the way that they were predicting
a few days ago, but it ended up being a bust. Hardly anything
out there, but not to freeze the door shut on our car, couldn't
get it. Anyways, good to be here.
New year. Everybody's probably out making
their New Year's resolutions that we probably ain't ever gonna
keep. At least for a few days, maybe. Hymn number 778. We'll sing this
to oh worship the king. Though straight be the way with
dangers be said and we on the way are no farther yet. Our good guide and savior has And tis by his favor we are what
we are A favor so great we highly should prize Not murmur nor fret
nor small things despise but what call we small things in
whole canceled sum tis greater than all things except those
to come my brethren reflect on what we have been how God had
respect to us under sin. When lower and lower we every
day fell, he stretched forth his power and snatched us from
hell. Then let us rejoice and cheerfully
sing with heart and with joy to Jesus our King who thus far
has brought us from evil to good the ransom that bought us no
less than his blood For blessings like these so bounteously give
For prospects of peace and for taste of heaven Tis grateful,
tis pleasant to sing and adore Be thankful for present Did anybody see a problem in
one of those verses? What do you say? Snatched us
from hell. Yes, snatched us from hell. The
Bible teaches that we were never ordained to condemnation. We
were never ordained to wrath, I should say. but that we have
had an eternal, vital union with Christ from all eternity, and
because of that union, we never was under the danger of hell. So, forgot that line was even
in that verse whenever I picked this song. Otherwise, we'll need
to go back and rewrite those words just a little bit because
He didn't snatch us from hell like we were heading that way
and kept us from going that way. He predestined for the foundation
of the world salvation for his elect. So they never was under
the fear of wrath or shouldn't never been under wrath. We were under the fear of wrath
until we're given understanding of the gospel. But anyway, good
call there Wayland. All right, turn with me if you
would now to hymn number 1013. 1013. 1013. Sing this to the
tune of Amazing Grace. There is a family on earth Whose
father fills the throne But though a seed of heavenly birth To men
they're little known Whene'er they meet the public eye, They
feel the public scorn, For men their fairest claims deny, And
count them basely born. But tis the King who reigns above
That claims them for His own The favored objects of His love
and destined to the throne but when the king himself was here
his claims were said and not Would they another lot prefer
Rejected be the thought know they will tread while here
below the path their master trod content all honor to forego but
that which comes from god. Yeah. Alright. My God, my Father, blissful name,
O may I call Thee mine. May I with sweet assurance claim
a portion so divine. May I with sweet assurance claim
a portion so divine. This only can my fears control
and bid my sorrows fly. What harm can ever reach my soul
beneath my father's eye what harm can ever reach my soul beneath
my father's eye whate'er thy providence denies I calmly would
resign For thou art just and good and wise, O bend my will
to thine. For thou art just and good and
wise, O bend my will to thine. What'er thy sacred will ordains,
O give me strength to bear, And let me know my Father reigns,
And trust His tender care. And let me know my father reigns,
And trust his tender care. If pain and sickness reign this
spring, And life almost depart, Is not thy mercy still the same? to cheer my drooping heart. Is not thy mercy still the same
to cheer my drooping heart? If cares and sorrows me surround
their power, why should I fear? My inward peace they cannot wound,
if Thou my God art near. My inward peace they cannot wound,
If Thou, my God, art near. Alright, does anybody have a
song that you'd like to sing? 82 in the blue. 82 in the blue. Blue
82. Blue 82. My times are in thy hand, my
God, I want them there. Choose, Lord, the path that's
best for me throughout my journey here. My times are in thy hand. There is no cause for fear. My Father's providence is good. I should be free of care. My times are in thy hand, I would
submit to thee. Forgive my fears, forgive my
doubts, drive unbelief from me. My times are in thy hand. My God, do what you will. Grant grace to me to honor you,
to trust you and be still. Amen, that's a good prayer for
a new year. Anybody have a song that you'd
like to sing? Anybody else? Or a passage of
scripture or anything? Turn with me if you would to
Galatians chapter 4 and Romans chapter 3. We'll read
our passage in Galatians and then we're going to jump to Romans
chapter 3. We are continuing in our exposition
of the letter to the Galatians and we are Looking at these last
few weeks on why the law Is not helpful to us why the law is
being spoken of by Paul why Paul is so emphatic to this Galatian
Church about the the error of preaching the law teaching the
law trying to live by the law and We're looking at the last,
starting last week and this week, and probably another week or
two, maybe, depending on how far we get. We didn't get very
far last week, as far as I wanted to get last week, but we just
follow where the Spirit leads us in these things, and praise
the Lord we give utterance in these. But we're looking at Paul's
emphatic plea and cry and correction to the Galatian churches about
the bewitching of the Judaizers that have come in. The Judaizers
are basically those, if we term it in nowaday term, is those
who try to preach the law for righteousness. They believe that
either to get saved or to stay saved or to prove your salvation,
you have to be obedient to the law. And if you're obedient to
the law, then that not only can get you saved, now there are
some that don't believe that, but they believe that it's what
shows that you're saved, is your adherence to the law. If we aren't
adhering to the law, then it shows that we aren't saved. But
Paul is dealing with these Judaizers who have been going around to
all these churches in Galatia and have been preaching, you
still need to be circumcised, you still need to keep the law
of Moses, as we've seen last week in Acts, to be saved. And
now, I'm not just saying that as a straw man for those who
preach and teach the law. That's what the Judaizers were
saying back there. That was their intent. You cannot
be saved if you don't keep the law. You cannot be saved if you're
not circumcised. If you don't do that, then that
shows that you really weren't saved. It was just a lit profession.
Well, today, we have the same type of preachers and teachers
in churches all over the place who are saying the same thing.
