Talk—Phil Jennings
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I would, I would just say, John, that you underestimated the number of years that this has been on my heart.
And I also want to say that.
There are strong this message before.
I've been told not to apologize, so I'm not going to apologize.
Before we can get started.
So we're having a problem here, right? I think I'm lost.
So you may need to repeat it all the above.
Are we? Are we on?
Yeah, you know, it's our father's desire. His desire is greater than mine that we could lay hold of the truth that we're going to be speaking about in the next 4 meetings. And so we're going to ask him for help. Straight Father, we just come to you this evening and we're so thankful most of us are in your family.
Father, we're thankful, thankful for your son.
Made this wonderful message of the Gospel possible available.
And Father, we believe it's understandable.
The Father without your Spirit, which you have given to us, which is present, and each one of us that know the Lord Jesus as Savior present in our midst collectively.
Without His help, we do not have the ability to communicate the wonderful truths of the gospel. And so we sincerely ask you.
That you would pour out your spirit through your word and that it would exalt Christ, and that there would be blessing. Father, we love every single soul in this room we have.
Your love in our heart we're so thankful to be members of your family, the father we think of the fact that it may be true that there might be some who.
Aren't a part of the family yet. And we pray that there would just be a short word for them, a plead, an expression of love from you and from us that would draw their souls to Christ. So we ask you for your help in Jesus name, Amen.
I am not going to do very well with this microphone. It's it's I'm going to be in and out. I can't stand still. And so I can you attach the microphone to you.
Might knock me over, take it off there yet and then just.
I'll try that. So, you know, it is the exercise of my heart and the real desire of my heart that the Spirit of God would be able to reach every individual in this room. And we're not all in the same place. There are some of us, Possibly there's someone here in this room who hasn't yet accepted Christ as their Savior. And so I would like to address you for just a short minute.
By either reading or quoting some scriptures which speak of the importance of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's turn to Acts 20.
Thank you.
Is this yours? Yeah. OK, perfect.
X20 and verse 21.
Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks. Repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things necessary if there is a soul in this room who hasn't yet accepted Christ as their Savior. If you were not a child of God, a member of his family.
And if you do not have eternal life?
There's there's something that's necessary for you to do. You need to realize that in your condition as a child of Adam, you are unacceptable in the eyes of a holy God. You will be unacceptable in the presence of a holy God. And there needs to be two things you need to turn from the condition in which you're in.
00:05:25
You need to recognize that God has stated.
That you're in a condition that is not acceptable to a holy God. You are a Sinner. You need to take.
The truth that God is revealed to you through His Word and you need to accept it. You need to turn and change course.
And God will, God will accept you. And then you need to have faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. You know God has made salvation dependent upon.
The acceptance of the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary. That is the only way.
Another verse in John 14 says I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me. And so you know, what we're going to be talking about here is relationship. We're going to be talking about deliverance.
We're going to be talking about.
Freedom.
And if you are in your sins tonight and you haven't accepted the gift of God, which is eternal life that are Jesus Christ our Lord, you cannot enjoy the same things that we are going to enjoy. So I just make this perfectly clear. If you sit in your seat in your sins, you.
Are headed for a lost eternity.
And you can't enjoy, we're going to enjoy what God has for us tonight. This isn't going. I don't believe this is going to be a just a we're not going to take something out of the freezer and plop it on your plate and ask you to eat it.
The message that we have to enjoy tonight is going to be fresh. I trust it's going to be fresh as our brother.
Bill has been giving us fresh ministry, a trusted the Spirit of God.
Would also present ministry that would be suited, that would be enjoyable, that would be helpful, that will help to build us up. But if you're lost, it doesn't apply to you. We love you. We don't want anyone here to miss out on the blessings that God has provided.
Through a tremendous gift of his son, through the suffering of the cross.
Through the anguish of him bearing our sins on the tree.
It's such an amazing offer for salvation and we don't want you.
To lose out on the eternal blessing that is a result. My next desire is to speak.
To another.
Group or class of people before we get into the book of Romans, because I believe that doctrine without relationship is not very helpful.
I believe that our hearts need to be involved in the truth of deliverance that God has given to us. And so I want to speak to those that are younger and maybe, maybe really it's all of us, but I'd like to turn to.
John first John chapter 2 Some of you that have.
