Everyone is not of faith. The
apostle says all men have not faith. But it is said here in
verse 6, Galatians 3, 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, that
would be us. through faith preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, Indeed shall all nations be blessed.
So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham."
Now, you remember the apostle asked these five questions in
these first five verses. And he taught, he asked these
questions, you know, at who hath bewitched Did you receive the
Spirit by the works of the law or the hearing of faith? Are
you so foolish, having begun the Spirit, that you are going
to be made perfect by the flesh? He that ministers to you the
Spirit, or the Spirit of God that works among you and works
miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law or
the hearing of faith? And he used these questions to teach
and rebuke the Galatians. And he called these Galatians
foolish. Oh, foolish Galatians. Foolish Galatians. And how foolish
it is for anybody to take and put anything in the place of
Christ. Anything in the place of Christ. That's what Paul says
back up there in verse 20 of chapter 2. He said, I am crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I don't live it by the law. I don't live it by
my relationship with Moses. I don't live it by my relationship
because I'm a Jew. and teach the ceremonies and
rituals, I don't live by my circumcision, or the holy days, or what I eat
or what I drink, but I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me. Now watch this, and I
do not frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness, I
don't make it void, for if righteousness came by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. And then he says, oh foolish
Galatians, Christ has been set before you.
Evidently, preached as crucified, and you understood the gospel.
And he asked these questions, and these questions have to do
with truth, the truth of Christ crucified, and obeying that truth,
believing that truth. And then it also, two things
cropped up here all the time. Works of the law or the hearing
of faith. Works of the law or the hearing of faith. You receive
Jesus' Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of
faith. Did you work miracles among you by the law or by the
hearing of faith? And these are opposed one to
another. They're diametrically opposed. It's either you're going
to be justified by works, which would nullify grace, or you're
going to be justified by the grace of God, which nullifies
works. Now, we're talking about our
justification before God. And this hearing of faith, that's
the way faith comes. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. If anybody ever gets faith, it's
going to be sitting and listening. They're going to hear something.
How can they believe on Him of whom they have not heard? Or
how shall they call on Him of whom they have not heard? How
shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? Except
they have a preacher, and they've got to have a preacher, and they
listen. And oh, beloved, in hearing of faith, and that's what I want
to do. I want to sit and listen. I love to sit and listen to somebody,
and with that hearing, as I sit and hear, and Christ is preached,
and the gospel is preached to me, faith comes with that to
me. It enables me to believe. I acknowledge that. I say, yes,
that's true. That's so. I embrace it. I embrace
it, and that faith comes to me. And I say, that's true. That's
what I believe. That's where my hope's at. And now he comes
to Abraham. He turns to Abraham to continue
his argument. that men are not justified by
the law, that works are not by the law, that everything God
does for us and we understand is through the hearing of faith.
And so to continue our argument, Abraham was justified and he
accounted righteousness 430 years before the law was ever given.
And he was justified and accounted righteous before God before he
was ever circumcised. In fact, he was the first one
who was circumcised as a sign and seal of the token of the
covenant that God made with him. And it had nothing to do with
law. And so let's look at these verses together here. And it
says there in verse 6, Now, was this miracle done by? Did you
receive the Spirit by the hearing of faith of the works of the
law, even as Abraham? Believe God. And it was accounted to him for righteousness,
or reckoned to him as righteousness, as imputed to him as righteousness.
Now the Jews held Abraham in the highest esteem. Now you keep
this and look with me over here in John chapter 8 just a minute.
They, I mean, how many times did you hear them talk about
Abraham? Our father Abraham, our father Abraham. And you know
now, now the Muslims, they claim Abraham to be their father. Jews
claim Abraham to be their father. And I claim Abraham to be my
father. And I'm a Jew now. But he was Abraham. He's the
children of the Palestinians, the Arabs through Ishmael. And
he's the father of the true Jew of the Jewish nation, a full-blooded
Jew through Isaac, the two seeds, the two sons. And look what he
said here in John 8, 33. Our Lord Jesus says to them,
and there in verse 32, And you shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free. And they answered him, We be
Abraham's seed, never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou you
shall be made free? Our Lord said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin. That's
what we need to be made free from. That's what the truth sets
us free from. Sin, the bondage of sin. And
the servant abides not in the house forever. I mean, you know,
his day will be up, but the Son, he abides forever. If the Son,
therefore, shall make you free, you shall be free. And I know
that ye are Abraham's seed, but ye seek to kill me, because my
word hath no place unto you. And I speak that which I have
seen with my father, and ye have seen that which ye do with your
father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father.