That if you are not keeping up the standard of righteousness
by law-keeping, by doing these laws and keeping these laws,
then you're just given a lit profession. You honor me with
your lips, but your heart is far from me. Well, to the child
of grace, their heart has been changed where inwardly we desire
the things of God and righteousness and holiness. We desire those
things, but the fact remains is that our flesh is weak and
it cannot do anything to please God. And there is no righteousness
that we can do in the flesh that will get us saved, keep us saved,
or make us more pleasing to God, because all of our righteousnesses
are filthy rags. They cannot please God. And so
Paul is telling them this bewitching or this preaching of righteousness
by works, by you doing something, by you doing works is something
that is easily heard and easily brought to the place where, you
know, that kind of sounds right and surely we're to be that. And we've heard it all of our
lives. Well, if we're to repent, we're to repent of our sins and
turn and go the opposite way and not do them anymore. and
that if we would just die to ourself every day, which that
phrase, die to ourself, doesn't mean to that, but if we die to
ourself every day, then we're going to be able to keep from
sinning and listen, brethren, the flesh can do nothing but
sin. That's all it does. The flesh is sinful and all it
does is sin. That's why God said that your
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Everything you do in the
flesh to try to portray righteousness, anything that you do in the flesh
to try to prove your righteousness, anything that you do in the flesh
to try to gain righteousness is filthy rags. The only one
who's righteous is Christ. And the only thing that's in
you that is righteous is Christ that's in you, and he doesn't
change your flesh to be righteous. He is righteous. You're not. And so our efforts to keep the
law are in vain because we cannot keep the law. Our efforts to
keep the law for righteousness is in vain because the righteousness
that God requires, the righteousness that God will accept, is only
the righteousness of Christ, not your righteousness, which
you have done. Okay? So that's why Paul is saying,
listen, what they are preaching you sounds good on the outside,
and it appeals to the natural mind. It appeals to the pride
in the flesh that thinks it can do something to merit favor with
God. But Paul is warning them that
this cannot be because God has set up and has said that by no
form of righteous law-keeping can anyone be justified, nor
are you sanctified, nor are you preserved by anything that you
do. It is all of what Christ has
already done on your behalf if you're his child. And that's
what Paul is stressing over and over in many different ways going
back. If you remember at the very beginning,
he went back and took us back to where he went before the Jerusalem
Council and Acts. And we've seen that last week,
we talked about that. You remember they said that We
have not given any command. Whenever they sent that letter
back to the Galatian churches, or, well, I say Galatian churches,
back to Antioch, where they were having the problems, and Paul
and Barnabas came down to question the disciples and the apostles
at Jerusalem. Hey, you know, some of the people
among you are coming out to these Gentile churches and telling
them that they've got to be circumcised and keep the law to be saved.
And that's not the gospel of Christ. And you're causing dissension,
causing problems, division within the churches. And so when you
come get this established here, what is going on? And there were
some within that group that stood up that said that they must do
that. Well, what happened? They confronted that. And they
said, listen, hey, neither us nor our forefathers was able
to keep this law. And the Gentiles who Paul and
Barnabas are out there preaching the gospel to, they never was
under the law. So why should we, who have never
been able to keep the law, our forefathers who never was able
to keep the law, try to tell those who never was given the
law to keep anyway, try to put them under the law that we know
that they're not gonna be able to keep. That's not the gospel.
That's not good news. That is news of condemnation. And we'll see that today. So
we seen last week in the, and that little meeting of the Jerusalem
church and Paul and Barnabas, that there was no commandment
given by the apostles. There was no commandment given
by the Jerusalem church. And whenever they were sending
people out to preach, to tell people that they needed to keep
the law of Moses to be circumcised, to be saved, there was nothing
there. So they wanted to make that emphatic. Okay. And so we
saw that there was no, that that was the mindset. The mindset
of the first church was not to be saved by grace and then by
works we are to serve the Lord and be pleasing to him and to
become more righteous by law keeping. Or to keep the law for
a good standing with God. That was never the case, never
the message. Jesus gave it to the apostles,
he laid the apostles first as the foundation of that first
church. preached to them for three years. His gospel taught
them his doctrine. And then that was also relayed
to the church as it gathered. And that church on the day of
Pentecost, whenever it was endued with power, began to preach that
gospel, that the message of the gospel was never law. It was
never keeping the law. And from that day forward, as
they were scattered out of Jerusalem into all the regions of the area,
The message that went out was Christ for your righteousness,
not you keeping the law, okay? So that's what we saw until last
week as we looked at Acts chapter 15. For those that are watching,
listening, you can go back to the previous week's message,
and that's what we dealt with is Acts 15. But today, we want
to look again at Acts 15. at some more passages throughout
here. And basically what we're doing is just going through the
New Testament and seeing what the New Testament's assessment
of keeping the law says. Not what the law keepers out
here want to tell us. Not what the preachers that preach
grace and law, grace and words. These people are Judaizers. They're
the same as what was going on in the days of this church here
in Galatia. We want to see that. But in chapter
four, where we're at, is starting verse one. Now I say that the
heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant,
though he be lord of all. But as under tutors and governors
until the time appointed of the father, even so we, when we were
children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. So,
you know, whenever we were immature, whenever we had not been brought
to repentance and faith, We were under tutors, we were under that
law, we were hearing these things about righteousness, we were
hearing these things about keeping the law, and that this keeping
of the law was something that we thought we had to do. But
then whenever we have been given repentance and faith, and the
Lord had given us and revealed to us the gospel, began to give
us understanding of righteousness, we move away from that and we
see that righteousness is only in Christ Jesus. Okay, and we
no longer need that law crushing on us with condemnation, telling
us that we can't keep the law. We now have a righteousness established
for us by Jesus Christ, and we look to that for our righteousness. We count that as our righteousness,
just like Abraham. Abraham saw what God had preached,
Christ had preached to him, and saw what God had declared as
righteousness, which is Christ alone, And Abraham believed God,
believed God's account, believed God's testimony, believed what
God said about righteousness, and that he had no righteousness
of his own, but he had one who was the righteousness for him.
