All right, brethren, let's turn
to Romans 10. While you're turning there, let's
ask the Lord to bless us. Our Heavenly Father, God, our
Savior, we ask, Lord, that you would give us your spirit now
and cause us to hear this word. If you don't bless it, Lord,
we will not hear and we will not be profited by it. And we
ask you, for Christ's sake, for your honor and glory's sake,
Lord, please teach us. In Christ's name we ask it, amen. I had a kind of a rough week
this week and I was feeling sorry for myself last night. I went
to bed thinking I'm just gonna divide, I got a message out of
the Psalms and I thought I'm just gonna divide that message
into two and I'm not gonna finish this message out of Romans 10.
And the Lord wasn't having that I woke up about three this morning
and tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. And so I got
up and finished this message on Romans 10. I want to read
the end of it, Romans 10 in verse 11. I'm sorry, the end of verse
nine. He said, if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. The subject is
Christ is righteousness, and that's the point. That's the
main point I want you to see. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God,
is the righteousness God's provided. God provided His own Son, and
He's the only righteousness that God will receive from a sinner. Through God-given faith, the
Lord robes us in his righteousness and he accepts us in the righteousness
of Christ alone. Now Paul had a strong desire
for his countrymen, the Israelites, to believe on the Lord Jesus.
He said in verse one, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer
to God for Israel is that they might be saved. He's talking
about his countrymen, the children of Israel. He said, they have
a zeal for God. He said, I bear them record.
They have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. When
it says they had a zeal of God, it doesn't mean they knew God.
They did not know who the true God is and they didn't know who
Christ is. But they were religious and they
were zealous to keep the commandments of God, to keep the Ten Commandments. That's what they were zealous
of. That's why they wanted to stone the Lord Jesus. They thought
he was just a man. And they said, we don't stone
you for any of your good works. We stone you because you being
a man make yourself to be God. And that was against the law.
And their crucifying of the Lord Jesus was them trying to keep
the law. That's how zealous they were
for the law. They did the same to any sinner who broke the law.
They disciplined them. They rebuked them sharply, smote
them. They were just harsh legalists. But they didn't know God. They
did not know God. They were zealous, but it was
not according to God-given knowledge. They were ignorant of God's righteousness. He said here in verse 3, For
they being ignorant of God's righteousness, going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. Every sinner that comes into
this world is ignorant of God's righteousness. We come into this
world ignorant of who God is, and ignorant that he's holy and
that he's righteous. We have an imaginary God in our
mind, but it's not the true God. and that was the case with them.
The stars are not pure in his sight, the scripture says. That's
how holy and righteous God is. When Isaiah saw the glory of
the Lord, he said the angels covered their eyes and covered
their feet in the presence of God, he was so holy. He can't
behold iniquity. He can't behold a sinner, he's
so holy. He's holy and righteous. Ignorant,
we don't know that by nature. And we're ignorant that God's
righteousness, what God requires is perfect righteousness from
a perfectly holy heart. We don't understand that by nature.
These folks were very religious and they were trying their best
to keep the law. But they didn't know that God
requires perfection. In Leviticus 22, 21, the Lord
said, Whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord
to accomplish his vow or freewill offering, it shall be perfect
to be accepted. There shall be no blemish therein.
Anything that we try to present to God has got to be perfection. And we can't do that. We just
can't do that. God requires not only perfection
and obedience to the law, he requires death for anybody that's
violated the law. Death. The law requires anybody
who disobey must die. They must die. And we're ignorant
by nature that we ourselves are unholy in heart, our nature's
nothing but sin, and we're unrighteous. We're coming to the world guilty
so there's no way we'd come to God in the law. And then when
he saves you, he makes his people know, like Paul said, when I
would do good, evil is present with me. He's gonna keep us knowing
we can't come to the law in our works even after he's called
us. We're trusting Christ. We're ignorant. that God has
to, you see that, so we're unholy in nature, we're guilty before
the law, so is God gonna use anything that's of us? Nothing. When he calls you, he has created
an entirely new man, a new spirit in you that was not there. And
it's all of him, it's created in the righteousness of Christ
and the holiness of Christ. He uses nothing that is of us
because it's unholy and it's unrighteous. And we're ignorant
of this by nature. The righteousness of God is freely
given to His people by His grace, by Him giving you faith to believe. It's all of God. It's freely
given. This is something we're totally
ignorant of by nature. Go with me to Galatians 3. Galatians
3. And I want you to understand,
these folks that we're talking about here, it's just like they
were just as religious as everybody in the world. They were going
about, trying to keep the law, going in every service, every
church service, they were doing all these things, and they didn't
have a clue who God was. Look here, Galatians 3.21. Is the law then against the promises
of God? Is it against the covenant of
God? God forbid. If there had been a law given
which could have given life, verily righteousness should have
been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded
all under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ,
by his obedience, might be given to them that believe. You see
that? And we're ignorant of this. And
here's something else. Go to 1 Timothy 1. We're ignorant
of this fact by nature, that the law's not even made for a
righteous man. You know that when the Lord calls
you to faith in Christ and makes you know you're righteous in
Christ, you know the law's not made for you. Most in religion
don't know that. They're trying to come to God
by the works of the law. The law's not made for a man.