Our Lord said unto him, just because you're Abraham's seed,
that don't make him your father. Abraham is our father. Our Lord
said unto them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works
of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man that hath told
you the truth, that which I have heard of God." Abraham didn't
do this. Abraham didn't do this. So they
held Abraham in the highest esteem. And they were telling these Judaizers,
these men that came down here, they were telling these Galatians
that in order for you to become a child of Abraham, to be an
heir of the promise of Abraham, As of the promise, you had to
be circumcised and obey the law. You know, you remember in Acts
15.1, it says, And they which came down from Judea commanded
them that they could, except they were circumcised and kept
the law of Moses, they could not be saved. That's what they're
saying here. That's exactly what's going on
here. They said they couldn't be saved. You can't be a child
of Abraham unless you're circumcised. You can't be a child of Abraham
unless you keep the law. But that's not what Paul's saying
here. Abraham Believe God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And now Abraham was called a
friend of God. God called Abraham my friend.
And God identified himself as the God of Abraham. So Abraham
is a great figure to present to our lives. There's more in
Hebrews 11 about Abraham than anybody else. Abraham stands
out as the father of the faithful and all, and so God tells us
here how Abraham was justified. And it says here he believed
God. And Abraham was counted righteous. Now listen, to see
where this comes from, you've got to go to Genesis 15. Genesis
15, when it says Abraham believed God. Now, beloved, his faith
didn't justify him. His faith didn't make him righteous.
God didn't count his faith as righteousness. Because if it
was, that meant that faith had some merit and work in and of
itself. But Abraham was counted righteous.
Look here in Genesis 15 and verse 4. And it says he believed. Well, who did he believe? He
believed God. And we understand that faith is a gift of God,
and you cannot believe until you have life. So evidently,
God had regenerated this man, and behold, the word of the Lord
came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir
when he hath Ishmael, but he that shall come forth out of
thine own bow shall be thine heir. He didn't have a child
at that time. He said, Yeah, my steward Elias is going to
be. And he brought him forth abroad. He says, Now look now
toward heaven. Follow me out here. Look toward that heaven
now. And tell the stars. Count the
stars for me. If you'd be able to number them.
And he said unto them, so shall thy seed be. Now watch this.
And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. Now what did he do? He believed
God. And his faith had no merit in it. God didn't count him righteous
because his faith was the work that he obeyed God in. He didn't
do anything but stand there with his mouth shut and God speak
to him. God speak to him. He said, I'm
no child. He said, well, that Eleazar's not going to inherit
your stuff. You're going to have a child out of your own bounds.
So you see, it was the object of his faith that God accounted
him righteous for. As he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. You're going to have so many
seeds that have been yet through that one seed. So God, see, when
He looked to that promise, that promised seed, and He was saved
by believing what God said concerning a seed that was to come. And
that's what justified Him. And that's why the same thing,
it means God is just to justify Him that what? Believes on Christ. And He believed on Christ. Who
do you think it was that started talking to him? Who do you think
took him abroad? Who do you think he understood
his seed to be? Oh, so the object of his faith
was the promise. He didn't look to his own faith. I mean, when God told him, he
looked at his body after, you know, he said, well, I'm a young
man, we can do this. But God waited years and years
and years and years until he could not possibly have a child.
And when it had to be done by the purpose of God and a miraculous
birth, they had a child. God came to her one year beforehand
and He said, you know, this time next year, I'm going to come
back. He said, this time, He said,
I'm going to visit you and then you're going to have this child.
But He said, I'll tell you when you're going to have it. He said,
I'm going to come back next year. Sarah's in the tent and she just laughed.
She said, me that is old? Couldn't possibly have had a
child. That ain't going to happen. A
year later, they had a child. God blessed them again. Nine
months later they had a child. Named him Isaac. And that was
what Abraham believed. He believed in that seed was
to come. And back over in Galatians it says, and Christ was that
seed. But Abraham was justified. So you see, now let me tell you
something about this righteousness. There's only been one righteousness
that God's ever accepted. And that's the righteousness
of Christ. There's never been another righteousness on topside
of God's earth that God would regard a man as righteous. That's
only the righteousness of Christ. Now ain't that right? Abraham
didn't have a righteousness that he stood in himself. And then
when he believed God, he became more righteous. I read some writers
that that's what they believed, that he had a righteousness already
by faith, and then when God made him the promise, his righteousness
became better and was accepted of God. But no, no. You see,
beloved, Abraham was a heathen idolater. He dwelled in the Ur
of the Chaldeans and God went down there and told him to get
up and go come out. And that's when God converted
him. That's when God gave him life. That's when he had faith
given to him. And then when he was there, he
said, look up here, Abraham. God ain't going to tell an unbeliever
to look up and believe him. You've got to have a life first.
