amen let's turn tonight to the book of romans the last chapter romans chapter 16 tonight of the book of romans and you can find that if you're searching on page 1209 next week we conclude our study in this book but tonight we come to a very important section here a final sort of admonition and warning that we need to consider. This is verses 17 through 20 tonight and we will read those verses. Beginning at verse 17. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise as to what is good, and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. Tonight, as we come very close to the close of the book of Romans, I would expect, right before this final benediction, there to be a great high note. I would expect there to be, as we come to the end of this book, something very, very positive and something very uplifting and very exciting to study. But that's not ultimately what the apostle does here. At the end of the book, right before the benediction, he gives the strongest warning in the entire epistle. And that means that this is something that was very important that the apostle wanted the church to be aware of. Wanted the church to be aware of and not forget what the devil himself is desperately trying to do in the body of Christ. In verse 16, at the end of this section of names, you'll remember that the apostle gave this encouragement that the church in Rome was given this call to greet one another with a holy kiss. And that was how in the ancient world you expressed a deep affection for one another, how you demonstrated love for one another, this deep affection. The apostle wanted them to demonstrate for one another. He was very concerned about this church's unity. He was very concerned that they would embrace one another and that there would be harmony, that there would be peace, that they would walk together in unity. How can two walk together unless they are agreed? Embrace one another. Let there be the spirit of unity and the bond of peace, he wrote to even to the Ephesian church. He knew that this love and this unity was absolutely crucial for the life of the church. In fact, it is so crucial that Jesus said, it is that love by which everyone's going to know that you are my disciples. Without love, your witness falls. Without harmony and peace, your witness is killed now the problem is that christians can be rather naive rather naive as to what really is happening and just the degree to which we are under assault and it's usually we think in all the other things rather than the right thing the heidelberg tonight was so helpful and you see how it ties together when it mentions the three sworn enemies that we have to deal with the world the devil and our own flesh and think about the challenges that that are happening i mean it's bad enough that we have to deal with the the own warfare that goes on still in our own members in our and still in our own lives we're still dealing with sin in our lives and it is a terrible warfare that we are still in and you know you know how easy it is to drift you know how easy it is to grow cold you know how hard it is i mean think of peter when peter and jesus asked the disciples to pray just to pray and i'm teaching on prayer and i know how difficult a discipline that is that when he comes back he finds them sleeping this is the struggle and then you have the world you have its system that we talked about tonight How strong is the world caves upon us? How much are we really affected by its values and its system that we're constantly even, you know you have a problem when everything in your living room is pointed at one object and the world just kind of filters right on in, right? It's called the TV. This is a, you have so much caving in on us. And the church can easily give in to the world and using worldly methods and worldly successes. That was Corinth. That was Corinth. That was Corinth's problem. But one of the things that the Apostle specifically mentions tonight in this text that we, I think, as Reformed people sometimes are a little more apprehensive and nervous to talk about is Satan. Satan himself. We're a little on edge about being too weird. We know what the Pentecostals do with that, right? It's kind of a mystery to us. And tonight, we start thinking about this. Well, how does the devil work? What is the devil doing? How is he active in the kingdom? In what ways? And where would we expect to see that? Tonight's message is challenging us at the very end of the epistle to be aware and to not be naive about this kind of enemy, this phenomenon. The passage is a warning to be aware of how the devil is disrupting the body of Christ. And you'll notice it as he mentions Satan. At the very end of this, he says, listen, I know he's a problem. Soon, soon, soon, soon, he's going to be crushed finally and forever. But how is he working? What is he doing? Paul would even at one point say specifically that Satan hindered him on his journey. Satan. There are markers. There are evidences. There are things that are happening that we can see. And when we see these things, we should then follow God's inspired directive on how to deal with it. And Paul really has that aim tonight. He wants to instruct the church on how to deal with this problem, to be aware of it, to recognize it. And these are my points tonight. I made a mistake by giving three points two weeks ago because now all these people said we want them in every sermon. So now I've got to do that. So the first is this, realize what's happening. The second is, recognize what they're doing. and the third is resist their influence realize recognize and resist paul has spoken a lot of commendation to this church in rome remember back in chapter 15 he said i am confident concerning you brethren that you are able to admonish one another. I think so highly of you as a church that I know you can discern the truth so much that, and this really goes with the first John, that you have no need to anyone teach you. You have an understanding that the Spirit has given you. You care about the truth, that you're able to deal with one another with regard to the truth and correct those who are in error. I think that highly about you as a church. And what does it say then? Well, it's a church that cared a lot about truth. This was a remarkable church. I believe the epistle reflects what kind of church this is, what they cared about. When you get, it's the whole principle to what you have, more will be given. They were given this epistle. They were given this