TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Morning Manna - May 20, 2025 - Romans 16:21–27 - Known to All Nations

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

In today’s episode, we complete our five-month journey through the Book of Romans. Paul’s closing words offer deep insight into the power of gospel partnerships, the humility of servant leadership, and the once-hidden mystery now revealed to all nations. Rick and Doc unpack the legacy of Tertius, the importance of teamwork in ministry, and the truth that the gospel has already been fully revealed—leaving no room for modern-day “mystery” profiteers.This powerful conclusion reminds us that our obedience must be rooted in faith and our service grounded in humility. The spotlight belongs to Christ alone.Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart. Airdate 5/20/25You can partner with us by visiting FaithandValues.com, calling 1-800-576-2116, or by mail at PO Box 399 Vero Beach, FL 32961.Get high-quality emergency preparedness food today from American Reserves!AmericanReserves.comIt’s the Final Day! The day Jesus Christ bursts into our dimension of time, space, and matter. Now available in eBook and audio formats! Order Final Day from Amazon today!Amazon.com/Final-DayApple users, you can download the audio version on Apple Books!books.apple.com/final-dayPurchase the 4-part DVD set or start streaming Sacrificing Liberty today.Sacrificingliberty.comThe Fauci Elf is a hilarious gift guaranteed to make your friends laugh! Order yours today!Trunews/faucielf

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Morning Manna. We're delighted that you are with us for this online Bible study, a weekday Bible study going verse by verse through each book of the Holy Bible. We are in the Book of Romans. We're finishing it today. Chapter 16, the last verses, verses 21 through 27. We will be, we will complete our study of Romans in today's lesson and move on to another book tomorrow. So let's pray and invite the Holy Spirit then Dr. Burkhart will read the scriptures, Romans 16, 21 through 27. And all of us, we will

join together in studying the Word of God. Father God, our wonderful, delightful Father in heaven, we praise you and glorify you and thank you for your many blessings, Father, because all good things come from you, and your Word is good. And we ask that your Holy Spirit, who is good, would teach us your Word, Father, that we would be disciples that please you. In the name of Jesus, amen. Amen. And so, if you've got your Bibles here, we're going to finish up Romans today and pick back up at verse 21. So we welcome folks from all over the world this morning. We've got Japan, South Korea, Germany, Canada. Counting Canada is part of us. Russia, of course, Brazil, Malaysia, Japan, and all points in between across the US and Canada as well. Welcome

to our Bible study here today. We're honored that you're here with us live. If you're not with us live, we're still honored that you're here, that you've taken time out of your day to study the Word of God together with us. And it's going to benefit you. It's every day you get more and more the word into you, it builds on it, line upon line, precept upon precept. And so we are going to finish up Roman chapter 16 today and finish the book of Romans today. Picking back up in verse 21,

Timothy, my fellow worker, and Lucius and Jason and Sossopatter and my kinsmen salute you. I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. Gaius, my host, and of the whole church salute you. Rastus, the Chamberlain of the city, salute you. And Cortus, the brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Verse 25, Now to him

that is of power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. Praise God. Doc, wouldn't you like to write a letter that 2,000 years from now people are still studying it to understand the depth of what you said. Oh my goodness. Think about the, that's just such an incredible thing to think about. This was a letter written

to a group of believers in a Roman city, in Rome, and yet this letter has survived through time and through criticism and through theological attacks and everything else in between. And even to this day, the Book of Romans, out of all the books of the New Testament, maybe besides Revelation, is probably the most attacked book. Mainly because, you know, if the New Testament is a body, the book of Romans is the skeleton inside. because Paul establishes a theological framework that really everything else in the New Testament is connected to. And so it's an important book. And so what we've done here with the Book of Romans, and a lot of churches avoid teaching it. Some churches avoid it completely. But it's so rich and so deep, and I hope that our study through the Book of Romans

has given you a brand new appreciation. Someone sent me a message here this morning, Rick, and said that they listened to the Book of Romans last night. And they said for the first time, they understood what was going on. Praise God. Because I didn't listen to it last night, but it's changed my understanding. This lesson that we all have been involved in since January, it has changed my personal understanding of Romans.

