Audio file
N209_HIH_062024.mp3
Transcript
00:00:05 Colin Cook
So we are looking at these wonderful life giving passages in Romans Chapter 14 for none of us lives to himself and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, therefore.
00:00:20 Colin Cook
Whether we live or die, we are the Lords.
00:00:24 Colin Cook
Just an amazing and wonderful passage, and Paul is stating it in connection with our tendency to judge people who have different habits or different cultural rituals from us, even though they are Christians. They may. Some may be vegetarians, some may.
00:00:43 Colin Cook
And not eat meat for fear it would contaminate them. Some keep a certain Sabbath, or some keep no Sabbath, and we make judgments of them. But Paul says stop.
00:00:56 Colin Cook
Because these men and women.
00:00:59 Colin Cook
Live or die unto the Lord. These men and women do these things by faith in Jesus, whether they are in accordance with what we do and and believe or not. And so this puts a very, very different ring on peoples.
00:01:19 Colin Cook
Identity, doesn’t it? It’s not. We do not identify them by how they do certain things different from us, how they have certain habits or or cultural behaviours that are different from ours.
00:01:34 Colin Cook
We are understanding people in the light of the salvation of Jesus Christ. They are redeemed men and women. Many of them do not know it yet, but we look at them as unto the Lord, for none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.
00:01:54 Colin Cook
But then looking at that, as I’ve talked about last time in a more personal way, what a wonderful thing it means. We do not live to ourselves to live to oneself is to be very isolated and lonely.
00:02:08 Colin Cook
We just are selfish. We do what we want for ourselves. We mess up feather our own nest. We make sure we’re all set up nicely.
00:02:20 Colin Cook
And have good bank accounts or good savings accounts, good insurance policies, good. This and that and the other to carry us through and feather our beds until the end.
00:02:31 Colin Cook
But we may be very lonely in the process because none if none of us die lives to himself, then we if, if, if we live to ourselves, then we also die to ourselves, don’t we? And there are people who do believe do fear death because they are alone.
00:02:49 Colin Cook
But we have the message and we need to are assured to assure ourselves that we do not die or live to ourselves if we live, we live to the Lord verse.
00:03:00 Colin Cook
Eat. And if we die, we die to the Lord. And so in our relationship to God we are. He is going with us. He is by our side. The Angels are with us. The Holy Spirit is comforting us as he carries us through from this side of eternity to the next.
00:03:19 Colin Cook
If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lords. Now. This is a wonderful truth. If whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lords.
00:03:32 Colin Cook
But now look at verse 9.
00:03:36 Colin Cook
For to this end, Christ died and rose again. Let me restate that for to this end, Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
00:03:53 Colin Cook
That he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
00:03:56 Colin Cook
Now this teaching.
00:03:58 Colin Cook
Is blunted, unfortunately, by Christians because they misunderstand the statement which is in Rome. A Hebrews Chapter 9, verse 27, for as it is appointed for men to die once but, and as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this.
00:04:19 Colin Cook
The judgment.
00:04:21 Colin Cook
It is appointed to men to die once and after this the judgment, what do people understand by that? What do Christians understand by it? Well, they understand that this is the life where we live or die, or rather whether we decide for or against Jesus Christ.
00:04:41 Colin Cook
And then comes the judgment. When those who’ve decided against Jesus Christ will be sent to their eternal doom.
00:04:50 Colin Cook
That is a misunderstanding. It is a misunderstanding of the whole.
00:04:57 Colin Cook
The whole pattern of scripture Ezekiel particularly, reveals that the judgments are not unto death, but unto life. Ezekiel makes it clear that when God brings judgment upon Israel.
00:05:14 Colin Cook
Then they shall know that he is the Lord.
00:05:19 Colin Cook
And the term, then they shall know that he is the Lord, or a variation of that term is occurs about 64 times in the book of Ezekiel.
00:05:29 Colin Cook
What does it mean then? They shall know that they that he is the Lord.
00:05:34 Colin Cook
Not simply. Then you will know who’s giving you The Who is judge sending you off to hell? This is not a Doom statement. It is a life statement. It means that there are some people. There are perhaps most people who will not receive God without judgment.
00:05:57 Colin Cook
Those who have faith in him receive him and there is no judgment for them. For all judgment is taken away for those who trust in Jesus Christ.
00:06:09 Colin Cook
But those who do not trust in Christ will have to go through judgment, and that judgment will bring them to an end of themselves, and then they will come to see that God is the Lord, and they will bow before him.
00:06:25 Colin Cook
And so when you have this background, then verse nine of Chapter 14 of Romans takes on enormous proportions for to this end, Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
00:06:45 Colin Cook
For you see, Jesus Christ’s work has not finished at the end of our lives. It continues on into the judgment and is a matter of fact in the next few verses, Paul is going to say.
00:06:58 Colin Cook
Say he’s going to quote that verse from Isaiah 45, where it says, as I live says, the Lord before me, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall make an oath that in him that in me a Lord alone, that in me alone is their righteousness and strength.
00:07:19 Colin Cook
You see, humanity has never admitted that humanity is always.
00:07:25 Colin Cook
Lived under presupposition that.