teaching. And it reflected them. And everything in Romans has been a wonderful, positive presentation of the gospel. It has explained so much for us. It has been wonderful to help us understand the Christian faith, to help us understand the crucial way that a sinner is justified before God, and then how he is to respond to that and what now the life is is following the life of justification and and we looked at the mysteries of election and we looked at Israel they received a lot a church that gets this kind of blessing a church that gets this kind of commendation a church that has a lamp stand that burns bright like this in Rome a church that is committed to Romans 10 preaching the word in season and out of season in other words a church that cares a lot about the truth is one of the greatest threats to the devil is one of the greatest threats to the devil I mean seriously committed to the truth and Satan takes notice and Paul wants the church to understand this. Rome is a target. Rome has the bullseye right on him. And so immediately after he says, greet one another with a holy kiss, preserve the unity. You have a beautiful thing. You've been given the gospel. The beautiful description and the beautiful explanation of the gospel was so powerfully laid out in this book, all of a sudden, it seems out of nowhere, Paul says, I think so highly of you. In other words, I love you so much. I've got to get one last thing off my chest. This is the kind of flow of it after the greet one another. I love you this much. Holy kiss. Things are happening. Things are happening behind the scenes. And Paul breaks into in verse 17, an urgent plea. I appeal to you. Did you notice that in verse 17? I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Now essentially, he said, you have to realize what's going on. Notice carefully, Those who are causing divisions and stumbling blocks contrary to what you know, to what you have been taught, to what you have learned. The word here means disunity, division within a community, and he connects it to where we get the word scandal. It means when you put something in front of somebody else to make them stumble. You remember what Jesus said, when somebody causes somebody be stumbled be better if a millstone were put around his neck and he was dropped right in the middle of the sea that's how serious jesus takes this and paul is saying this is happening there are stumbling blocks constantly being set up well there are a lot of things that happen in the life of the church there are petty things you remember second timothy 2 refuse foolish and ignorant speculations knowing they produce quarrels. There will be quarreling in the life of the church. In some ways, we dealt with all of the ridiculous quarreling in chapter 15 on Christian liberty and those sort of things. And many have seen this. Many of you have seen this over the years. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has an opinion on this and this and this and this. And when you get a lot of people together, there will be petty quarrels. And the Bible always comes. And it says in these kind of situations, knock it off that's not worth it you remember the whole principle of that was if you're strong concede that's not what paul's talking about that that is not what the apostle is talking about tonight paul's referencing here something much more dangerous than we would ever like to think he connects it to offenses and notice contrary to the doctrine the teaching that you receive the greatest attack and and we don't think of it this way but the greatest attack and divisions that happen in the life of the church are attacks upon the doctrine are attacks upon what you confess and believe. And the Lord is saying to us tonight through his servant, I want you to understand this is your greatest threat in the life of the church. And you kind of stand back and say, well, we haven't really taken that as seriously as we should. And Paul is really impressing upon them to realize this is happening. The New Testament writers, as I go through and I study of the New Testament, I'm amazed at how often they are crying out to the readers, take this seriously, take this seriously. You say, well, how could we miss it, right? How could we miss it? If someone from the outside came in to our communion and somebody began to advance ideas that were a little bit off the wall and, you know, you'd go up and you'd say, high, but she'd walk away and say, oh boy, you know, I've met these types. They come into the church. I mean, there was one guy up north who was coming around, stirring up the body, denying the humanity of Jesus. Okay, that's a serious error. I mean, I had to pull him in and basically tell him to leave. We weren't going to put up with that. But somebody like that, bad as that is, he's marked. People know. People know when somebody has come in and they're not part of the fold and they have caused those kinds of problems. But I've always been on edge over something else. Let me tell you what I've always been on edge over. It's what Paul said to the Ephesian elders. For three years, he warned. He says, I did this with tears. Why? He says, because savage wolves will come in, not sparing the flock. Very serious problem. But then he said this, but also from among yourselves, men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves that one scares me always has that was in a sense taken from jesus's words that outwardly wolves look nice inwardly they're ravenous they're in sheep's clothing and you know that no false teacher yells out i'm a heretic they just don't do that so you understand how difficult and challenging the situation is then when a long-standing member of the church pulls this you know you can get over it if these kinds of people are jerks uh in other words it's easier to deal with because then they're not going to hopefully gain the following but if it's somebody deeply tied to a family if it's pulled off well enough if they're charismatic and liked if it's a long-standing influence in the church do you realize the challenge of that you ever thought about it this happened with jezebel i remember the church uh in thyatira that jesus had this great complaint against that church not all you not only do you let her teach but you let her seduce my servants into all kinds of bad stuff i'm not saying anything new tonight you know the history and it's been talked about a lot in this church but i do want to reference it tonight you remember the sad history