And it says Abraham believed God, and it was counted to Abraham
for righteousness. Abraham counted Christ as his
righteousness, not his law keeping, okay? And if you remember, Abraham
came up out of idolatry. There was no law. There was no,
you know, the law hadn't even been given yet. And there was
no anything. Abraham was kind of the first
Israelite, to be honest. I mean, that's kind of where
it all started. When God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees,
they were, they were, they were idolaters. Okay. And so it isn't
about law keeping. God didn't call Abraham into
law keeping. God called Abraham in to trust
him for his righteousness. And that's exactly what everything
was. You know, if you remember when Abraham and Isaac went up
on the mountain, you know, God's told Abraham, I want you to take
your son up on top of the hill and I want you to give him as
a sacrifice. And so he took Isaac up on top
of the hill and his mind was set. I'm gonna take Isaac up
here and I'm gonna sacrifice him unto God. took everything
needed for, got up there, and about the time he was about to
plunge that knife or whatever into Isaac, God stopped him. And then, you know, God said
that I've provided a lamb. See, it wasn't gonna be by Abraham's
works that the sacrifice was gonna be made. It was by God's
own work. He provides the lamb. He provides
the righteousness that is pleasing to him, okay, even if, Even if
Abraham would have killed Isaac, that wouldn't have been pleasing
to God, because it's not by the sacrifices that man choose, or
that man does, or the work that man does. See, all those sacrifices
that the priest does, it never could have saved anybody. And
God wasn't pleased with those, even though he told them that
he wanted them to do that. It was just for a sign and a
symbol of what Christ, who would be the fulfillment and the actual
a completer of those things would do. But it says this, it says,
but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his
son, made of a woman, made under the law. Now also that passage
that we read can also have varying, I'm still kind of torn between
these two ideas. It seems that it could possibly
mean both, but it could also mean that talking about the Jews
whenever they were in immaturity, whenever the veil was over their
eyes, whenever they were under this law up until Christ came,
they was under the law to teach them and to show them their inability. But see, that is a pattern. Israel,
the nation of Israel is a type and foreshadow of the elect of
God, all the elect of God out of every tribe, language, nation,
tongue, okay? And that's a type and a foreshadow
of who we are. So whenever we look back and
see all the dealings with Israel, we see the dealings that God
has for his people. And so that's why I say it could
mean both of these things, okay? So I'm torn. The context seems
to mean the Jews being in infancy and not knowing the full gospel
yet. Now the gospel has come, Christ has come. They're no longer
needed a tutor, a governor, which was the law. but it's the same
with us. At a certain time, we think our
righteousness is good enough. Our good outweighs our bad. It
may not be the Mosaic law, but it's the law of our own righteousness.
So I think it can mean either one and everything. I can be
corrected if anybody sees fit to do so, if there is room for
the correction with the scriptures. But it says, when the fullness
of time had come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law that
we might receive the adoption of sons. And because of your
sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant but
a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. And
here it is, verse eight. Howbeit then, when ye knew not
God, ye did service unto them which were by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye are, after
that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye
again to the weak and beggarly elements, wherein to you ye desire
again to be in bondage? So we see here that Paul is saying,
listen, in infancy, the law is there to show you your inability,
but whenever the gospel comes and shows you that god christ
has freed you from sin has freed you from the law that crisis
coming in and establish a righteousness without the law and that that
righteousness is laid to your account and that that is what
god accepts you on on that basis and not on your words not on
your own why would you desire to go back under the only thing
are the thing the very thing condemns you, that just shows
you your inability. Why do you try to establish a
righteousness under something that tells you you have no righteousness?
Okay, so that's what Paul is saying. And so that's why we're
going back and let's look and see what the Holy Spirit has
given to Paul over the course of many letters, not just to
the Galatians, but to the Romans, to other places in Hebrews and
things like that. We see that this very thing is
taught about the law not being given for righteousness or not
to give us any kind of standing with God. So look with me if
you would at Romans chapter three. And I will encourage everyone
to read through Romans and keep it in its context. Whenever we
start talking about being saved by faith, being justified by
faith, Whenever we start talking about faith, we see that the
context is established here early in Romans that the faith that
is in view is not the faith of men. Men have a natural faith
that is not the faith given in the new birth, okay? Faith that
is given from God that believes the gospel is a divine faith
that is a gift of God. It's not inherent in anybody.
It is only given by God, and it is something that looks to
Christ alone for salvation, okay? So it isn't just turning, you
know, we've heard the thing, it's just the object that you
place your faith in. That's not what faith is about,
okay? It's not about placing your faith
anywhere. Faith is something that is given
to us by God, and that faith that is given to us is a faith
that is governed by God. It causes us to trust in Him. It causes us to look to Him,
okay? The flesh always wants to look
to self, but faith looks to Christ alone. That's why we went back
in the Hebrews and did that little segment about faith being the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,
and the undergirding of assurance that we are His, and that He
has done for us what He said He would do. Not that what we
are looking to Him, because I look to Him and believe on Him, then
He turns around and gives me a gift, okay? That's not what
it is, okay? So we gotta be careful. On the
context, the faith that is found in Romans, and you'll look in
modern translations of the Bible, they get this wrong. In the Greek,
it is the faith of Christ, not the faith in Christ, all right? It's the faith of Christ. And it's not the faith of Christ
given to us in the new birth that justifies this. It's Christ's
actual working of righteousness on behalf of his people. It's
his faith. That's what justifies us. That's
what we live by when it says the just shall live by faith.
It's not just talking about the just shall live by our faith
in Jesus Christ. The just shall live by his faith. The reason that we live and move
and have our being is because of him. The reason that we have
eternal life is by the working of his faith. The reason that
we believe on him is the working of his faith in us. It's not
our faith, it's not our place. We can't build up our faith.
You can read this Bible all day long, it's not gonna build up
your faith. Only Christ gives the measure of faith. He gives
it sovereignly as he chooses, okay? So as we're looking at
these things and reading some of these verses, we gotta keep
in context what's being talked about. The only one who is faithful
is Christ. The ones who are faithful are
the ones that Christ has made faithful through faith, okay? but it is not something that
we can do, turn off or turn on. It is not something that we can
build up. It is not something that we can credit to ourselves.
It is the work of God that you believe, okay? So, whenever we
look at the law and we look at these passages in Romans, because
a lot of people are gonna say, well, yeah, but the Romans, you
know, 323 says, for all of sin fall short of the glory of God.