That's the first thing. It is a gift of God. And when
God took him out there, look up! He looked up, and he could
believe God. Why? Because God's the one that
makes the promise. You see, he believed the promise,
the God who made the promise. And Abraham was justified, not
by circumcision back over in our text, but by his faith. It was not Abraham the circumcised
here, but Abraham the believer that was justified. God reckoned
him a believer. Now, I want you to see this in
Romans 4, just a minute. I love this stuff. I just love
it. I just enjoy it so much, talking about these things. You
know, Abraham, you know, we're the children of Abraham. that
we have the faith of Abraham. So I'm interested in Abraham.
I'm interested in what justified him, because if I have the same
faith as Abraham, I've got the same righteousness Abraham's
got. I'm justified the same way Abraham was. Ain't that right? And I ain't went out and looked
at no stars. I wasn't told to. I wasn't told to count any sand
on the seashore. I was told to believe a promise,
same thing Abraham was, and I do. But now look what happens here
in Romans chapter 4. What shall we say then that our
Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? What's
he found pertaining to his flesh? A man. His relationship to the
flesh. What's he found? What did he
discover? If Abraham were justified by
works, He hath the word of the glory. He can glory. If he was
justified before God by his works, because he done good works, because
he was saved by his obedience, coming up out of Erechaldes,
he's saved by his obedience, by this thing and that thing
and the other thing, then he has somewhere to glory from.
But he cannot glory before God. Why not can he glory before God?
For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God. And it was counted unto him for
righteousness. Now to him that worketh the reward,
or the righteousness not reckoned of grace, but of debt, but to
him that worketh not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. Oh, you see, beloved Abraham,
was accounted. Let me see if I can make sense
out of it this way. Abraham was accounted. That word
accounted means reckoned or imputed. Abraham was accounted or reckoned
by God to be a believer. And he was reckoned to be a believer
because he was a believer. But the moment that he believed
that promise, that's not what made him a believer. He believed
the promise because he was already a believer. Now ain't that right? He couldn't have believed that
promise of God unless he was already a believer. An unbeliever
does not believe God. I hope I'm not in the water here. Abraham, when God called him
out, he stood there and God said, you're a believer. So he made
him a promise. And Abraham believed that promise.
That's why God, and that's exactly what happens when God does something
for you. You know why you believe Christ? Because you're a believer.
And the only reason you don't believe Christ is you're an unbeliever. There ain't but two places to
be. In Christ, out of Christ. Believer
or non-believer. Sheep or not, you know. That's
just saved or lost. That's the way it is. Ain't no
middle ground. And God always, and here's the thing about it,
God always reckons men and things as they really are. As they really
are. And look what it says here back
in our text now. Even as Abraham believed God. As a believer, he was justified
by God. Abraham was reckoned righteous,
not by works, but by faith. Abraham was reckoned righteous,
not by obeying the law, but believing the promise. Abraham was justified,
not as a worker, but as a believer. The same thing, with the heart,
man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession
is made unto salvation. Abraham believed in his heart,
and when beloved God made him that promise, he said, I confess
and I believe that promise. And then it says there now in
verse 7, Know ye. Now he's given a pretty good
command here. He said, know this. I want you
to know this. I want you to get this. He said
in Galatians 3.7. I want you to get this. I want
you to know this. He's not saying you do know it.
He said, you need to know this and I'm commanding you to know
this. Know ye therefore they which are of faith, the same
are the children of Abraham. Huh? No you? And he starts out
here with facts. This is a scriptural fact. You
believe the Bible. You believe the scriptures. What
did the scriptures say concerning Abraham? Abraham's heirs are
not of blood, but of faith. And the Jew says because we're
Abraham's children, then we ain't got nothing to worry about. And
they thought that the faith and the promises was going to be
passed down just because of a relationship to Abraham. But when the promise
came in person Himself, when He came unto His own, His own
received Him not. But to as many as received Him,
to them gave He the power to become the sons of God. Oh, Abraham's
heirs are not of blood. They're not heirs because they're
Jews. They're not heirs because they're
Arabs. But they're heirs by faith. Only
faith receives the promise. In God's eye, in God's purpose,
it's not genetics that determines our relationship with Abraham.