of harold camping jack huttinger was my pastor in hamford um and he was in alameda when that all broke open and you know what that was over camping was teaching that one could know from the bible when christ would return and when challenged he would say well we would people would say you the bible says you you can't know the day nor the hour and he would say yes but we can know the month and the year and the church did its job in alameda the church censured him it was may of 1988 you know he declared that may 21 1988 was the day that the holy spirit was removed from the church and that was the very same period that camping and probably to the day I research bulletin records was removed from teaching in the church thus starting seven years he said of tribulation which he would later write 1994 declaring that the world would end you say that's madness who would believe that come on who would believe that 40% left the Alameda church with him forty percent of the church now hindsight's 2020 right well i used to listen to him hopefully those open forums aren't re-aired because i used to call into the open forum you can probably hear my voice on there why was it so hard for years for people to criticize Harold Campion. You ever thought about that? Because he was CRC. He was camping. He had some kind of charisma. The following was amazing. And I think one of the keys to him was that so many were afraid of exposing him. Think about what it did for a reform. Here you had a reform voice on the radio. You had one of the boys on the radio. When I was up in Eureka at the church up there, all those people in that little OPC in Eureka had all come into the church through Harold Camping. You weren't getting Shine Jesus Shine on the radio. You were getting a mighty fortress is our God. You were getting Psalms on the radio. And what do you begin to do with something like that. Well, you kind of stand back. Maybe his teaching isn't all that bad. And what of the weak Christians? They were saying it's okay. This is how it works. And there's influence behind that. The church can be totally oblivious to this. Paul is giving a pastoral plea. It's affectionate here. I urge you brethren recognize this problem what does that tell you some are going to shrug it off some are going to say oh this is not a big deal that's remote from us it could never happen in the Escondido URC it never happened here what that tells you is is that is that we have the propensity to overlook this problem and not understand how damaging this really is in the life of the church think of all of the false ideas and false teachers out there and not to want to even admit it could happen in these walls it could come from us i can't get away from corinth i can't get away from corinth in second corinthians chapter 11 for if someone comes and proclaims another jesus than the one we proclaimed or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted you put up with it readily If you're a church and you put up with a Jesus preached that is not the true Jesus, what would that look like today? How many of us justify places where the Gospels never preached, but it was good application? Great application. He preached the Bible. Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. And so it's no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. So in other words, Paul just said to the church, Satan has ministers. Satan has preachers. And what are they doing? Well, he says, and verse 18, we'll come back to, with smooth words and flattering speech, they deceive the hearts of the simple. This is what breaks my heart for the sheep, is the aftermath of this. I urge you, says Paul, to understand this is happening. Did you notice, again, in verse 20, he mentions Satan. We're nervous about him. how do we understand him? I had one of our young people come up to me not too long ago and said, Pastor, is there such a thing as demon possession today? Great question. When I'm asked that question, I have to kind of first peel away the whole narrow way we approach demon activity. You know, we're all used to seeing the Roman Catholics do exorcisms on people who are acting crazy and cutting themselves right i mean that's the kind of imagery we have when we think of demon possession um but i've always thought who is the most famous demon possessed person in the bible judas you remember what john says satan entered him if you looked at judas was he erratically cutting himself? Was he steaming out of the ears? Were his eyes crossed? Judas walked. He was a church leader. He was possessed. How did it manifest itself? He betrayed with a kiss. He was stealing from the money bag. Paul's helping us understand the mode of behavior. Look at verse 18. For such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ or Lord Christ, but their own appetites and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple. They're not about Christ. They're not about making Him known. They're not about His name, His glory. There's three kind of bad fruits you can discern. And it is obvious. You can discern this. You have the ability to discern this. That's why I discern this. That's why I love His perspective about the church here. You can figure this out. First, they deceived the hearts of the simple. If you ever look throughout history, every time a false prophet was exposed, what did the Lord always say about them? Smooth words. They tickled ears. They told everyone just what they wanted to hear. And there were always strings of followers around them, tied to them, who hung on their words for their spirituality. and that leads to the second one. The first one is they deceive the hearts of the simple. The second is they have their own revelation of some kind of personal truth. That is a common mark of them throughout history. In some way, they are pushing some extreme point of doctrine to the expense of everything else the church has received and believed. And they're teaching it as if they have arrived at the truth on this issue. and they're good with it they can use the scriptures with it and they tell you everybody else is in serious error who doesn't hold to that particular point of doctrine and they collect more followers and they're heavily condemning of anyone who does not agree with them and they're told the followers are told separate from them separate from them you remember the pharisees were called the separate ones and because of their extreme exceptional holiness and separateness from all that is profane i can't