Lord, I swear there's no pain I know there's no danger In that bright world to which I go Welcome to this podcast from Faith Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. Faith Bible Church is a Christ-centered Bible teaching ministry dedicated to bringing the good news of the gospel to the whole world. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And now for this week's message from Pastor Alan Battle. The scripture reading today is from Romans 13, verses 11 to 14. Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone. The day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime. not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desire." This is the word of God. On Christmas Day, 1776, George Washington's Volunteer Army was ill-equipped and demoralized. Beginning that summer, the professional, well-supplied British Army forced them into successive retreats. They chased Washington from Long Island, then to Manhattan, then to New Jersey, and then finally, where they were camped, in eastern Pennsylvania, just across the Delaware River from Trenton, New Jersey. Everybody was losing confidence in the Continental Army's ability to win this war of independence. Many of the troops' enlistments were about to expire on January 1st, and they were ready to give up and head for home. But Washington had a plan. There was a British garrison in Trenton. Washington thought that if he could take that fort, that it would give his men a boost in morale, as well as convince the Congress that the cause was not yet lost. So at 11 p.m. that night, he led 2,400 men across the icy, rain-swollen river on boats and barges, carrying horses and artillery. The crossing was not quick or easy. There was a storm that night. One soldier recorded that it blew a perfect hurricane as snow and sleet pelted the army. He had two other groups of men waiting to go across the river and they couldn't even get across. So when they finally did land, they had a nine-mile hike to Trenton. And the men were tired and hungry and poorly clothed. Many didn't even have shoes, and they left bloody footprints in the snow. So why did Washington choose this night and this particular garrison for this raid? Well, the soldiers in this garrison, they weren't British. They were paid professional mercenaries from a province in Germany called Hesse. And Hessian mercenaries were some of the best trained and most feared soldiers in all of Europe. But being German, they had a particular Achilles heel, a vulnerability that Washington would exploit. Remember, this was Christmas Day. As Washington staff discussed the possibility of an attack, an officer is reported to have said, they make a great deal of Christmas in Germany, and no doubt the Hessians will drink a great deal of beer and have a dance that night. And they'll be sleepy in the morning. Well, the 18th century Christmas was not the family-centered Christmas that it became in the 19th century. It was more of an excuse for people to take a day off of work and get drunk. So that must have been what the Hessians did, because when Washington's troops arrived at 8 a.m. in the morning, The 1,400 Hessians were groggy and taken by surprise. A hundred of them were either wounded or killed, including their commander, Colonel Johan Rall. A couple of hundred escaped, but a thousand of them were taken prisoner, along with all of their armaments. This battle was a turning point in the war for independence. Many of Washington's troops re-enlisted instead of going home. Many new troops enlisted. And Congress and potential European allies, like the French, began believing in the possibility of success. We'd be living in a different world today if those Hessian soldiers had been warned to wake up and fight. And that's what Paul is gonna do in our passage in Romans 13. He's going to alert us Christians to wake up and fight. Last week in Romans, we saw that Christians are under a new law, the law of love. This is the new commandment that Jesus gave to his disciples, that we would love one another. But how is this a new commandment? When he said that the greatest, the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourselves. Well, it's new because it's given to a new kind of people. It's given to the church. And it's new because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us that enables us to love with a supernatural power. And when we love in this way, we're fulfilling, or to say it another way, we are completing the law of the Old Testament. This is because we are participating with Jesus in his mission to reach the whole world, Jew and Gentile, with the gospel of grace. And that's the point of the whole Old Testament. So that's a summary of last week's sermon. Now, in Romans 13.11, Paul is gonna make another transition. In the next few verses, he's going to exhort us to wake up and fight. And I don't think that the ESV has the best translation here. It says, besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake up from sleep. This makes it sound like we're switching to a whole new topic, but we're not. Paul is still talking about love here. He's going to give us a strong and compelling reason to love. Listen to a few other verses. a few other translations of this verse from the New American Standard. Do this knowing the time that is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep or from the the New English Version, and do this, because we know the time, that it is already the hour for us to awake from sleep. And then the New King James Version, and do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. Each of these translations say do this. Do what? Wake up and love. And loving like Jesus is an act of war. Loving like Jesus is entering into the fight for men's souls. The New King James preserves the old King James translation here where it says, it is high time. There's a magazine for pot smokers called High Times, but that's not what we're talking about here. This means that it's time to do something now. It can't be put off any longer. It's an urgent plea. It's high time. There's two words for time in Greek, chronos, which is chronological time, and kairos, meaning an era, an epoch, or an age. Here, it's not referring to chronos time. It's not referring to the time of day or a specific date. This is kairos time. It means it's the right time. It means it's an opportune time. The proper time. It's high time. It's the same word that Jesus uses when he begins his ministry in Mark 1 15 when he said, the time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news. And it's the same word he used in Matthew 16 when he said to the Pharisees that although they could discern what the weather was going to do, they couldn't discern the signs of the times. The time Jesus is referring to is the time of his coming. It's the time of the beginning of the age of the church. This is the time when all people are called to believe the gospel and to be saved. But this time, this age, it can end any minute. So we'd better wake up and take care of business while we have the time. Jesus said in John 9, 4, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. This time, this church age, will come to an end when Jesus returns. Now look at the second part of Romans 13, 11. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. It's near. It's coming. Paul's not talking about our justification here. He's not talking about the salvation that we experienced when we first came to faith, when we first believed. Here he's talking about our glorification, the completion of our salvation, the completion of this era which ends with our glorification in new bodies. But that's not the only thing that's gonna happen at that time. It will also be a time that the offer of salvation expires and the final judgment will come. And the Apostle Peter warns us that many will scoff at that idea. He says they'll willfully deny that God created the world and that he once judged it at the time of Noah's flood, but God will judge the earth again. just as he promised. Look at 2 Peter 3 9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?" Peter's really saying the same thing as Paul here. And if you understand that this era of the gospel will end, and the time of judgment will come, then you must wake up and live a life of love, a life of holiness and a life of godliness, a life in the trenches, fighting for the souls of men. And at the end of this age, the end of this age is getting closer and closer every day. It's 2,000 years closer than when Paul wrote this. But sometimes the church can forget this. Sometimes we need a wake-up call, just like the Christians in Sardis did in the first century. Look at Revelation chapter three and verse one. And to the angel of the church in Sardis, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works. You have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. In the New Testament, the words for wake and rise are the same. When it says that Jesus was raised from the dead, it's the same word that Paul uses in Romans 13 to call us to wake up. In this passage in Revelation, Jesus says that the church in Sardis is dead and they need to wake up. Whole churches can forget the gospel and lose their purpose. They look like they're alive, but they're dead. They go through the motions, but there's no Holy Spirit activity going on. Nobody's growing, nobody's getting saved. And individual believers can be like that too. Paul says it this way to certain Christians in Ephesus, in Ephesus chapter 5 verse 14. Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine in you. Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Wake up and make the best use of the time. Not your time, but the time. Kairos time. The time we still have to make disciples. And he's not talking to unbelievers here. He's talking to lethargic, lazy Christians who aren't doing the job that God left them here to do. Keith Green brilliantly said it in his song, Asleep in the Light. Open up, open up, and give yourself away. You see the need. You hear the cries. So how can you delay? God's calling, and you're the one. But like Jonah, you run. He told you to speak, but you keep holding it in. Oh, can't you see it's such sin? The world is sleeping in the dark that the church just can't fight, because it's asleep in the light. How can you be so dead when you've been so well fed? Jesus rose from the grave and you, you can't even get out of bed. Wake up and fight. Paul continues with this waking versus sleeping metaphor in verse 12. He says, the night is far gone, the day is at hand, So let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. So now he adds clothing to this waking and sleeping metaphor. To cast off and to put on refers to the acts of dressing and undressing in the New Testament. The men who stoned Stephen, they cast off their cloaks and laid them at the feet of Saul. King Herod put on his royal robes. So Paul is essentially saying here, take off your jammies and put on your uniform. This is where the fighting part comes in. You put on armor in order to enter into battle. And in Ephesians, Paul expands on this when he lists all the parts of the whole armor of God. We don't have time to go into all that today. But in that Ephesians passage, we see that the fight that we are in is real. And it's not a fight against some generic evil out there, or simply the flaws in our own character or in the character of others. It's a battle with a real person, the evil one. And he has lots of soldiers under his command. Look at Ephesians 6.12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. There's that word darkness again. The works of darkness that we are to cast off are under the control of these demonic beings, these cosmic powers that he calls them. And when you and I choose to sin, we're placing ourselves under their authority. Instead of standing against them and fighting, we become useless in the fight. So what are these works of darkness? The next verse in Romans 13, verse 13. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. Walk in the daylight, not in the darkness where evil deeds happen. Darkness and light, they've always been metaphors for good and evil. Paul uses the same imagery in 1 Thessalonians 5. In verse 5 it says, For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do. Let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. And we know by experience that a lot of evil goes on under the cover of darkness. In the book of Job, which is probably the oldest book in the Bible, it says, chapter 24, verse 14, the murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief. The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, no eye will see me, and he veils his face. A lot of evil goes on at night. Statistically, you're much more likely to be assaulted, robbed, raped, and murdered at night. When I was a teenager, when school was out for summer, I used to party late into the night and sleep late into the morning. One time my mom's uncle was visiting us, and I had to share a room with him. So I came creeping into the house, four in the morning, as quiet as I could be, and I crawled into bed, and I finally relaxed. And then I heard, something wrong with you, boy. You're supposed to sleep at night and be awake in the daytime. And he was right. There was something wrong with me. I was indulging in the deeds of darkness. Some of the very ones listed here in verse 13. But that was before I got saved. Yet Paul is talking to believers here. Do believers practice these things? I'm sorry to say it happens. How many famous preachers have you heard about who were involved in sexual sin? Or how many people entrusted with church money have embezzled it? And just because you're a Christian, it doesn't mean that you're immune from addiction to drugs or alcohol. But you say, well, that's not me. I would never be involved in drunkenness or theft or sexual immorality. Well, probably not, but that doesn't let you off the hook. Look at the last two items on Paul's list here, quarreling and jealousy. Have you ever fought with someone? Have you ever resented someone for who they are or what they had? And this isn't an exhaustive list of the deeds of darkness, this is just a short list. Any sin that we habitually indulge in, without confessing it and forsaking it, takes us out of the fight. And that's Satan's goal for you, take you out of the fight. It's like the drunk who can't face the world and hides in his alcoholic stupor. Until he wakes up and takes responsibility for his life, he's useless to his family, to his employer, and to himself. Every one of us needs this wake-up call on a regular basis. It's so easy to be lulled into sleep by the temptations of this world. This is why we're told to continually gather together to encourage one another. This is why we're told to exhort one another, and this is also why we are told to rebuke one another if need be. We need to be constantly reminded of the eternal consequences of our actions during this time, during this age. And I don't preach this in order to lay a guilt trip on anybody. I preach it in order to warn us and to encourage us. Thank God we're not left alone in this. We don't have to do it in our own strength. Look at the final verse in this section, Romans 13, 14. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. We can't do this on our own. We can't do it in our own strength. It's only through the power of the gospel that we can overcome sin in our lives. It's not only the forgiveness that we received when we were first saved, but the ongoing forgiveness and supernatural strength that we have because we have a relationship with Jesus Christ. In one way, we put on Christ when we first believed. He took our sin and He clothed us with His righteousness. That was a one-time transaction. And as a result, we are adopted sons and daughters of God. Nothing can change that. But in this verse, we see that we're also supposed to continually put on Christ in order to live the victorious Christian life. It literally means keep on putting on Christ. It's an ongoing life of faith. Jesus didn't just save us from sin. He saved us for righteousness. Look at Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Putting on Christ is putting on our armor. And when we do it, we're invincible. I don't really go in for superhero movies much, but this reminded me of one. Iron Man. Tony Stark is just an average guy until he puts on this suit. And when he does, watch out. And you and I have a power that is far greater than any superhero. We've been given the keys to the kingdom. We've been given the great power to lead people into life eternal. That's power. And God gives us anything and everything we need to accomplish that. Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So believe it. Wake up and fight. Fight the good fight. So the perspective, from the perspective of the British and their Hessian allies, the irony and tragedy of their defeat at Trenton is that it didn't have to happen. Americans loyal to the British warned Colonel Rall, the Hessian commander, that the attack was imminent, and he laughed. The day before the attack, two American soldiers defected to the British side, and they informed them that Washington's army was ready to move out. This was ignored. In the very night of the crossing, Colonel Rall received a letter from his superior officer, who had learned of the plot from a spy inside Washington's camp. The commander ignored all of these warnings and wasn't prepared to wake up and fight when the time came. He lost his men and he lost his own life as well. You and I have been given all the warning we need in order to prepare ourselves for the attacks of the enemy. In 2 Corinthians 4.4 it says that Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers. but not believers, not us. The Apostle Paul says that we aren't ignorant of Satan's devices, his schemes. We can see him coming if we stay awake. Peter also tells us, be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, 1 Peter 5.8. So remember, the time is short, and Jesus will return soon. So stay awake and fight. Let's pray. Lord, we know that we're in a huge battle here. We know that the consequences of this war are eternal. So Father, help us to keep our eyes open. Help us to wake out of our sleep and to get up and to enter into the battle that we might see lives saved. Lord, we ask that you fill us with confidence and your strength that we might be able to do this. We give you praise for what you're going to do because we know that the gates of hell will never prevail against your church. So thank you, Lord. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the preaching of God's Word from Faith Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. We hope that it has been an encouragement to you and that the Word of God will fill your hearts and minds as you walk through this world. 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