Why the Gospel Changes After the Cross — Romans 3 Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And again, it's good to have everybody back. And of course, for the benefit of our television audience, this is another new taping session. So this is another series of four programs that we've been putting together. And so we've got some new faces. And I always like to address the folks in the studio of how appreciative I am that they come in. Some of these come all the way from Arkansas, and some from clear down at McAllister. And I don't see any others any more distant than that. Jerry comes from over at Muskogee, and Gerald at Martlesville. We just have them from all over the eastern part of Oklahoma. And so we do appreciate the effort that's put forth. And of course, over here are people from my neck of the woods, clear down at Kinta. And can't leave them out, can we? And anyway, we're always so glad that everybody puts forth the effort. It's been a long time since I've shared with the television audience. In fact, I think I've only done it once, and this is almost now. We were just saying this is the 44th taping, so that means we've almost been on the air a year. And I think only once in that four years did I explain how in the world God got me to the place where we are. And it's kind of interesting to look back and see how He does work in all our lives, not just mine. But as I've told people so often, I would have never dreamed, never entered my mind that I would ever be on a television program. But that's the beauty of the Christian life. You never know what the Lord has in store. But anyway, just for the benefit of some who have asked again recently, it all began, I think, as most people who are involved with a local church. I was teaching a class of high school kids. And in the midst of those high school children, periodically we had a missionary family from Bolivia that would come home on furlough. And they had, I don't know, four or five, didn't they? And as those kids were growing up, sooner or later as they come home on furlough, I'd have at least one of them in my Sunday school class then for that year that they were home. And then in 1970, this missionary, Dick Wyman, he's with New Tribes, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind getting the credit for it. While he was home on furlough, he had begun a home Bible study with two couples. And the reason it's fresh in my mind, one of the ladies of those two couples just called yesterday morning. Now, that goes clear back up to northern Iowa. She just called yesterday morning with some questions, and they're still having Bible classes, not with me personally now, but with the tapes. But anyway, I told her, I said, Do you ever realize that all this is because of your patience with me when I came in, and I didn't really know that much, and started teaching those four people? Well, anyway, I got to back up a little bit. After Dick had been teaching them then that year of furlough, he was ready to go back to the field, and he didn't want to drop them. And so I was farming, and he drove out to the farm one morning and asked if I would go in once a week and teach those four people as he had been doing in the home. Well, you know, I'd never done anything like that before. I'd taught my Sunday school kids, and that was it. And so I went and asked my own pastor. I said, Now, how in the world can I go into a home, people that I only know casually, and totally different denominational backgrounds, how can I go in and teach those people without them getting the idea that I'm trying to proselyte them into my own church? And he said, Well, just go back in Genesis 1 and teach from Genesis to Revelation. And I said, Well, that's easy for you to say. But I said, I've never done anything like this before. And he said, Well, you just trust the Lord. He'll take care of it. And so that's when Iris went and bought that little two-bit blackboard. But I can't do anything without a blackboard. And we went in. I'll never forget it. It was the first Friday night in September of, I think, 1970 to those four people. And Iris and I, we were six. And by Thanksgiving, that had grown to that house was so packed with people from several different denominations that it had to be split. Someone else said, Well, I'll take a different night of the week. And then within just a couple years, we were having classes every night of the week as well as my own Sunday school class. And we always had a class at our church on Sunday night. And then 1975, just out of the blue, you might say, the Lord had other plans. And He just uprooted us from Iowa and brought us to Oklahoma. And the same thing happened here. As most of you know, I never go out and try to open up something. I wait until someone says, Well, come down and start a class here or come and start a class over here. And then the same way happened with television. I had never thought of it. And then one of my students over at the telecor class called one day, and he says, Have you ever thought about teaching on television? And I'll never forget my answer. I said, Are you crazy? But he had already talked to the fellows here, and they had shown an interest. So we came and talked to them, and they thought we had a great idea. And as I responded to one of the listeners from North Carolina, he picks up on the satellite, and he says, I like your low-key informal approach. Don't ever put on a suit coat. And I said, Well, that was one of the first stipulations I made, that I wasn't going to come up here in a $500 suit with fancy clothes and a fancy setup. We're just going to teach the book, and we're going to keep it plain and simple. And, you know, I think this is what the audience has responded to. They just like the simplicity of it. And so as I've told more than one, hopefully we'll never change. We'll just keep it this way. And the Lord is blessing it beyond our fondest dreams. So anyway, that's what got us to where we are. And then, of course, the more you teach, the more you learn. Anyone who has been in any discipline knows that. But I could never do it, of course, without the Lord's help and the prayers of all the believers, not only in our classes, but in the television audience as well. All right, now then, I'm going to review just a little bit, because as I told the folks here in the studio, we've got new listeners coming in every week. And as I've said so often, even to my classes, some will say, Well, I've got a friend that wants to start coming. And if I'm in Old Revelation or something, I'll say, Well, why don't you just sort of hold them off, because I'd rather they come in when we start in Genesis. Because I like to have people start with me in Genesis and then just come on all the way up, because I've always used this illustration to come into my line of teaching way late into the New Testament. It's like having a kid come into a calculus class without ever having had fourth-grade arithmetic, because it's a progressive process. Now, of course, you don't want to push somebody out the door and say, Well, wait until I go to Genesis. But nevertheless, this is why we like to teach beginning with Genesis and come all the way up through the Old Testament. Now then, for those of you who have just tuned in in the last month or two, you'll say, Well, now, how in the world did all of a sudden you go from Daniel to Revelation? Well, those of you who have been with me, you'll remember that when we started back here in Genesis in the creation of Adam, and we came up through the Old Testament and we studied the flood, we studied the Exodus and the giving of the law under Moses, and then we had come through prophecy, which was primarily Isaiah and so forth. And by the time we got to Daniel and dealt with the time period of 606 B.C., and Nebuchadnezzar came in, you remember, and overran the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the temple and got everything ready then so that the nation of Israel was taken out. Then they came back under Ezra and Nehemiah, and we covered all that. And we were just ready then to come into vice earthly ministry. And His first advent, His first coming, and then those of you who were with me at the time remembered we had several that requested, well, now just stay with prophecy. You've been in Daniel. Stay with prophecy and go teach the book of Revelation. So that's what we did. In our timeline then, we went before we got even introduced to the earthly ministry of Christ, we went all the way back and studied the book of Revelation and took it on to the end out into eternity future. Now what we're doing in this last few weeks, we're coming back now, and we are starting with the first advent or Christ's earthly ministry. That's the way I like to put it. His earthly ministry. Those three years. And then we're going to keep going now and we'll be covering the crucifixion, of course, and then we'll come into the book of Acts, and then we're going to go into Paul's epistle, and then we'll be pretty well caught up with where we were. Now for sake of just a little bit of review again, as we came out of the Old Testament and we come into the new, as I've been stressing now for the last several programs, we have to realize that this is an extension of the Old Testament program. It's just an extension now of those covenants and promises that God had made with Israel. It is not yet the appearance of the church as we know it. Now that's where so many people get confused. When I use the word confused, I'll have to think of a young man that came to the break time in one of my classes, came up to me and he said, you know, Les, for years, and he wasn't that old, I guess he was in his 30s, he had small children, but he says, for years, he said, people have been put in the book, now this is in symbolic language, he said, they've been put in the book in a blender, they turn it up on high, and then they ladle it out to me and wonder why I get indigestion. Well, that's a little more extreme than the way I'd often put it. I'd often said, you know, people just take the book and they put it in a mixing bowl, and they stir it all up, and then they pick out whatever they think they like. Well, like I said, he did a little more extreme, he put it in a blender, but the overall result is the same, you come up with a mix mash. No wonder people are confused. But see, what I try to do is not mix everything up, but let it be the progressive revelation that it is, and just let it unfold, and as I've told people who are getting interested in study, always study the Word where it is. Don't try and lift it out of context and make it mean something that it doesn't say. Just leave it where it sits. If that doesn't make sense, wait a while, it will. But don't try to lift it out. Same thing, I always tell people when they read or study, the first thing you have to determine is to whom was it written or spoken. Now I'm not the only one that has said that. I remember years ago I had been stressing that in my Stigler class, and then one Sunday a lady in my class went to her home church for their 75th reunion. And they had one of their former pastors of course as the guest speaker at the 11 o'clock hour. And boy she came back next week to the class and she was just tickled pink. She said, Les, he said the same thing as he opened his sermon that you said. And I said, well like what? She said, the first thing he said to our people was now whenever you read your Bible, always decide to whom is it addressed. And I said, see I'm not way out in left field. No, she said, but it is so good to hear it from somebody else. Well that's true. And so what we try to do is leave the Scriptures exactly where they are, determine to whom it's addressed, and all Scripture cover to cover is for us. Absolutely it is. Paul writes, all Scripture is inspired of God and is profitable. But not all of the Scripture is to us. You see the difference? For example, had a lady come up last night, I didn't intend to do this honey, James. I'm always throwing a curve at her over there, but the little book of James, clear at the back. And I had a lady just last night come up with a question out of the book of James. And a rather valid question, hard to understand from our position in God's grace. And instead of trying to answer the question from the verse that she was pointing out in chapter three or four, let's just go back to chapter one, verse one. And that will make all the difference in the world in what your verse is saying. You all with me? Little book of James, chapter one, verse one. Now this is exactly what I'm talking about. James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom? The twelve tribes. Is he including Gentiles? See, he's writing to Jews. Now that makes all the difference in the world. Now that doesn't mean you tear the book of James out and throw it away. Oh, no way. There are still a lot of good little tidbits in the book of James, but there are some things that, if it throws a curve at you, you just stop and think, now wait a minute. He was writing to Jews. And James is probably the earliest of the New Testament epistles, so James is still predominantly legal. It has so much of the law in it. And it was written before Paul's revelation of the Gospel of Grace. And so this is what you have to understand. And don't try to fight it. You just simply say, well, no, I'll just leave this alone for the time being, because after all, this was written to Jews in particular. And it's for us. In other words, when it speaks of the tongue as being a fire, well, of course, that's very applicable for any age. And so on and so forth. So now we've been showing for the last several weeks, of course, that as John the Baptist came on the scene and introduced Christ and His earthly ministry, that everything has been to the Jew. No mention of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. No mention of power of the shed blood to forgive, but only that they were to recognize who He was. Again, I always have to be reminded, and I was teaching my class in Tahlequah, and I have a dear brother, he's 80 some years old, I think, and he's a retired Presbyterian pastor of a large church in Chicago. And I didn't realize, he'd been in my class for a couple years before I realized just who this gentleman was. And here he had been pastoring a huge church in Chicago for 20, I think, 26 years. He had two seminary degrees, Wheaton College, and Moody Bible Institute. And then that gentleman is content to sit and listen to me. I couldn't comprehend it. But anyhow, one night we were talking about these very things, and I asked the class, like I'm prone to do in our weeknight, I can't do it here in television because the time goes too fast. I wish I could. But I asked the question, and I said, alright, now why did Jesus perform all these miracles upon miracles upon miracles? And I'll never forget His answer. He was sitting right over here to my right, and He says, "...to validate who He was." And I love that. And I've told him, I said, Lester, I'll never use any other word but that. Because that hits the nail on the head. "...to validate who He was." Now you see, this was the whole problem with Israel's rejecting Him. They couldn't understand that He was the promised Messiah. A carpenter's son? Out of Nazareth? In fact, who was it? Nathanael even said, has any good thing ever come out of Nazareth? See? And they couldn't comprehend it. But nevertheless, they should have understood that no one but the Messiah, the Son of God Himself, could perform the miracles that He was performing. And you remember a few weeks ago, we took you back to when John was in prison? John the Baptist? And he sent his disciples to find Jesus, and ask Him, Are You the One, or do we look for another? And what did Jesus tell those friends of John? You go back and tell John what? The blind receive their sight, the dead are being raised, the deaf are getting their hearing back. Well, what was that to prove to John? Who He was. And so all the way through the Gospels, this is the proof of it, that He was indeed the Christ. Now then, I'd like to have you come, even to John's Gospel. I told everybody here, I was going to start with Acts 19, or Acts 11, verse 19, but we're going to get there in a little bit. But now back in John's Gospel, and you know, I tell my classes constantly, and I've told you, as I'm teaching, I learn. And I don't always let on. But the other night, again, we're teaching the book of John, and I can't let on my ignorance all the time. But here we were teaching in the book of John the other night, and we've been in John for, I guess, several months, haven't we, down in Wilburton. And we got to chapter 20, and I'd like to have you turn there, if you will, down to verse 30 and 31. John 20, verse 30 and 31. And John writes, And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. Now verse 31. Now lock this in. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who died for the sins of the world and rose from the dead. Isn't that amazing? Your Bible doesn't say that. My Bible doesn't say that. Do you remember a few weeks ago I took you through four other places where the profession of their faith was thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and I did the same thing. I added that, and I do that to make people realize that a lot of the things we think are in here aren't. And that's what I mean when I say that you cannot find the Gospel based on His death, His shed blood, His burial, and His resurrection. You cannot find it in Scripture until you get to Paul. But this is what they were to believe, that He was indeed the Christ. Now the other four I always use is in Matthew 16, I think it is. Yeah, Matthew 16, where Peter says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Period. The next one is in John's Gospel, chapter 11, the death of Lazarus. And poor old Martha is all shook up, and Jesus tells her, well Lazarus is going to rise again. And she says, Oh I know, at the resurrection of the last day. And then Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. Believest thou this? And then what was her confession? Yes Lord, I believe thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Period. And then you go to Acts chapter 8, the Ethiopian eunuch, and Philip ministers to him, and they are reading out of Isaiah 53. Remember? And they come all the way down, and Philip says, Now look, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? See, because after all, this has been the program. And what did Philip say? If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And what did the eunuch say? Oh I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Period. Never mentions the cross, never mentions the shed blood, never mentions the power of resurrection, only that He was the Christ. Now then, solitarsis. Converted. On the road to Damascus. Threatening. I always call him a raging bull. Just can't wait to get to Damascus to arrest those believing Jews, haul them back to Jerusalem, and throw them in prison. He had no compassion for them, and he thought he was doing God a favor. But you know what happened? The Lord saved him, by grace, but not on the basis yet that he understood that Christ died for him, because you see in Acts chapter 9, you check me out when you get home, in Acts chapter 9, as soon as Paul has received food, and has gotten his sight back, he's been baptized of course, and now he goes right down to the synagogue. Now when we get into the book of Acts, I'll be pointing all this out. He doesn't go out into the marketplace to proclaim it to Gentiles that Christ died for the sins of the world, but he goes into the synagogue, and what does he teach in the synagogue? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Period. Now those are the four I most generally use. And then the other night I found this one. I mean it just jumped up at me. Even John's Gospel, that's all he says. These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Now of course we have to believe that. That's foundational, but in itself it's not enough. And that's what I try to hammer home to people. To just simply believe that Jesus was the Son of God, that He was Israel's Messiah, that's not going to save anybody in this age of grace. We have to go to that next part of Revelation, and that is that yes, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, went to that cruel cross. There He shed His blood. Now let me just for sake of comparison take you to Romans chapter 3. And what a difference. What a difference the cross makes. It's no longer enough to just assent to the fact that He is the Christ, that He is the Son of God. Yes, you have to know that, absolutely. But what did the Christ, the Son of the Living God do? He went to that cross. Now you've got Romans 3. I always like to start with verse 23. For all have sinned, not just the Gentiles, not just the Jew, but the whole human race have sinned, and they've come short of the glory of God. Verse 24. But we don't have to stay short, because 24 says, being justified freely by His grace. See, now there's no works in grace. Grace is the total opposite of works. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His, what? Blood. See, now that's never been mentioned before. Now here it is. It's through our faith in His shed blood to declare His righteousness, that is the righteousness of Christ, for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. And then verse 26. To declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, that He might be just, that He might be fair, and He can be the justifier that puts Him in the place of doing, and He is the justifier of Him, or that person, who, what? Believeth. See, believeth. Nothing else. But it hasn't always been that way. Now, let me back up. Here I'm going to go to the verse now that I had the class first be ready for. Acts chapter 11. Because if you'll remember, down through the last 3 1⁄2 years, I've always been commenting that beginning with Abraham, here at 2000 B.C., from Adam to Abram was also 2000, and so from Abraham until Christ's first coming, that 2000-year period, I've always placed it as Jew, what? Jew only, with exceptions. We're not going to leave that out, because there were some exceptions of Gentiles coming into a relationship with the God of Abraham. But for the most part, it's been Jew only. All the Old Testament prophets are writing only to the nation of Israel. And so, as we pointed out several weeks ago, when Jesus sent the twelve out, do you remember? Where did He tell them to go? Go nowhere but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Oh my land, we've only got 30 seconds left. So now then, come into Acts chapter 11, because this is the verse I wanted you to see before we leave this program. Because this is the verse that just totally, as some people have been telling me, blow their mind. Here it is. Acts 11 verse 19. Now they who were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as far as there and so forth, and they preached the word to none but Jew only. The book says it, I didn't. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.