It was always a book that I thought, it's too deep for me, I can't comprehend it. So I'm with you, and all of you, if you've been blessed by these lessons and you have a richer understanding of Romans, I'm there with you. But you know, Paul's letter, even the people even study the salutations, the greetings, the benediction. 2000 years later, we're still studying how he said goodbye. So let's jump into verse 21. So let's jump into verse 21. Timotheus, my fellow worker, and Lucius and Jason and Solcipator, my kinsmen, salute you. So he's not greeting them, he's sending greetings from them.

Yes. He's telling the Roman Christians, Timothy, Timotheus and Lucius and Jason and Salsipator, they're my Jewish kinsmen. They send greetings to you. So he's recognizing them as his co-workers. He's actually two things. He's recognizing them as co-workers in ministry and as family, kinsmen. Right. You know, it's interesting that it says my work fellow in the King James. I like that word work fellow. But that word, the Greek word there is synergos. It's where we get the word synergy from. And when you think of synergy today,

you think of working so closely, just so tight, you know, that you really can't distinguish one worker from another. That's what synergy is, right? It's almost like two sources of energy come together and actually create a third. That's right. And so keep that in mind. This is more than just, you know, well, he's a co-worker over here. No, no, no, it's more than that. There's a deeper meaning here. It's not just a coworker. We work so tightly together. It's almost like we're operating as one mind.

Yes. So he also mentions Lucius and Jason and Solcipator. and Jason and Solsa Pater. And so as Doc has pointed out, Timothy, he recognizes as a fellow worker, a partner in ministry. And so that to us is, that is a model that, hey, we are to have others who are coworkers with us.

I considered Doc Burkhart, my work fellow. We work so closely together that, I don't know, Doc, it's just like we're one mind. We're just working together. And the Lord, you know, has blessed that union and that partnership. And so he also mentions, you know, the other three as my kinsmen, Lucius, Jason, Sosa-Pater. He's indicating a close bond, a family relationship. And what this is telling us is don't hold back. Don't be afraid to connect with others

and form a partnership in ministry. Right. Don't go it alone. Don't be the lone wolf. Build a partnership with somebody else and The synergy that comes out of it is better than what you would have done by yourself, right? I'm not I do I think about it. What if Doc had not come here, what, 11 years ago? What if you had not come here? What would I be doing?

Oh, what would I be doing? Yeah, how would our lives have been different? So there is that collaborative ministry that… The sum is greater than the parts. Yes, that's exactly it right there. And so, these shared greetings are actually… He's uniting disciples across regions, across continents, saying we're one, we're one in Christ, we're all working for the same Savior.

Verse 22, I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. Well, Doc, where did this guy come from? Who's Tertius? Well, Paul didn't travel alone. We know from the book of Acts he had a ministry team that traveled with him. He probably had different people at different times, but it wasn't his actual hand that wrote the letters. So Paul dictated.

Right. Paul dictated and Tertius wrote. Yeah. Now suppose that today there'd be some that would criticize saying, well, you know, or maybe in his day, they would say, well, Paul didn't even write the letter. Tursch just wrote it. And I hear different folks today maybe being a little critical about things. Well, why do you use all these different technology tools and everything and all these other things to help write and help to do things and help to do research and things like that. Paul had a scribe. Why did he have a scribe? Because he didn't have time. He was so busy preaching and making tents that he had to have somebody on staff to take

notes for him and write letters for him. What I envision, Doc, is that this letter was not written in a linear chronological form. Like he started at the beginning and then ended up, I got my letter done. I think he probably wrote this letter maybe over weeks or months. Probably. Yes. And, and, you know, I can envision Paul saying to Tertius, say, get your get your pen. Get your get your parchment. I've got something. The Lord's been giving

me something. Write this down. And then Paul would begin to expound on the revelation the Lord gave him until he was tired and he said, okay, that's enough for today. So this letter may have come together over months. But Tertius was the scribe who wrote down what Paul was hearing in his spirit from the Lord. And we know it was Paul that dictated it because you go back to chapter 1 verse 1, Romans opens up with Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. And so Paul, if you think about it, these epistles, the signature was at the

beginning of the letter. Okay? That was kind of the introduction. The signature was at the beginning. We put our signature at the end of the letter, but the epistles opened up with the signature, and then you had a goodbye at the end. But this was, Paul authored this, even though Tertius was a scribe. And you know, keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, not only do we have the use of co-laborers in the gospel, like we talked about in verse 21, but we can also use the talents of others

in order to accomplish the mission that God has given us. Some say that Paul had issues with his eyes, he couldn't see well. There's debate about that. Maybe he had to have a scribe, had to have someone to do it. I don't necessarily hold to that school of thought, but some do. I'm just saying that it's okay to use tools I don't necessarily hold to that school of thought, but some do.

