The Word Made Plain

Tony Clark: Let's dive into the word of God. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Romans chapter one. We're going to be looking at verses 13 through 15 as we continue our verse-by-verse chapter-by-chapter look at the book of Romans. We're making our way on through. As you know, on Wednesdays we're going through the Old Testament; we're in the book of First Samuel and just having a great time going chapter by chapter through the book of First Samuel. We're just thankful to go through the word of God.

Father, thank you that you have brought us to this point here, the table of your word. We just pray that you would prepare our hearts, unclog our ears to hear your voice speak. Lord, we pray that you would stir up our minds to understand and a will to want to obey what the word of God says. Lord, thank you for giving us this time. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

God bless you online as well. It's always great to hear and see where you're watching us from, so put that in the comments and let us know where you are watching us from. Romans chapter one, verses 13 through 15. The title of this message is "God's Will vs Satan's Hindering." This is a subject that has baffled Christians throughout the ages and has confused a lot of people as well. People are asking themselves, "How can I know whether something is God's will or whether Satan is doing his little hindering?"

This is something that has confused a lot of people and there have been Christians throughout the ages that have pretty much said, "Oh, this is not God's will for me because every time I try to do it, it's just so hard." All the time they're confused; it was God's will, but it was Satan hindering. How can you know the difference? How can we tell whether something is God's will or whether Satan is hindering?

I believe that what Paul is going to be saying to the believers in Rome gives us some understanding compared to his other writings. He gives us some understanding on not only for us to know whether it's God's will or Satan's hindering, but when Satan is hindering, the agent that he uses to hinder will be astonishing. By way of background, after Paul gave us a prologue or introduction in verses one through seven, he then let the believers in Rome know how he desired to see them face to face.

He commended them in verse eight how their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world. Then he told them how he prayed for them without ceasing in verse nine, telling them how he was praying that God would grant him through his will to go to Rome. He told them in verse 11 how he longed to see them to impart to them some spiritual gift so that they could be encouraged together by their mutual faith. The question is, why didn't Paul go? He clearly wanted to go there.

Why didn't he do what we would do? When we want to go somewhere, we just get in our car and go. Why is it that he didn't go? We're going to see as we pick it up in verse 13. "Now I do not want you to be unaware brethren that I often planned to come to you but was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit among you also just as among the other Gentiles or non-Jews." Paul often used this phrase to introduce an important principle.

Now he is using it to let the believers in Rome know that he wasn't afraid to come to Rome like some of them were saying. They said Paul talks that talk about coming to Rome but he's really afraid to come here, this big city. Paul said, "No, I'm not scared. It's just I've been hindered until now." He told them he planned to come to them on one of his missionary trips. He took three missionary trips and he had planned to go to Rome in one of them but was hindered until now.

Paul had a desire to go to Rome, he even planned to go, but Paul said that he was hindered. Paul told the believers in the city of Thessalonica that he wanted to come to them in 1 Thessalonians 2:18. He said time and time again, "but Satan hindered us." The Greek word for hinder is *enkoptō* and it means to cut into, to impede, to detain, or hinder. As we compare these two verses, we can see that Satan is the one who does the hindering. We can't be naive about the workings of Satan.

We can't be naive to the point where we're like, "Well, Satan doesn't exist," like people are saying today, or that he's some guy with some red long johns sitting on a throne in hell with a pitchfork and a pointed tail. We can't be naive to the workings of Satan. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 that Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. And his ministers—Satan has ministers, you better believe it—who can transform themselves into ministers of righteousness. The purpose is to deceive.

We can't be naive to the workings of Satan. We want to do ministry and something forbids us from doing it, and immediately we normally say it must not be God's will. We assume that God's will is always going to be without trouble, without hindering. We think it's just going to be smooth sailing because it's God's will. In 1 Corinthians 16:9, Paul said, "a great and effective door has opened unto me and there are many adversaries." If we take our normal logic, we would have said it must not have been God's will to go through this door because I have many adversaries.

Paul said a great and effective door has opened to me and there are many adversaries. We can't be naive to his working. Just because we're having a tough time or because we are hindered from doing a certain thing, we immediately chalk it up as not being God's will. That's not true all the time. It could be Satan hindering you from ministry. You've got to understand that could be the very case. I have seen so many people who wanted to get involved in some kind of ministry at church.

Satan hindered them either through their jobs, friends discouraging them, or family discouraging them. One of the most effective ways Satan hinders God's people is through busyness. Satan doesn't care who he uses to hinder as long as he hinders. We don't realize how Satan uses people. God uses people in order to get his work accomplished. Satan is a master imitator and he uses people to get his work accomplished.

Don't be naive. The Bible says for we wrestle not against flesh and blood. You think that the battle is your spouse, you think that the battle is that coworker on the job, you think the battle is that boss, or that family member and every time they come into town something's breaking off. No, we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places. Satan doesn't care who he will work through. Men, it can be your wife. Ask Adam.

In Genesis 3:6, after Eve was deceived by Satan to disobey God, she brought the forbidden fruit to her husband Adam and he ate it as well. These verses I'm about to share with you are some bizarre verses, but watch how they become very clear once we unpack them. Exodus 4:24-26 tells the story of how God called Moses to go to Egypt to lead his people out of Egyptian slavery. However, as he was on his way there, it says that God was about to kill Moses.

When this was about to happen, it says that Moses's wife Zipporah took a knife and cut the foreskin of her son—we know it was sons plural because she had two sons—and did a type of circumcision and threw the foreskin at the feet of Moses and said in Exodus 4:25, "Surely you are a husband of blood to me." Then it says God let Moses go after this. These are very strange and bizarre verses for our American ears. What was going on here in this story is Moses was about to go and lead three million Israelites out of Egypt and into a covenant relationship with God through circumcision.

Moses had not even circumcised his own boys. It is as if God was saying, "I will not let you lead my people into a relationship with me when you haven't even led your own family in this relationship with me." The implication is that Moses's wife didn't want Moses to cut on her babies, and he didn't circumcise them because of her. Because of this, God was about to take Moses out. Zipporah gets in her feelings and gets upset and circumcised them, so that lets me know she knew what this was all about.

She circumcised them, obviously Moses must not have been able to move or something. She took a knife, circumcised them, and then threw the foreskin at the feet of Moses. What did Moses do? He sent her back to the house. Don't miss this. He did it because she would have hindered the work God called Moses to do. This is why in 1 Corinthians 7:29, Paul would later say, "the time has come when those who have wives should be as though they have none."

What he is saying is don't let anyone, even your wife, hinder you from what God has called you to do. I can imagine Moses, let's say he took her to Egypt with him. Here's Moses standing before Pharaoh: "Let my people go!" All of a sudden Moses's cell phone rings. It's Zipporah. "Moses you better not be at Pharaoh's house again talking about let your people go. He ain't letting your people go. Now get to the house Moses, and while you're at it can you stop and get some milk and some bread?"

He had to send her back to the house. She would have hindered. This is why Paul would later say those who have wives should be as though they have none. Here's the thing. Moses did what he was supposed to do, he led the people out of Egypt, and here he is, they're in the desert now. All of a sudden, who pops up? Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, with Zipporah and the boys. I can see he looked at Moses and said, "Bro, did you forget about them?" He brought Moses's wife and boys with them.

The lessons are clear. Number one, don't get involved with nor marry anyone who doesn't understand the ways of your God like Moses did. To put it in simple terms we can understand, don't marry an unbeliever. She didn't understand the customs of circumcision and was actually against it. This is why she got mad and circumcised the boys and threw it at Moses's feet. Moses said, "God commanded." She said you're not doing that to my babies. God was about to kill him.

The thing about it is she didn't understand the ways of circumcision, the ways of Moses's God. Number two, don't allow yourself or don't allow anyone to hinder or keep you from doing what God has called you to do. I believe this is what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 7:29, that the time has come that those who have wives should be as though they have none. Men, let me talk to us for a minute. In Genesis 3:17, God called Adam on the carpet for listening to his wife and disobeying his word.

Later on in Genesis 21:12, God tells Abraham to listen to his wife. So how do we know when to listen to our wives like God told Abraham and when not to listen to our wives as God called Adam on the carpet and Moses as well? Don't miss this point. You listen when what she is telling you will not cause you to disobey God's word. This means, men, we must know God's word so well that you would immediately know whether she is telling you to disobey or to obey God's word.

We got to know this book. All of us have time. Last year showed us we have time. The pandemic wiped out all of our extracurricular foolishness that we were involved in and forced everybody to be at home. We either binge on Netflix or our phones, iPads and all this other stuff. We have time. We used to use that excuse that we were so busy, but we can't use that anymore. We have time. We got to know this book because you got to know whether what your wife is telling you is the word of God or not.

Now we have one more example of how God uses wives as the hindering agent and I'm going to share with you why he does that. Why Satan went after Eve instead of Adam. Why Satan uses wives, I'm going to explain that afterwards. We got one more good example. That is the wife of Haman in Esther chapter five and verse 14. Her name was Zeresh. Haman had beef with a Jewish man named Mordecai. Everyone was told to bow down when Haman rode by.

When he got to Mordecai, Mordecai said, "I'm good, I ain't bowing down." He looked at him and said, "Bro, I only bow down to God and last time I checked you're not God." Haman went home ticked off, very upset. So he gathers his friends right along with his wife and they all suggested at the leading of Zeresh that gallows be made 75 feet high to hang Mordecai on. The way the Hebrew is constructed in this verse, we think of gallows and hanging and think of the piece of wood with a rope.

The way the Hebrew is constructed shows that they actually wanted to crucify Mordecai. The Persians were the ones who invented crucifixion. The Romans took it to another level, but crucifixion was invented a thousand years before the Romans even came along. This was a form of crucifixion. When Haman heard that, it pleased him and they had the gallows built by the suggestion and influence of Zeresh, Haman's wife. Now here's the thing. I brought out these biblical examples to show you how chauvinistic the Bible is against women? No.

I did it to show you how a wife is the most influential person in a man's life all the way back to Adam and Eve. I have said it for years: yes, the man is the head, but the woman is the neck that turns the head. Ladies, please don't get all in your feelings over how much power and influence you have over men. That is confirmed in several verses in the Bible. I could have kept going but I just kept it at those main ones.

Just realize this power and don't abuse it because you will be held accountable for it. You will give an account to God for how much you used or abused this influence you have. I realize 99.9 percent of men, you don't have a wife like mine. My wife has always influenced me towards what is biblical and right. Always. In the 36 years we've been married, she has never influenced me to do anything unbiblical or something that wasn't right. I have been the...