The Book of Eli May 20, 2018 Romans 7:21-25

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1 The Book of Eli May 20, 2018 Romans 7:21-25 We are in the letter to the Romans this morning, which is one of the Pauline epistles. Ooooo! everybody say that, Ooooo! It makes you sound really smart, or as we used to say back in Maine, wicked smaht! Epistle comes from the Greek word epistolé, which simply means letter. So, the letter, the epistle, by Paul to the church in Rome is one of the Pauline epistles. Paul wrote a lot of them. In fact, in chronological order in the order that he wrote these letters they are: Galatians; 1 Thessalonians; 2 Thessalonians; 1 Corinthians; 2 Corinthians; Romans; Philemon; Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; 1 Timothy; Titus; 2 Timothy; and Hebrews. All of those were written by the apostle Paul. In fact, of the 27 New Testament books, Paul wrote 14 of them. That is 69% of the New Testament. That s actually 41% of the entire Bible, so closing in on half the Bible was written by the apostle Paul. Next to Jesus himself, Paul is probably the most influential person in the history of the Christian faith. So, who is this guy? Well, Paul was actually born as Saul in the city of Tarsus, which is now in modern day Turkey. I was blessed to be able to travel to Tarsus in 2001 with my seminary class from Maine. We were supposed to go to the Holy Lands. I still want to get to the Holy Lands, that s one of the things on my bucket list, but unfortunately about two weeks before we were to leave, something happened (as there is always something happening in that part of the world). The state department shut down any travel to the Holy Land, so my professors had to throw together this trip where we followed the footsteps of Paul. It was awesome! So, I got to see a real Roman road, a road that Paul would have walked on in Tarsus. I got to see the excavation of what they call St. Paul s Well, a well that was in his hometown. It really is awesome. It s moving, and I have pictures of them. There s my team walking on a Roman road, and the excavation of St. Paul s Well in Tarsus. There s just something you can t put your finger on it there s something about walking in a place where there s a good chance an apostle walked too. My feet stepping over his footprints 2000 years later. It s the same reason I want to get to the Holy Land at some point. Can you imagine walking on roads that Jesus walked on?

2 But anyway, Paul is from the city of Tarsus in what is modern day Turkey. His parents were Pharisees. You ve heard of the Pharisees, right? Pharisees were fervent Jewish nationalists who adhered strictly to the laws of Moses, and they sought to protect their children from any contamination that they might receive from non-pharisees, or from Gentiles. We are Pharisees, we are Jews only. At age13, Paul was sent to Palestine to study under a world-renowned rabbi by the name of Gamaliel. In fact, of all the apostles that you read about in Scripture, Paul is the only one with significant theological education. The rest of them were basically fishermen and regular guys like you and me. He started under Gamaliel, he mastered Jewish history, he mastered the Psalms, the works of the prophets, and then he was going to go on to become a lawyer. All signs pointed to his becoming a member of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was kind of like the Jewish Supreme Court, if you will. The Jewish Supreme Court was made up of 71 men who ruled over the Jewish life and the religion in Israel. Saul, like his parents, was zealous for his faith; but unfortunately, his zeal led him down the path of (for lack of a better term, you could say) religious terrorism, religious extremism. Saul was present when Gamaliel argued against stoning Peter to death for preaching the gospel. Gamaliel won that argument and they decided instead to flog Peter, not kill him. But that passionate defense fell on deaf ears to Saul. He didn t listen to his mentor, it had little effect on him. Saul stood by and watched while Stephen was stoned to death. He held the coats of those who picked up rocks and threw them at Stephen until he was dead, the first Christian martyr. It describes Paul in the book of Acts, chapter 8: And after Stephen was killed: Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. (Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning). But Saul (It didn t bother him) Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison. 1 For the capital crime of following Jesus Christ of being a Christian. Saul had indeed become a religious terrorist. In fact, he not only wanted to drag men and women out in Jerusalem of their homes and put them in prison, he wanted to expand. He got permission from the Sanhedrin to travel into Syria and capture and imprison Christians there as well. It was on the road to Damascus, Syria that Saul had a confrontation with the Lord. A bright, blinding light in the sky knocked him down to the ground, blinded him like scales fell over his eyes, and Saul heard a voice: 1 Acts 8:1-3