Heard me speak recently, you've heard me speak on this. And I'm not going to speak long because it's not the subject that the Lord has planned for us during during this series of meetings. But I believe it's necessary for us to understand that if we're going to benefit from teaching and from doctrine, from that which will build us up, it needs to be because we have a relationship.
With the Father, it needs to be because we love him.
It needs to be because we are in a relationship of nearness. And so I want to explain a little bit or I just want to read a verse that is characteristic of the little children where if you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are a part of God's family. You are a child of God, and God has made it perfectly clear.
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That he loves you so if we were to read.
The latter part of verse 13.
First, John two, it says, I write unto you little children, because you have known the Father. My brother Bill has been speaking about knowing God.
And God has manifested himself in so many ways. He spoke about creation today, but there's a there's something that's that's true about being a child.
A child knows their father.
Christianity is about a relationship.
And we're not going to go into the truths and doctrines of Romans without making it perfectly clear that you and I are in a relationship with the Father, and if it means that you have to set the truths of Romans aside for a few little bits of time to get to know the Father.
That's fine with me. You know, we get to know the Father when we read especially.
The Gospels. Let me let's turn to a verse.
First, well, it's in. It's in John 14, but.
It's in verse 8. Phillips saith unto him, Lord.
Show us the Father. What a tremendous desire.
As children, you know the first thing you learn as a child? Well, I bet you the first thing is you learn who your mother is, but the next thing you learn is who your father is.
And you realize that you're loved with an amazing love. It's the purpose of a father to provide, to protect, to love unconditionally, to hold.
To soothe.
To give strength to those of us that are fathers. I guess we know a little bit about this, But Phillip wanted to know the Father. And that's my desire for each one of us, not just you. Sometimes I ask myself, do I really know the Father like I should? Is it? Is there that drawing power in Christianity?
Because I have a relationship with God as my father.
And I enjoy his love.
Well.
Jesus answered verse nine and said unto him, Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known?
Me, Philip, he that has seen me, he that hath me has seen the Father. And thou hast I'm sorry. And how sayest thou show us the Father? I would like to suggest even to myself.
We want to know the Father, that we read the Gospels.
That we see the life and the love and the provision and the power of the Lord Jesus. That we meditate on who He is and what He did.
So that we can come to know the father. You know, I'm dying to get into the book of Romans because it's a very, very special book to me. But I would rather have, you know, the father first.
So you'll have to see him in the Lord Jesus.
And please God, that in him should all fullness dwell.
So when we get a glimpse of the Lord Jesus.
We're coming to know the Father.
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I don't want any of us to have a fatherless relationship as a Christian.
But there is one difficulty that can come up which can hinder the relationship that we can have with the Father. We're going to touch on it when we get into Romans a little farther down the road. But there is a hindrance that can come in and spoil the relationship that we could have with the Father, and that is that we get off the ground of grace.
I mean this.
God is not going to reveal Himself if we come to Him.
With any sense of our own merit.
Look at the prodigal son.
It was pretty wretched, wasn't he? But he came to the end of himself and he came to the father, and he didn't offer the father anything. He did kind of, yeah. He was still legal. In his heart, he thought. He thought he could work for his father for blessing. But his father didn't let him say that his father was going to have blessing flow to his son.
On the ground of grace and on the ground of grace, He gave him everything.
And so I want to encourage us all, but if we have a tendency to think of our relationship with God based upon what we can bring to Him, let's get over it.
Because he doesn't accept our relationship that way. He is who he is, he doesn't need anything.
And so if we want a relationship with the father, it's going to be on his terms, and that's who he is, not who we are.
I'm sorry if I've gotten a little bit.
I'm not trying to yell or anything like that.
These things are so important.
I want us to go into.
The book of Romans.
With appreciation, With an appreciation of the God who provided the truth there.
You know, the book of Romans centers around the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
That's the reason why there's deliverance. That's the reason why we can turn to the next verse, and this next verse will help us to get into the book of Romans.
John, Chapter 8.
I.
In verse 29 it says, And he said, And he that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things which please the thought, please Him. And as he state these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him.
If he continued in my word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth.
And the truth shall set you for him.
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
So if we were to continue reading, we would find that he was speaking to another group of people in the next verses and he said the sun would set them free. But those were people that didn't believe on him. The people that believed on him needed the truth to set them free. You and I, we believe I am, don't we, if we've accepted them as our Savior.
We believed on it, but we need something else.
Set free.