I'm just saying that it's okay to use tools to accomplish the mission of God. There's nothing wrong with it. Doc, I like what you said that his signature was at the beginning, not the end. Right. He signed the letter at the beginning. And then he was gracious enough to tell Tertius, hey, put your name at the bottom and, you know, get your name in there too and let people know you did this for me.

But, you know, to grasp it, it would be like, today with a letter, how are we going to do it? It's going to be done electronically, digitally. And you would start, it would be like saying, I Rick Wiles, and you write the letter. And at the end, there's a disclaimer that says, this letter written by Apple Mac machine. Right. Well does that mean the Mac machine. Right. Well, does that mean the Mac machine composed the letter? No, he just put the thoughts of the author in the letter. Right.

And so that's what Tertius has done here. But Paul was gracious in saying, hey, Tertius, put your name at the end of this thing. I mean, Tertius got his name in the Bible. Paul didn't have to do that. Paul could have said, hey, they don't need to know that you wrote this. Yeah, that's right.

He very well could. He could have got his white out and said, take your name off this letter. This is my letter. No, I think Paul told him to put his name there because Paul was humble. And he wanted to share the ministry's credit. He wanted others to get some of the spotlight. And I just wanted to say thank you to William for reminding us about what Jesus said about scribes. And that's found in Matthew 13 52. Then said he unto them, therefore every scribe

which is instructed unto the kingdom of God is unto a man that is a householder which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. Amen. That's a good one. That's one of the parables. Yes. He said, salute you in the Lord. This is Tertius talking. Tertius says, I, Tertius, salute you in the Lord. He's giving his recognition to the Roman saints. Saying, okay, this whole letter was my dear friend and mentor, Paul, speaking to you, but here at the end of this letter, I, Tertius, I salute you.

I join with Paul in saluting you. I salute you. I join with Paul in saluting you. So what we're seeing here is, Tertius' inclusion in Paul's ministry. Again, it's not the Paul show. Yes. It's not the apostle Paul show. Yes. It's not the Apostle Paul show. And he comes into town and all the attention is on Apostle Paul. Right? Paul's got a team and he goes, hey, this guy, he does the writing

for me and this person over here does this and so forth. That's right. And in other words, Paul wasn't afraid to share the glory. That's what it was. That's probably the best way to describe it today. It wasn't him that was doing it. First of all, but he knew he was called and called to be an apostle. But that didn't mean he could do everything. As I get older, I look back, and when my younger years,

I thought I could do everything. And what I found out is I could do a lot of things not very well. So as I get older, I learned I can do a few things really well. And but I need to rely on other people to do what they do well. And sometimes to let go and say, do that ministry or do that work or do that job because you're better at it than I am. And I can work in synergy with you, that's the nergos that Paul talks about in verse 21. So, Doc, what do we learn here? That it's a good thing learned here that it's a good thing to share recognition credit with others who are working with you side by side in the ministry. We see here that Paul deliberately pointed attention to unnoticed service. If Tertius's name had not been there,

today none of us would know that a scribe wrote the letter. We would have imagined that Paul sat with a pen and parchment and wrote in his own hand that letter. and wrote in his own hand that letter. But Paul desired that the world would know that he had a helper. He had someone working with him and this person labored quietly. But Paul is like, I don't desire your labor to go unnoticed. I know you're not trying to get attention, It's like I don't want your I don't desire your Your labor to go unnoticed

I know you're not trying to get attention, but I am going to give you attention. I'm going to tell you put your name in this letter That's paul's letter Tertius did not do that on his own Yes, that's paul's letter That's why i'm convinced paul told him Make sure you mentioned that you wrote this as a scribe. You didn't author it, your hand wrote it as I spoke it. And this is the only time he's mentioned in the Scriptures, this only time that name

shows up in the entire Bible. But he comes out on the stage, he reads his line, and he leaves. Right. That's the way it is in the Bible. If you see, I just see it as a, this great cosmic theater. People appear on the stage for a moment, they read their lines, they do their part, and then they exit because the spotlight is on Jesus Christ. Right. There will be a day that Paul will exit.

Yes. We don't hear about him anymore after that. Right. Several years ago, the great Paul would disappear off the stage. Where did he go? He's done. He read his lines.

