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Welcome to studies with Stearman. Join us as we look deeper into the Bible. Strengthen your faith with us even as we see the day approaching. And now here's Gary we have been in Romans 14, which has an opening sentence that sets the tone for the entire close of the book of Romans 14. 15, 16 is all encapsulated in the first verse of chapter 14, which we looked at in depth last week. Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. The one weak with respect to the faith, give him a cordial welcome. Support him not with a view toward critical analysis of his behavior or his reasoning, but rather with the idea of supporting him in the Word until he arrives at a state of maturity. Also within that first sentence in Romans 14 is the idea that the brother may not be stable. He may be vacillating. He may be anxious. He is certainly weak. He's called weak. But basically we're not to criticize the weaker brother for his anxiety or his vacillating nature or his odd approaches toward life, but rather to love him and to continually be an example to him, to bring him to a position of strength. Now we went down through about, I think about seven verses of Romans 14 last week, and we're going to continue on this week with about the sevent. None of us says Romans 14:7. None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. In other words, living and dying is not for yourself, it is for the Lord. Your whole life belongs not to yourself but to the Lord. That's Paul's idea here. A very simple idea, but an idea that's very hard to absorb. You have to become stronger and stronger in the Lord to really incorporate that idea. Living to yourself and dying to yourself implies that the world revolves around you personally. Paul's idea in Romans is the world does not revolve around you personally. You live and die to the Lord. It takes a whole lifetime to learn that simple fact and to incorporate it in Colossians. Paul wrote this sentence. He said, for ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. Now I think that's very interesting. For this reason, before you were saved, you were dead, right? Paul says that in a number of different places. In fact, the whole New Testament said that you were dead in trespasses and sins, but now you are alive through Christ. Well, if that's true, Paul, writing to believers, said in Colossians 3:3 for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. That's an odd seeming contradiction. You supposedly were dead before you were saved, but now you're alive in Christ. Nevertheless, Paul says, you're still dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. And that is really the truth of the matter. You are physically dead. You still live in a body of death, but your true life is hidden with Christ in God. Boy, that's heavy. Think about that. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. You got some interesting prepositions there. With Christ, in God, with Christ. That is to say, you are in unity with Christ, but you are in God within the sphere of the divine. But you're dead, says Paul. And Paul says in Romans 14:7, for none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. In other words, your life is in Christ. That's heavy. Very, very heavy indeed. Because we all go around thinking that we're in control of our lives and that our lives are the visible part of us. What we see every day when we look in the mirror, that's what we regard as life. But Paul says, no, you're dead, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. To me, that is so amazing and so encouraging because it means when I mess up, when I make mistakes, when I fall far short of God, I don't have to worry, because I am with Christ in God, I can say, lord, it wasn't me that made that mistake, because I'm dead. Essentially, that's positional sanctification. You are sanctified in God and you call him Father. Abba. Father, said Paul back in an earlier portion of Romans. Romans 14:8. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord. Whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live thereon or die, we are the Lord's. Which gives life an interesting look, because everything is tied up in death. And if you want to describe something as being very serious, you say, man, this is a life or death matter. That's a phrase we use to describe something that's really, really serious. But Paul puts that in perspective. He says here, if you live, you live unto the Lord. If you die, you die unto the Lord. Whether you live, therefore, or die, you're the Lord's. And so a life or death matter, if you properly perceive it, is really a life matter. Because you're alive in Christ, and the real part of you remains invisible until the day you're glorified. You may think you see the real me, but you don't. What you're seeing is a physical shell, and you're going to see a much better version of me one of these days. And likewise I'm going to see a much better version of you when your true self shines forth in glory. Verse 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord, both of the dead and the living. In this sentence in verse nine, Christ died, rose, and revived. Now in the Textus Receptus, you have the word Rose. In the modern Greek texts, the NU text, or the Westcott Hort Greek texts, the word rose is missing. I prefer the tr, the Texas Receptus, which says, for to this end, Christ both died and rose and revived. I like the idea that he both rose and