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Please turn with me to Romans chapter 13 as we come to the end of this particular session in Romans and Lord willing look forward to uh returning to first Peter as Mark will resume the pulpit next
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Sunday. So be in prayer for him and his preparations and for me and my rest.
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Romans 13. As we close out this chapter, we are actually circling back to what uh began in Romans 12 in presenting our bodies a living sacrifice. And so I I say that so that you would have that in
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mind as we hear the word read and then as we uh enter into a discussion of this passage beginning in Romans 13:1.
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And this do, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awake from sleep. For now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is at
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hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and
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drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no proision provision for the flesh
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in regard to its lusts. Let us pray. Father, we do ask that by your spirit you would illuminate your word to our understanding and our hearts to
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obedience. Help us to understand what your servant Paul is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We know it to be true. Help us to understand the truth and to
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walk in it as our Lord said the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. Keep us also from error. illuminate our path that we might not stumble and help
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us to do what Paul here admonishes to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask in his glorious name. Amen.
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Back in 1986, a very popular Bible comment commentator and radio commentator pronounced that the antichrist had been
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identified was King Juan Carlos of Spain. I don't know that anybody notified King Juan Carlos of this momentous event, but along with his many other titles, he was
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now the Antichrist. Why was King Juan Carlos the Antichrist? Was he a particularly evil man? Well, as it turned out in recent
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history, he wasn't the best of kings, and he actually had to abdicate not too long ago in favor of his son, Phillip. But was he a a wicked man? Was he an
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overthrower of the church? Well, that was not really the the reasoning behind this particular commentator's um labeling of Juan Carlos. The the
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reason was because in 1986, as the commentator reasons, Spain became the 10th nation to join the European Economic Community,
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Economic Community, which in his interpretation of biblical prophecy was the revived Roman Empire. And so with the European, it's now
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called the European Union reaching 10 member states, he concluded that the the head of state, now King Juan Carlos was not the head of the government. Spain at
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the time was a constitutional monarchy as it is today, but nonetheless, he was a he was the head of state and therefore that qualified him to be the antichrist.
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1957, this kind of works into the to the prophecy reading that I'm referring to. There was signed the Treaty of Rome. Well, where better to start the revived
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Roman Empire than with a treaty in Rome. It was the European Economic Community signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxmbourg, the Netherlands, and West
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Germany. All of those territories except West Germany were at one time part of the Roman Empire. So hopefully you can see where this is going.
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When it got to 10, the logic went the Antichrist would appear, Armageddon would occur, and the end would happen.
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Well, it's a 27 now. And far as I can tell, Armageddon hasn't happened yet. happened yet. So there's something wrong with the math, something wrong with the logic
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going on. There's also something wrong with the history because actually two nations join the European economic community on January 1st, 1986.
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1st, 1986. And of those two, Spain actually signed the documents second. Portugal, rarely beating Spain in anything, beat
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them to the illustrious spot of 10th nation in the revived Roman Empire. Actually, that day it went from 9 to 11.
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But Portugal's a republic. It doesn't have a king. And so, King Juan Carlos got the role. You had to have a king. You had to have a monarch. Now, does this seem somewhat
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silly to you? I I hope it does because it is silly. Um but it's it's silly in a very sad way because it is all too common in Christian history. Not just in
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the modern history, not just modern prophecy followers and people who try to interpret world events through the Bible and vice versa. This has been going on for 2,000 years.
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And what underlies this is the sense or the belief that certain things need to happen before Jesus returns. And these certain things are things that the
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church can recognize and even from them predict when Jesus will return. But there is another point of view that is also prevalent in the modern church.
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It was begun in the 1800s uh primarily coming out of Germany where a lot of bad things came in that period.
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The name associated with it might be familiar to you. Dr. Albert Schvitzer, a very famous missionary doctor who spent a great deal of time providing med free
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medical care in Africa, but he's also a theologian and a philosopher. Zitzer along with some others of the same era concluded that Jesus as well as
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Paul and Peter and the other disciples were in fact mistaken. Jesus, for example, thought that he was the Messiah and that he would be bringing in the kingdom of God, but
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after things especially after John 6 where he gave that very difficult sermon about his flesh and his blood being true meat and true true drink and many stopped following him there and after a
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while he realized even his disciples weren't understanding what he was teaching and so he despared of the plan that he had thought he was a central part of and decided to die a martyr's
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death to stimulate his disciples to greater vigor. That's Zitzer. That's not me. Jesus disciples after his death for some
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reason according to Zitzer hung on to this myth of a resurrection and they believed that Jesus would be returning within their own lifetimes.
