Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with a hymn from the hard-covered hymnal, hymn number
15. Let's go ahead and find our seats. We want to welcome the folks
in Sarasota. It's time for us to start. So let's number 15,
let's sing number 15 in the hardbacked hymnal. Brethren, we have met
to worship. Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word? All is vain unless the spirit
of the The Holy One comes down. Brethren, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around. Brethren, see poor sinners round
you, slumbering on the brink of woe. Death is coming, hell
is moving, can you bear to let them go? and our mothers and our children
sinking down. Brethren, pray and holy manna
will be showered all around. Sisters, will you join and help
us? Moses' sister aided him. Will you help the trembling mourners
who are struggling hard with sin? Tell them all about the
Savior. Tell them that He will be found. Sisters pray and holy manna will
be showered all around. Let us love our God supremely. Let us love each other too. Let us love and pray for sinners
till our God makes all things new. Then he'll call us home
to heaven. At his table we'll sit down. Christ will gird himself and
serve us with sweet manna all around. Please be seated. Good evening. It's good to have
Cyril and Lenore Reynolds with us from Pennsylvania. They're going to be here Sunday
also. We're so, so happy. I want to read from Hebrews chapter
8 for our scripture reading tonight. Hebrews chapter 8. When we used to sing that hymn
that we just sang, Do you identify with that person
that the hymn's talking about, praying for? You know, pray for
the one who's struggling with sin, pray for the... I feel like I'm that person. Hebrews chapter 8, we'll begin
reading verse 1. Now of the things which we have
spoken, this is the sum. We have such a high priest who
is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the
heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle, which
the Lord pitched and not man. For every high priest is ordained
to offer gifts and sacrifices. Wherefore, it is of necessity
that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth,
He should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer
gifts according to the law, who serve unto the example and shadow
of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he
was about to make the tabernacle. For see, saith he, that thou
shalt make all things according to the pattern showed to thee
in the mount. And now hath he obtained a more
excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a
better covenant which was established upon better promises. You are
not under the law, you're under grace. This is not a covenant
made by Moses. The law came by Moses, grace
and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ. For if that first covenant
had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for
the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not
according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in
the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the
land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded
them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them
in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall
be to me a people. This is the law of the spirit,
the law of grace, the law of Christ in the hearts of God's
people. They shall not teach every man
his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord.
The church is not made up of unbelievers like the Old Testament
Israel was. Most of the people in the Old
Testament Israel were unbelievers. The only way to get into the
church is to be in Christ. And so, he says, there's no reason
for us to say to one another, know the Lord, like they did
them. For all shall know me from the least to the greatest, for
I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. In that he sayeth, a new covenant,
he hath made the first old. Now that which is decaying and
waxing old is ready to banish away. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we ask that you would bless us with your spirit tonight, that
you would speak to our hearts, open the eyes of our understanding,
that you would comfort us with the finished work of thy dear
Son, that his glorious person and accomplished work would be
set forth before our eyes, that we would look upon him, rest
in him, find all our hope and all our salvation in him. We thank you, Lord, that we have
a throne of grace that we can come to boldly to find help in
our time of need. Truly, Lord, we are in need of
your grace. We are in need of your mercy.
We ask that you would be pleased to do it for thy name's sake. For we pray it in Christ's name,
amen. Let's stand together again, hymn
number 300, number 300 from the hardback hymnal. More secure is no one ever than
the loved ones of the Savior, not yon star on high abiding,
nor the bird in homeness hiding. God his own doth tend and nourish,
in his holy courts they flourish. Like a father kind he spares
them, in his loving arms he bears them. Neither life nor death
can ever from the Lord his children sever, for his love and deep
compassion comforts them in tribulation. Little flock, to joy then yield
thee, Jacob's God will ever shield thee. Rest secure with this defender,
At his will all foes surrender. What he takes or what he gives
us shows the Father's love so precious. We may trust his purpose
wholly, tis his children's welfare solely. Please be seated. We're going to begin tonight's
message in Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. We saw Sunday
morning that Paul used this phrase, God forbid, three times in the
book of Galatians. Galatians is really an abbreviated
form or version, if you will, of the book of Romans. And the
Lord has used a question-and-answer form of teaching,
rhetorical form of teaching in the Book of Romans in order to
display the gospel of His grace. We could say that all of God's
Word is written in order to distinguish the difference between law and
grace. It's what it's all about. We're
not under the law, we're under grace. And that's the theme that's
so clearly set forth in the book of Romans. And the questions
that Paul asked, that the Lord, the Holy Spirit, inspired the
apostle Paul to write, were questions that the natural man would have
in hearing the gospel. The gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace, the gospel of the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the gospel that requires absolutely no contribution
whatsoever to be made on the part of those who are blessed
by it, is so contrary, it is so opposite of what the natural
man thinks. And all the questions that Paul
poses in the book of Romans are the questions that people, when
they hear the gospel, ask us. They ask us these very questions.
