While Liv and I were driving
over here, I told her how privileged I felt to be here and to be with
you. What a blessing. I've entitled this message, What
Does Faith Believe? Faith believes something. What
does faith Now, would you turn with me to Romans chapter one? While you're turning there, I
enjoyed that singing so much, and I thought of the verse, When
this poor, lispering, stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song I'll sing thy power to save. And I thought of my dear sister
Wilma, while we were singing this, she was singing in a no-blur,
and a sweeter song. And I was thinking about me thinking
about her, but she's not thinking about me. She was such a blessing to this
assembly. I was thinking of her, to our
assembly. I see Delphus back here. I remember
when his wife, Dawn, died. I remember she was such a blessing
to our assembly. And I remember, this is a fleshly
thought, I suppose, but I thought, well, if she's gone, we're in
trouble. I thought that about Wilma, too. But, Lord is merciful. What does
faith believe? Now, let's begin in verse 8 of
Romans, chapter 1. First, this is what comes first,
this is what is of most importance, I thank my God through Jesus
Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout
the whole world. Now this wasn't hype when Paul
was saying this. A lot of people use hype to emphasize what they're
saying, but this wasn't hype. These people, can you imagine
this being said of you? Your faith, your faith is spoken
of throughout the whole world. What a blessing. Verse 9, For
God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel
of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always
in my prayers. I pray for you. Now, the church
at Rome was a place where Paul had never been. He didn't found
his church. He knew a lot of the members
in chapter 16. He mentions 28 have been by name,
but he'd never been there. But he loved these people. He
prayed for them. He said, without ceasing, I make
mention of you in my prayers. Verse 10, making request If by
any means, now at length, I might have a prosperous journey, by
the will of God, to come to you. Now look down in verse 13, I
would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed
to come unto you, but was hindered. Let hitherto I was hindered,
that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among
other Gentiles. Now he wanted to come to them
many times, but God in his providence had hindered him. There was another
place where he said, we would have come to you once and again,
but Satan hindered us. And I'm sure Satan did not want
him going to Rome. But ultimately, it was God who
hindered him in this thing. And you know why? So he would
sit down and write this great epistle to the Romans. What a
blessing and gift of God's grace we have because he was hindered
from coming to the Romans. He says in verse 11, For I long
to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift,
to the end that you may be established. Wouldn't it be a great blessing
if the Lord imparts to us a spiritual gift, to the end that we might
be established, grounded, settled in the faith. I want that, don't
you? I want to be established. I want to be grounded in the
faith. Now, he says in verse 12, that
is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith,
both of you and me. Now, this is what Peter called
like precious faith. Now, in this epistle to the Romans,
Paul uses the word faith, or its verb form, believe, over
50 times. It's the great treatise on justification
by faith. Well, what does faith believe? That's the subject of this great
epistle, justification by faith. And that's another name for the
gospel. What does faith believe? And my introduction will be longer
than my message. I hate it when a preacher preaches
35 or 40 minutes and says now for my first point. I don't like that. Well, my introduction
is going to last longer than my message, so don't get anybody
upset because as the Lord helps me, I don't want to preach long.
I want to be as brief as possible. But what I'd like to do is give
you a number of scriptures that give us glorious truth regarding
this thing of faith and what a believer believes. So I'm going
to be giving you a lot of scriptures at this time, so hold on and
listen. But before I give them, let me
say this at the outset. Faith is not giving assent to
a doctrine as truth. Now, that's involved in faith,
but faith is not giving assent to a doctrine as true. Faith
is trusting a person. May God enable you and I to do
just that. On six different occasions, the
Lord said, thy faith hath saved thee, or thy faith hath made
thee whole. what importance there must be
to faith. We read of little faith, O ye
of little faith, and we read of great faith. But this I love. If your faith is little or your
faith is great, it has nothing to do with your security or your
salvation. Weak faith saves just as surely
as great faith does, because, strictly speaking, it's not the
faith that saves, it's the object of the faith that saves. I love
to think of the Passover. There were people in those houses
that were scared to death, wondering, perhaps thinking of things that
maybe they'd done that nobody knows about, that maybe God would
get them anyway. There were other people who had
no doubts. They felt such security. They
weren't scared a bit. They knew they were safe because
they were in the house with the blood over the door. Now, here's
a question. Was that one who felt such doubts,
was he any less secure than the one who had such assurance? Not
at all. That one who had such assurance,
was he any more secure than that one who had such trembling faith? No. Because the security was
in the house with the blood. God said, when I see the blood,
not when I see your faith, when I see the blood, that's the one
thing he was looking for. I will pass over you. Paul spake of being established
in the faith. We read that there is one faith. We read of the common faith,
the faith that is common to all God's people, general to all
God's people. We read of the faith of God's
elect, the faith that all of God's elect possess. We read
of the law of faith. When Brother Fred was reading
that passage of the laws, I'll write my laws in the heart. You
know when you believe you are obeying the law of your nature?