And it says that, that, Further in Romans, that we are
saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's
a gift of God. Well, exactly, we are saved by
grace through faith. But if you look at the context,
it's his faith, through his faith. That not of yourself, it's a
gift of God. It's something that was given
to you. Grace was given to you as a gift because of the faith
of Jesus Christ. So we need to keep our context
straight. But let's look here, Romans chapter
three, let's look at verse 20. Well, actually, let's move up
just a little bit at verse 19. It says, now we know that what
things soever the law sayeth, it saith to them who are under
the law, why? What is it saying? And what is
the purpose that is being said? That every mouth may be stopped,
and all the world may become guilty before God. So what does
the law do? What is one of the purposes that
God give the law? Is to stop the mouths of everybody
who thinks that they can say, I have a righteousness of my
own. That God sees my heart, God knows my heart. You ever
heard somebody say that? Well, I know that, but God knows
my heart. I've heard that, you know, whenever
you confront somebody about error or about something, you know,
some blasphemy that they might be doing, they say, I know that,
but God knows my heart, knows what I'm meaning inside. Okay. Good example of, you know, one
of the things that kind of gets in my crawl is people that say,
Oh my God. Okay. Well, that's blasphemy. We're not to take the name of
the Lord in vain. Okay. To use God's, to use God's name
as a curse word or as a, as something to stress, you know, things like
that, that it, You know, that's blasphemy towards God, taking
his name in vain and everything. And you hear people whenever
you confront them, especially Christians, and you say something like, hey,
you know, he took the Lord's name in vain there. Well, God
knows my heart. You know, he knows that that's
not how I mean it. Well, quit saying it. You know, what's in
the well comes up in the bucket, right? Quit saying it. Don't
say it. Stop saying that. But anyway,
that's, I'm getting off on that. It says that every mouth may
be stopped and all the world become guilty. We're all guilty. The law is there to teach us
and to show us that we are guilty. There is none righteous, no not
one. We're gonna see that here shortly.
It says therefore, so when you see a therefore, you wanna, as
the old saying goes, you wanna find out what the therefore is
there for, okay? Therefore means in light of what
was just said, the law was given to stop all mouths so that nobody
can claim righteousness because all are guilty of breaking the
law and cannot keep the law. Okay, so verse 20, therefore,
by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight. That's the declaration of God,
brethren. The declaration of God is that
he never planned, never will accept law keeping for justification. You're never gonna be justified,
and if you're not justified, you cannot be saved. Salvation
is being justified before God. If no one is justified, then
they are in their sins, they will pay for their sins, the
wages of sin is death, okay? So unless a man has been justified,
He stands in his sins and will account for his sins before Almighty
God at the judgment seat of Christ. But here, the Bible is clearly
telling us, the Holy Spirit is teaching us here, therefore by
the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. That's the reason the law is
given. The law is given and even taught, teach. Now, whenever
we preach, we can preach the law long as we preach it lawfully,
long as we preach it correctly. The reason we preach the law
is to tell us why the law is there, like I'm doing today.
I am preaching the law that tells us we're guilty before God, okay? Not preaching that if you'll
get out and be a good Christian and do all these things, God's
going to be happy with you and you're going to go on to heaven
because of it. It says the law is given, number one, not for
justification, but for condemnation. It's given to tell us the knowledge
of sin and to show us how we have missed the mark. Look at
verse 21, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. So the righteousness that God
looks at, the righteousness that God is pleased with, the righteousness
that is just before God in being able to justly proclaim anybody
justified, the righteousness that God requires for that to
take place is not by the law, it's without the law. It says, but now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. So if you go back and you look
at the Old Testament, the law and the prophets, all of them
are testifying of that righteousness, which is of Christ alone. It's
not, even though it's telling you. It's riddled. The law is
there. We have the law. Thou shalt not kill or thou shalt
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Thou shalt have
no other gods before me. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt
not commit adultery. Thou shalt not, you know, all
these things that the Bible tells us in the law and all the other
600 and something laws. Okay. What that tells us is that
you cannot keep this righteousness because every time somebody tries
to keep it, they fail. And every time they fail, they
show that they cannot keep the law. The law is righteous, the
law is holy, but I am not. That's what Paul said, okay? So it's there for a purpose.
So we just don't say, well, the law is, here we go, we don't
have to worry about the, the law is there for its purpose.
The purpose is to show us our inability and it's there to condemn
those under the law. But brethren, we're not under
the law because we are Christ's children. See, it says, but now
the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law of prophets, even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ. So how is the righteousness of
God manifested? Through the faith of Jesus Christ.
Not your faith, not my faith. Not Christ's faith that's been
put in me that I have to now work out of me, no. It's the
faith of Christ, Christ activity, Christ work. That is the righteousness
of God. That's the righteousness that
is without the law that is being manifested. It says, by faith of Jesus Christ
unto all and upon all them that believe. for there is no difference. So whether you're a Jew, whether
you're a Gentile, whether you are under the law, whether you
are never under the law, righteousness is not by the law, it's by Christ's
righteousness. And Christ gives that righteousness
to his people, and his people believe in him for their righteousness. That is a statement of fact,
it's not a statement of condition. If you believe on him, he will
give you his righteousness. No, He gives you His righteousness
and takes your sin, and because of that, the Spirit is given
to us and it manifests in the way that we believe on Christ. It is not manifested by us becoming
more holy. See, a lot of people believe
that salvation is manifested by us being more holy. It's not
manifested that way. It's manifested by us believing
in Christ alone for salvation. Believing on Christ's righteousness,
that's enough for God's pleasure, for God's justice, for God's
acceptance. That's all. That's what faith is all about.
Faith is not about making you pumped up, this awesome, you
know, faith believer that can get out there by my faith. I'm
getting all this stuff done. I'm doing all these works, you
know, greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.
I'm going to get out there and I'm going to bust down the gates
of heaven. I'm going to, you know, speak to the demons and
shut them up and bind them up and all that kind of stuff. Listen,
that's not what faith is all about. Faith is about looking
away from your righteousness and looking to Christ alone.