And so the answers are given here in order to glorify Christ
in his finished work and in order to set forth the truth of the
gospel of God's free grace. And I want us to take a few minutes
tonight to go through these nine verses where Paul says, God forbid. Perish the thought. He presents
the question rhetorically. He asks, in light of what I just
said, I know here's what your objection's going to be. And
so he presents the question or the objection that men will have,
and then he answers that question with, perish the thought. God
forbid that you should think that. And then he goes on to
answer the question. And so the gospel is set forth
so clearly in this form in the book of Romans as it is in all
of scripture, but here is where we are tonight and here I trust
the Lord will affirm to our hearts and convince us that salvation
is of the Lord. It's all of him. That he would
remind us every time we look towards Sinai to come back to
Calvary, to look to Christ. That we would not be looking to the law
in any way for the hope of our acceptance before God. In Romans
chapter three, chapter two, he sets forth the
advantage of being a Jew. And then he asked the question,
well, he says that they have these blessings, but in fact,
it's not to their advantage, is what he says in chapter two.
And so in chapter three, he says, what advantage then hath the
Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision, much every way,
chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of
God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word
of God. By his will, by his own will, begat he us with the word
of truth. If we don't have the scriptures,
then we have no hope of hearing the gospel. Man could never discern
from general revelation The revelation that God gives to man in creation,
the revelation that God gives to man in his conscience, can
never bring a man to hear the gospel. Only the preaching of
God's Word. And so he's saying that though
these Jews considered themselves to be in an advantage because
of their birthright, he said, no, they don't have an advantage
because of that. But they are blessed in that
they've been given the oracles of God. For what if some did
not believe? Verse 3, shall their unbelief
make the faith of God without effect? God forbid. Now what the Lord's saying is,
is God frustrated in his attempt to save men? Here he's given
Israel his word and they've not believed it. And he gave it to them in order
to reveal himself to them, but they remained in unbelief. And so is God frustrated? Is God unable to convince men
to come to himself? God forbid, let God be true,
but every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be
justified in thy sayings and mightest overcome when thou art
judged. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of
God, what sayeth we? Is God unrighteous who taketh
vengeance? I speak as a man, God forbid,
for then how shall God judge the world? What he's saying is
that God's going to judge men for the knowledge that they have.
and that these vessels fitted for destruction were given the
oracles of God and yet their unbelief in no way frustrates
the grace of God. When the Lord went to Capernaum And they refused him. Capernaum
was a city that was very religious, very committed to the laws of
God. They were outwardly moral, and
yet they refused to hear the gospel. And the Lord said to
them that it would be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom
than it would be for them. That's what the Lord's saying
here. You know, if, when a person hears the gospel, they bear a
greater responsibility before God. And God's not frustrated
if they refuse to believe. He's going to accomplish the
salvation of his people. If God made a covenant with Israel,
what they're saying is that God gave him his word in order to
bring them to himself. Did he not? And what the Lord's
saying here is, yeah, he gave him his word. But if they don't
believe, it doesn't frustrate God's purpose in salvation. It
only adds to their judgment. That's exactly what he's saying.
Is God unfair in punishing the very ones whose disobedience
serve to bring him glory? Is God unfair in punishing the
very ones whose disobedience bring him more glory? God forbid. God forbid, perish the thought
that anyone would think that God would be unfair. Let God
be true in every man a liar. God is right in what he does.