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Well, obviously he didn't. And therefore, the church modified its history of Jesus and the disciples and gave us in the second century our new
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testament. Again, spitzer, not me. But the conclusion on the other side, on the one hand, we have the thinking that there are certain things that we can recognize happening in world events that
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tell us now here it comes. And then that on the other hand, it's like no, they were all mistaken. Jesus didn't come back. They did think he was going to come back in their lifetime. He didn't.
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And therefore, all that we're reading is really rather disconnected from what they now call the historical Jesus and his teachings. Well, these are two polar
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opposite errors on the belief that the disciples may have had that Jesus was coming back
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during their lifetime. We do have Jesus himself saying in the Olivet discourse as he is describing the investment and eventual destruction of Jerusalem. He
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says, "Truly, truly I say to you, this generation shall by no means pass away till all these things take place."
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Wonders, one wonders how that could be since Juan Carlos wasn't born yet. But there are many who say that Jesus was expecting for his own return within the lifetime of his disciples. I don't have
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time to go into that except to say that that that statement is integral related with your interpretation of the ET discourse and both its intermediate fulfillment
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which I believe was in AD.70 and its ultimate fulfillment which I believe is Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15.
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Corinthians 15. Did Paul think that Jesus would return in his lifetime? Well, let's look at what he says here in Romans 13. He says, "And this know this do knowing the time
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that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep. For now your salvation is nearer to us. Salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is almost gone and
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the day is at hand." Did Paul think Jesus would return in his lifetime? Well, yes. And no,
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And no, Paul writes to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. He says, "We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. We who are
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alive." See, many commentators point out that that Paul includes himself not rhetorically but expectantly. We who are alive at his coming. Later Paul writes
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to the church in Philippi. He says, "Let your forebearing spirit to know be known to all men. The Lord is near."
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I don't think it can be denied that the early church lived in eager expectation for the Lord's return. But I think it needs to be established that the truth of the gospel that the
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church was preaching was never based on that. That at no point did Peter or Paul or John or James or Jude or any of the writers of the New Testament
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predicate the truth of their preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the immediate return of their Lord. And in that I think we need to make a
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very important distinction in words. Immediate versus imminent. versus imminent. We understand immediate to mean something that's going to happen very
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soon. In fact, immediately. But imminent is something that is about to happen. to happen. And the return of the Lord, as Paul is
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saying here in Romans, is at all times about to happen. That is the point of what he's saying here in Romans 13. And I would submit to
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you that is the heart of Pauline esquetology. Paul did not ignore what Jesus said to the other disciples. I'm sure he heard perhaps Peter or John tell him about
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what Jesus said before he ascended. Jesus said to his disciples, "It is not for you to know the times or the epics which the father has fixed in it by his
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own authority. It is not for us to try to fix the date of the Lord's return." That date is, I believe, fixed and
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clearly it has not yet come. I do not believe, however, that date can be predicted or even discerned. In his ET discourse, Jesus said, "There
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will be wars and rumors of wars. There will be earthquakes and floods and famines and pestilence, and yet the end will not have come." See, all these things are used today by
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many preachers and commentators as evidence that the Lord's return is near. It was also used during the Protestant Reformation. It was also used at the turn of the first millennium. It's been
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happening all along. And yet, Jesus said, "You'll see these things. they'll happen. It is not yet the end. And yet what Paul is saying here though,
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I think cuts to the heart of our understanding of true New Testament esquetology. Because Paul, I think, intended for the same attitude of
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expectation to characterize every generation of the church. For to every generation of the church, the Lord is
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near. And there's a reason for that. There's a reason why we can say in every generation for the last 20 centuries, what Paul said to the church at
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Philippi, the Lord is near. Let's look at what he says here. One of the most
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the most important esquechatological sentences in the New Testament, one that is rarely included in writings on New Testament
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esquetology, and that is when Paul says, "The night is almost gone and the day is at hand."
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We call that the twilight before dawn. Sometimes simply dawn. But it's that period of time when the darkness is clearly abating. But the sun has not yet risen.