That's what faith is about. And we're caused to believe by
him, to believe on his faith, to believe on his righteousness.
to believe on that being given to us alone for salvation. It says, verse 23, for all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. If you think that
you don't sin, you make God to be a liar because God says everyone
sins. Everyone has sinned. For all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Only Christ
has portrayed the glory of God. who is the glory of God. Verse
24, being justified freely by your decision in Christ Jesus. Is that what it says? Look with
me there. Romans 3, 24, being justified
freely by your faith. Is that what it says? No, don't
even say that, reformed people. It says being justified freely
by His grace. through the redemption that is
in Christ. We are justified by grace through
the redemption that is in Christ. His faithfulness to go to the
cross, his faithfulness to keep all the law, to go to the cross,
to carry out all the dictates of that everlasting covenant,
his faithfulness to do that, that is what we are saved by.
That's what we are justified by. we are justified freely by
his grace. So whenever the Bible says that
we are, that for by grace are ye saved through faith, that's
what it's talking about right there, not about your believing.
It's talking about what he did. Verse 25, whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation, propitiation means a satisfaction, or it can
also mean to be a covering for sin. Okay? It means a covering
for sin, or it also means a removal. Okay, so it could be removed. It says, whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare
his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God. So brethren, here we see that
To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness that he might
be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
So the reason that we are saved, the reason that we believe, the
reason that we understand these things is because God has given
us a knowledge or an understanding of our condemnation under sin,
but that Christ has removed that condemnation or has taken care
of that condemnation, that there is no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus, because Christ was your substitute. Christ's
righteousness is given to you. It's yours. You don't have to
work for it. You don't have to do anything
for it. You don't have to pay him back for it, okay? It's yours
as a gift. So here we see the law reveals
sin, but it cannot do anything to fix it. You see it? There
is that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. That the law was never given
make righteousness, but it was there to stop the mouths of everyone
and make everyone guilty. So the law is there to reveal
sin, but it can't do nothing as far as making you save or
getting you saved or whatever. Okay. Now look at chapter four,
Romans chapter four. We'll start reading at, let's see. Well, let's just start
at verse one and I'll read down. It says, what shall we say then
that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath
found? For if Abraham were justified
by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. You
can, you know, you can do all the so-called works you want,
but the only thing that that's good for is boasting before men.
And you think about it, brother, all these people's out there
running around doing all their good deeds and all their, you're
saying, listen, I'm not opposed to people doing good things.
You know, I'd rather somebody be nice to me and be doing good
and help me, you know, if I'm sick, to bring some food over
to me or, you know, if we're away on vacation, someone come
back and someone's mowing my lawn for me or, you know, whatever,
I'd much rather see someone being benevolent to me than being hateful
to me, okay? So I'm not saying it's not good
to, you know, to be nice and kind and benevolent towards everybody. But as far as pertaining to that
being a show of righteousness, for that being acceptance before
God or to make you more holy or whatever, that's not the case.
The only thing that that does is it puffs up in pride and it
boasts of itself. Verse three says, for what sayeth
the scripture? Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness. Now again, that right there is
a quote back in Genesis chapter 15, right? We spent some time
in Genesis 15 several months ago. And we saw that in context,
if you read this in context, now remember, Paul's quoting
a passage of scripture. He is not expositing the passage
of scripture. He's quoting to remind them of
what was already said. If you want to know what was
said, go back to Genesis and read it, okay? That's what he's
saying. He says, for if Abraham were
justified by words, he hath wherefore to glory of God, but not before
God. For what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.
Now some people say, that says, okay, well, right there. His
believing is what was counted for righteousness. God declared
him righteous because of his believing. That's wrong. Some
say, well, there you go. God justified him or declared
him just because he believed. That's wrong. God did not declare
him just because he believed. Okay, you go back to the context. Abraham believed God and it,
you gotta see what the it was there for. The it was pointing
back to the seed. He counted the seed to him for
righteousness. Abraham believed God and he counted
the seed unto him, Abraham, for righteousness, okay? Now to him
that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt.
So see, we have two verses, one in front of verse three, one
after verse three, and both of those are saying that is not
by works. If it was because of Abraham
believing, then that would be of works. And I know some people
say, well, yes, but faith is not a work. Yes, faith is a work. The Bible says that faith or
belief is a work of God. It's not a work of you, but it
is a work of God. God works belief in us. God works faith in us. And so if Abraham believed, it
was because God caused him to believe. Abraham didn't believe
in what God said, and then God gave him something because he
did so. The reason that he believed was
because God had granted him to believe because Christ had already
been his righteousness, counted as his righteousness. Says, now
to him that worketh is the reward, not reckoned of grace, but of
debt. So if you try to work for God, for standing, for law keeping,
or for righteousness, for acceptance, and I know I'm being redundant
here, I know I'm beating the same horse, but we need to understand
this, that there is a difference in what we are saying about law
and about righteousness, and what the modern churches that
are out there today are saying. Even the ones who believe in
election and predestination, there are many among them who
say, yes, we believe in election and predestination. We believe
that God is sovereign over all things and that man doesn't come
to Christ by his own free will. But then they'll turn around
and tell you that your salvation is evidenced by how you act,
how you perform, how you obey. It says, but to him that worketh
not, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
To the ones who truly believe in Christ Jesus, Christ's faith
is counted for righteousness, not your works. We don't count
our works for righteousness, we count his faith. Remember,
the context of whose faith is in this letter. Paul is writing
the letter. He didn't write Romans chapter one as a segment and
say, okay, here's this part, here's chapter two, here's this
part, Oh, here's chapter three. This is gonna be about something
completely different and everything. No, this whole letter is about
one group of people being sent a letter and Paul is giving them
that letter. If I wrote Kalen a letter and
I said everything in my day, it's to who? It's to Kalen. So
the context here is me talking to Kalen. So anything that comes
up is gonna have to do with me talking to Kalen. And if I'm
telling Kalen something about this or that or the other, It's
gotta be taken within that context. And here we've seen the context
of faith in Romans is the faith of Jesus Christ. The actual faithfulness,
his working, his doing. That is what we're talking about.
So when we come down here, it doesn't automatically just say,
okay, we're talking about Christ's work over here, faith, and his
accomplishment. Oh, now we're talking about yours.
Oh, now we're talking about his. Oh, now we're talking about yours.
No, it's talking about his. Abraham believed Christ as his
righteousness, his faithfulness for him. Even though it was far
off, he looked to Christ. We are looking to Christ alone
for our righteousness. His faithfulness is what God
received as righteousness so that he might justify us, okay? Even as David also described
it, the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed righteousness
without works. Okay, see, so God gives this
righteousness to us without working, without works. It's free. It's by grace. Saying, blessed
are they whose iniquity are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. And you've heard
me teach this before and preach this before, and I still think
it's a pertinent question to ask. as it pertains to eternal
justification. And I have some good friends
who do not believe eternal justification. They believe everything is at
the cross. I believe the cross is the basis, is the grounds.
Without the cross, there could not be eternal justification.
Christ has to come, Christ has to die, Christ has to fulfill
the law, fulfill all things. That's the basis of and the seal
of the eternal covenant. It's sealed by his blood. Okay,
so that is a necessity. So I'm not saying that since
I believe in eternal justification, but I do not deny the need for
Christ on the cross. But there are those who deny
eternal justification that Christ and God, that God in Christ justified,
declared us just, imputed righteousness to us before the foundation of
the world, but had to wait until time to impute that. But to me,
and I've still not had anybody answer this question, it says,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. It didn't say blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness, although that's
the other side of the coin. This side of the coin says, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute righteousness, or
will not impute sin. If ever there was a time that
sin was imputed to us, then this verse doesn't make sense. It
doesn't apply to anybody except for Christ. It only applies to
Christ. But Christ didn't have, well, he didn't have sin imputed
to him, but righteousness, he didn't have righteousness imputed
to him. He is righteousness, okay? So, Blessed is the man to whom
the Lord will not impute sin. That's justification, brethren.
God does not impute sin when they're justified. Verse nine,
cometh this blessing then upon the circumcision only or upon
the uncircumcision also. For we say that faith was reckoned
to Abraham. Do you see what it said there?
Faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. Whose faith
was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness? Abraham's faith or Christ's?
Christ's faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. But
when was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after God gives
circumcision? It was before because God gives
Abraham circumcision. Back whenever he had Ishmael
and Isaac, God gives circumcision and that's where circumcision
began. But God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and
give him that promise before circumcision was even established.
So that's outside of the law, outside of circumcision. So Abraham
was righteous, not by law, but by the faith of Christ Jesus. Now look, verse 10, how was it
then reckoned when he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision?
Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. and he received the sign of circumcision,
a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had yet been
uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that
believe." See, the believing in Christ alone for his righteousness
is what showed that he was righteous before God, not in his law keeping,
okay? It says, and he received a sign
of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which
he had yet been uncircumcised, that he might be the father of
all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that
righteousness might be imputed unto them also. See, the reason that they were
believing is to show that they have been imputed righteousness
also. Abraham had been imputed righteousness before circumcision,
and so has everybody else. Now, what does circumcision have
to do with? What's it a type and shadow of?
Well, we have some that believe that circumcision is a type and
foreshadow of baptism. The Presbyterians believe that
that's a sign that the circumcision of the children, of the child,
that that was a sign and a seal, and that baptism now is a sign
and a seal to the children. That's why they continue to baptize
babies and sprinkle babies. and everything is because they
believe that that's a sign of circumcision. However, circumcision
is not about baptism. Circumcision is a foreshadowing
of the new birth. That is what it does. Okay, it's
the cutting away of the flesh. It is the cleansing is what it
portrays. And so it's about the new birth,
the new creation that is in us, okay? For the promise that he
should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his
seed through the law. So the inheritance is not through
the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Whose faith? Christ's faith. Through the righteousness
of Christ's faith. And here it is, verse 14. For
if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void,
and the promise made of none effect. So what's Paul saying
there? He said, okay, if they which
are the law keepers are the heirs, then faith is made void, then
there's no need to have faith. You don't have to have faith
to to be an heir. You just get out
there and work. What do I do? Whenever I go to
work, I go to work. Why? Because that's my job. That's
how I get paid. That's how I get my wages. I
get my wages through that. I don't have to have faith in
anything. I just go out and do the work.
And then I get my wages for it. Faith is looking outside of ourselves
and seeing that someone else has established that righteousness
and that righteousness has been laid to our account. It says, for they which are of the
law be heirs, faith is made void. So if you're out there wanting
to be a law keeper, then there's no purpose for faith. Christ's faith is made void.
There was no reason for Christ to come if you work for it, okay? Because the law Here it is. Pay close attention to what I'm
about to say. What the Bible says, I should
say. Because the law worketh wrath. For where no law is, there
is no transgression. Therefore, it is of faith that
it might be by grace. Remember, we are saved by grace.
So if grace is the way that we are saved, it cannot be by the
law because the law doesn't work grace, it works wrath. Therefore, it is of faith that
it might be by grace. To the end, the promise might
be sure to all the seed. How is God gonna make sure that
every one of his seed that has been scattered across the world
throughout multiple time generations, how is God gonna make sure that
every one of them are gonna be and error. How is God going to
make sure that every one of his seeds is going to finish to the
end, is going to be leave upon Christ Jesus, is going to come
and receive everything that God has promised? How is he going
to make that sure? Well, if he does it by anything that we do,
our faith, let me ask you this. Have you been 100% faithful to
God ever since you've been alive? No. Have you sinned against God? Yes. So that means the wages of sin
is death, not the heirship of life. So how are you going to
become the heir of eternal life if you can't keep the law? Because the law worketh wrath,
and only grace is what counts. See, if you try to work for anything,
for a standard with God, It's gonna fall, it's gonna fail,
it's not gonna measure up. And it's only gonna work wrath
against you. For they which are of the law be heirs, faith is
made void. So faith is not covering you. Faith is not given for you. Christ's faithfulness didn't
have anything to do with your salvation. Your law keeping did. I'm not making those scenarios
up. That's what the Holy Spirit is
saying. And for those who believe the law keeping is what does
it and not Christ alone and His faithfulness, His faith, then
they're arguing with the Word of God. The Word of God is the
one who is pitting the two against each other. It's not your faith
or works or anything else, it's the work of Christ, His faithfulness
that God counts. And so if you try to do it this
way, this is how God considers it. If you're trying to work
for righteousness by works and law, God considers you under
condemnation. Because that's all that lawbreakers
can do. But what does it say here? Because
the law worketh wrath, but where no law is, there is no transgression. See, we're not under law now,
so there is no transgression anymore for us. Do we still sin? Absolutely we do. Are we sinners? Absolutely we are until we put
off this flesh. But God does not count the transgression
against us because he counted it against Christ. Christ took
our transgression. He has forgiven us of those sins.