If he judges a man to hell, he's right in doing that. If he's
pleased to save someone, he's right in doing that. It's all
of grace. But he begins with this argument. Grace is so free that the natural
unenlightened man thinks that God is somehow unfair. It's not right. Isn't that what
people say? You tell them the gospel, that's
not fair. That's not fair. God would just Save some and
not others? Yes, yes, he will. It's called
grace. It's his sovereign right to have
mercy upon whomsoever he will have mercy. Look at verse 31
in that same chapter. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish
the law. The Lord said, I did not come
to destroy the law, I came to fulfill it. Grace is the only
thing that establishes the law of God. We're not making void
the law of God. We're not destroying the law
of God or abolishing the law of God. We are establishing it. We're making it stand. The truth
is that one minute of faith does more to honor God than a lifetime
of outward moral law-keeping. One minute of faith. It is impossible
to please God without faith. Without faith, no man can please
God. God is pleased when Christ is
honored and glorified as the law keeper. And so he's saying,
you don't make void the law of God, you establish the law of
God. Look at chapter six. Chapter 5, the end of chapter
5, moreover, verse 20, the law entered that the offense might
abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. So what we need for sin is not
the law. The law only aggravates sin.
What we need for sin is more grace. The more sin we have,
the more grace we need. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ. What shall we say then? And here's
what the natural man would say. Here's what the man who has no
understanding of what grace means in the heart. He would say, well
then we should just sin all the more. If we're sin abounds, grace
does much more abound, then let's just indulge ourselves in more
sin. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. God forbid. The strength of sin is the law,
and by the law is the knowledge of sin. When we say that everything about
us is sin, we're not advocating going out and living a licentious
life. That's certainly not the case. If we are convicted before God
as a sinner, that's a good thing. If we wallow in the shame and
guilt of a specific sin, you can only do that at Sinai. The only place you can do that
is at Sinai. You've got to go back to the
law in order to do that. To not believe that God has put
away your sin. that he remembers it no more,
that there's no condemnation. You can't look to your sins and
look to Christ at the same time. If you're wallowing in the guilt
of a specific sin, then you're not looking to Christ, you're
looking to the law. You know, if somehow I didn't have that
sin, then I'd be more in obedience to the law of God. You see, you
can't look at sin without being at Sinai. You just can't do it. And that's where you say, what
shall we say? Should we continue? God forbid, how should we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? We're not encouraging
sin. We're not advocating sin. We're
explaining the sin nature that we have. The old man is nothing
but sin and he's never going to get any better. But what does
the unbeliever say when they hear the gospel? Oh, you're just
advocating a licentious life. You're just advocating a life
of rebellion and disobedience against God. No, we're not. No,
we're not. We're just saying that the law
is not the means by which sin is restrained in our lives. If
we go back to Sinai, all that's going to do is aggravate our
sin. Know ye not that so many of us,
as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized into His
death, and we're talking about union with Christ. Here's the
only hope that we have, the only power over sin. is union with Christ. I say it's
faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing that when he
died on Calvary's cross, I died with him. Believing that all
my righteousness before God is bound up in him, that I'm justified
before God by his resurrection, that he's my advocate with the
Father right now. All my salvation, all the hope,
that I have is in Christ. And that's what he's saying.
Know ye not that so many of us that were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried
with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
walk in newness of life. We're walking in faith. The law's not the rule of life. The law will only send you deeper
into your sin. That's all the law will do. And
nothing else is gonna make you self-righteous. You see, if you're
looking at specific sins, you cannot look at specific sins
without looking at the law. And what are you concluding?
That I'd be more in compliance with the law of God if I didn't
have that sin. We're back to Capernaum. That's
where we are. When you think of Sodom, what
do you think about? Homosexuality. That's what Sodom
was known for, wasn't it? And the Lord said to the people
in Capernaum, it will be more tolerable. Is homosexuality a
sin? Of course it is. Of course it
is. So is fornication, and so is
adultery, and so is lust. And if God's made you to be a
sinner, you don't look down your nose at a homosexual and think,
well, but for the grace of God, there go I. You don't do that. The Lord said it's gonna be more
tolerable for those in Sodom than it will be for those self-righteous
moral people in Capernaum who stuck their nose up in the air
and thought themselves to be too good. They were judging themselves
by the law. They didn't see their need for
grace. And that's what the Lord's saying here. He's saying, For if we have been planted together,
verse five, in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in
the likeness of his resurrection. Here's our hope. All our righteousness
is bound up in our union with Christ. We have no righteousness
outside of Christ. And the only strength, the only
power against the passions of our flesh is faith in Christ. It's looking to Christ. It's
not looking to the law. That's what this whole argument's
about. The whole argument in Romans is setting forth the difference
between law and grace. If you go back to the law, you're
just going to be self-righteous, and you're going to be more tempted
to... There's no power in the law.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the
body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin. He's saying, well, this grace,
does that just mean you can just, well, where sin abounds, grace
does much more bound, let's just go on and sin all the more, God
forbid. We're in union with Christ. We're not here to serve sin.
