wretched worms to magnify his
grace. God's grace comes not by man's
free will, nor by his legal works. God gives his grace to whom he
will, and his salvation works. We all deserve eternal wrath,
And some God does pass by, But some He has decreed to save,
And they shall never die. Great God, we praise you for
your grace and for your sovereignty. You chose us and redeemed us
too, and you have set us free. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
the Triune God we praise. We for the glory of your grace
give you alone all praise. Please be seated. Morning. Will you open with me
to Psalm 16? Verse one, preserve me, O God,
for in thee do I put my trust. O my soul, thou hast said unto
the Lord, thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to thee,
but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent,
in whom is all my delight. Their sorrows shall be multiplied
that Hassan, after another god, their drink offerings of blood
will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. The
Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, and of my cup. Thou maintainest
my lot. The lines are fallen unto me
in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord who hath
given me counsel. My reigns also instruct me in
the night. I have set the Lord always before
me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore,
my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall
rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of love life. In thy presence is
fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures
forevermore. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity
to gather in your house and hear your word and hear you exalted
and raised up, we ask that you would show us our need for you
and give us rest knowing that we are yours. Lord, we ask that
you blot out all the distractions that so easily get to us and
cause us not to hear. And just make your word affectionate
to our hearts. In your name we pray, amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin, the
hymn that's on the back of the bulletin. When all thy mercies, O my God,
my hungry soul surveys, transported with the view I'm lost in wonder,
love, and praise. Oh, how shall words with ample
warmth my gratitude declare which glows within, but thou canst read it there. Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought, But when I see thee as thou art,
I'll praise thee as I ought. Till then I would thy love proclaim
with every fleeting breath. And may the music of thy name
refresh my soul in death. Please be seated. What is the difference between
an unbeliever and a believer? The answer to that question is
actually in the question. I've heard people say, well,
you know, I know that God saved me because I don't do whatever
anymore. Be careful. Be careful. There's a lot of people in this
world that are very outwardly moral. You shouldn't have been
doing the things you were doing anyway, and I'm glad you quit. But that's not the evidence that
God saved you. The Apostle Paul of his own confession
says that concerning the law, I was blameless. He was very
religious, very devoted, very dedicated, very outwardly moral. He said nobody could accuse me
of ever having broken one of God's laws. Could anybody say
that about you? And yet, in that state, I was
on my way to hell. Had the Lord not stopped me,
I was an unbeliever. That which I thought was gain,
that which I thought was earning for me, a righteousness with
God, was the very thing that was keeping me from knowing God. I was putting my trust in my
outward righteousness rather than in the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The only final difference between
a believer and an unbeliever is believing. That's it. Faith, the scripture
says, is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence
of things not seen. By it, the elders obtained a
good report. Now, as I said in the previous
hour, faith is not believing that God will do something that
you ask Him to do. There's lots of that kind of
preaching going on. Well, you just need to believe God for
that. Health and wealth, prosperity, gospel. You know, you can live
with no trouble in your life if you just believe God. That's
not faith. Faith is believing that God has
done everything He's promised to do. It's taking Him at His
word. And that's a gift from God. Only He can give us that kind
of faith. He has to open the eyes of our
understanding. He has to reveal Himself to us. 2 Corinthians
5, verse 7 says, For we walk by faith, not by sight. We're not looking at the outward
evidence of things. Matter of fact, he goes on to
say, we look not on the things which are seen, but rather on
the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Now that's what faith is able
to do. Faith is able, the eyes of faith are able to look beyond
the temporal and believe the eternal. Through faith, we understand
that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. Through faith,
we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God,
so that that which is seen was not made of the things which
do appear. The things which are seen were
not made by that which does appear. There's a problem with evolution
right there, isn't it? that the things which we see
came about from other things which we see and God says no.