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The church lives in that time. Every believer lives in that cusp of time when the darkness is receding and
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indeed that believer has been delivered from the kingdom of darkness and yet the sun has not yet risen. That is the period of time of which Paul
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speaks and he says that is the time that we should wake up. We live somewhat in the country out by Paris Mountain State Park. Many of you
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have the same experience. I go out on the front porch with my tea in the morning and I listen to the roosters. That's their time. And what are they doing? They're saying, "Wake up." The
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time is to wake up. Now, of course, in our culture, we don't generally wake up before the break of day, but in all agricultural cultures, of which the first century certainly was, you get up
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before the sun gets up because you got to get to work. the cows need to be milked and all of that. So this idea of of waking up, Paul is using a metaphor here that is incredibly instructive in
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terms of his idea of the end times. He says he says to the Corinthians upon we are those upon whom the end of the ages have come.
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have come. It is his perspective and I believe the New Testament perspective is that we live in the last days because we live in that cusp where the darkness has been
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receding and yet the sun has not yet ridden risen and every generation of the church until the Lord's return will live in that same dawn that same period where
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night is almost gone and the day is about to appear. I hope you can see how important that is to our perspective of what the New
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Testament teaches us concerning how we should then live. There is an expectation of sunrise and there's the certainty of its coming that is manifested by the
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lightning in on the horizon. When we see that, imagine those guards who were in the fourth watch of the night, often the most difficult watch or those of you who
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are insomniacs and see the fourth watch as well as the second and the third. It said that it is said that it is darkest before the dawn. But to see the
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dawn is itself hopeful, is it not? The darkness is diminishing. The horizon is lightening.
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And you are sure that if you sit there and wait, the sun will crack the horizon. And when that happens, darkness is dispelled. There's no cusp.
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There's no gray areas. There's no there's no unknowingness that we have in that misty time between the darkness and the sunrise. And that's the time we look
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forward to. That is the time the the guards, the watchmen are looking forward to when that sun breaks the horizon and all is light and it happens that way and
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it will happen that way. But the difference is we don't know when that sun will break the horizon. That is the peruseia. That is the appearance of our Lord. But we know that when it comes and
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we're assured that it will come because the darkness is abading. It has it has abaded in our own hearts by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And so we know that we live in that period where
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where night is almost gone and the day is sure to appear. So live as children of light. Put on the armor of light. It's a sense of
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expectation, not a sense where you're looking at every single event that happens in the world. Oh, that's it. Oh, now it's going to happen. No, it's more of a general assurance
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that as the horizon lightens and the sky grows less dark, we know the sunrise will follow.
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But it is important that we do not try to determine the exact timing. We can look at our weather apps and we can see the exact time to the minute of tomorrow's sunrise.
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tomorrow's sunrise. We can't do that with the return of our Lord. This is a dawn that is delayed, a sunrise that is delayed. But it is important also to know that Paul does
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not ground his exhortation on the conviction that the peruseia or the appearance of the Lord would take place very soon. He grounds his
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expectation on the conviction that the peruseia was always imminent, its coming certain, its timing
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Can you see how that must affect the lives of the church, the life of the church in every generation? But can you also see how the watchmen and the fourth watch of the night, if
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the sunrise is delayed, as the peruseia has been, might grow weary, might grow a little less hopeful, might actually fall asleep.
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That is what Paul is talking about here when he says the time, the hour has come that we must wake from our sleep.
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What he's referring to here again returning to chapter 12:1. Chapter 12:1 is the beginning of this particular section that includes chapters 12 and
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13. In chapter 14, he's going to apply this exhortation this exhortation from chapter 12:1 to the life of the church and dealing with specific issues
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within the body of Christ, the individual churches. But he says in verse one, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present yourself your bodies as living
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and holy sacrifices acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Or we could turn to what he says in 2
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Corinthians chapter 5 verse1 17 where he says therefore if any man is in Christ new creation new creation and that's actually how it reads in the
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Greek. There's there's no blending. He doesn't say he is a new creation. He simply he just simply kind of berts out new creation. He says behold
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things have passed away. New things have come. We still live in that twilight before sunrise. The darkness is still visible.
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That's that's what's important about this period in which the church lives. This period in which the world lives. And that is as as Paul can speak of the of the drunkenness and the carousing and
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the promiscuity, but also the jealousy and strife, and strife, the things that the unbelieving world loves to do in the darkness. I I've often said that when when you pass a a
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public building, and I don't mean government owned, but but a building in which multiple people go in, if you if you pass a building that has no windows, you probably better off not going in.
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Paul himself said, "It's not even worth speaking of the things, the deeds done by them in the darkness, the carousings and the drunkenness. This is what happens at night when good
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people are at home in bed." And so Paul says, "These things are still going on. Don't fall back into that." Peter says the same thing. Don't
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run with them as you used to. And even if they uh calumniate you, even if they make fun of you because you no longer run with them, be assured that the Lord
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is on your side. He talks about the armor of light. And that of course alludes to what he says in Ephesians where he talks about the armor of God. And again, it's not, as Tim mentioned,
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some plastic toy armor that we put our children in for harvest fest. It's a reality. what Paul says in Ephesians 6 is is a reality of the Christian life.