I share this just because.
I didn't know what it was to be free.
For many years.
I didn't understand the truths of Romans.
And I struggled knowing what it was to be free.
And this verse helped me to understand what liberty is in Christ. Let's go back to the end of verse 29 says where I do always those things which please and.
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With the Lord Jesus, you didn't have a sinful nature.
He didn't have a will.
That was.
Activated.
By a nature.
That was opposed to God, you and I do. We have an old sinful nature.
And it's it's opposed to God.
And.
Our will activates that nature, that is, as children of Adam.
We need to be set free from it.
And the wonderful truths that we find in Romans do that.
Let's go to.
We're going to go to the Old Testament for a minute.
We're going to go to Exodus 13.
In a series of meetings, I don't know how far we're going to get, and I know that there's a lot of people that are going to be coming and going and they're going to be leaving. They're not going to be able to take in the whole thing, and that's just fine because the Spirit of God can use whatever we have had.
And make it a blessing to your soul.
And so I'm not concerned about whether everyone's going to hear the whole series or not.
But.
I would like to read.
Exodus 13.
In verse 17.
And it says that it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God LED them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, lest per adventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. But God LED that the people about.
Through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.
And the children of Israel went up, harnessed out of the land of Egypt.
So there's two ways to the Promised Land. One of them.
Is the shorter one.
But it has conflict involved.
And the children of Israel.
They're not prepared for conflicts.
And this is a real good picture.
Of you and I, in our early stages of growth in our Christian lives, we're not really ready for conflict. We can't, we can't handle the enemy all that Satan is going to throw at us. And so God says, I'm not going to lead you directly into the face of the enemy.
I'm going to lead you through the Red Sea.
Through the wilderness of the Red Sea. And that's what happens when we go through Romans.
We get LED through the wilderness of the Red Sea. The Red Sea speaks of death and resurrection.
Tim Hatton, Would you mind? Where's Tim Hatton? Hatton.
Jim, could you tell us what the model of New Hampshire is?
Live free or die? Live free or die.
But in the book of Romans, we have to turn that around. It's die and live free.
Die and live free.
And so the children of Israel had to go through the Red Sea, and in the wilderness of the Red Sea was the experience of learning how the Red Sea applied to their everyday life, death and resurrection every day, every step that they took.
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Was with the realization that they have passed.
Through death and had risen on the other side, and they were looking at their enemies, and they were dead on the seashore.
You know what, we may not understand this. It takes time for the Spirit of God to take these truths and make them good to you. I'm going to give you an example of this.
I used to have Bible studies in my basement and they usually got Romans.
One young brother came over and we had Bible studies and I spent an hour.
Enjoying with him the truth of Romans, can't remember where I was and it doesn't matter. But at the end of that Bible study, he said, look, he looked at he's a guy that if he if he's thinking something, he'll say it. And he looked at me and he said, Phil, I didn't understand a word you said.
Well, that was a little bit of a shock to me, but that was OK because I understand that I can't make anybody understand. It's got to be a work of the Spirit of God. But you know what happened a couple weeks ago?
He came up to me after meeting and he said, Phil, you know, you always tell us that you're going to tell us what we are.
Now I have a little expression that I use that I tell people what they are. And this is in in relationship to being in Christ, having a new life, possessing the Spirit of God. I say, I tell people who they are and I tell them who it's not my job to tell them what they ought to be.
Because until they understand what they are, until they understand the value of the work of the cross of Christ.
Will never be what they ought to be. And so he came up to me and he said, Phil, he said, I've been enjoying lately. Now this is the same guy that didn't understand a word I said.
He he came up to me and he said, Phil, you tell you, you, you, you always tell us what we are. He said, I've been enjoying what I am. I've been enjoying that I'm in Christ. It's just, it's just wonderful. And you know, it doesn't have anything to do with me.
But that's what I would would desire to happen during this series of meetings. I would like to tell you what God has done through the cross of Christ in bringing a full and complete deliverance from every enemy. We can look on the on the Bank of the Red Sea.
And we can see our enemies.
Dead on the seashore.
And we can see ourselves risen, not in atom anymore.
That in Christ now.
That's possibly a little bit of a overview, but it's true.
What we're going to be sharing today, we don't understand a whole lot of it. We understood more. We would be freer and freer and freer. We would have more of an ability to always do those things which please the Father.