3 Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me? 2 Saul is flabbergasted, he cries out, Who is this? Who am I speaking to? And the voice cries out: I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. 3 Saul is changed. He is transformed in that moment. He realizes that Jesus really is who he says he is, and he really can do what he says he can do. Everything changes in Saul s life. He begins going by his Roman name, Paul. He became as passionate a Christian as he ever was a Jew (without the violence). Here, in our reading this morning in his letter to the Roman church, Paul is talking to people who are struggling with sin. He s saying, I get it. I get it, folks. I really do. In verse 21, Paul writes: I have discovered this principle in life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God s law with all my heart - I believe in God s law, I agree with God s law But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 4 I mentioned in the first service this morning at the earlier service when we go into prayer, we do prayer a little differently. Before I begin the pastoral prayer, I ask for a moment of silence and we spend a minute in prayer individually. I confessed, basically, to them. I said, look, Paul is saying we inevitably do what is wrong. Do we? And then I thought, you know, almost every Sunday when we go to prayer, I stand up there and I pray to God and I ask him for mercy and forgiveness and grace, and more often than not (I am ashamed to tell you), it s for the same things. Every week. Why? Why is it? I love God s law, I agree with God s law, I believe in God s law. I want to do what is right. But every Sunday, I ask him to forgive me for not doing right, not thinking properly, not behaving as he would want me to. What is with that? We inevitably do what is wrong. The Matrix. Blade Runner. Mad Max. Chappie. Waterworld. Divergent. I Am Legend. Elysium. I, Robot. Wall-E. The Book of Eli. 2 Acts 9:4b 3 Acts 9:5 4 Romans 7:21-24

4 The Book of Eli is a great film that came out in 2010, starring Denzel Washington, and it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. Denzel has a possession that Gary Oldman s character want because he realizes the power to transform people is contained within it. It ends up, we discover at the end, it s a King James Bible. What do all of those films have in common? They all take place in the future. Why is it that the civilization that rises from the ashes of some worldwide calamity, whatever it is it could be global warming or a meteor strike, or a plague, or a zombie apocalypse it doesn t matter, pick your calamity. Why is it that the civilization that rises from a worldwide calamity is never a utopian one? It is always a dystopian one. Why is that? I have yet to see a movie set in the future where all diseases have been cured; there s no such thing as hunger; there s no violence; it s a world of peace, filled with an abundance of food, and rainbows and unicorns everywhere. I haven t seen that movie. (I haven t seen the Strawberry Shortcake movie, I admit) but I haven t seen that movie. Why is that? Maybe, I thought to myself this week, maybe we are being accidentally honest. Is our Jeremiah 17:9 showing, which reads: The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? 5 Perhaps we know it s true! When we want to do what is right, but we inevitably do what is wrong. Maybe it s because we are familiar with Psalm 51, which says: I was born a sinner yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. 6 Now, look, I am not saying these things to make you feel bad. I am mentioning them as a way to try to explain. Have you ever wondered why you want to do what is right, you know what is right, but you don t do it? What s with that? Why is that? Paul wondered that himself. He wondered why he was the way he was. For example, I told you he was traveling on the road to Syria, to Damascus, Syria, to capture Christians, but not imprison them like he was doing in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem he was going out and he was dragging men and women out of homes and putting them in prison, so why wouldn t he go to Syria and do that same thing drag men and women out of homes and put them in jail in Syria? But that s not what he was doing. He was going to Syria to capture them and bring them back to Jerusalem. That seems like a lot of work. Why would he do that? There s only one reason: the penalty for blasphemy in Syria was not a capital crime. They didn t have the death penalty in Syria. They did in Jerusalem. See, Paul was bringing these people back not because he wanted to persecute Christians. He wanted them dead! That s the kind of guy Paul was or Saul. So, he knew about Psalm 51. He knew about the condition of the human heart first hand. He was a religious terrorist and his heart was bent on violence. It s a good thing we re not like him, right? Our hearts are fine! We never rejoice when someone who is not in our group gets in trouble! When we read in the newspaper about the latest politician who has fallen for whatever reason, we don t check to see if they re a democrat or republican first, 5 Jeremiah 17:9 6 Psalm 51:5