He's finished. Right. And each one of us will have that same opportunity as well. I remember several years ago, when you first brought this out, Rick, about us all being different players on the stage, and different parts of the play and everything that there's an appearance, some make summer on for a while. Some have a very dramatic role, some have, you

know, an essential some, they're just there to introduce the next character. And it really all here, right? They all disappear, right? They all disappear, they all leave the stage. At some point they leave the stage because the spotlight is always on Jesus Christ. He is the star, his name is on the marquee. Amen, that's it. Not yours, not mine.

Yeah. They are supporting, we are supporting characters. We have supporting roles in this great drama. It's our duty to read our lines. It's our duty to do our part. God has a He ordained us before the foundation of the world. He selected you, he ordained you, he set you apart before he made the universe. And you have a God-inspired plan for your life. It doesn't mean that we live it. Most people, overwhelming majority people, go through life without living the God-appointed plan. Yes. And you may not think that you matter much in the total scheme of things. God thinks of you as an essential player. Think about Tertius here. I mean, it's the only time this name appears in the Bible.

What does that name Tertius mean? The third, the third one. So all of his life, his entire life, he's been number three. Not number one, not number two. So who was number two? Who was number two? Who was number two? It's easy to know who number two was. Timothy. Yes. So we now know it's Paul Timothy Tertius. Yes.

That was the team. That's a good insight, Doc. Tertius, I will now always remember, tertius means third. Yes. And he knew his place and he knew his role. And the Lord was pleased with him and said, I'm going to inspire Paul to tell you to put your name on this letter and people are going to talk about you for thousands of years. That's right. So after this wait till eternity and we are walking on the streets of New Jerusalem and we

look over there and we, hey it's Tertius although he'll have a different name then. It's Tertius. although he'll have a different name then. It's Tertius. I read about you. You know, I only showed up once in the Bible. That's all you needed, Tertius, just one time. Yes, but after Tertius wrote this letter, he didn't die the next day after he wrote the letter. He wasn't translated. He wasn't caught up into the air. He continued to serve the Lord until his dying day. The point I'm making is,

we don't know anything else about him. But he didn't stop being faithful because people didn't know about him. Right. He didn't leave, you know, and continue working with Paul saying, well, I'll probably won't get my name on any other letters. Nobody will even know I existed. The only, the only one who needs to know that you exist is the Lord. Amen.

If everybody else disowns you, abandons you, walks away from you, it doesn't matter. It hurts, but the only thing that matters is that the Lord knows you and remains faithful to you. And Tertius remained faithful to the Lord. How do I know that the Lord would not have allowed His name to be there? That's right. Now I would probably, I don't bet, but I have that firm in my nomenclature. I would say that in all likelihood, how about that, that of all the people that are on here, we have about 350 people live with us right now.

Have you ever, in all your days, every Sunday school class you've ever been in, every sermon and church that you've ever been in, have you ever heard anyone talk to you about Tertius in the Bible? I haven't. This is his day. This is Tertius' day. No, I haven it. This is his day. This is Tertius' day. No, I have it. I definitely have it. And yet Tertius is teaching us today.

This man is teaching us today. What's he teaching us? To be faithful in the role that God has appointed to you. And if you're given any credit for the work that you're doing in the kingdom, let it be done by the Lord, not by you. Praise God, yes. In this day of social media influencers and everything, what about the promotion of the Lord?

It seems like we rely on so much on a marketing of the God, even the gospel, marketing of the gospel, because surely the Holy Spirit can't promote the Word of God, can He? And yet, here we are, nearly 2,000 years since this letter has been written, and Tertius is teaching us to this day. written and Tertius is teaching us to this day. I'm going to go off on a little side street for just a couple of minutes. We've got time. There's not a lot left to today's lesson. But I want to talk about something.

It's on my mind right now. I want to talk about something that's on my mind right now. So a member of this ministry, a dear friend and supporter of this ministry, he sent me yesterday – so this is a little time out. I just feel like I need to share this. He sent me yesterday a recording, an audio online of a sermon by the new Pope, Pope Leo. And I listened to it and I was like, wow, this is awesome. This is great.

Everything he said, I would say, this is fantastic. So doc, I tried, I didn't spend an enormous amount of time. I did make some effort to find the authentic, original copy of that sermon. Because I thought, okay, he's only been the pope for what, two weeks? Certainly this sermon has got to be on a Vatican website. It's got to be on some kind of social media platform controlled by the Vatican. Maybe he gave this sermon a month or two before he became pope. It's got to be out there somewhere.