For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, if we be dead
with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more,
death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he
died unto sin once, but that in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God. Likewise, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. Believe it to be so. I don't
feel that way. I'm feeling really guilty. It's because you're looking to
the law. It's because you're back at the Sinai. Reckon yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin. If you're in Christ, you're dead. but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal bodies that you should obey it in the lust thereof,
neither yield to your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin, but yield yourself unto God as those that are alive
from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God. He's talking about that which
every child of God is interested in. How can I restrain the passions
of my flesh? I know that every imagination
of my thought is only evil and that continually. I know that
in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I know that before
God I'm vile. But I don't want it to break
out. I don't want it to control my pattern of life in this world. How can I restrain it? And what
he's saying here is the law is not going to work. It's not going
to work. Only look into Christ. Only reckon
in yourselves to be dead indeed. For sin shall not have dominion
over you. Why? Because you're not under
the law. If you go to Sinai, if you go
to the law, sin's going to have dominion over you. Sin and law. You can't separate
them. Sin is the violation of God's
law. It's a transgression of the law.
That's what the scripture says. So we can't have one without
the other. What then? Shall we sin because
we're not under the law but under grace? God forbid. God forbid. Grace does not promote
sin. Grace is the only thing that
restrains it. It's the only thing that restrains
it. Chapter 7. Now, the chapter begins by using
an analogy of marriage, and he talks about this woman who has
been married to an abusive husband, and now he's dead. And she is
now married to a man that loves her and cares for her. And he
says, In verse four, wherefore, my brethren, you also are become
dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married
to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. You were married to the
law. That's the only rule of life
you had. You judged everything by the law. You judged your righteousness
by the law. You compared yourself to one
another by the law. You compared yourself to yourself
by the law. It's all you had was the law. And the law was abusive. Every morning you woke up and
your husband was already awake and he was sitting on the edge
of the bed. And the first thing he said to you when you opened
your eyes was he told you how ugly you were. And then he told
you how bad a person you were. And then he said to you, before
this is over, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you. Now, if a woman came to me and
said she was married to a man like that, I'd say, get away
from him. Get away from him. And that's
exactly what Paul's saying here. That's the husband you were married
to. Now, you're dead to him. He's dead to you. Why? Because
he's been satisfied. Our kinsman redeemer, Boaz, has
gone to that kinsman that is nearer to us than he is, and
he's reckoned with him. And the law's been satisfied.
So now, what's the natural man think? The man who doesn't have
the spirit of God, the man who can't understand that the law
is holy, just, and good, what's he think? He said, well, the
law must be bad. The law must be sinful. Look
what he says. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of
sins which were by the law, do you get that? The motions of
sins. The outbreaking of these passions
in your flesh that you couldn't control were motivated by the
law. They were brought out by the
law. They did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death, but now we are delivered from
the law, that being dead wherein you were held, that you should
serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? If that law was
that old abusive husband that was beating me up and threatening
to kill me, does that mean that the law was sinful? No, God forbid. Why? Because everything that
law said to you was true. Now we likened it to a human
relationship. And if you had a man treating
you like that, you need to get away from him. But everything
that law said to you, when you woke up and he told you were
ugly, when you tried to do your best and he told you it wasn't
good enough, When He threatened to kill you, everything He said
to you was true. So we can't conclude that the law
is sin. The problem was not with the
law. The problem was with us. We couldn't satisfy the law.
We couldn't keep the law. The law's holy, just, and good,
but it's never sanctified anyone. It's never justified anyone,
and it's never made anybody good. So he says, the natural man would
say, well, the law must be sin. The law must be bad. God forbid
that you should think that. Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law. For I had not known lust, except
the law had said thou shalt not covet. But sin, taken occasion
by commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.
