't
have found the plan of salvation in that mess with a flashlight. 
That stuff comes from trying to talk people out of their
salvation.

Now, I can convince you you're going to hell even if you're
saved--if I just get into this list far enough.  But the whole
thing is, a man who's saved is not counting on his works to save
him.  So the list is immaterial anyway.

When the devil came around to Martin Luther and started reading
off his sins, Luther laughed at him and said, "I'll tell you a
few you missed!"

That's one way to handle it.

The thing is, you don't see what a rascal you are until you begin
to read the Bible.  Some of you never really got into the Bible
until years after you got saved.  The south is filled with people
who get saved between 10 and 12 years old, and then get no Bible
for 20 years.  They don't know where they are.

Now look at the list in verses 29-31.  That's the description of
Americans, Europeans, Asiatics, and Africans.  Like I said, don't
think you're a Christian just because you haven't hit bottom. 
People read that thing and say, "Well, I wouldn't do that!  That
isn't me.  That's no description of me!"  Yeah, but you're
somewhere in there!  I mean, let's see--

Fornication.  All right, so you don't fornicate.

Wickedness.  Maybe you have bad thoughts about carrying them out.
Maybe you don't have enough guts to carry them out.

     Covetousness.  Does that match you anywhere?  Ever want
something that didn't belong to you?

Maliciousness.  That's a desire to get back at somebody for
something.

Full of envy.  Does that fit you?

Murder.  Whoever hates his brother in his heart is a murderer.

Debate.  You want to argue with the Lord.

Deceit.  Dealing treacherously with your friends, your neighbors,
and your family.

Malignity--like a tumor, a malignant tumor.  A malignity is a bad
disposition, a bad attitude.

Whisperers, backbiters.  A very vivid description.  They come up
behind a guy and take a chunk out of his back.

Haters of God.  Folks say, "I don't hate God."  Well, you either
hate Him or you love Him.  "No man can serve two masters. You'll
hate the one and love the other, or despise the one and cleave to
the other.  You cannot serve and mammon."

Despiteful.  "Despiteful" is turning up your nose at a thing.

Proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to
parents.  Obeyed your parents all the time, did you?

Without understanding--you always understood the Bible, did you?

Covenant breakers--you ever make an agreement and then break it? 
"I promise to pay on the 30th of this month."  See?

I mean, you're in the list somewhere.  Yeah, man.  "Without
understanding, covenant-breakers"--you're in there somewhere!

"Without natural affection."  Affection, but unnatural, like in
verses 24,25, and 26.

"Implacable."  Implacable means you're unwilling to come to a
peaceable agreement.  An implacable person is a person who takes
a fixed position, and will not accept apology or forgiveness or
anything.

"Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such
things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have
pleasure in them that do them."  That's the crowd they hang out
with.

A man in a steam room went through some big bit; he was cussing
as usual, just as lost as he could be.  He took the name of Jesus
Christ and God in vain while he was talking.  He was upset about
something, and he was telling about some fellow who had stolen a
bow target from the police firing range out there.  And when he
told about that, he cursed and said, "That fellow should have
died for that!"

Well, now, if they that do such things are worthy of death, how
come that fellow knows it?  He knows that a fellow steals
something--according to him--is worthy of death.  You reckon he
does the same?  There he is, sitting there blaspheming, taking
the name of the Lord God in vain.