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It is it is a warfare. It is it is not just uh a fire insurance to keep us from hell when we die. It is warfare and we are to as he says in his epistles, we
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are to train ourselves as a soldier but also arm ourselves. Here he simply says the armor of light. Light is the first thing God spoke into
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existence. Light is the fundamental element of God. Darkness is its opposite. And so we are to live as children of light. Live as children of the day and
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not as those who still live in the night. So the church lives between the darkness from which she has been delivered and
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the full light of the day of the Lord's return. One commentator wrote writes, "The Christian lives on the frontier between two aons
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two aons and his entire existence is marked by that fact." I I don't know. I don't think it can be overstated to understand the church's position between this age
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and the age to come. That we're in a sense in between the ages as we are in between the night and sunrise. That's where we live. That's where we wake up.
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And so he says, "The hour is already here for you to wake up." And that's somewhat of a confusing exhortation. Are we not already awake in Jesus?
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Is he talking to the Romans as if they're not actually believers? There's no evidence of that either before or after this passage. He accepts
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them as brethren in the Lord, rejoices in their salvation, and later in chapter 16, he will he will bless them and exhort them and and praise them for
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their faithfulness in the Lord. So no, he's not saying, "Okay, you now need to be converted." Again, I mentioned ours is the fourth watch of the night. In
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many ways, the hardest. It's shadowy. As the sun begins to rise but hasn't broken the horizon, there's there's a
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great deal of very diffuse light very plays tricks on the imagination. If you are a guard in the fourth watch of the night, it it is easier to be looking out into pitch blackness or to
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be looking out in the in the bright light of day. But in this one watch of the night, in this in this cusp between the darkness of night and daybreak,
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your eyes can play tricks on you. Your vision is not perfectly clear. There are elements of darkness. It's it's a it's a place of shadows. And we live in a world of shadows. We
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live as children of light in a world of shadows. And as the gospel has spread through the world, and I think this can be shown irrefutably from history, the darkness
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has receded. has receded. It will not, however, recede totally until the sun breaks the horizon, until the Lord returns. Then there will be nothing but light, and all shadows will
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pass away. Then we will see clearly. But to now we see as in a mirror dimly. It could be said we see as in that period before daybreak, before sunrise. But the
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fourth watch of the night is a difficult watch. Weariness is intensified by the delayed hope of of
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daybreak. Weariness is intensified by what the shadows do to the watchman's eyes. There could be discouragement, a loss of hope as with the disciples in the garden
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of Gethsemane when Jesus went off by himself to pray. What happened to them? The scripture tells us because of the grief that was weighing down their heart, they fell asleep.
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Were they Oh, were they not disciples then? No, they were disciples who fell asleep. And the church can do the same. It can
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fall asleep. I think it falls asleep when it tries to predict the return of the Lord. I think it falls asleep when it denies that the Lord is returning. It falls asleep when it grows complacent,
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when it when it loses that expectation of sunrise because, frankly, it's been delayed. It's been delayed for 2,000 years. Peter speaks of the same thing.
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He says, "Know this first of all." That's an interesting little clause there that kind of indicates that everything he's going to say after that is pretty much predicated on what he's
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about to say. He says, "Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following their own lusts and saying, where is the
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promise of his coming? For since ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the
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That's what happens to us. We cannot dei deny that the sunrise has been delayed. We we cannot deny that the son of God has not yet appeared. And so
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many turn back to the shadows, back to the darkness. Many in the church and the church at large has often said, "Okay, the sunrise has been delayed. We'll
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create our own lights." social action, political activism, or monasticism. We're we are we are more comfortable in the dark if we're together or alone in a cell and the rest
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of the world. We don't have those shadows because they're not moving around us. We've closed ourselves in all of these things, even such things as confessionalism. We we'll we'll retreat into our creeds
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and our confessions, and there that's what's going to give us hope. We do things that create simulated hope because the sunrise is being delayed.
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Paul is saying to all to us all that those things are all sleepinducing that we are we are in Christ the light.