It's your nature to believe. God is giving you a heart to
believe. It becomes natural for you to
believe. Now, the old nature still has the unbelief. I realize
that. But you have a new nature that believes the gospel. Paul said, Do we make void the
law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law. Romans 10.4 For Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness, not to everyone, but to everyone
that believeth." Romans 1.16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God, the salvation, to everyone
that believeth. Therefore, it's a faith. Salvation. Therefore, it's a faith that
it might be by grace to the end that promise might be sure to
all the seed. By grace are you saved through
faith. And that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." We
read in the scriptures of the righteousness of faith, and we
read in the scriptures of the word of faith, which we preach. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. Paul said, Whatsoever is not
of faith is sin. And he said, By faith you stand. We read of the spirit of faith.
Paul said, I believe, therefore have I spoken. We're told that
the law is not a faith, and we are called upon to continue in
the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved from the hope
of the gospel. I like this, we read of faith
unfamed, faith unfaked. Fame means hypocritical. It means
acted out. Genuine faith. You know, if you
can find me a genuine sinner, I'll find you someone who has
genuine faith. Anything else is famed. We read of being kept by the
power of God through faith. Unto salvation, ready to be revealed
at the last time. We read of the mystery of the
faith. We read of keeping the faith. Paul said, I kept the faith.
I fought a good fight. I finished my course. I kept
the faith. I love this scripture, 2 Timothy
1.12. Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I've committed to him against
that day. Now, if I believe in works in
any way, that's a failure to commit. I commit the complete
salvation of my soul to Him only. Just like that passage of Scripture
in 2 Samuel 23, verse 5, we just read, Although my house be not
so with God, yet hath He made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things, And this is all my salvation. When David
said that, he said, mine too. Mine too. And all mine desire. It's the only thing I desire.
Though he maketh it not to grow, John said, this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith. Whoso believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save, not everybody, who didn't believe. What must we do, they asked the
Lord, that we might work the works of God? Here's His answer. This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom
He hath sent. You know what comes after that?
A period. They which believe do enter into
rest. We also read all men have not
faith. You know another believer doesn't
have a drop of faith. Not a drop. All men have not faith. The Lord
said, if you believe not that I am He, you'll die in your sins. He said, you believe not because
you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you. He didn't say, you're
not of my sheep because you don't believe. He said, you believe
not because you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My
sheep, hear my voice. Do you know faith is a hearing
the voice of the Son of God? You know it's the very Word of
God. You know it's the truth of God.
They know me. They follow me. And I know them. He said, if you believe not that
I am, you will die in your sins. Peter, I pray for you, the Lord
said. Well, I want him praying for
me, don't you? If he prays for you, does anything else need
to be said? If he's ringing your name before the Father, oh, I
want him praying for me. Peter, I have prayed for you. What did he pray? That your faith
fail not. Now, Peter failed miserably.
But you know, faith can't fail. The Lord prays for it. I pray for you that your faith
fail not. Now, would you turn with me to
Hebrews chapter 11? This is what is known as the
Hall of Faith. Hebrews chapter 11. I want to
look briefly at a few verses here. Now, faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Now, let
me tell you something I can't see. I can't look at myself and
know that I'm without sin before God, that I'm justified, that
I'm sanctified, that I'm glorified. I can't say, yep, look at me.
Of course I know. What's the evidence that I am?