For without the law, sin was dead. So this law, it just brought
the sin out. It's all it does. Every time
we go to Sinai, Every time we think, well, you know, if I hadn't
have done that, God would be more favorable towards me, or
I'd be, you know, or this or that, you see, we start looking
at, now why not, everything about you and me is sinful. Everything
in our old man is corrupt, it's vile before God. That's not what
we're talking about here. We're talking about putting our
attention on specific sins. You cannot do that without the
law. And as soon as you do that, you're
at Sinai and you're not looking to Christ. You're not looking
to Christ. And all that's gonna do is turn
into a tailspin of more sins. The only power you have over
your flesh is faith in Christ. Union with Christ The law's good. There's nothing wrong with the
law, but it can't help you It can't save you. It can't strengthen
you. It can't encourage you Look at verse 13 in that same chapter Verse 11 says, For sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Do you see sin and commandment
together? Sin and law, you can't separate
them. You cannot separate the two.
You're looking at your sins, you're looking at the law. It deceived me. How did it deceive
me? Because I was deceived. I thought,
well, you know, I can do better. I can get better. I can make
myself better. I can be more redeemable. I can
quit some... I can fix this. Wherefore, the law is holy. and
the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which
is good made death unto me? God forbid. Was the law responsible
for my death? No. No. I'm responsible. I'm the sinner. The law just
exposed me for what I was. That's all. Brethren, we're not
under the law. Where the spirit of grace is,
there's liberty, there's freedom, there's power over sin. It is. There is. but sin that it might appear
sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the
commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the
law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin." Now he's talking
about the old man now. He's sold under sin. Everything
about him is sinful. That's a given. In me, he goes
on to say, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. He goes
on to say, to will is ever present with me. I want to be righteous.
I want to be perfect. I want to be sinless. But how
to perform that which is good? I find not. Everything I do,
when I pray, it's sinful. Everything I do is infected with
my sin. I can't produce any righteousness
whatsoever. That's a given. But we don't want to live under
the dominion and power of that sinful nature so that we're just
given over. So what are we going to do? We're
going to discipline each other with the law. We're going to
discipline ourselves with the law. We're going to put one another
under the law. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. The law was not responsible for
my death. I was. I bear full responsibility. And my only hope, my only hope
is in Christ. Chapter nine. There's just a
couple more. These are the rhetorical questions
that the whole book of Romans is set up around. Paul makes
the argument for the gospel of God's grace in Christ, and then
poses the objections that the natural man would have, and then
answers that objection. And so now in chapter 9, he has
presented the case of Jacob and Esau, and before the boys were
born. before they'd done anything good
or evil while they were still in the womb. God said that the
older will serve the younger. For Jacob I have loved, Esau
I've hated. I've chosen Jacob. They didn't
have anything to do with that. Verse 13, as it is written, Jacob
I have loved, but Esau I've hated. What shall we say then? What
does the natural man say when you tell men this? What does
the religious person say when you tell men that God is sovereign
in salvation and he has the sovereign right to have mercy upon whom
he will have mercy and whom he will, he hardens. He's the potter
and we are the clay. He has the right to make from
the same lump of clay, some vessels of honor and some of dishonor.
Whatever he does is right. That he chose a particular people
in the covenant of free grace before time ever began. Placed
them in Christ. Wrote their names in the Lamb's
Book of Life. What do they say? What's their
objection? That's not fair! That's not fair! And when they say that, they're
only exposing the fact that they have made God to be all together
as they are themselves. Truth is, if they were God, there's
a whole lot of people they'd send to hell. Is there unrighteousness with
God? By that I mean that they are making themselves more virtuous
than God. They believe themselves to be
more righteous than God. Is God, is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid, perish the thought. No. No, he raised up Pharaoh
for this very purpose, to destroy him. They have vessels fitted
for destruction. He creates men in order to send
them to hell, in order that the objects of his grace, might know
that, but for the grace of God, there go I. And that's the only
time that that phrase is appropriate to be used. You never look at someone else's
sin and say, but for the grace of God, there go I, because you
know you're worse. But when it comes to salvation, you know that, but for the grace
of God, God's got the right. It's all
of grace. There's no law. The law's been
silenced. The law's been satisfied. Oh,
how prone we are in our hearts and our minds to go, do we not
do this every day? Let's go back to the law instead
of coming to Christ. We're just like Elijah that we
looked at Sunday, aren't we? run into Mount Horeb. And when
we do, the only reason we survive that experience is because God
puts us in the cleft of a rock. Now, these arguments began with national Israel. What benefit
did Israel have by having the law? They had the oracles of
God. They had the gospel. And that's the only hope of being
saved, is to hear the truth of the gospel. And they had that.
Did their faith, did their unbelief frustrate the grace of God? God
forbid, by no means. He's going to close by talking
about national Israel in chapter 11. I say then, I had someone ask
me recently what I thought about all the prophecies of the Old
Testament concerning Israel. And I said every one of them
applies to spiritual Israel. Every one of them. And they said,
well, I believe that the Jews are going to rebuild the temple
and start the sacrificial system over again. And I said, why would
God allow that to happen? He's the one that stopped it.
Why would he start that back? Why would you, why would you
allow that? Why would he allow that to go
back? You know, and then that was going to lead to the salvation
of Israel. That's not going to happen. And
that's not what Romans chapter 11 is talking about. It's talking
about spiritual Israel. Look what Paul says. Verse 1,
I say then, hath God cast away his people? Has God been unfaithful
to his covenant promises that he made to Israel? God forbid. Perish the thought. No. Not at
all. For I am an Israelite of the
seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast
away his people which he foreknew. What ye not what the scripture
saith of Elijah, how he maketh intercession to God against Israel,
saying, we looked at this Sunday. Here's the prayer that Elijah
prayed on Mount Horeb. You remember when he went up
there and had his pity party and he, you know, I'm the only
one left, Lord. Lord, they have killed thy prophets
and dig down thine altars and I am left alone and they seek
my life. But what sayeth the answer of
God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7,000 men who have
not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this
present time, there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. Grace. Paul said there's still a remnant. And whether they come out of
Judaism or whether they come out of Gentilism doesn't matter.
There's a remnant of grace. And this is spiritual Israel.
For if by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace
is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work.
You can't mix the two. You can't mix law and grace.
The only way you can do works is if you're measuring your works
by the law. And there's no salvation there.
There's no hope there. There's no freedom there. It's
all of grace. You see how all these questions,
all these arguments that he makes are just exalting Christ in salvation? What then? Israel hath not obtained
that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it,
and the rest were blinded. According as it is written, God
hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should
not see and ears that they should not hear. That's Isaiah chapter
six on to this day. And David saith, let the table
be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense
unto them. He's talking about the law. Those
who go back to the law, those who are looking to the law, the
ceremonial law, the civil law, the moral law, all the law of
God, and comparing themselves to the law, the law has become
a snare to them. That's what Paul said in Philippians. I was a descendant of Benjamin,
of a house of Benjamin, an Israelite, a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised
the eighth day concerning the law. I was blameless before men. Those things that I thought were
gained to me, those things I thought were giving me an advantage,
were in fact the very things that were keeping me from Christ.
They were damning me. They were condemning me. I proudly
thought that I was somehow earning favor with God, but they were
the very things that were condemning and judging me. Let their eyes be darkened that
they may not see and bow down their back always. I say then,
have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid, but
rather through their fall, salvation is come to the Gentiles for to
provoke them to jealousy. He goes on to say there, God's
got He's got people in Judaism. He's got people in Catholicism.
He's got people in Islam. He's got Mohammedism. You're
not going to be saved any other way. Every man, every woman is
going to be saved exactly the same way. By God's free grace
in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not by the law. Not by the law. The law can't
save you and the law can't sanctify you. He that sanctifies and they that
are sanctified are all as one, whereby he is not ashamed to
call them his brethren. You see, when we get overwhelmed
with shame over specific sins, it's because we're going to the
law. He's not ashamed. Why? Because we have union with
Him. We have union with Him. And the only power over this
man of flesh that we have is union with Christ and faith in
Him. Our Heavenly Father, we are hopeful,
Lord, that you would be pleased to speak to the hearts of your
people and, Lord, that you would give us the liberty that can
only be found in Christ. For it's in his name we ask it. Number 127 in the softback 10-0.
Let's stand together. All children of wrath, in bondage
and sin We helplessly lay, condemned and unclean God's law in its
infinite justice and wrath Demanded we suffer an eternal death But
long before time had ever begun, One stood in our place, God's
glorious Son. He offered Himself to go live
among men, And give His own life to atone for our sin. The Great Substitute, behold
He has come! The price has been paid, the
work is all done! Christ took on Himself the great
load of our sin. He poured out His blood and He
put away sin. God's justice and law are now
satisfied, and all who believe have been justified. Through faith in the blood of
the Lamb we are free from sin's condemnation, eternally free. How was the singing? It was good. Did you hear it?