God's made righteous. Because the law only tells you
what you've done wrong. That's all it does. Look here,
1 Timothy 1.5, now the end of the commandment is charity out
of a pure heart and of a good conscience and faith unfeigned. That's the believer's rule of
life. Faith which works by love, led by the spirit of Christ,
But look, from which some have swerved, having turned aside
unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding
neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that
the law is good if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, the
law's not made for a righteous man. but for the lawless and
disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and
profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for
manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves
with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons,
if there be any other thing that's contrary to sound doctrine, according
to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which is committed
to my trust. The law is like a thermometer.
you put a thermometer in to see what your temperature is. But
the law doesn't, but the thermometer does not make you well, it does
not minister any medicine to you, it can do nothing to make
the fever go away. And faint janglers who are preached
in the law, it would be like a mother going around constantly
all day to her well child that has no symptoms and just sticking
a thermometer in their mouth constantly. That's the same thing
as Fainjang was constantly trying to bring people back under the
law. The law is not made for a righteous
man. And that's what God's people
are in Christ. But they were going about to establish their
own righteousness, Paul said. Now what is that? How is it that
a sinner is going about to try to establish his own righteousness? I want to know that. I don't
want to do that. I don't want to look to myself. So how does
a person try to establish righteousness by their hand and by their work?
Listen, it's a heart matter. It's a heart matter. God's people,
Paul said, with the mind I myself serve the law of God. In the
new man, God's people obey the law. In our new heart, we serve
God faithfully. The problem is we have an old
nature with us. And he said, and with the flesh,
the law of sin. So it's only sin and only sins. And we know, like David, my sins
are ever before me. It's with me constantly. So what
is it that a man's doing when he's trying to establish righteousness
himself? In his heart, first of all, he
imagined he has kept the law. That's the first thing. He imagines
he has really kept it. Paul thought that about himself
when he was Saul of Tarsus. He said, touching the law, I
was blameless. He thought he had kept it. That's an ignorant
man that doesn't know, I've never kept it. That's what the Lord
teaches you. You're guilty. When he looks
to his obedience and trust in something he's done, be it Ten
Commandments, the old covenant law, or be it Christ's precepts,
If he's looking to that, he's trying to establish his own righteousness.
When a man puts confidence in how he's reformed his life, when
he starts looking at how he's reformed his life, that's a vain
confidence. When he looks to his religious
deeds, to his faith, or when he looks to a decision he made
for Christ, or when he looks to his church attendance, or
he looks to his Bible reading or to his baptism. He trusts
in those things. When the motive of the heart
is to indebt God. God owes me because look what
I've done for him. God ought to give me a greater
reward than so and so. I've obeyed more than that person.