Faith believes that that which is unseen created that which
is seen. And the same thing is true in
the spiritual world. Faith believes that that which
cannot be seen with the natural eyes, the eternal, was made spiritual
by God. I'd like for you to turn with
me, if you will, to the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk, chapter 2. There are four times
in the Word of God where the scripture says, the just shall
live by faith. In each one of these verses,
the Lord is speaking of a different aspect of our spiritual life. In the Habakkuk passage, he is
saying that revelation of the gospel is made to the heart through
faith. In Romans chapter 1, he's making
it clear that the miracle of the new birth takes place through
faith. In Galatians chapter 3, when
the Lord says, the just shall live by faith, he's talking about
being justified in the presence of a holy God. That can only
happen through faith. And in Hebrews chapter 10, He's
speaking of sanctification and glorification when he says, the
just shall live by faith. So whether we're talking about
revelation, whether we're talking about regeneration, whether we're
talking about justification or sanctification or glorification,
all these things, all these things can only be embraced through
faith. Which puts you and I begging
God for faith. I hope that will be the outcome
of this message. For you, as it has been for me,
oh Lord, increase my faith. I want to see more of you. I
want to understand your glory. I want to see more of your accomplished
work. I need you to give me the means
by which that revelation is made known to my heart. I can't figure
it out on my own. I can't get enough education.
I can't read enough books. I can't make lengthy enough notes. I can't do enough in order to
figure this out. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes by the Word of God. You have your Bibles open to
Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 1, I will stand upon my
watch and set me upon the tower. I will watch to see what he will
say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved. Lord, would you just sit me still?
Just sit me still, open my ears, open my eyes. Lord, I don't know
what to do. I don't know what to do, but
to be still and to ask you to speak to my heart, to reveal
the glory of the gospel to me. Look at verse two, and the Lord
answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain upon
the tablets that you, that he may run that read of it. Oh,
so he's telling the prophet, he says, write out the gospel
so that those who read the revelation of the gospel will flee to Christ. For the vision is yet for an
appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it,
because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold, his
soul which is lifted up is not upright in him." See, the man
who's got a lifted up soul, is the man who thinks that he's
got the intellect or the morality or the virtue to discover the
things of God on his own. That's the man whose soul has
been lifted up. But the man who's been reproved
by the Spirit of God he knows that he's nothing he knows that
he knows nothing he knows that he can do nothing and he's completely
dependent upon the Lord to reveal himself to him and so this passage
concludes with the just shall live by his faith when it comes
to the revelation of the gospel put down your pens Quit reading
books. Faith comes by hearing. God's
going to quiet His children. He's going to shut their mouths. He's going to sit them down.
Listen to what Paul said in Corinthians. The natural man Receiveth not
the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them, for they are
spiritually discerned." Lord, I need your Spirit. I need your
Spirit to bless me like you blessed Simon Bar-Jonah. When the Lord
asked the disciples, whom do men say that I am? Peter said,
well, you know, some people say that you're John the Baptist,
and some Elijah, or some one of the prophets. And our Lord
said, who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Peter said, thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. That's who I believe you to be.