We would shine more in the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because this is the value of the cross.
This is what God accomplished at the cross in Romans, explains it and so.
I could tell you that.
It's been years and years and years.
That it's taken the Lord to show me the truths that we're going to be enjoying.
There's been a lot of pain, a lot of struggle, but it's been worth it.
And I know that as I speak to you, I have no expectation as to how long it will take for you.
For the Spirit of God, See, we like to think that we lay hold of truth, that I believe the truth lays hold of us.
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And when it lays hold of us.
It brings about a change. It brings about a liberty.
And.
Just the freedom.
You know, there's that's something I've been thinking about lately.
And I don't know if it's the right thing to say.
That I would almost, you know, when, when a, when a child, when a child is with their father and their father is explaining some something that he knows very well, you know, he knows through and through as to how to do. And so he sits down with his child and he begins to explain it. And he, he, he, he knows it so well. And he so he explains it well. The child looks at him and says, Dad, would you just show me?
Would you just show me?
You know, I wish I could just show you the truth of Romans. I wish that in my life there was enough for you to see that you could see the the, the, the truth and the reality of the full deliverance that has been brought through the cross of Christ.
That's my desire, you know, sometimes when we speak.
We don't get very far.
But if I could just show you.
It might make an impression on you. I don't know if I can or not.
So let's let's turn to Romans.
We started this meeting about 935, didn't we?
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, Romans chapter one called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. Paul had the privilege to have this wonderful message delivered to him to deliver to us, and it's a message.
That has one focus and that focus.
Is the Lord Jesus Christ. God would have you know the gospel means good news.
And God wouldn't have any good news if it weren't for the fact that the Lord Jesus stepped into the gap, as our brother Virgil was saying the other day, He stepped into the gap and he provided.
A A A salvation of full and complete deliverance. You know, when God doesn't work, he doesn't do it half halfway, He does it completely. And that's what we have to learn and to enjoy.
That the Gospel presents a message that delivers completely.
But it's concerning Jesus Christ our Lord.
Verse 3 concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
How pleased God must be that His Son has provided everything for fallen man.
Everything that we need.
God has provided through his Son. He is delighted in him and we can be delighted as well.
In verse four it says declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness.
By the resurrection of the dead.
You know, we've been speaking today, or we've been, yeah, we've been speaking today of the power of God as it is revealed in creation. And it's an awesome, awesome thing. Some of you have had the privilege of getting on the bus and driving and seeing such beautiful.
A display of the, the the the the glories of our Creator God.
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But it's nothing like this verse. Let's read it again.
And declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead.
And so.
God in his power.
Has overcome the consequences of our sins. His Holiness demanded death.
But God in his awesome mighty power.
Has overcome the consequences of our sins, and He did it according to the spirit of holiness.
And so we know a God who has been able to provide.
Salvation. Redemption for us. But he didn't compromise one single bit of his own character.
You and I have become the children of God without God lowering Himself.
Been doing so.
And that power of God has been manifested in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
His power has been manifest, and it's in resurrection that salvation has come. I realize this. This verse could be explained better, but that's OK, We'll carry on. I just want to go on to verse seven because I want to present to you the heart of the apostle Paul.
He was about to present the truth of the gospel.
And he did it as a servant of God who loved.
The children of God, you know.
Just I just want to stop a minute and say.
I felt like there's a special reason why Romans is where it is. Romans is found. Romans is the 1St letter to the church, not the one that was first written, but the one God chose to put in order to be first. And the truths of the gospel are found in the first.
8 chapters of that book.
Do you think there's any significance to that?
Do you think God placed these truths of the gospel in the very first letter and in the very first eight chapters for a reason? I believe there is. I believe He wants us to understand them. I believe they're foundational to how we are going to get on as Christians.
Unfortunately, I didn't understand that.
When I was a young Christian, like many of you, I was under influences. I was under mentorship that didn't really understand the truth of Romans, and it took me years to come out from underneath the lack of proper teaching that brings.
Deliverance, liberty and freedom.
That come from the first book.
And the first eight chapters.
Of the letters that were written to the church. I want to emphasize this if, if, if we don't understand this.
Teaching We will not have a proper foundation for our Christian life.
And so I that's all I can do. All I can say is the Spirit of God is going to have to open it up to you.
If you're going to understand what being a Christian really is.
God has time, He's not in a hurry.
But we're not really going to know.
What?
The truth that sets us free is.
Unless the Spirit of God opens the 1St 8 chapters of the first book, the first epistle that was written to the Church.
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Just share that with you. But if we were to read the greeting of the apostle Paul to all that being roamed, beloved of God, called to be Saints, grace to you, and peace from our God and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it a wonderful greeting? It puts us in relationship.
Was the one who was going to open up the truth of deliverance, the truths that will flow from the cross of Christ. And I trust that Lord would give us each one of us that desire to have that that love for each one of the Saints of God as we would seek to encourage them to come to understand the truths of this book.
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of through all the whole world, for God is my witness whom I have served with my spirit and the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing. I make mention of you always in my prayers. Very important for those of us who desire to.
Be able to.
Communicate.
These wonderful truths.
That we be so reward about those that we are seeking to reach. I I have to admit I don't do it near like I should.
And and here's the apostle Pauls desire making requests, If by means now at length I might have prosperous journey that by the role of God to come unto you, for I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift that you to the end you may be established.
So the apostles, the apostle Pauls desire was that these truths go down deeply rooted into the lives of.
Romans and he wanted to be able to come to them. He wanted to be able to import a spiritual gift so that that process of establishment might go quicker and faster and if they might get established quicker. But it wasn't God's desire. And this is the grace of God because this brings you and I into the equation. God didn't allow the apostle Paul.
To go to the Romans to.
Give this establishing truth and then just leave it.
Empty might say for the rest of us.
He hindered him, her boy.
So that.
We would write the book.
He hindered Paul from being able to go to Rome so that you and I could have the very same establishing throughs that he was going to give to the Romans if he could have gone there in person. And so we have the book of Romans and I'm I, I see that.
We're losing the ability to, I don't know if it's me or to you. We're losing the ability to hang in there.
We're starting to lose people, so we're going to stop tonight and we're going to carry on another night. But you know what, maybe maybe I woke you up. Maybe I just woke you up. So I'm going to go a couple more verses because I want to explain what the gospel is, okay? And then maybe I'll do it again. I don't know.
So.
It says that that that I might comfort. We might be comforted together.
With you, by the mutual faith, both of you and me. You know what, what is so nice about a time like this? Is there space in you and there's faith in me. You're enjoying something, I'm enjoying something. It's a mutual faith. And we have a really, really good time sharing the Lord. You know, it was no different with Apostle Paul. He had, he had the, he had the gospel committed to him.
And he could just sit and talk to them the whole time.
And he could, he could dominate everything. But he.
Loved to see the faith that was in each one of those Romans. And he wanted to hear it. He wanted it to be a, a part of that which would encourage and strengthen and help him. And so it is I stand up here right now, but I value the work of faith in each one of your. It's the mutual faith that we have together.
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And it's a wonderful thing. I just want to thank John. I wish that Pam were here. Because behind every great man, there is a great woman. And I'm just kidding.
No, I got the privilege of spending, spending quite a bit of time and John and Pam's home. I got to know them and I have an extreme value. I value Pam very, very, very highly. Or she could be here.
But we tomorrow we yeah, we we enjoy that mutual faith. But I want to go on. It says I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as as in me is I'm ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
Well, as God committed the truth of the gospel to the apostle Paul, do you realize he had a responsibility?
And that was to commit it to the Romans.
As we take up this this study, it's because to some degree God has committed it to me and I have a responsibility to you.
To whatever degree, it has been committed to me.
I have a responsibility to you. The same goes for you.
To whatever degree the gospel, the truth of the gospel, has been committed to you, you have a responsibility to commit it to others.
This will be a good place to stop. Let's pray.
Father, we just come to thee and thank you for your love to us, and we thank you for the wonderful message of the Gospel. It is a complete and total package.
Of deliverance that centers around the Lord Jesus Christ and his his person and his work father it is it is such an amazing deliverance when we think of how we have often struggled in our life with that which is connected with what we were in Adam and we just there have been times when we have thought there's just no way we're ever going to see the.
Of this or that. And yet as the truth of the gospel comes home to our soul, it brings deliverance. And we would pray tonight. We don't know there's going to be some to leave and that we really haven't gotten into Romans. Father, we pray that the Spirit of God will work.
And the truths that set us free will have will begin to work in souls. We know that in many it's already well on the way. And so we ask Father, that you will bless your word in Jesus name, Amen.