That's a mercenary spirit that the motive of the heart is to
indebt God. When the motive is is constantly
criticizing others and exalting self, that's a bad spirit. That's a man who's trusting in
himself. The Lord's people, the Lord makes
you not look at others and criticize them. He makes you hear this
gospel for yourself and apply it to yourself and say, I'm the
sinner. You don't hear the gospel and
go, boy, oh, so and so needs to be hearing that. No, you hear
it and God makes you hear it for you. Now, here's something else. Paul's
countrymen in Israel had not submitted to the righteousness
of God. Look here, verse three. He said,
they're going about to establish their own righteousness and have
not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. Now, think
about that statement a minute. Here they were trying their best
to obey the law and appearing before men as righteous and holy
if you just looked at the outward appearance. And yet, God says
here, yet they had not submitted themselves to the righteousness
of God. Oh, they submitted themselves
to the law and they were trying their best to obey that law But
in doing so, they had not submitted themselves to the righteousness
of God. That almost sounds like an oxymoron,
doesn't it? Well, how so? Because verse four,
for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. He is
the righteousness of God. And he's the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believe it. They had not submitted
to Christ. They had not bowed down and trusted
Christ to be their righteousness. He's the only righteousness that
God will accept. God provided his son, and his
son obeyed God perfectly. His son went to the cross, laid
down his life in a perfect holy love to God, perfect righteous
love to his people, and put away all our sin. He's the positive
fulfillment and the negative fulfillment of the law for his
people. He's righteousness for his people. He is that righteousness. And when you've been brought
to Christ, brethren, and been made to believe him, God makes
you know in your conscience you are righteous. You can stop trying
to offer your works to God. You're righteous. Look back at
Romans eight and look at verse three. Verse two says, the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law
of sin and death for what the law could not do and that it
was weak through me, through my sinful flesh. God sending
his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh. that the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us, in our humanity, in a body like
ours who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. That's
what the Lord did. He came, took a body so that
as a man he fulfilled the law and he condemned sin and he is
the end of the law for righteousness. He's made us free from sin and
death. You know what that means? That
means the purpose of the law, the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. That means God's purpose in giving
the law was to drive his people to Christ. That was the purpose.
You know, in some regards, I'm thankful that, and you think
of the wisdom of God. God knows all things. God knew
this would be so too. The religious world makes this
world a little better place to live in because they're trying
to come to God by the law. And so they're trying to be good.
And that makes it a little better for God's people. But that's
not what God gave. That was for the spiritual benefit
of his people. God gave the law that when he
makes you hear it, he makes you to know you're a guilty sinner. That's why he gave it. to make
you look to Christ only. The law wasn't given to save,
it never could save. The law was not given to produce
sanctification nor to measure sanctification. It wasn't given
for that. The law wasn't given as a rule
of life for God's people. It's called in 2 Corinthians
3 the ministration of death, the ministration of condemnation,
because that's what God gave it for. to minister death and
condemnation to us. The law was given to show us
our sin. That's what Paul said in Romans
3. It was given to give us a knowledge of our sin. The law was given
to bring us to Christ. Look at Galatians 3 again. Galatians
3, verse 23. Before faith came, we were kept
under the law shut up unto the faith which should afterwards
be revealed, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, a strict
pedagogue, a strict taskmaster, to bring us unto Christ, that
we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come,
we are no longer under a schoolmaster, for you're all the children of
God by faith in Jesus Christ. Why does the scripture teach
us this so much? You know whenever Paul, the Lord
raised the question in Romans 6. He said in Romans 5 that where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin has
reigned unto death through our first father Adam, so grace reigns
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. And the next question he asks
is, shall we then sin that grace may abound? That's what we're
accused of teaching. You say, It doesn't matter how
somebody lives. You're telling people just live
in sin, just sin that grace may abound. No, we're not. No, we're
not. And Paul started answering that
question. And you know what he did? From Romans 6 all the way
to Romans 12, he kept saying over and over, you're not under
the law. The law's been fulfilled by Christ. You are not under
the law. He kept saying it over and over
and over. You'd have thought he'd have started with good works.