And what did our Lord say to Simon? Simon Bar-Jonah? You've been blessed of God. Flesh
and blood has not revealed this unto you. My Father which is
in heaven has made it known unto you. And upon this rock, the
declaration of your faith that you just made, that I am the
Christ. You can't see the Lord Jesus
as the Christ apart from faith. And you can't come up with faith. God's got to give it to you. Turn with me to Romans chapter
8. Look at verse 5. For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. Now all he's saying there is
that the natural man who's in the flesh and under the law,
all he can do is mind the things of the flesh. It's the Spirit
of God that has to place a person under grace and give them faith
to be mindful of the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally
minded, that's fleshly, is death, but to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. Why? Because the carnal mind
is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can it be. It's impossible. It's impossible
for the carnal mind to be subject to the things of God. We come
into this world as carnal men. We're in need of faith in order
to see the things of God. The Lord told Nicodemus, you
can't see the kingdom of God, Nicodemus. You can't see it. You cannot see it. So then, they that are in the
flesh, now he's not talking about He's not talking about people
who live down here in the gutter, you know, just engaged in all
sort of fleshly activities and other people that live a higher
life, you know, they're walking in the clouds and they just... He's not... That's not what He's
talking about. He's talking about being in the flesh or being in
the spirit. He's talking about being saved or being lost. He's
talking about the two kinds of people that there are in the
world. And what He's saying is that those who are in the flesh
cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. I hope that the Lord
is doing for you what he's doing for me right now. Oh God, I need
your Spirit. I cannot see the things of God,
I cannot receive the truth of the gospel. I can't see who I
am. I can't understand what it is
the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for me on Calvary's cross. I cannot believe that it was
for me. I can't receive the gospel. It's
a mystery. It's a mystery to me. and none
of my education and none of my intellect and none of my efforts
are ever going to be able to discover it. The just, Habakkuk
says, shall live by faith. The vision has been written in
the book that they which hear it might run to it and the man
who's lifted up in pride can hear it. But the just shall live
by faith. The revelation of the gospel
can only come by faith. Don't you love that story in
2 Kings chapter 6 when the Syrians came down to Israel and they
surrounded Elisha in his little cabin and Elisha's servant went
out early in the morning and looked out and there were horses
and chariots surrounding the whole city where Elisha was. and the servant came back in,
I can just imagine. He's stuttering, nervous, sweating,
I'm sure, at his brow, wondering, what do we do, Master? What do
we do? What shall we do? Elisha never even looked out
the window. Elisha said to his servant, he said, he said, fear
not. They that are with us are more
than they that be with him. And the young man looked at himself,
and he looked at Elisha, the old man. He said, the old man's
lost it. It's just me and him. He hasn't even looked out the
door yet. And Elisha said, Lord, open his
eyes that he might see. and the Lord opened the servant's
eyes and he went back out the door and he looked and he saw
that the Syrian army was surrounded by another army of horses and
chariots of fire. We're like that servant aren't
we? We can't see it. We can't see the fire of God's
wrath that fell from heaven on Calvary's cross and put away
all the sins of all God's people once and for all. We can't see
it. All we can see is our own sin. The revelation of the gospel
can only come through faith. The just shall live by faith. We can't see the Lord Jesus Christ
seated at the right hand of God, interceding on behalf of his
people. We can't see it. We can't see
with the physical eyes that he has already prepared a place
for us, and that he will come again and receive us unto himself,
that where he is, we may be also. We can't see that the best thing
we've ever done, the best prayer we've ever prayed, the best work
we've ever performed, we can't see that it's iniquity before
God. We can't see that man at his
very best state is altogether vanity. We can't see that our
righteousness is as filthy rags before God. We can't see that.
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for
they are spiritually discerned. He can't know them. He can't
know them. And the man who is lifted up
in pride will die in his sins. But the just shall live by his
faith. Oh Lord, give me faith that I
might see. The revelation of the gospel
can only come to the heart through the divine gift of gracious,
merciful faith. And that's what you need. And
that's what I need. Above every other thing that
we perceive to be our needs, that is our need. Lord, give me faith. I can't
come to it on my own. Turn with me, please, in your
Bibles to Romans chapter 1. Not only does the revelation
of the gospel come only by faith, only by faith. Faith is a gift
of God. And the only way we can see the
truth of who God is, who we are, and how it is God is pleased
to save sinners is through the divine gift of faith. Secondly, Romans chapter 1 verse
16, for I am not ashamed of the good news of Christ. The gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's good news. You know what the
good news is? There's no contribution for you
to make. It's finished. It's already done. Every bit
of it. Every bit of righteousness that
God requires was presented before the Father in the person of His
own dear Son. Every bit of divine justice that
God requires for the putting away of our sin was satisfied
through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross. That's good news. There's nothing
for you to do. And Paul says, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that, what? Believeth. Lord, I want to believe. What did Philip say to the Ethiopian
eunuch? If thou believest with all thine
heart, thou mayest. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. God has given me that faith.
Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. The righteousness of God is not
revealed in your works. Men ignorant of the righteousness
of God go about trying to establish their own righteousness. That's
all man-made religion is. All man-made religion is, is
man trying to establish a righteousness before God by some contribution
that he makes. And what the Lord's saying is
that in the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith. from the faithfulness of the
Lord Jesus Christ to the faith that he gives to his people for
the just shall live by faith. Not only do we need faith to
see the gospel, we need faith to believe the gospel. Nicodemus, You must be born again. How can I go back into my mother's
womb? Oh no, Nicodemus. That which
is of the flesh is flesh. The flesh profiteth nothing. Nothing. You've got to be born
of the Spirit. And the Spirit's like the wind.
He listeth with us wherever He wills. You completely depended
upon Him to blow your way. Oh, Lord, would you send your
spirit to give me faith, to regenerate me, to breathe life into my sin-sick
soul? That woman that came to the Lord
crawling on the ground that I mentioned in the previous hour, that had
an issue of blood, she had spent all that she had on physicians
and was worse off now than she was at the beginning. And what did the Lord say to
her? Scripture says, when the Lord asked who touched me, she
spoke up and she told him everything. And she was unclean. She was
supposed to be standing on the outside, letting everybody know
that she was unclean and keeping her distance from everybody.
Instead, she went right in the crowd and touched the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said, virtue has gone out
from me, who's touched me? And she told him everything. Everything. She confessed everything
to him. She poured out her soul to him
in faith. That was the virtue that went
out from him. The virtue that went out from him when she touched
him was the faith that he gave her to confess everything. And then he said to her, thy
faith has made thee whole. There's no comfort for a sinner in believing that Christ is able
to save and that he actually did save without that believer being given
the faith to believe that he saved you. You might say, well, I know the
Lord's able to save. And I know that He accomplished
the salvation of everybody for whom He died, everybody that
God chose in the covenant of grace. I am convinced that He
saved every one of them. I am too. But I find no comfort
for my own sin-sick soul believing those two things. I need for the Lord to give me
faith to believe that He saved me. Are you crying for that kind
of faith? Lord, regenerate my soul. Give
me the grace to look upon Christ. Convince me that what He did
on Calvary's cross was for me. He is the just and the justifier
of everyone that believeth. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
3. Galatians chapter 3. You and I need the gift of faith
in order to see the gospel. You and I need the gift of faith
to believe the gospel. You and I need the gift of faith
to know that we have been justified. Justified before God. Look at
Galatians chapter 3 at verse 6. Even as Abraham believed God
and it was accounted to him for righteousness, know ye therefore
that they which are of faith the same are the children of
Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith. That's me. That's me. Lord, I'm a heathen.
and the only way that I'm gonna be justified, Lord, is you give
me faith to look to Christ. He preached before the gospel
unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all the nations be blessed.
So then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, What does the physical eye is
able to see? All the physical eye is able
to see. What makes the difference between believer and unbeliever?
Don't look to the outward performance of your life to get hope and
evidence of your salvation. It will either take you back
to the law or lead you into the deep, dark well of self-righteousness
where there is no light. There's no light. They which are of the works of
the law are unto the cursed. Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all the things which are written in the book of the law
to do them. You're going to get hope of your salvation, your
justification before God by what you do or don't do? Then you
need to be prepared to do everything that God requires perfectly,
not only in outward performance, but in inward motive. That's
what he's saying. You've got to do it all. Truth
is, you and I have never been able to do not one bit of it. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. You know what
man and religion do? You know what the natural man
does? Well, we all tend to do it. We want to justify ourselves
before one another, don't we? The natural man is more concerned
with the praise of men than he is with the praise of God. He's
more concerned with the approval of his peers than he is with
the approval of God. But here's what God says. It
is evident that no man is justified before God by the works of the
law. You can't do it. You might impress
yourself. You might impress others. You're not impressing God. For the just shall live by faith. And Paul goes on in Romans chapter
8 to say, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? For it is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather is risen again, who is even at
the right hand of God, and who makes intercession for us. The only way that you and I are
going to be justified before God is to have the Lord Jesus
Christ seated at the right hand of God making intercession for
us. Lord, he's one of ours. He's
one for whom I died. He's just before God. His sin's
been put away. He was offered up for our offenses
and raised again because of our justification. When the Lord
Jesus Christ gave up the ghost on Calvary's cross, when he bowed
his head and said, It is finished, Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit, all those for whom he lived and died were justified
before God. You weren't there, not physically.