And even though we still sin, those sins have all been covered
by Christ in his blood. So there is no transgression
But when law, if you're gonna bring in the law, there's always
transgression. But there is no transgression
under grace because righteousness has been established for you.
But if you wanna be a law keeper, you're gonna have to keep it
by the terms of the law, which is do this or die. If you wanna
do it by the law, if you wanna make your own righteousness by
the law, then the law says that there is none that will be justified
by keeping it. Because none can keep it. Therefore
it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end promise
might be sure to all the seed. That's how God can guarantee
it to all the seed because it has nothing to do with what the
seed does. Correct? If I would come in here and I
would say I'm going to take my kids to The Grand Canyon, okay? I'm gonna
take my kids to the Grand Canyon. And that's my gift to you, to
take you on this trip to the Grand Canyon. Is it because of
anything that you did? No, it's because I just wanted
to do something for you, okay? That's my grace. I give that
to you by grace, just because you're my children. But if you'd
turn around and you'd start saying, you know, well, I did this because
I was such a good kid and that's why dad took me there. Well,
not really, because you really wasn't completely obedient to
me all this time. But if you want to go based upon
that, then I'm going to have to say you can't go because you
broke some of my rules. It's kind of a bad illustration
to prove a point. That's what I'm saying. If God
is saying that if you want to try to keep righteousness by
your law keeping, then it's not going to be by grace because
grace is something that's freely given, not something that's trying
to be earned by. OK, so the only way that we can all receive it
is for it to not have anything to do with anything that we do. But to that also, which is of
the faith of Abraham, who is the father, of us all. As it
is written, I have made thee a father of many nations before
him, who he believed, even God, who quickened at the dead, and
called those things which be not as though they were. Now look with me, if you would,
down to chapter five. I want to look at one more verse,
and then we'll stop right there. Romans chapter five, and look
at verse 20 with me. Now this is something you guys
have heard quite a bit, especially just not too long ago. Something that I didn't realize
until several years ago, in studying this chapter, did God just kind
of shed the light on a couple of things, especially as it pertains,
and basically in studying this was, whenever I was studying
about absolute predestination, and whether or not God was the
one by his sovereignty who had ordained sin and evil, as God
ordained sin and evil. Chapter five, and starting at
verse 12 and all the way down to 21, in context there, we're
talking about Adam's offense, Adam's sin. Whenever Adam sinned
against God in the garden, that's the context of what the offense
is. And if you follow along with me whenever I preached on that
I said, you know, mark every place where it says offense or
transgression or something like that, because it says it over
and over and over and over again down through that passage. But
we get to verse 20 and we realize it says, moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound. The purpose of God giving the
commandments, or giving a command period, and this was before the
law of Moses was given. This was the command that God
gave to Adam, don't eat of this tree. If you can eat of anything
else, don't eat of this tree. If you eat of this tree, you're
gonna die. Eat anything else you want, but
don't eat of this tree. And he said, for in the day thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He didn't say if you eat
of this tree, you will surely die. He said, in the day thou
eatest thereof. God already knew what was going
to happen. And he didn't foresee it like a fortune teller. He
knew it would happen because that's what God had ordained.
God had ordained that Adam would be the man by which sin and death
would enter into the world, and death by sin. Adam was going
to eat that fruit no matter what. God ordained it. Adam didn't
have a free will. to choose not to and he just
did it anyway. No, Adam was created natural
just like we are created natural because we are his child in the
flesh. He is created without the ability
to keep the law just like we are. We didn't become lawbreakers
because Adam was a lawbreaker. We become lawbreakers because
we are children of Adam who also was a lawbreaker, okay? His nature
was made that could not keep the law. And so look at verse
20 though. It says, moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound. God give the commandment to manifest,
to bring forth, to show the offense of our hearts, the inability
to keep God's law. Adam couldn't keep that law.
It just had not been revealed yet. When God made Adam and Eve,
Before it ever said anything about the tree, that offense,
that lust was in their heart already. It lied dormant, couldn't
see it, didn't know it was there until the law came. When the
law came in, it brought forth the offense. It manifested that. In James, the Bible tells us
that we sin whenever we by our own lusts are drawn away and
enticed. And whenever we are enticed,
then we have been tempted and we are tempted by our lust. And whenever we give way to that
temptation, it brings forth sin. So Adam, if he sinned, if he
created an offense, it was because his own lusts were enticed. There was lust in Adam's heart
to do what the snake had said. If you eat of this, you will
be like God. God didn't really mean that. He didn't say that. He just knows
that you will be like God if you eat this. And Adam had the
lust in his heart that, hey, I want to be like God. I want
to have my own righteousness. I want to have my own control.
Isn't that what it's all about? Isn't that what you hear at the
heart of all the gospels that are out there? Is that you can
be like God. You can make yourself righteous
by your own works and you have a free will to choose. Nobody
controls you. You can do whatever you want.
Brethren, those are two things that are only inherent in God
alone. Righteousness and free choice.