You'd have thought he'd have started with talking about what he talks
about in Romans 12. But that's not what he started
with. From Romans 6 to 12, he kept saying over and over, Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness. Why? Why do we have the whole
book of Galatians telling us that? Why do we see over and
over in the scriptures, in Paul's writing, telling us you're under
grace, you're not under the law? Because the number one biggest
problem we have is self-righteousness. Trying to look to ourself, that's
the number one problem we have. If you know God, you're not wanting
to sin anymore. If God's your teacher and you've
been taught of God, you don't want to sin anymore. God's people
do not want to sin. We want to obey God. Our biggest
problem is though, is as the Lord enables you to honor Him
in your walk, our biggest problem is, is we start getting lifted
up and thinking, oh, I can walk now. Look at me. and we fall
into this trap of self-righteousness. That's the biggest problem we
have. It's subtle and it's so bad because self-righteousness
is a sin that you don't recognize because the nature of it is to
not see it in yourself but to see yourself as good and the
nature of it is to condemn others. And so it's a very dangerous
sin because you can't detect it in your own self. When Paul
says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, he means
Christ is the righteousness of the law, the righteousness of
God, the righteousness God accepts, and the only righteousness of
his people. That's what he's declaring. He
gave the law everything it demanded. Romans 5 19 says, we became guilty
by the disobedience of one man, and we're made righteous by the
obedience of one man. And that's it, it's Him alone,
Christ alone, Christ alone. Now, and something I want to
address too is back in Romans 3.31, I put it in the bulletin
but I want to just say it to you, Romans 3.31. Do we then
make void the law through faith? That's another thing you know,
oh you're antinomian, you're against the law. No, no, no,
no, God's people are the only ones that are really for the
law. We're the only ones that really want to see the law honored. And you know how we manifest
that? By telling everybody we speak to, you can't keep the
law. Only Christ did. It's not been
fulfilled by your obedience. It's fulfilled by Christ's obedience.
And we hadn't made void the law. We're the only ones that have
actually honored the law. And the way we do it is God gave
you faith to trust Christ and Christ established it for us.
We hadn't made void the law. No, we fulfilled it in every
jot and tittle. And just like verse four, chapter
four says, just like Abraham did, who lived 430 years before
the 10 commandments were given. How can a man fulfill the law
when he don't even have it? By trusting Christ Jesus who
fulfilled it on behalf of his people. That's the only way.
And there's no condemnation now. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is
no God. Now, very briefly, I want you
to see the difference between trying to come to God in the
righteousness of the law and coming to God in the righteousness
of faith. Okay? What is required? All right, here it is. Here it
is. Here's what righteousness by
the law requires. Verse five. Moses describeth
the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth
those things shall live by them. You see that? If you're gonna
come to God in the law, you have to do all the law, and then God'll
give you life. He'll let you have eternal life
with him if you do everything written in the law. What's the
595th law? Anybody here know it offhand?
What's the 613th law? What's the 222nd law? There's a whole lot more laws
that had to be fulfilled than 10. And Christ fulfilled them
all. But you're gonna have to do them
all if you're gonna come to God in it. I put an article in the
bulletin not too long ago by Brother Joe Terrell, actually
for the conference. And he pointed out something
very good. He said the Judaizers, they were not requiring perfect
conformity to the law. They weren't even requiring half-hearted
obedience to the law. They were just requiring that
the believer be just be circumcised. Just do this one outward ceremony. Just do that. Add that to Christ. That's all they were requiring.
And you know what Paul told them? Look at Galatians 5. This is God telling them this. This is Christ declaring this
through Paul. Galatians 5 verse 2, behold,
I, Paul, say unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall
profit you nothing. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole
law. Christ is become no effect unto
you, whosoever you are justified by the law, you're fallen from
grace. You're no longer under grace,
you're under law. Now, what does that mean? That's
just what I said before. If there's just something that
a believer thinks he must add to Christ to be accepted of God,
something about himself that he does that's going to count
with God, besides in addition to the righteousness of Christ,
he's a debtor to the whole law. Well, don't believers enter into
those thoughts all the time? Don't we sin that all the time?
Yes, we do. Yes, we do. And that's another
way the Lord keeps showing us we can't come to God in the works
of the law. See, the spirit, we're led of
the spirit. Christ, it's just like Christ
is here with us, leading us along through this world, leading us
to scriptures to show us something we need to see in the scriptures,
bringing providence to pass to show us how he's ruling everything
for us. and renewing us in spirit to
see him and know him and believe him so that we keep having in
our heart a desire to obey him by believing on him. And the
second part of it is this, is to love one another by what we
saw last week, by being forbearing with one another and longsuffering
with one another and gracious and merciful and forgiving because
that's what Christ is constantly doing for us every single day. And he's making you learn to
do that for one another. That's why he left us in this
sinful body. So we're gonna have a problem
with sin all our days. We're not wanting to sin. We
don't want to sin that grace may abound. Sinning doesn't make
grace abound. Grace abounds on its own by Christ. But it's how the Lord's chosen
to teach us. He left enemies in Canaan to
prove to the children of Israel that He's their Savior, not them.