revived. You know why? Because one thing to say that he rose, to say that he arose, means that he spiritually woke up on the third day and he went to heaven. But to say that he rose and revived means that he came back to physical life, not just as a spirit being, but as a physical being. And oftentimes people miss that. The fact that the resurrection is a physical reality. And because Christ was resurrected physically, we shall be resurrected physically. We're going to have a body that feels like a body. We're not going to be some cloud of gas floating around in the heavens. We're going to have a physical body, just like he has a physical body. He both died, rose, and revived. That he might be Lord, both of the dead and the living. Then a rhetorical question here. But why dost thou judge thy brother? Why dost thou set it not to thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Why do you judge your brother or contemptuously reject your brother if we're all going to be standing before the judgment seat of Christ? And basically the judgment seat of Christ is a life review. It's very clearly a life review. And it's a review to see whether the things done in the flesh were good or bad. So how do you judge what's good or bad? Is it just your opinion? Everybody's got an opinion about what's good or bad, right? But in 1 Corinthians 3, every man's work is going to be judged. Picture it as being built on a foundation, which is Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. The judge that is the one who I guess takes account of or scores that which is good or bad is going to be Christ. He'll Be the decision maker regarding what's good or bad. So your opinion of what's good or bad is worthless in the end, it's his opinion. It's in the text. You don't think about it very often. How do you tell what's good or bad? Is real Coke better than Diet Coke? One is good, one's bad. I mean, you assign a score to everything in life. Like a certain car may be a bad car, another car may be a good car, a house, or you name anything in life and you kind of score it in your mind. That's good and that's bad. We do that all the time. But in the end, he is going to be deciding what's good or bad. He's going to be on the bema seat, and he's going to judge the things done in the body, whether those things be good or bad. So it would be a kind of a good idea to figure out the way Christ judges things and to try to match that. Because our opinion of what's good and bad may not necessarily be the right opinion of what's good and bad. So Paul says, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you despise your brother for his weaknesses, for his deviations, for what you consider to be immaturity or bad or evil? Why do you do that? Because you're going to be standing one day on a platform of some sort, and the big spotlight's going to be on you and. And you're going to have a life review. So you better keep that in mind. That's all that Paul is saying there. Romans 14:10, 14:11 says, for as it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, every tongue shall confess to God. Now that's a quotation from Isaiah 45. And if there is one chapter in the Bible that is a scary chapter, it would be Isaiah 45. And I say scary because God says some sovereignly powerful things. In Isaiah 45 he says, For I am the Lord, and there is none else. Isaiah 45, 5, no God beside me. That in itself is quite a statement. There are not numerous gods, there's just one. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. In other words, I put you together, I dressed you up, I assembled you. I put you together the way you are, even though you didn't know me. That they may know from the rising sun from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, there is none else. I form the light, create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. And it is from this chapter of divine sovereignty that in Romans 14:11, Isaiah 45:23, I have sworn by myself the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. So when he says every knee and every tongue, he means it. In other words, what Paul's doing here is putting a different perspective on life. Leonardo da Vinci was quoted as saying perspective is everything. Leonardo da Vinci said perspective is the bridle and the rudder of interpretation. He's talking about a boat. And if you ever handled like a rowboat, on the front end of the boat there'll be a little rope at the prow of the boat, and at the back end of the little boat there'll be a rudder. And if you stop and think about that, interpretation is governed by the bridle and the rudder, the front and the back of the boat. And the perspective of the Bible gives you a rudder and it gives you motivation. Paul used nautical metaphors very often, and he likened the Holy Spirit to wind in sails, a sailboat pushing the boat. The boat has a rudder, but it also has a little bridle up front. And so life is a length of rope and a rudder and a sail. And the Spirit is making this little boat sail along. And when you stop and think about that, God's doing all of the pushing and pulling and turning and motivating and in the end judging verse 12. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. And our job is to over time to develop perspective, a divine perspective, in other words, to understand how God is moving things. And that's what Paul's trying to do all through the book of Romans, and particularly in the closing three chapters of Romans. He's trying to give a divine perspective to life so that you look at life not as what people do, but as what God does. It's two different perspectives. Let us not, therefore verse 13 judge one another any more, but judge this rather. That no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know, and I'm persuaded by the Lord Jesus. There's nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy fool food or thy diet, now walk' st thou not charitably destroy him not with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of, for the Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, things wherewith we may edify another. For food destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. In other words, what Paul is saying in this summary verse, verse 20, he says, for the sake of food or for the sake of pleasing yourself in your freedom of diet, do not destroy the work of God. You may feel free to do anything. But on the other hand, there is something of a higher order involved here, and it is the work of God. You may feel free to do a lot of things. Now, food is under discussion at this point in time because kosher was a big, big problem in Paul's day. And whenever the subject of kosher came up in the synagogue or in the Jewish culture, it became a divisive issue. Christians felt they were free. And by the time Paul wrote this In AD 57, the church was beginning to be gentilized. It had been Jewish in the first 20 years or so, but by AD 57, as it spread through the Roman Empire, more and more of the church was Gentile. And the Gentiles were told that they were first class citizens in the church and they could go on eating Gentile food. They didn't have to eat kosher. And so there were internal disputes. And what Paul is saying here, the kingdom of God is not food and drink. Don't make that an issue. The issue is brotherly love. Which takes us back to 14. One him that is weak in the faith, receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. And over time, a mark of maturity in the Christian is that he will be able to face the weaker brother without being shaken in his determination to love that brother in spite of the way the brother acts. You may have had the experience of meeting believers who maybe are new believers, or maybe they've been believers for three or four years, and you know just from listening to them for two or three minutes that they're nowhere near as mature as you are in Christ. And they begin from time to time to make statements which you recognize as perhaps less than true or inappropriate. And sometimes they may even contend for the faith in one way or another, which you know to be erroneous. And you have two choices. You can either argue with them and make a public issue, or you can nurture them, push them along in the right direction in a loving sort of way. And Paul urges whenever possible to avoid conflict, but rather to push people along with love. And that's the principle of the weaker brother. And sometimes it'll gall you to your very core to have to stand and abide the obviously immature pronouncements of the weaker brother. But you do that out of love, knowing that this is a phase the weaker brother is going through. And we've all been there, believe me, we've all been weaker brethren at some point in our Christian life. And we've all had to push through various positions of internal strife and internal blockage as we try to get rid of one presupposition after another and move toward maturity. And Paul is saying, you gotta understand that everybody is this way, and the way you can help the through that is by loving them. And that's what he's saying here at the close of this chapter. The kingdom of God is not food and drink. It's righteousness, it's peace, it's joy in the Holy Ghost. And it says, verse 18, that in these things. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men. Verse 20. For the sake of food, don't destroy the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but it's evil for that man who eats with offense. In other words, if you make a show of your freedom in Christ just to make a show, you could very well offend a weaker brother. There are dozens of ways to give examples of this, you know, all of them. You may feel free to take an occasional sip of wine. It may just deeply offend a weaker brother. You may go to a Mexican restaurant and have a good adult beverage with your meal, and it's okay. And by the way, I was in Israel once with a Jew who was leading a group of us on a tour. And this Jewish gentleman, very mature in Christ and had totally given up any and all claim to righteousness through law. He had really mastered the idea of grace. We went into a place to eat, and he felt that there was enough grace to cover his purchase of a sandwich and a Maccabeea, which is an Israeli bottle of beer. So he had a Maccabeea and a sandwich. It may even have been a ham sandwich, I don't know, but it wouldn't have bothered him. But there were people around who saw him with the maccabia and said, oh, you shouldn't do that. And there were people who got really, really offended. So who was right in that situation? Nobody. That's exactly what Paul's talking about here. Operate in such a way that you do not give anyone an opportunity to be offended. And particularly a weaker Christian who's struggling with issues that you may not be aware of at all. There are people who can be very troublesome and offensive people. And you may find yourself wanting to be offended. Don't be offended