Faith. Faith. How do I know I'm justified
before God? I believe the Gospel. I really
do. I'm relying on the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is the work of God that
you believe on Him whom He has sent. I do. I do believe on Him
whom He has sent. I'm justified. Verse 2, for by it, by faith,
the elders obtained a good report. Now what in the world does that
mean? The elders, the Old Testament
saints. We've been going through the
book of Job in Bible study at home, and we read in the New
Testament of the patience of Job. Read chapter 3 and tell me where
you see that patience at. But that's the New Testament
account. The patience. Read about Lot in the Old Testament. He doesn't seem to be a very
commendable character, does he? Not at all. But what's the Bible
say in the New Testament about him? Just Lot. That righteous man. By faith, the elders obtained
a good report. What about old Sarah? I love
to think of Sarah, the Lord of Pears. The Lord Jesus Christ
appears to Abraham in the tent and he He says, you're going
to have a, you're going to have a child. And she laughs. She
says, you know, I have pleasure in my, me and my Lord being old.
She laughs. She doesn't believe it. Lord
said, why'd you laugh? She doesn't laugh. Then you read the New Testament
account. By faith, Sarah received strength to conceive seed. I can give you so many examples.
What about Moses? Moses, he sees a man mistreating
one of his brethren. He goes and murders him. He hides
the body in the sand, and he runs away to Egypt, scared to
death, or out of Egypt. What does Scripture say about
him? By faith, Moses feared not the wrath of the king, but he
endured as seeing him who was invisible. By faith, the elders
obtained a good report. You know how you get a good report
card? Always. And I won't say that
reverently. I don't say that slick of things.
But you'll have a perfect report card by faith. In verse 3, through
faith we understand that the world were framed by the Word
of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear. You know, you don't understand anything until
you have faith. You can't understand a thing. It's by faith you understand.
You don't understand by faith. It's by faith you understand.
A man who doesn't have faith has absolutely no spiritual understanding
at all. It's through faith we understand.
Lord, give me this faith. Verse four, by faith. Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness
that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being
dead yet speaketh. Faith makes a man righteous.
Righteous, that's the language of scripture. That's the language
of scripture. Does it make you interested in
having faith? By faith, verse 5, in it was translated that
he should not see death, and was not found, because God had
translated him to walk right into heaven. For before his translation,
he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith,
it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him." Now, by faith, I please God. God is pleased with me. He's pleased with all who believe. If you believe the Gospel, the
God of glory, the God of heaven, the God of the Bible, the living
God, the true God is pleased with you. He says, there's no
spot in thee. Thou art all fair, my love. Faith. Faith is believing. What is it that faith believes?
There's a content to faith. Someone and something is believed.
Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him for
righteousness. God said, Abraham, see the stars? Can you count them? Abraham looked
up. He said, no, I can't count them. He said, so shall thy seed
be. Abraham didn't have any evidence
that that would be the case. He was an old man, Sarah had
gone through menopause, but he believed what God said, being
fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was able also
to perform. And that was my introduction. And what I'd like to do is look
at two scriptures that tell us what God says faith believes. Not what the preacher says, not
what the church says, not what the particular denomination says,
but I want us to look at two scriptures that tell us what
God says faith believes. You see the importance of faith.
I want faith, don't you? Faith's exotic. It's not found
in the natural heart. It's the gift of God. I want
the Lord to give it to me, but I want to practice it. I want
to do it. I want to be somebody who believes the gospel. Now,
turn with me to Romans chapter 4. Verse 1. What shall we say, then, that
Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? O Abraham,
the father of the faithful, the friend of God. For if Abraham were justified
by worse, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. For
what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted
unto him for righteousness. To him that worketh is the reward,
not reckoning of grace, but a debt. It would mean God would owe it
to you. But, now here's what faith believes. Right here. This
verse, oh may God place this in our hearts. This is exactly
what faith believes. If you want to know what real,
saving faith believes, here it is. Right here. But, to him that
worketh not. Faith doesn't believe in works. to him that worketh not." Faith
does not believe in salvation by works. "...but believeth on
him that justifies the ungodly." There's what faith believes.