00:07:28 Colin Cook
Strength and goodness is innate in human beings.
00:07:34 Colin Cook
And that they human beings can produce strength and goodness.
00:07:39 Colin Cook
Well, they can’t, and the judgment is going to reveal that as all.
00:07:46 Colin Cook
The history of mankind will make very, very clear that it has brought forth no goodness in the world, only wind.
00:07:55 Colin Cook
And that they have brought nothing.
00:07:58 Colin Cook
To birth, that’s a quote that from the Old Testament I’ve forgotten for a moment exactly where.
00:08:06 Colin Cook
And then.
00:08:08 Colin Cook
Jesus Christ will be revealed.
00:08:11 Colin Cook
And as you can remember.
00:08:14 Colin Cook
Revelation, Chapter 5, verse 13 upon the throne is one like a lamb, as though it had been slain, and all the world will be shown this lamb as though it had been slain. And there will be a great mourning through the House of Israel and the whole world. According to to Zachariah, chapter 12.
00:08:35 Colin Cook
When they shall look upon me, says Jesus. As says the Lord, whom they have pierced, and there will be a great mourning in all the families of Israel. And of course, by extension, that means all the world.
00:08:50 Colin Cook
So you see, there is a plan of ultimate salvation in the judgment and that gives meaning to this verse Christ died.
00:09:01 Colin Cook
For the sacrifice of the sins of the whole world, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Jesus Christ is the atonement for the sins of all the world, and he rose and lived again for the whole world.
00:09:20 Colin Cook
You remember that verse in Romans chapter 5, verse 18.
00:09:25 Colin Cook
Therefore, as through one man’s offence, judgment came to all resulting in condemnation, Even so, through one man’s righteous act, the free gift came to all men through Earth, resulting in justification of life. And so this is God’s plan. This is why.
00:09:45 Colin Cook
Jesus died and rose again, that he might be the Lord of the dead and the living. What about all the dead before Jesus Christ? What about all the dead before the flood?
00:09:58 Colin Cook
What about about all of those little children who died? Little babies who died, youth who died, who never understood and and had an opportunity. They will go through the judgment, just like all of us. And they will be, it will be revealed to them what Christ is for them so that God.
00:10:19 Colin Cook
Through Jesus Christ might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
00:10:25 Colin Cook
Do you see this? Don’t, by your limited understanding of the judgment.
00:10:32 Colin Cook
Blunt the full value and wonder of this verse in Romans 14 verse nine for to this end, Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and the living.
00:10:50 Colin Cook
We have all thought many of us anyway, that the judgment is all a a great moment of doom for the world. On the contrary.
00:11:02 Colin Cook
Though the judgment will be fearful, though, there will be fire and brimstone, though there will be a wailing and gnashing of teeth, though there will be torment in the presence of the angels and the lamb, ultimately it will reveal.
00:11:18 Colin Cook
The mercy of God, of course. There is torment for those in the presence of the lamb. Not that God is tormenting them. God is not a tyrant. He’s not a tormentor. He’s not a sadist, but the presence of the glory of God in Jesus Christ for all those who rejected him will be a torment.
00:11:39 Colin Cook
But it will bring them ultimately to their knees. It will bring them to bow before him. For Romans 14, verse 11 says, as I live says the Lord, every niche shall bow to me, and every tongue shall acknowledge to the word. Confess there is to make to take an oath. So it should really read as I live says the Lord.
00:12:01 Colin Cook
Every knee shall bow to me in every tongue shall take an oath that in the Lord alone is their righteousness and strength, and so ultimately the world will know what has been said. Already in Romans 11, verse 32.
00:12:18 Colin Cook
For God has committed or imprisoned, the word can read in the original, for God has committed them all to disobedience, put them under the chains of disobedience, won’t you choose to suppress God? You are brought into a situation in which you are helpless. You are trapped.
00:12:38 Colin Cook
In this resistance of God, for God has committed the mall to disobedience.
00:12:44 Colin Cook
For what reason judgement to death?
00:12:47 Colin Cook
No.
00:12:49 Colin Cook
That he might have mercy on all for God has committed them all to disobedience as all humanity for God has committed all to disobedience that he might have mercy on all. That’s the ultimate purpose of God, the mercy of God.
00:13:09 Colin Cook
Lasts forever.
00:13:12 Colin Cook
And it is God’s plan for those who have suppressed him from their consciousness.
00:13:18 Colin Cook
To see in the judgment what foolhardiness they have been committing, what utter insanity has it has been to do that so that they may see that there is no other life except as there is life in God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and when that.
00:13:39 Colin Cook
Is made clear the world will be humbled. There will be. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day and Christ will be on the throne and all will bow before him and be reconciled to him.
00:13:59 Colin Cook
Thank you for listening. This is Colin Cook here and how it happens. You can hear this broadcast on your smartphone anytime of the day or night. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com.
00:14:09 Colin Cook
And key in how it SoundCloud com and key in how it happens with Colin Cooke when you get there. If you would care to make a donation to keep the broadcast going. Thank you. You can make it online. Go to faithquestradio.com. Thanks. I’ll see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
