End of Romans

Wednesday nights, at Buffalo Valley Baptist Church, I am generally preaching through a book of the Bible. I try to make each sermon stand alone, meaning I don't recap the previous message and then preach until I run out of time and say "I'll pick it up next week." If you were to come and visit us on Wednesday nights (please do, all are welcome!) you would hear a message, not a running commentary. Last Wednesday marked the 100th and final sermon in our series on the book of Romans. I only mention it, because the world is a different place than when we began Romans 1 two years ago. When we started the book, there was no COVID-19 and wearing masks in public in West Virginia was against the law. It didn't take long for the whole world to change,  but it did. Who would have believed me if I would have said, in the first message, that before I got to the end of the book, some state governments  in the United States would shut down church services, businesses would be shut down and the economy would be wrecked  because of a world-wide strain of virus that came out of China.

Prophets had a hard job, didn't they? I mean, it's easy to comment on events as they happen. You'll have people agree with you and disagree, but punditry isn't that hard. But think about the prophets who warned the kings of Israel of God's coming judgment, when the economy was roaring, the military was strong, and the borders were secure. Judgment? Famine? You're crazy. The prophets foretold the judgment when there was no reason to believe it was coming. Come to think of it, where were the prophets in 2019?  Aren't some of the TV evangelists (i.e., charlatans) supposed to be prophets, getting fresh revelation from Heaven? Here was a sure enough  worldwide catastrophe, and not a peep. I  wouldn't be surprised if they decreed and declared 2020 would be the "year of blessing and harvest."

 

The world changed, but the Bible didn’t change. I didn't switch gears when COVID-19 broke out because I didn't have to.  I didn't need to make retractions or revise my opinions. God's word was a comfort to us, it strengthened us, it fixed our minds on eternal truths. I didn't need to abandon preaching through Romans. Sure, I applied the truth to our lives in light of all that was going on. Romans 13, it wasn't theoretical. God guided us in how he wanted us to live. It was comforting to know that "all things work together for good," when life wasn't. It is encouraging to know, "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." I just kept on preaching God's Word to God's people because what Paul wrote in the book of Romans is still true and has not changed, even though the world did.