because you don't know deep down inside what God is doing in that person's life. That person may be working with issues that you have no conception about. And there's no room for offense. And I know that what I'm saying sounds sort of idealistic, you know, and goody, goody and so forth and so on. Hey, it's the ideal. We strive for that ideal. So Paul then has a summary here. Verse 21. He says, it's good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended or made weak. Hast thou faith, have it to thyself before God. In other words, your mission is not to go out and show your faith by flaunting it in everybody's face like I am free to do anything I want to in Christ, and you just better like it. No, you're not supposed to have that attitude. Your attitude is, have it to yourself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. In other words, you may allow, and through grace you're allowed much. But you cannot exercise grace to the point of contempt. And he that doubteth is condemned. It says damned in the King James text. He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith. For whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Some pretty heavy duty thinking going on there. Not heavy duty in terms of the intellect, but in terms of your own personal responsibility. It's one thing. You know, intellectual Christianity is dandy, but when it cuts into your lifestyle, oops, that hurts. You know, sometimes it does. Sometimes you have to modify the way you live in order to be a loving Christian. And nobody wants to modify the way they live. You want to live the way you live. That's just human nature. After you become mature in Christ, though, you become sensitive to the love of Christ. Did you ever notice that Jesus, as you read about him in the Bible, is a nice guy? Basically, if you just read about him, not theologically, but just read the Bible, find out how Jesus behaved. It amazes me how he seems like a really nice guy. He didn't go around condemning people. On occasion, when he turned over the tables of the money changes is a good example. He could be righteously angry, but when he just walked with people, talked with people, he was a good guy. He was a nice guy, very pleasant, accommodating. Only rarely did he criticize openly. Usually he taught by shocking people with their own lack of the truth. But he was a nice guy, really. He was pleasant and had a good temperament. Like he joked occasionally when he met Nathanael. Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile. Nathanael had been sitting and talking with his buddies, and this was Jesus way of saying, chill out, you know, everything's okay. He was just nice. Well, that's God, because God came down into human flesh. And guess what? He was a nice guy. This is a marvelous thing to me. God is not this ogre, this great celestial ogre. He is someone who loves. And did you notice that he did exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans 14? That's the way Jesus behaved. He did not flaunt his righteousness in people's face. So then, in the next chapter, Paul continues, this discussion brings it to a little higher level. Romans 15. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak. The word ought in the Greek language is ophelo, which means to be a debtor or to be under obligation. So what that really says in verse one is, we then that are strong are under obligation to bear the infirmities of the weak. So now he's raised it to a slightly higher level. Verse 14 says, out of love you need to receive the weaker brother cordially and not argumentatively. But now he elevates his statement just to a slightly higher level. We then that are strong are under obligation to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Oo, ooh. That puts a little bit of burden on you personally, doesn't it? In other words, you might read that and say, well, I don't like that. I'm not going to do that. That's going to inconvenience me. I think maybe when I'm more mature, I'll bear the infirmities of the week. Right now I just want to do my own thing. Right. I'm just not ready to do that yet. Okay, that's fine. But one of these days you will be ready. We then that are strong are under obligation to bear the infirmities of the weak. Well, that stinks, you know. Or does it? No. In one way, being under obligation flies in the face of everything you've heard about Christianity. Christianity is kind of free. In Christ, you'll be free indeed. Why are you just free to do anything you want to do? Because you're under free grace. But wait, you're under obligation as well. At first, obligation sounds onerous. I don't want to be under obligation. But later on you say, okay, now I'm beginning to get it. I have obligations. And you know what? That's just like growing up. You ever notice the way kids grow up, they're very reluctant to be under obligation for anything. And then as they get older and turn into teenagers, then they may realize they're under obligation, but they rebel against, I don't want to be under obligation, thank you very much, says the average teenager. But then as they reach their late teenage, if they've been properly reared and so forth, they began to face some realities. And they might come to you and say, you know, dad, you were right about that. I think I really should treat Uncle Harry better than I have because Harry's a stinker, but boy, he deserves our love, you know, and I'm going to have to go way out of my way and it's not