There's no recordings of it. There's no movies. There's no
pictures. How am I going to embrace something
that took place 2,000 years ago? Faith. Faith. Lord, I need faith. I need faith
to go back in time and to believe that what you did on Calvary's
cross 2000 years ago justified me before God. I need faith to
believe what I can't see with the natural eye. I cannot see
the Lord Jesus Christ seated in the heavens right now. I can't
see it. I talked to a guy recently said,
well, I, you know, I went to heaven and, and, uh, saw God
and came back. I don't believe that. He's either a liar or he's crazy,
one or the other. He didn't go to heaven. The only
thing that enables us to go to heaven is faith. To believe that
we are seated in the heavenlies in Christ right now. The just
shall live by faith. We need faith for revelation.
We need faith for regeneration. We need faith for justification.
Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. And I'll close. Hebrews chapter
10. We need faith. Believing God. for our sanctification
and for our glorification. You see, that's all of salvation. Revelation, regeneration, justification,
sanctification, glorification, it's all by faith. Every bit
of it. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 35,
cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompense
of reward. Oh! Trials of this life can not be
compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. Now that takes faith to believe
that. God-given faith. And so he says, cast not away
your confidence. Where is your confidence? Where's
your confidence? Are you confident that a prayer
you prayed somehow made you acceptable before God? Are you confident
that your life is somehow pleasing enough to God for Him to receive
you into glory? Where's your confidence? Where
is your confidence? I'm asking myself the same thing.
Where's my confidence? As he says, cast not away your
confidence, for you have need of patience, you have need of
faith, that after you have done the will of God, you might receive
the promise. So there it is, preacher, we
gotta do the will of God. I remind you that a man once
asked the Lord, what work can I work to do the will of God? And the Lord Jesus Christ looked
at him and said, this is, this is the will of God that you believe
on him whom he has sent. That's the will of God. And only
by God's will will you be able to believe. And so he says, after
you have, after you have believed God, you might receive the promise
for yet a little while and he shall come. He that shall come
will come and will not tarry. Oh, you believe that? I lose
sight of that. I need to be reminded of that.
I need every day for the Lord to remind me that life is a vapor. Otherwise, I'll just put down
roots and invest all my time and energy and effort and all
my strength in temporal things. What does faith do? It doesn't
look at the temporal. It looks at the eternal. Now the just shall live by faith. And if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure with him. But we are not of them who
draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving
of their soul. The only thing that distinguishes
a believer from an unbeliever is faith. It's all we've got. It's all we've got. And it's all we need. Because
through faith, through faith, God's pleased to reveal himself.
Through faith, God's pleased to save sinners. Through faith,
God's pleased to justify us before God. Through faith, God's pleased
to keep us and to receive us into glory. And it's all through
faith. Every bit of it. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
you would Bless the hearts of your Children with faith. Lord, if there be someone here
that's never believed, we asked Lord that you would give them
faith to believe for those of us Lord that have experienced
your grace and your mercy. We pray that you would increase
our faith for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 97 in the
softback tenor. Let's stand together. Repeat the last line in each
verse. The gospel call goes out to all
as sinners hear the word. Sinner, fall down before Christ's
throne. Repent and trust the Lord. Repent and trust the Lord. Believe on Christ and you'll
be saved. The Word of God is true. If you believe on Jesus Christ,
His blood was shed for you. His blood was shed for you. But sinners dead cannot believe
you have no will or power to trust the Son of God unless made
willing by His power, made willing by His power. May God be pleased in sovereign
grace to send his spirit down. And by the gospel wake the dead
and take you for his own. And take you for his own. Thank you. Okay.