And that's what He's done for us. And we're led of Him, we're
taught of Him, and we come here to get the children's bread,
we go back into the world, and He sends providence to us through
the week, and He's teaching us the things He taught us right
here. He's confirming these things to us throughout the week, and
He's growing us more and more to see these two things. Never trust in you, only trust
in Him. And He's growing you in those
two things. So we're not trying to come to the law, come by the
law, because we know if we do that, we have to fulfill the
whole law. But what does faith say? Now look at Romans 10, 6.
That the righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise.
Say not in thine heart who shall ascend up to heaven, that is
to bring Christ down from above, or who shall descend into the
deep, that is to bring up Christ again from the dead. In other
words, just know the work's finished. Don't think there's something
else to be done, the work's finished. But what saith it, the words
neither thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart. Now listen to how
different this is from you having to keep all the 613 commandments. Listen to this. This is the word
of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. You don't work unto righteousness,
you believe Christ and he robes you in his righteousness and
his perfect obedience. And with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, you're
not going to be ashamed to confess him. The scripture says, who
served believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Is this so for
everybody? Yep, there's no difference between
the Jew and the Greek. The same Lord over all is rich
unto all that call upon him, for whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. When he gives you faith,
you won't be ashamed to confess him before men. That's what believer's
baptism is. We're confessing before the world,
I'm Christ. He's all my hope, he's all my
salvation, and everything I ever trusted before, I repent of it. It never did me any good. Christ
alone is my salvation. And we're not afraid to confess
Him to men, to friends, family. We're looking only to Christ.
Looking only to Christ. We believe in the new heart unto
righteousness and we confess Christ as all our salvation.
You'll have people that make an outward profession. I've seen
this. People make an outward profession
to believe Christ. But they say, Now I don't believe this is the
only way you can be saved. I believe in people under universal
belief Christ died for everybody, they're saved too. Why? Why would a man say that? Because
his mama believes that. And he'd rather offend God than
offend his mama. You know what Christ said about
that? About this thing of not being ashamed of him? He said,
Whosoever shall confess me before me in him will I confess also
before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny
me before me in him will I also deny before my Father which is
in heaven. Think not that I'm come to send
peace on earth. I came not to send peace but
a sword. I came to set a man at variance against his father
and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law and a man's foes shall be they of his own
household. But he that loveth father or
mother more than me He's not worthy of me. And he that loveth
son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that
taketh not his cross, it's gonna cause some suffering in it. He
said, he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me
is not worthy of me. He that tries to find his life,
tries to spare himself this suffering and try to compromise with everybody
on the gospel, he's gonna lose his life. But whosoever loses
his life, says I'm not ashamed of Christ, he's everything to
me. I may be forsaken a mama, daddy, brother, sister, son or
daughter, I will stand with Christ and trust Him. He said His life
will be saved for my sake. That's what it is to not be ashamed
to confess it. He's going to bring you to the
place to where you're either going to stand with Him or you're
going to stand with mama, but you can't do both. If mama's
against him, you ain't gonna be able to stand with both of
them. You're gonna have to stand with him, and that's just how
it is. But he'll do that in his people. He'll bring his people
to say, I'm not ashamed of him. He's my salvation. I pray for
him. I love him. I love family that
don't believe him. I wanna see them saved. Paul,
he had a strong desire to see his countrymen saved, but he
wasn't gonna say they were saved. He said, they're ignorant of
God. They don't know this righteousness. I pray the Lord make us stand
with him and confess him and be like Paul. Go home tonight,
read Philippians 3. Paul had all those things, all
that other confidence. He said, I count it done that
I might win Christ and be found in him alone. I want his righteousness
alone. That's where he'll bring you.
Father, thank you for this word. Thank you for the blessings you've
given us in Christ. Thank you for giving us faith
and sustaining it in ourselves, Lord, where weak as water. It's
only by you that we confess you and believe you and are not ashamed
and stand with you. We wouldn't do it if it wasn't
for your grace and your strength and your faithfulness to us,
Lord. But we sure thank you that you are. Lord, we want to be
found in Christ only. Keep us, believe in him. Forgive
us our sins, Lord. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen.