Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA)
One of the interesting concepts in Frank Peretti's fictional books is that the saints regularly fail in their witness and work of competing with the worldly pagans. Time and again worldly plotting appears to triumph over the plodding progress of the church in Peretti's universe. Certainly, God's will eventually triumphs in the context of his stories just as God does in real life. But not every generation of the church is as productive or exciting as that of the first century or the sixteenth.
The safety of the Roman roads and seaways sped Paul on his journey, even as the printing press spread the scriptures, tracts, and books of the sixteenth century so that the work of God's agents might be spread abroad. And of course, in addition to the movement of the word through missionaries, soldiers, travelers and book sellers, God also causes his people to go where he wants them to hear the word.
According to one of our family legends, my ancestors migrated from Belgium to France and then Scotland, arriving there just in time for the Reformation. After the Reformation settled down in Scotland, one of the Presbyteries spent some of its meager resources to import some sheep to begin a woolen industry to lift their people out of poverty. That plan was so successful that the rich and powerful eventually decided that there were too many people living in places where sheep would produce more wealth. So as the Highland clearances began in earnest and rebels and rabble-rousing Covenantors were shipped to the colonies, my ancestors were displaced again. From York, Pennsylvania to Guernsey and Logan County, Ohio the generations migrated.
In the early seventies after being denied ordination I earnestly tried for several years to get out of Ohio to some place where there were more than one Reformed family per county. Obviously, the Lord has kept me here for the purpose of serving this congregation. What if my ancestors had stayed in France? They very well could have become Huguenots and been invited to the St Bartholomew Massacre. As it was, there was a near brush with disaster in Northern Ireland. Three of my distant relatives were martyred on the streets near Blackwater, Ireland by a gang of religious agitators. The rest providentially came across the Atlantic.
I say all of this to agree with the Apostle Paul that God does take care of His people wherever and whenever they may be born! Are we agreeable, a principle that some people are sent packing to spread the gospel, others to hear it. Our first hymn today was written by a reformed (with a small r) slave trader who grasped the enormity of his sinful life, sought forgiveness and left us the poem "Amazing Grace" which has become one of the most moving hymns in all of Christiandom
Even today, in many of those geographic places where our many ethnic ancestors came by many means, one out of three people around the world who have heard of America would give almost anything to come here for the economic advantages alone. That they might hear the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not even dreamed of! Devout Muslims come to Christ in greater numbers here than in their home countries where Christianity is stamped out ruthlessly.
Economic envy we can well understand, but can we apply that envy theologically as Paul wants to do in the opening of our passage in Romans today? One Jewish scholar has written in the last few years that he for one is very grateful for the tolerance of the Western Christian countries who by allowing religious freedom do indeed protect the minorities who as we might go further in this matter, hope they will want to savor the relationship we have with our Lord Jesus Christ. In Asia, earlier in this century, a Christian missionary with more than adequate resources had acquired a building and all the accouterments of a church except a congregation. Some immigrant Muslims asked permission to use his facility on their holy day. He agreed and as the Muslim fellowship moved in and began to debate and question the missionary's philosophy they learned to respect it and eventually even converted and became Christians.
Some of you here today are first generation Christians, others second, third or even sixth generation. At some point your family was grafted into the true vine of the true Church. And our little congregation is very much like some of those apple trees which have branches yielding five different cultivars of apples. Have you ever seen one of those apple trees? Yellow & Red Delicious, Macintosh, Winesap, or any other type as well. Like Paul and the early church, our vine has many branches: Italian, German, English, Malay, African, Irish and Scot immigrants came to this fair land so that we might by providence here be assembled in our day and time.
Yet, Paul cautions us in verse twenty-two that we should "consider the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness." Well do we know that as the generations progress, some members of every family are lost, only to be replaced by outsiders who are grafted in by grace. If we would wonder at this providential process we should take one more lesson from the grafting process in the orchard. Very many of the fruit trees today are not natural cultivars. The root stock may be of one kind, the stump trunk from another kind and the branch from even another kind. As Paul notes here, there is still hope for his own people who may in time be grafted into the tree of life in another generation. Could he even hope that entire Jewish groups might even come over? Let us be careful in that aspect, but let us note that there are indeed ethnic Jewish Christian congregations who have a special zeal to reach Paul's people in our time.
The real focus here in these verses is what we must take to heart, will you continue in his kindness? Will you hold fast to the doctrines of Christ? Will you remain faithful. And these are very valid questions to consider in this century when so many rotten branches are propped up to maintain the mere appearance of godly affectation! Will our PCA congregations like those of the Puritans still be here and loyal to the faith once given the saints in another century? Only the Lord knows for certain, but as we build up our root stock and prepare to graft other converts into our vine, let us hope and pray that God's providential care will guide and protect Christ's own Church and protect us each from being cut off and scattered abroad.
Resources Used: The Holy Bible, New International Version
Places Preached:Hodge, Charles. Romans. Mackenzie, R. Calvin's New Testament Commentaries: Romans. Murray, John. New International Commentary: Epistle to Romans.
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America) Post Office Box 13926 - Columbus, OH 43213-7926
Rom1c.htm 07 January 95
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