It believes on him that justifies the ungodly. Now, that's so simple. Faith worketh not. Why? Because faith has been taught
there's no point in it. I can't be saved by my works. I can't be saved by what I do.
If salvation is in any way dependent upon me for anything, I will
not be saved. Faith worketh not. You know why I love what we call
the doctrine of grace or the doctrine? Because I'm totally depraved.
Not just I believe in the doctrine of total depravity, I myself
am totally depraved. And because of that, I need God
to elect me or I won't be saved. I need Christ to die for my sins
and put them away or I won't be saved. I need God's grace
to be irresistible and invincible toward me because I'll resist
it if it's not. I need Him to preserve me or
I won't persevere. I work not. I mean, I really believe that. I believe
I can't be saved by my works. Everybody that has faith worketh
not. To him that worketh not. Would that be you? Would that
be you? I'm asking you to ask yourself,
is that the description of you? Someone who knows they cannot
be saved by anything they do. They're totally dependent on
what he does for them. To him that worketh not, but,
the text, him that worketh not, to him that worketh not, but
believeth on him. that justifieth the ungodly."
That's what faith believes. It believes, it relies, it entrusts,
it commits to Him that justifieth the ungodly. Now, that word's
a horrible word, isn't it? Ungodly. What a word. Evil. Wicked. Depraved. These are the people He justifies. When we were yet without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For whom did Christ die? Those
without strength. The ungodly. Now, God justifies
the ungodly. And this is what I was thinking
about this. You know, only God would do this. This is God-like. Only God would do something like
this. You know, people talk about how could God be fair to elect
some and pass by others? How could it be fair for Christ
to die for some and not die for everybody else? How could all
that stuff be fair? Why didn't God just save everybody? He could
have. And people say stuff like that. But here's the fact of
the matter. If salvation were in my hands, you know who would
be saved? Just me. Just me. Now, I'd say I'd save
all of you. But let you cross me a million times, or two million,
and see what happens. At some point, there would be
a breaking point. I'd say, enough! No more! And that's the way all... People
act like they're more merciful than God, more gracious than
God. God is gracious. God is merciful. He saves a great
multitude which no man can number. He's the only one who would do
it. Me or you wouldn't. We really wouldn't. Not only is you the only one
that would do it, He's the only one who could do it. He can justify the ungodly. How? We'll look in verse 6 of
the same chapter. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works. Now you hear what that's saying?
God just imputes righteousness to you without your works, without
you doing anything to get it. Say it. Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Here's what he does. He doesn't
charge you with your sin, and he gives his righteousness to
you. Now that is believing on Him.
Do you? Do you believe on Him who justifies
the ungodly? Here's all my faith. This is
all of it. I'm relying on Him that justifies
the ungodly. Now one other scripture. Turn
to Luke 22. Now, I'm going to say a few things
about the thief on the cross, and most people would agree that
the thief on the cross had the bare-bones minimum faith, wouldn't
they? Now, he had faith stripped down,
didn't he? No doubt about it. He had faith
stripped down. He'd only been a believer for
a short time. He'd spent a life of crime and
hatred of God. He was a murderer. He was a thief. He was a bad man. And he didn't
have any desire for God. He didn't care anything about
God or Christ. He was a criminal. And then when
he's nailed to the cross at first, he's cursing the Lord just like
his buddy. He said the same things his buddy did. The Scripture
says he reviled him and cast the same in his teeth. And one
fellow, kept reviling, and all of a sudden he grew strangely
silent. You know why? Because he heard
what the Lord said. You know, when you hear God,
one thing you do is you get silent. You listen to what's being said. He listened to what was being
said. Luke 23. Now, I've heard people say, I've
heard people use the thief to argue how little you have to
believe. Well, the thief never heard that. The thief never believed
that. Well, let's see what the thief did believe. Because if
you want to know what faith believes, let's look at this thing. Verse 39, in one of the male
factors, criminals. which were hanged, railed on
him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the
other, answering, rebuked him. You know, one thing that a believer
cannot bear is to hear Christ is offered. They can't bear it. That's my
Lord. That's my Lord. That's my Lord. He heard Christ dishonored. And
he couldn't handle that. He rebuked Him. He rebuked Him. And listen to what He said. But the other answering rebuked
Him, saying, not thou fear God. Now this I know about this thief. He believed that Jesus Christ
was God. Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ
is God Almighty? the second person of the blessed
trinity, the creator of the universe. God over all, blessed forever. Don't you fear God. Seeing thou art in the same condemnation,
and we indeed justly For we receive the due reward of our deeds. This man believed that he personally
deserved to be damned. Do you really believe that? Do you really? Do I really? We were talking this afternoon,
and We're saying we all believe we're the chief of sinners, but
we get upset if somebody agrees with us. And if I'm the chief of sinners,
you know what I mean? So and so we're talking about.