5 and then revel in triumph if they don t happen to be in our party! No! Our hearts are fine. We don t root against other teams, right, we just root for our team! I mean, there s no rational reason to hate Tom Brady. If your team is playing against the Patriots then I can see rooting for your team, but if the Patriots are playing against someone else, we don t do that! Our hearts are fine! I know we can hid behind Oh, we re just having fun, we re just joking around. You keep telling yourself that. Just in case, like Paul, we don t always do what is right, he wants you do know there is a cure. There is a cure for a poisoned heart, a heart that is a slave to sin, like his. Verse 24, he says: Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. 7 That can all change with Jesus Christ. Now, I think it s important for me to mention the word slave, because you read that a lot in the Bible and it s important to talk about the context here in Rome. When you hear the word slave, when you hear the term slavery, I m willing to bet for most of us an image is conjured up in your mind, and we have to remember that in the New Testament, Roman slavery was not Egyptian slavery of Moses or the chattel slavery of the 17 th or 18 th century south. That s not what it was like in the New Testament. Yes, if you were captured on the field of battle and you were a P.O.W., Rome might take you back and force you to be a slave, but that was not the prevalent circumstance in Rome. Slavery in Rome was more akin to indentured servitude, even voluntary. See, in the first century there was no social safety net there was no unemployment; there was no welfare; there was no food stamps; there was no section 9; there was no social security disability. You had to earn your own way, and if you didn t you died. At this time in history, this first century, if you were injured at work even if it was the employer s fault there s no disability insurance. There s no AFLAC. If you had cancer, if you had a disease or medical condition like Multiple Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig s disease or Fibromyalgia it doesn t matter! You don t work, you don t eat. New Testament slavery is based more on economics. People sold themselves as slaves when they couldn t pay their debts for a certain period of time. Sometimes they sold themselves as slaves because they couldn t find other work and they wanted to provide for their family. Sometimes a poor family who wanted their children to get an excellent education 7 Romans 7:24-27

6 would say, Here s the deal. You can own Haley and Michaela (or you can have them fight it out with each other and see who gets it) for seven years, but while she s working for you for seven years you have to give her the best education possible. Many times New Testament slavery was voluntary. Actually, there are some lawyers, some doctors, even some politicians were slaves to someone else. Some people actually chose to be a slave, so as to have all their needs provided for by their master. So, when you read about slavery in the New Testament, do not think of Kunta Kinte not in the New Testament. That s the image that always popped into my mind. That often isn t what it was, usually isn t what it was. It is important to understand, however, that even if you have chosen to be a slave, you were still a slave who had to do with your master told you to do. Paul is saying we can be freed from slavery to sin and death through Jesus Christ. Actually, he writes later in 1 Corinthians 6, You don t belong to yourself. God bought you with a high price. He paid for you with his life. So, we have been purchased, and to me, that s a good thing! I want Christ to be my Lord and Master. I want him to be my Lord and Master, because when you realize that you have been purchased and you are not your own, when Christ is your master, your whole attitude changes. I can now die to myself and my selfishness and my self-interest, and my own decisions and choices. I can let that part go and I can always be ready and available to serve my Master. I can make sure to not get caught up in trying to serve two masters: God and money; or God and I don t know, fill in the blank, any substance you would like. We are dependent upon God for all things knowing that he will supply all needs when he is our Lord and Master. We may experience trials and troubles, but no more than he did. When Christ is our Master, we know that everything good

7 that comes our way comes from God himself, and we are truly blessed when we come to know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Master. I want to be his. I want to be his. Now, just because Jesus is our Master doesn t mean we re forced to obey. God doesn t do that, he doesn t do the forcing. Even slaves can choose to disobey. God did not stop Adam and Eve from eating from the tree. He told them not to, but he didn t stop them. He didn t stop Moses from hitting the rock with a stick when he was supposed to speak to it. He didn t stop Judas from betraying him for thirty pieces of silver. We can choose to obey. That s up to us. But friends, I am convinced that the more people who choose to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Master, the more the future will change. It will be blessed, not bleak. There will be no more Hunger Games, and no more Ready Player One. There will be no more Book of Eli. Instead, there will be a future so bright, you ll have to wear shades. What is Jesus to you? Is he a rabbi? Is he just a wise man? Is he a miracle worker? Or are you all in is Jesus Christ your Lord and Master, and do you pray to follow his will and his purpose and his plan for your life? If Christ is your Lord, you will be blessed. Would you stand and pray with me?