I couldn't find it. And then I thought about what you told me yesterday. Folks listen to me, this is important that you understand this. The current trend, and it's just, we are aware of it only in the last couple months. There are people making, they are doing AI clones of the voices of preachers.

And having those preachers' voices say sermons that the preacher did not say. Right. And it's not that they're making them say bad things or heretical things, actually they're making them say bad things or heretical things, actually they're making them say good things. Whoever the deceiver is, things that that person wishes that preacher would say. And so they're putting words in their mouth.

would say and so they're putting words in their mouth. So yesterday Doc said that the CEO of Google said he prefers chat bot, chat bot podcasters over human podcasters. Right. Do you understand what he said? The CEO of Google said, I'd rather listen to a podcast with a non-human host than to listen to a human host. This is where I want you to understand. After Doc showed this to me yesterday, the thought came to me, this is why the Lord said,

get out of news. Within a year or two, it's going to be almost impossible for you to even know who is real in the news world in podcasts. Just think of every podcaster you listen to and think there's 10, 20, 30 versions of that person. Which one's real? Right. Which one?

You tell me, hey, did you hear what so-and-so said today? Okay, but that's not real. Oh yeah, I heard it. It's got his, there's this video. It's an AI video. How do you know? This is where we're at. Jesus said that in the last days the deception would be so great that if it were possible, even the very elect would be deceived. But it's not possible. But it's not possible. He said if it were possible. Pull away from the news, pull away, pull out of it, just get away from it. And focus your mind, your spirit, your time

on studying what is real. It's the word of God that's real. I'm telling you in the next year or two, the amount of deception is going to be unimaginable because of AI. Yes. And again, AI is a tool. It can be used in a positive way,

it can be used in a negative way. You can be certain Satan is gonna use it for his purposes. But he uses every tool for his purposes. Knives are good if you wanna cut meat, but Satan uses it to cut humans. So he's going to use AI in corrupt ways. And I just felt impressed that I have to tell you this. There's a reason I pulled out of the news world.

The Lord is saying, tell my sheep to focus on my word. It's true. It's the only thing that's true So, I think you'll understand. I think six months from now, a year from now, you're going to understand why the Lord made this course correction in this ministry. We had studied the world enough, and we concluded it's evil, and there's nothing else to know and we're actually going to get to that in just a moment it's actually in Romans we're going to get to in just a moment verse 23 Gaius or Gaius however you want to pronounce there's two or Gaius, however you want to pronounce it, there's two versions of how you pronounce it. I'll just say Gaius,

mine host and of the whole church, salute with you. Erastus, the chamberlain of the city, salute with you. And Quartus, a brother. So now he's sending a shout out. We would say shout out, hey, guy is sending a shout out to you. He's my generous host. And also you remember Aratus? Do you remember when we studied the book of Acts? Erastus was in in the book of Acts. The chamberlain, the chamberlain of the city is the city treasurer. Right. He was the man in charge of all the tax money of the city. Erastus. And here he is again. He's popping up in the book of Romans. Yes. And you know what's interesting about Erastus? Back in the year 1929, archaeologists

were digging around on the former city of Corinth. And as they were digging around, they found a pavement, and in that pavement was written a Latin inscription. And in that Latin inscription said, Erastus in return for his idolship laid this pavement at his own expense. That word idolship means he worked as a treasurer. So there's archaeological evidence that there was a real Erastus and he was a real city treasurer in the real city of Corinth. So he's established, he's a wealthy man. They don't just let, they don't let poor people run the city treasury back then.

He was a wealthy man. He may have even served as you know coordinated Paul's ministry finances you know and worked alongside Paul maybe even traveled with Paul at times. You know there's there's all that that's involved. He would have that kind of flexibility in his life, but archaeological evidence that exists of a real erastus. And once again, this is just another confirmation, not that we need archaeological confirmation, but sometimes people in the world need it to get more confidence in the accuracy of the Word of God. This isn't some fairy tale that's been made up.

This is something we plucked out of the sky and started writing about isn't some fairy tale that's been made up. This is something we put down the sky and started writing about. No, these are real people. They really existed. They lived, worked, had families, they had jobs. And yet at the same time, they turned the world upside down with the gospel. Amen.

Paul said, Gaius, my host and of the whole church. Yes. Wait a minute. He's Paul's host, meaning when I'm in Corinth, he opens up his home to me whole church. Gaius, mine host and of the whole church. The way I read that is this Gaius guy is really a very hospitable, generous person. The whole church hangs out at his house. We have the best picnics at his place. See, these are the people that we we should emulate in our daily living in our communities. We should emulate these people. So we mentioned Erastus, the city treasure. Quartus, he calls him a brother. Okay, so here's his

family bond in faith. He's my brother. We're close. Quartus sends a shout out to you. Paul's giving recognition to different people. He's trying to share the recognition with everyone. Say, hey, I know you see me, but let me tell you all the people who are around me and behind me, supporting me. Kind of like, you know, at a concert, near the end of the concert, the entertainer will turn to the band and say, and

on the drums is Johnny and on the guitar is Tom and, and running the lights, Karen, you know, I mean, he's giving the credit, he's saying, Hey, I, I know you came here to see my show, but I couldn't do this show without all these people. Right. That's what Paul's doing. He's doing the shout outs. Hey, let's give it up. Let's give some applause for Cortez. It's teaching us share, share the credit. Make an effort to share the credit. Don't hog it up for yourself.

And think of the people around you and the work that they're doing makes it possible for you to do what you do. Verse 24, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. He offers a blessing for the grace of Jesus Christ to be with all disciples for their good, for their strength. for their good, for their strength. Grace unmerited favor. The best definition, I don't know who came up with this. I've heard it for years. What is grace?

Grace is God giving you what you don't deserve and not giving you what you do deserve. Yes. That's the best definition of grace. So he says, May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. He spoke this blessing on everybody in the Roman church. all. He spoke this blessing on everybody in the Roman church. He included the entire church. May the grace of God be with you all, the grace of Jesus Christ. Amen. So be it. Verse 25. Now to him that is a power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began. What mystery? What mystery had been kept secret since the world began? So now we have,

Paul begins his closing. This is, he's wrapping it up now. And he's praising God's power to establish his disciples through the gospel and through this revealed mystery. Yes. Again, do not listen to any preachers or rabbis who tell you that they have knowledge of mysteries. Right. The mystery was revealed. Yes.

Him that is of power, he's exalting God's strength. He's urging disciples to trust in the Lord's ability to sustain them. Yes. To establish you. Establish means stability, to make you stable. Him that is of the power to make you stable. So again, once you come to this place where you trust your Heavenly Father you just trust him like a child. You put all of your confidence all of your hope and your trust in your Father with a childlike faith saying, I trust your power to keep me stable. I won't fall. I won't fail. I won't collapse. You will establish me. He's talking about the message that God gave Paul of Jesus Christ in the kingdom.

Yes. And the preaching of Jesus Christ. And so, just in the book of Romans alone, think of the things that he taught on. Just in the letter to the Romans. He talked about justification, talked about grace, talked about election, talked about God's favor both to the Jews and the Gentiles. This was his gospel. This is what he taught. This is what he taught just in Romans alone, not even counting the other letters that he wrote, the other epistles that he wrote.

And so, according to my gospel, but his gospel was God's gospel. Be clear about this. This isn't just Paul's opinion or, you know, or his take on it. No, this was divinely inspired by God, this gospel. Yes. And he said, the revelation of the mystery. What's the mystery? This mystery had been concealed and hidden for all of time, but this mystery was formed by God, created by God, before he made the universe. Yes.

But the mystery was not unveiled and revealed until the gospel was preached. What is the mystery? That it was always God's plan to bring all of mankind into his family. That's the mystery. That God had a plan for all nations. Yes. That it's not just the Jews and Israel, it's the whole world.

That's the mystery. Yes. And just so you know, again, you know, these people, these people that these Judaizers that are teaching this doctrine that Christians are second-class citizens. It is so heretical. It is. It was God's plan before he made the world to have one class of children. There are even some that go so far that would say that in the millennium and in eternity, Gentile believers will forever be the servants of the Jews in eternity. That's how far they go with some of this teaching. I've heard this stuff. I've heard them teach that, uh, you know, you know, they believe the thousand year rain means a,

a 1000 year physical Jewish kingdom on earth, uh, with, um, you know, basically Jesus has a figurehead in Jerusalem, but the Jews are running the entire world. But the Christians who got raptured are going to be in New Jerusalem, but New Jerusalem isn't going to be on the earth. It's going to hover like a big mothership in the atmosphere. And so the Christians will be up there in the air in that new Jerusalem city, but the Jews will be on the earth running the world. I've heard that doctrine taught. Right. It's blasphemy, it's heretical. The mystery from the before God made the universe was to have one family, one world of sons and daughters of all races.