We thought that too. We said the same thing. So I
just don't know how much, sometimes I wonder how much we really believe
what we say we believe. But do you believe that you deserve to be damned? He did. We indeed justly, for
we receive the due reward of our deeds. But look what he says
next. But this man had done nothing
amiss. He believed in the absolute sinlessness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He believed he knew no sin. He never sinned. Do you believe
that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ
never sinned? Do you believe that? Let's go on reading. And he said unto Jesus, now remember
who he's looking at. He's looking at somebody who
is nailed to a cross. His visage marred more than the
sons of men. You couldn't even recognize Him.
He didn't have a friend in the world. It seemed everybody had
forsaken Him. His disciples had forsaken Him.
He heard Him cry, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He was alone. And the thief looked
at this man. I don't know if there's ever
a greater instance of faith than this. He said, you're the Lord.
You're the Lord. That means you're in control. Lord. Do you believe he's the
Lord? Do you believe that Jesus Christ
is Lord? Not you make him Lord. Not no,
he is. the Lord. He's the Lord of creation. He spake this world into existence.
He's the Lord of providence. He controls everything. Everything
happens because of Him. And He's the Lord of salvation.
That means your salvation is in His hands. Do you believe
that? Do you believe He's the Lord? He said, Lord, remember me when you come into
You know, this man knew that Jesus Christ, whatever he did,
would be successful. And he would come back as a mighty
king. He knew he wouldn't stay dead. That whatever he intended
to do, that's what he would do. And he did. And he would come
back as a mighty reigning king. He must be successful. Do you
believe that? I'm asking you. Do you believe
that he must be successful in whatever he did? And he said in verse 42, he said
unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. This man understood that all
the Lord had to do was remember him, and everything was okay. When my name is called, if he says, he's one of mine, does anything else need to be
said? Nothing. And you know, he was given such
assurance. When he said to me, Today, while
we were talking a little bit in regard to Wilma dying, she
said, do you think much about death? I said, yes, I do. I do
think about dying. She said, what do you think a
lot about death? I wanted to be honest. I said, I think, well,
what if I find out I've been deceived? What if I hear him
say, you know, I never knew you? I mean, most of the time I have
assurance, but sometimes I think that. I think, what about death?
You know, this fellow didn't have to deal with anything like
that, did he? Lord said to him, he'd never heard, today, today,
thou shalt be with me in paradise. Now that is what faith believes. Now here's what I'm relying on.
Now this is what I'm relying on. I'm relying on this, that
when my name is called, he'll speak for me. I remember him. He's one of mine. And that is
what faith believes. Now, let me say one other thing
about faith. We see what faith believes. In
Acts 16, verse 30, some fellas said to Paul and Silas, to Philippi
and James, they said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now, what a question. What must
I do to be saved? And Paul gave him a command. Not good advice, a command. And this is God's command to
me, this is God's command to you. This is not an invitation,
this is not a good advice, this is not something you can wait
on. This is something you and I are called upon to do. right
now. Don't wait. Believe, rely, rest
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Lord. He's Jesus the
Savior. He's the Christ. That means He's
God's prophet. He's the Word of God. He's God's
priest. He's the one who brings you to
God. He's God's He's the one who can cause you by almighty,
invincible grace to do His will and cause you to believe. That's
just exactly what you need. The Christ. Believe. This is God's command to you.
Everybody in here, don't say, what if I'm not a lad? Don't
say, what if Christ didn't die for me? Forget that stuff. Here's
God's command to you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Amen.