help but think paul has that on his mind tonight the pharisee but if you look throughout history there's a certain spirit that governs them what kind of spirit is it it's a legal spirit it's a legal spirit that they're beating somebody over the head with some point of the law, some conviction, and they have no real value in the gospel, no real value in the person and the work of Christ. And they're ultimately undermining it in some way. Think of camping. If you didn't leave the church with him, you were lost. You were lost. Long-term fruit, number three, they divide the body of Christ. That's the fruit. This is what john was talking about when he said they went out from us because they were not of us for if they were of us they would have remained with us but now they went out from us that it might be manifest that they were not of us dividing out dividing out dividing out and sometimes it gets so bad that it ends up in a little house with two people as they keep arriving at the truth on their matter i like what one pastor said their church signs become this the christian church the full gospel church the true light gospel church the holy ghost headquarters that one would keep us away i think they divide division and then number four what happens here's what i think is one of the greatest tragedies paul says they put stumbling blocks in front of many in the church how many people have you come across in the life of the church that are on burnout they're on burnout because of all of the turmoil that the devil has caused and all the fighting and all the attacks and because they were simple and followed these kind of people after a while the whole thing blew up and the warfare of it all they become completely disillusioned over the church I've seen many like this in my time. And some walk away and saying, how can anyone even know what is true? Or, you know, think of what Paul said about Hymenaeus and Thalettus are of this sort. Remember this in 2 Timothy, who strayed concerning the truth, saying the resurrection is already past. And then Paul says this, and they overthrew the faith of some. Overthrew the faith of some. what do you do with people like this? Well, the church is called to discipline them. There's no doubt. The authorities are called, this is why you have elders to protect you. But I believe Paul's looking at them. And here's what he says. Verse 17. Three things. Note those who do this. Mark them. In other words, it's where we get the word scope. There's a giant responsibility you have. Scope them. Profile them. It's contrary to our thinking today. You know, don't mention or don't criticize. No, no, no. Put them under the microscope. And keep your eye on them. Paul was warning constantly about those who were out to shipwreck your faith. Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him. You must beware of him, for he has greatly resisted our words. Paul put them right under the microscope. Greatly resisted. And at my first offense, think about this. This is the Apostle Paul. At my first offense, no one stood with me. All forsook me. May it not be charged against them, but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. It's an amazing text. Mark them, scope them. Second, what does he say? Go after them? Avoid them. Don't even talk to them. Don't give them an ear. Think about the division of the tongue and what the tongue can do in the body of Christ. If it's an attack contrary to the truth you've received, avoid them. And then he encourages them and says in verse 19, Your obedience has become known to all, therefore I'm glad on your behalf. but I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil. Your obedience knows, everyone knows, your love for the truth, but I want you to be wise about this. This is what I'm telling you. It's not the fun sermon to preach, is it? It's a challenging sermon to preach. But he says, I want you to be wise that you would not be carried away by what is going on and what is happening and what could happen. And Paul then conveys this beautiful promise from the Lord. The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. It's going to happen. At the cross, it was started. He was defeated in principle and finality at the second coming when he is judged forever and cast into the lake of fire. And there's a finality to all of this. And Paul is saying, until then, don't lose heart. It is warfare. It is warfare. You've been told beforehand, but God is going to shatter him under your feet. You know, I think tonight, I'll close with this. In Lord's Day, 127, and so Lord, uphold us and make us strong with the strength of your Holy Spirit. Isn't he the answer? The strength of the Holy Spirit. You're not left to figure this out on your own. Remember what Romans said, the Holy Spirit has done for you. You've been given the spirit of adoption by which we cry out, Abba, Father. And the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're sons. His great work is to guide you and keep you in all what? Truth. That's what he's sent for. He's not letting his people fall to this kind of stuff. But we need to call out to him and recognize that this goes on and lean upon him and ask him for grace so that we may not go down to defeat in the spiritual struggle, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally and completely win the victory. And that is what will happen. And Paul closes tonight with another benediction, The grace, and what a word that is from this morning, huh? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Let's pray. Oh Lord, our God, we bow the head tonight. And we take very seriously, since you have said it and inspired it, that this goes on. It's discouraging. We hate to see it. But we pray, O Lord, tonight that by the strength of Your Spirit You would preserve us from what is described here. And that You would not let anyone to come in from the outside or on the inside to hurt or harm the body of Christ. Protect Your sheep. Surround them with the truth and keep them in it. And overthrow all forms of evil and those things which aim to hurt Your people and preserve us in a love for Your truth together. Thank You for grace tonight. And thank You for Your Holy Spirit. We couldn't hold ourselves up for a moment, as the Catechism says. Without You, O Lord, we can do nothing. And so we appeal to Your tender mercies and grace, asking that You would sanctify us according to the truth. Your word, O Lord, is true. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.