going to be easy, but I think I can get along with Uncle Harry now. If a teenager arrives at that point, then you know, wow, he's begun to grasp the concept of obligation. Likewise with a Christian. When you reach a certain point in your life where you realize that to be a good Christian is to understand that there are obligations. J. Vernon McGee, upon teaching this chapter, once said, There are three things going on in this chapter. There is conviction, there is conscience, and there is consideration. The three C's. Jay Vernon was one of the old time preachers that taught alphabetically. He would link things together like there are three C's or four D's or five A's. And he put five words together, or three words in this case he said, there are three words in this chapter. Conviction, conscience and consideration. You are under conviction because your faith makes you look at life in a new way. Your conscience, instead of being seared with a hot iron, is now active. And you begin to realize that you must take certain things into consideration that you used to ignore, said old J. Vernon McGee. Well, I like that because that's what this chapter is about. We ought to, that is, we are under obligation to bear the infirmities of the weak. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. In other words, try to build up your neighbor. Whoa, There's a revolutionary concept, really. And Jesus said, your life in Christ would be measured by your love of God and your love of your neighbor. So here it is in action. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. Psalm 69. 9 Isn't that interesting? Because you stop and think about it. The ultimate expression of being under obligation to bear the infirmities of the weak was expressed in the life of Christ himself. Because that's all he did. He came here to bear the infirmities of the weak. That's why he came. That's what he did. Can you imagine being God and taking on the responsibility of the weak, knowing what you do as God and knowing what real jerks and idiots these human beings are. And you're going to go down there and live among them and it's going to be your obligation to bear their weakness. You put yourself in that picture. Could I do that? Would I do that? Well, he did. And that was the measure of his love. He did not please himself, but he bore the reproaches of them who reproached him. Verse 4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. Verse 8. We might say that he came to his own first. He was a shepherd lost sheep of the house of Israel. So he came. He was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. For as it is written, for this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing unto thy name. So what's Paul doing here? First he says back here in Romans 14:1, him that is weak in the faith, receive ye, receive him cordially. Actually is what it says in the Greek 15:1 says, we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak. And then Jesus comes and does that. It's very interesting to me that when Jesus came to this world, he did not come exclusively. He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When they rejected him. And that's recorded in Matthew 12:13. They attributed the power of his spirit to Beelzebub. And he washed his hands of Israel at that point. And he said, okay, you don't want me, I'm going to turn now to the Gentiles. And he began at that point to turn. The scribes and the Pharisees were after him constantly. Now, the scribes and Pharisees were strong in the law and weak in the faith. Matthew 11:19. Jesus says, the Son of man came eating and drinking. And they say, behold, a man gluttonous, a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. So the leaders of the house of David took notice of the fact that Jesus was not an exclusive type of person as they were. A Pharisee would only eat with or rub elbows with a certain class of person. You had to be very, very, very solid within the religious class of Judaism in order to walk in those circles. The Pharisees, Sadducees, the Essenes, they all had their very tightly wound little cultural circles. Jesus came and he was just friends with everybody. They called him a glutton and a wine bibber and a friend of publicans, that is tax collectors and sinners, which is the ultimate insult. Behold, they said, a gluttonous man, a wine bibber. Now Jesus drank wine. Everybody drank wine. Back then it was cultural, it was customary. And in Mark, we read something very interesting about Jesus. Mark 2:16, 22 if you want to follow along. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, how is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, they that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Jesus came under obligation to sinners, noting that there were indeed righteous men on earth. And I'm sure there were in every age there are righteous men. You remember back in the days of Elijah, Elijah said, lord, I'm the only righteous one left. And the Lord said to Elijah, no, I've got 7,000 people who have not bowed the knee to Baal. They're always righteous people. But Jesus said, I didn't come to the righteous. I came for the sinners. Mark 2:18. And the disciples of John, the Pharisees used to fast. And they come and say to him, why do the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And by the way, this whole idea of fasting has a long, long Jewish history. But it was broken when Jesus came. The idea of fasting was very much a legal idea. When Jesus came, the fast was broken. Jesus said unto them, can the children of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can't fast. The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from him. Then shall they fast in those days. And then he said a mysterious thing. He said, no man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment, else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the tare is made much worse. What that says in the Greek is, nobody takes a piece of unshrunk cloth. We're talking about woolen or linen garments here. And part of the process of mending a garment would be to patch it with a like piece of cloth. You have to shrink a piece of cloth. Because if you just put an unshrunk piece of cloth on an old garment and you wash it, it'll shrink and then it'll tear the garment. So Jesus was using the metaphor of an unshrunk piece of new cloth. In the next verse, he says, and no man putteth new wine into old wineskins, else the wine doth burst the bottles and the wine is spilled. The bottles will be marred, but new wine must be put into new bottles. What is that? Jesus is using the metaphor of wine as the spirit of God. When the spirit of God comes, you have to be born again. You cannot put the spirit of God into an old system of worship. If you have an old garment and put a new patch on it, it's going to tear the old garment. If you have an old wineskin and you put new wine in it, it's bubbling and working and fizzing and so forth. It's is going to explode the wineskin. And Jesus is telling these people, I am here with a brand new way of doing things. A new body likened to a new piece of cloth, a new spirit likened to new wine. And my system will not be fit into your old system. It just won't work. You got to do it a different way. And he was using the metaphor of being a winebibber to say, I'm free to drink the new wine. Now, many years later, it's now AD 57, which means it's 27 years later after Christ's resurrection. Paul's coming along and he's saying, you are free to eat and drink. Our Lord was free to eat and drink. But you are under obligation. Uh, oh, do somebody to come along, take the fun out of it, you know. But really, you're under obligation. And this is something that is not thought of very often. And that's why we're thinking about it today. We're taking a little time to think, which is the marvelous thing about the Word of God. If you just read it, it makes you think. And so Jesus came under obligation. The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. He said, Wherefore? Verse 7 of Romans 15, Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision. He did. He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. It is written, for this cause will I confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing thy name. And again he saith, rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, and laud him, all ye people. By the way, that's verse 11 from Psalm 117, which is the middle chapter of the Bible, and it is the ultimate praise chorus. And again, verse 12, Isaiah saith, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, and in him shall the Gentiles trust or hope. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. In other words, you are free, you are under obligation. And all of this works together toward hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. What's he saying? You must know who you are in Christ. You must know your responsibilities in Christ. Once you have come to the place where you fit comfortably into that mode, the end result or the end effect is an increase in hope. That is to say, the blessed hope, the resurrection, going home to be with the Lord. It's sort of like putting yourself in harness. You can say, well, I am a free agent and accountable to no one. And that's the way I like it. But you'd be going against the Word if you said that what you have to do is begin to see yourself as under obligation. And when you arrive there, the fruit that will result is hope, an increase in hope. I have seen that to be true in my life. I've seen it to be true in the lives of many other people. The people who are really under obligation, that is, the people who understand where they fit in the plan of God, have a very high degree of hope. They display a very high degree of hope, which always rests in a stable faith. Paul concludes chapter 15, and we're going to have to quit now because of time. We're going to quit at verse 14. He concludes this chapter, first by telling his audience in Rome in AD 57 why he wrote the letter. And secondly, he gives his traveling plans. He said, I plan to go to Rome, although I have been forbidden. One thing after another has kept me away from Rome. I've really wanted to get over there. But he says, I'm headed your way. And in fact, he did go to Rome. Shortly after this, he was arrested and tried and released. And he, for 10 years after that, traveled westward to Spain and the British Isles. And he had gone as far as Yugoslavia, the Adriatic area, northern Italy, southern Europe. And now he says, I want to go to Spain. That's my plan. And as it worked out, and we'll look at this next week, his plan to go to Spain worked flawlessly. It was just a wonderful thing that happened historically when Paul went west, and we rarely talk about it. But next week we're going to get into Paul's traveling plans and into chapter 16. And if we have time, we're going to conclude chapter 16 and the book of Romans next week.