There was never a plan for the Jews to be set aside as an exalted race of people. It was never the plan. Right. They were the first to be offered the plan. That's the message. They were the first to be offered and they rejected it. That's right. Doesn't mean they can't come in. But they can come in. Right. And so, you know, talking about this mystery here. And of course, everybody loves the mystery. Right now I'm binge watching

Colombo. Right? And I'm, I just love Colombo. Yeah, just one more thing. And so I've been kind of binge watching Colombo. Just one more thing. So I've been binge watching Colombo. We reckon I go on binges of watching different TV shows and everything. So my current binge is Colombo. But I just want to encourage everybody out there. Folks, there are no more mysteries. There are no more mysteries to the gospel to figure out.

Anyone that tells you that there is a mystery that's being hidden from you, you just got to know that they're incorrect. First of all, Paul is saying right here the mystery has been revealed. Okay? It's revealed. But if you need more, in Matthew it says that, and this is Jesus speaking, he answered and said to them, because it's given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. So Jesus had a promise to his disciples that they could know the mysteries. And even in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, it said in the

last days, knowledge will increase. You will know what the mysteries are. And then finally, even in the book of the Apocalypse, what everybody calls Revelation, verse 1, it says the revelation of Jesus Christ. Not, you know, everybody looks at the apocalypse, the book of the apocalypse, the book of revelation as some sort of mystery book, a code book. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what it is at all. This is a revealing, a revealing of Jesus Christ.

And so anyone that's making money off mysteries, enigmas, riddles that they seem to be finding today, don't walk, run. Right, I'm gonna give you, you know, I seldom do this in the morning manum, but I wanna make this real to you. So I'm gonna read to you the titles of books written by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn.

Number one, the Book of Mysteries. He's got a whole book of mysteries. The Josiah Manifesto, the Ancient Mystery and Guide for the End Times. The ancient mystery and guide for the end times. Did you know that doc? The Josiah manifesto. This is an ancient mystery. And then we have the mystery of the Shemitah. Oh, yes.

And I could go on and on all these books with mystery in it. Don't waste your money and your time on these people that are selling this stuff to people. The mystery of the tree of life by Jonathan Cahn, it's a sermon. I didn't know it was a mystery. Yeah, I thought it was pretty plain. There are no mysteries. Say it again. Yes, there are no mysteries. The gospel has been fully revealed. We have received the full revelation of God. God wanted everybody to know. You think He's sitting up in heaven? Well, I don't want to tell him that.

Come on. Yes. He says it's a revealing. There's no mystery. Even the last book of the Bible, a revelation, a revealing. Here it is. I'm telling you everything. Okay, so listen to this, verse 25, he says,

according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, verse 26, but now is made manifest. Yes. It's done. And by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith

The world English Bible, but now is revealed this is talking about the mystery the mystery is now revealed By the scriptures in the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God is made known to all the nations for obedience of faith. He's telling you the mystery has been revealed. You have to act dumb to keep believing there's some mystery in the Bible. It's telling you right there. It's been revealed. It's out here in the open. Yes.

And you know why they don't want to talk about it? Because it contradicts the narrative they want to teach. Right. From God's point of view, the message is settled. There is nothing else to add to the conversation. It's clear to understand God's plan before he made the world was to have a one united family of all races. That's it. That's the mystery. He had the plan before he made the universe. And it's made known to all nations. That's the great commission that proclaimed the gospel in all the world. For the obedience of faith.

Our obedience must be faith driven. We don't obey out of fear, we obey out of faith. Obedience of faith. Yes. We are to obey God's commandments by faith, not fear. We fear the Lord. We know that he's almighty God. But we obey because we... I'm sorry. I was going to say, and Paul actually started this, he started this, he started this, he started this,

he started this, he started this, he started this, Almighty God. But we obey because we... I'm sorry. I was going to say, and Paul actually started the letter talking about this obedience of faith too. In chapter 1 verse 5, he says, His desire was to win over the Gentiles unto the allegiance demanded of them by faith in Christ. He starts off with faith and he finishes with faith because, Rick, it's all about faith. He does. He's got faith. Last verse of Romans, to God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. World English Bible, to the only wise God through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever. Amen. So this is his doxology, the conclusion of his letter. He

is at the end, confirmed the revelation to all nations. the mystery has been revealed. I can just hear Paul preaching from city to city, I got great news, the mystery has been revealed. That's right. Well how do you know? Because the Holy Spirit showed it to me. Well now you get... what do you do with this guy? What do you do with this preacher saying, well, the Holy Spirit showed me the mystery. You got to believe it by faith. That's right. The obedience of faith. And then what is the purpose of all that?

What's what's what's the end result of that? What's the goal at the end? Glory to Jesus Christ. Yes, glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to Jesus Christ alone. That God the Father is the source of all wisdom. That we are to marvel and accept His perfect plan and that we do this through His Son Jesus Christ. This through means Christ is the mediator. He's the mediator of the glory. Glory forever.

This is unending praise. When Christ comes back, praise doesn't stop. It really kicks in at that point. It's unending. Be glory forever. And then he seals it with amen. So be it, let it be done. Well, there we go, we did it, Doc. Yeah, we did it. So how do you feel, Rick? Relieved, but also blessed. Yeah, I'm glad we took it on. For me personally, I'm glad we took it on. I was apprehensive

about it because I felt inadequate to teach it. But Rick, you know, you've got the Holy Spirit with you, you relied on Him, and you know, and you dug into the Word. You let the Word speak for itself. Take that lesson away from us friends. Let the Word do its work. I say that and there's benefit to research and study the Greek and the Hebrew and everything else but really when you get right down to it, it's what the Word itself says and being obedient's what the word itself says and being obedient to what the word says.

And all these other things give us insight and give us application to the practical application of scripture, but we must get into the scripture. We must read the scripture. We must digest it and think on it, meditate on it, not just allow it to be some sort of scholarly reading that's digested and think on it, meditate on it, not just allow it to be some sort of scholarly reading or anything like that, but that these are the words of life. Even the tough passages are the words of life.

Doc, I agree with Gerald. He said, I didn't realize there was something to learn in Romans 16 until now, I'm with you. I always looked at it as oh I can skip that chapter it's just big long goodbye I mean how many times can you read somebody saying goodbye but when you go through each line yes and you got a shovel and you start digging. Amen. You find there's stuff under there. Yes. And you got to bring it out. Good stuff. I will tell you this again, I mean, before we wrap it up here. So I don't know for Doc, but for me, teaching this book has been a know for Doc, but for me, teaching this book has been a journey of faith. So you have witnessed my faith in action.

Every day I had to tell myself, you can you can do this, you can get this book done, you can finish this book. I had a mental block that Romans was going to be a very difficult book to teach. It was, but I did it by faith. Okay. That's what I want you to see. You can do anything in Christ. All things are possible. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me see you whatever you're facing today. You can do it. Whatever you're facing in the future is coming up. Don't be apprehensive about it. Don't

worry and fret and say I don't know how I'm gonna get through that you will get through it you got a court trial coming up well you know what the name one of the names of the Holy Spirit is he's your lawyer your advocate he's your advocate he will be in the courtroom with you He says when when you go to court, I'll tell you what to say Yes, I don't know I just feel like there's somebody's got a court trial coming up and you're you're really apprehensive about it No, you're lawyer is the Holy Spirit. He'll tell you what to say He'll be there with you

You got a doctor's appointment coming up it's really bothering you the Holy Spirit's gonna be there with you You got an unpleasant family situation you got to deal with Holy Spirit will be there with you Do it by faith Okay, so faith. Okay, so tomorrow we'll be here and we'll start a new book and I'm not quite sure yet. I'm going to talk to Doc today and make a decision on where we're going tomorrow, but we will do it by faith and we'll be blessed and you'll be blessed and this class will continue to grow. God bless you. Thank you for being with us. Let's see, five months to get through the book of Romans? A little over five months, yes. So five and a half, I guess.

Did we start in December? We're first of the year, didn't we? Yeah, so January through, yeah, this was the fifth month. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we haven't finished the fifth month. That's right. So, yeah, so five months. So, five months ahead. So, to get through the book of Romans. That's not bad.

We did it. Bless you. Thank you. We'll see you tomorrow. God bless you. Love you. We'll see you then.