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He doesn't actually call us that. In Ephesians he refers to children us as children of light. not children of the light but just simply children of light
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that with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the power and the knowledge of God's word we are the light. Jesus says let your light shine so that all
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men may see your deeds and glorify your father who is in heaven. We cannot simulate light. We must be that light. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 5, for you
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were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And so this brings us back full circle
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to verse two of chapter 12. I read verse one. He says, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God." How do we do that? Well, that's verse two. Do not be conformed to this
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world but rather be transformed. What he is saying in chapter 13 11 through 14 is is the same as what he said back in chapter 12. Do not go back
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and walk in the darkness but rather walk as children of light. Do not clothe yourself again with the old man in its lusts but rather be clothed with Jesus
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Christ. We cannot change the time in which we live. We cannot accelerate the dawn or the breaking of the sun. That is
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a time that is set by the father according to his wisdom. And it is not for us to know when it will happen. But what we can do is we can put on the Lord
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Jesus Christ is what he says here in verse 14. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in according according to its lusts.
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When I read that, I I kind of wonder, okay, what does that mean? And often times, the scripture will tell us things in one place in a very brief way that it will then elaborate much more fully someplace else. And this is one of those
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times where Paul simply says, "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ." But when he writes his letter to the Colossians, which we have every reason to believe had already been written when he wrote
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his letter to the Romans, and we know that Paul's letters were circulated because that is how they eventually been were recognized as canon. So he had
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every reason to believe that his ro his Roman hearers had already read his letter to the Colossians. And if you would forgive me, I am going to close by reading the chapter, chapter 3 of
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Colossians. Because this is how we do it. We don't do it alone. This is not for each individual Christian. The idea of putting on your armor is so often
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from Ephesians 6. It it's so often taught as an individual endeavor, but the but the whole idea is of a military
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unit. It's of many men and women that are clothed in armor ready to fight. I remember when I was a young Christian, a very popular singer of that day was
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Keith Green. I wouldn't say much for his theology looking back on it. But his music was very challenging and he had one line actually was the title of a song, Asleep in the Light.
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He says, "The world is sleeping in the dark, but the church cannot fight because it's asleep in the light." That's that's that's pretty powerful to
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me. What's wrong with the church today? What's been wrong with the church in days past? In every generation, well, frankly, it was asleep. And in every
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generation, Paul can say by the Holy Spirit in Romans 13, it is now the hour to wake up. And so the exhortation to each one of us
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is what is our status? Are we awake? Are we asleep? Or are we just nodding off?
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Paul says this is how it's done. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He writes in Colossians 3, if then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the
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things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. There you go. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth. For
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you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. We can never lose hold of that. That is what it means to live in the
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light is to fix your eyes, fix your mind on Christ, seated at the right hand of the father and know that you have died in Christ and your life is hidden with him in God. When Christ who is your life
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is revealed, there it is, sunrise, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality,
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impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come, and in them you
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also once walked when you were living in them. That's walking in the darkness. That's the carousings, the drunkenness, the sexual promiscuity, and the jealousy and the strife that we once walked in.
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But now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouths. Do not lie to one another since you laid aside
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the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.
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That's putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. A renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, schyian and freeman. But
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Christ is all and in all. And so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with
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one another, and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things,
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put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.
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Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And
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whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. That is living in the day. That is
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walking in the light. That is how the church and all believer believers in her walk in this time between the darkness of light of night and the light of
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sunrise. Finally, quoting from one commentary on the passage in Romans 13, the mental, moral,
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emotional, and spiritual effort required to sustain a belief in inaugurated esquetology may at times seem impossible. There's that fourth fourth watch.
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Maintaining our vigor, our faithfulness, our diligence, our vigilance is morally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically at times impossible.
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And yet, I agree with what this commentator says. The effort must still be made. Let us pray. Father, we do look forward and say,
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Marinatha, come Lord, quickly. We walk as in that time before daybreak and we stumble, but Lord, keep us awake. by
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your spirit keep us vigilant that we might continue our watch that we might resist the darkness of night and look forward at all times to that horizon
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keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ seated at your right hand the author and finisher of our faith knowing that his return is sure because we have seen the
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darkness receding even in our own hearts as you have brought to us the knowledge of yourself self in the face of Jesus Christ. You have said to our souls, "Let
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there be light." And while we wait and while the coming of the Lord is delayed, may we be found faithful that when the sun rises, when the Lord
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returns, we might hear those words, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master." We ask this for your glory and for our
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good in the exaltation of Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. Well, please rise for the benediction this morning
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from Ephesians chapter 3. chapter 3. Excuse me. Excuse me. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or
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think and I will add even to keep us awake until daybreak according to the power that works within us. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ
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Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Amen.