God is the only one that has free choice. If you don't believe
me, go out here and try to jump over this house. See how much
your free choice is gonna let you do that. You decide out everything
that you're gonna do and see if your plans don't change. You
know what my plans was this morning? To go out and get in that car
and drive and get Daniel and pick him up and come right back
here. But guess what? That's not what happened. There
was ice covering our car and I had to get it all off. We had
to melt it to even get in the doors. I can't choose anything. The
Bible tells me to boast not about what's tomorrow, because you
don't even know what today's going to bring. We have plans for today,
and guess what? We're going to try to go do those,
but we don't have any idea what might happen. I might fall down
with an aneurysm in my head, not an aneurysm, an aneurysm
in my brain before I'm even done preaching here. It wasn't manifested, but the
law was given so that it might manifest that sin. And I know
there's going to be arguments. People are going to listen to
this. There's going to be people watching this. There's going to be comments
in the bottom of the thing that are going to say, so you believe
that God is the author of sin. That's a whole nother story.
You got to define what you mean by that. Is God a sinner? No. Is God unrighteous? No. But there
is a biblical teaching about this very thing. Moreover, the
law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by your faith, by your law-keeping, by your works, no, by Christ
our Lord. Brethren, the purpose of the
law was that the offense might abound. The purpose of the law
is to show us our sinfulness that is there, our inability
to measure up to God's holy standard, our inability to keep the law. That's what the law is for, not
for righteousness. That's why Paul is so emphatic
to the Galatian churches to tell them, quit listening to those
men. Those men are telling lies about
the gospel. They are leading you down a path
that if you believe these things and if you turn away from the
faith and don't believe in Christ alone, then that was proof you
never was a believer. It's a very important thing for
us to understand those things because we hear so much preaching
for keeping the law and being righteous before God in what
we do in our works that it lays burden upon our conscience. Our conscience tells us, well,
I probably ought to not do that. I know the Bible doesn't say
I can't do that, but I probably shouldn't do that. See, it lays
upon, that's what the people in Acts were talking about. Why
should we lay a yoke upon their necks that even we couldn't keep? The law and law keeping is a
burden It is bondage. The Bible says it brings bondage.
We found that in our passages earlier, that it is a bondage. And we have been freed from that
bondage. That's the blessedness of the gospel, brethren, is that
Christ has freed us from those things. All right. Anybody got
any questions or comments? We're going to wrap it up right
there. We're gonna come back. We're still gonna work our way
through. There's a lot here in Romans. We're gonna keep clicking
through and see that this is not just in Galatians and interpreted
wrongly, okay? I've been told, I've preached
through Galatians before. Whenever I first come to this
church, I preach through Galatians, or most of the way through Galatians.
Actually, I think I finished Galatians. But I've heard people
say, well, you know, you're just interpreting that incorrectly.
You need to interpret that rightly, because the Bible says that we
keep the law and all that stuff, you know, that there's works
that we have to do after we're saved to be pleasing to God and
to stay, you know, right before God. Well, brethren, that's what
I'm hoping to show is what, not what I say, not what this church
says, but what the word of God says, and then that should be
our rule that we go by, right? All right, anybody got a question? Father, we thank you once again
for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We thank you again, Father, for
Christ Jesus, the very heart of that gospel, and what he has
done for his people. We thank you, Lord, for salvation
by grace through his faith, and that not of ourselves, but it's
truly a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. There
will be no boast For God does not share his glory with anyone,
but yet his seed will find that they too will be part in the
exaltation of Christ as trophies of what his grace has done. And
so, Father, we pray that you might humble our hearts before
not only ourselves, but to other people, and especially before
you, Lord, that you would humble us knowing that everything is
by grace and not by our works. And Lord, I just thank you so
much that this study is here, Lord, because for so many years
I struggled with this very thing. Even after coming to know the
doctrines of grace, I struggled with these things. And my conscience
was heavy because of traditions of men and because of wrong understanding
of the law. But Father, I thank you. that
what little understanding I have has come from you and that has
freed me from the misunderstandings that we have and the freeing
of the conscience to know that we have righteousness imputed
to us outside of what we do and that we are no longer under the
law for righteousness. And Father, I pray that that
freedom and that clearing of the conscience comes to all the
children of grace as you reveal it to them in your time. Lord,
I pray that you might continue to reveal truth to us, to give
us better understanding, to grow us in the grace and the knowledge
of Jesus Christ, for we know that that is where we grow, is
in grace and in knowledge. But Father, we know that our
holiness never grows because this flesh is dead and it's just
flesh and it cannot please you. And it's not until we put away
this tent, this body of flesh, Lord, that we will really know
what it is being like without sin. So Father, Lord, help us
now in the consternation, in the warfare against the flesh
and the spirit that we will continue to battle until you come again
or until we put down these bodies. May you help us, Father. May
you give us a right thinking, right understanding. May you
help us increase Increase our faith, increase our belief in
what you have done for us, Lord. Give us a measure of faith that
continues to trust in you and leans not under our own understanding,
does not look at the arm of flesh, but it looks to you, Father.
Pray for all those who are listening and watching. I ask, Lord, that
you might just minister to them by the Spirit, teach them. Lord,
I know that the words that come out of my lips, they cannot convince
anybody of sin. It cannot convince anybody. of
truth, it cannot convince anybody of the gospel. But Father Lord,
we know that you can, and your spirit is the one that teaches,
and it's invincible. It's irresistible. So we pray,
Lord, that you just might send it upon our friends and upon
our family, for those that are listening. They might understand,
they might believe. Father Lord, we pray for our
church. We ask, Lord, that you would guide it, that you might
continue to keep it in the faith, that you might continue to strengthen
us, Lord, here, that you might use us as a place of fellowship
and of truth being preached, Lord, that you might continue
to do that in this city. And Lord, we just pray for all
of our members, again, that are gone for Brother Ed. Lord, we pray for him. He's been
sick. And we ask, Lord, that you might just give him healing
in his sickness. We pray for Kevin. For his family,
Lord, we just ask that you continue to give them safety while in
Guatemala. And whenever they come home here in a few weeks,
Lord, we ask that you give them safety coming back. And Lord,
we just ask that you just might be glorified in all that we do
and all that we say, Lord, that it might point to
Christ. And it's in Jesus' name that
we pray, amen.