It's not ethnicity. It's not our race. But it's a
spiritual descent. Abraham's children are not those
who share his genes. They're not those of a particular
race, but those who have the same faith. Ain't that what it
says? Know ye therefore the things
which are in faith. Just children of Abraham. Look
over there in verse 29 of Galatians chapter 3. And if you be Christ, then are
you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. What
promise? The promise that God made to Abraham. And the promise
already come. Huh? That's why Abraham's called,
in Romans 4.11, Abraham's called the father of the faithful. Not
only to those who are uncircumcised, but to those who are circumcised.
Because he was a father of the faithful. And we walk in the
steps of that faith of our father Abraham. And let me tell you
this about to be the children of a person. You know, we all
got children. We've all been children. We still
got mothers and daddies, some of us do. But to be the child
or the children of a person, in a sense, is the same as to
resemble him. To resemble him. You know, when
you're a child of a person, you resemble that person. You have
a physical resemblance to them. And it also means to be involved
in their faith. Whether good or bad. You know,
right now, with the economy and things, if a man loses his job,
it's going to affect his children. If he does real well in his job,
then their children are going to be blessed too. So everything
that we do, it affects our children, whether it's good or bad. They're
involved in it. And that's what it says here.
In Adam, everything was bad. In Christ everything is good.
And as we Abraham, we resemble Abraham. How do we resemble him?
We believe God. How do we resemble him? We walk
in the steps of that faith. How do we resemble him? We receive
the promise. How do we resemble him? We are
children of faith. We believe. We are like Abraham.
We have the same faith. Now look what he says here in
verse 8 now. And the scripture, Paul always,
always uses the scripture, and the scripture for seeing that
God would justify the heathen through faith. Oh my, now the Jews couldn't
get a hold of that. Do you mean the Gentiles are
going to be justified? That they won't have to become
a Jew. They won't have to go to synagogue. They won't have
to be circumcised. They won't have to wear skull
hats. What do they call those things? Yarmulkes. They won't have to wear them.
They won't have to wear prayer cloths. They won't have to sit and read
from left to right. They won't have to keep holy
days. They won't have to go Jerusalem and keep the feasts. They won't
have to offer a blood sacrifice whenever they have the firstborn.
You mean to tell me that you're going to save people without
that? That's exactly what God said when He preached the Gospel
of Abraham. When did He preach the Gospel of Abraham? When He
made that promise of the seed that was to come. And you know
how many times He made that promise to Abraham? Not only when He
promised him Isaac, but also when He took him up on that mountain
and brought him back off that mountain. God preached the Gospel
of Abraham there, God preached the gospel of Abraham when Abraham
was scared for his wife. God preached the gospel of Abraham
when he stood before Melchizedek and Melchizedek the high priest
there. Abraham bowed down there in front
of the priest of the Most High and took bread and wine from
that priest. And he had no beginning of days and no end of days. So
God preached the gospel before Abraham. And I'll tell you what,
beloved, everybody was a heathen until Abraham. He was the first
Jew, the first Hebrew, Hebrew nation come from him. And then
he says, here we see the gospel was for all nations. First we
see it was for all nations. And then shall all nations be
blessed. Huh? Oh my, the gospel was preached
in the promise. And the promise made to Abraham
falls into two categories. Let me see if I can explain this
right. The promises that he made had
a physical sense when he said, I'll give you a land. Go east,
north, south, and west. And walk abroad. He told him
in Genesis 13. He said, you go everywhere you
go. And they said, that's yours. That's yours. Promised him a
physical land. Promised him a homeland. A country. And then the spiritual promises. And that spiritual promise concerned
his seed. And the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's why Abraham said,
our Lord said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it
was glad. But yet, the physical promise of them inheriting the
land was literally fulfilled. The 430 years later, all Abraham
ever owned while he was here was a grave. But four and thirty
years later, that's when Israel came up out of Egypt and they
fought until they took the land of Canaan. That's the promised
land. But even in all of those physical
inheritance of the land and having that country, all the spiritual
blessings were hidden there also. You know why? Because Abraham
went looking for a country. God said, you know, this is all
yours. That all time he was on this earth, he was looking for
a country. A city whose builder and maker was God. He was looking
for a country. A place where God wasn't ashamed
to be called his God. That's why, you know, even though
he was in a land, he was looking for another land. Even though
he had a promised land, yet he was looking for another promise.
And Abraham and all his children at the same time were looking
for that. And then it says, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
And that, you know, Revelation 5, 9 says this. You know, Thou shalt have redeemed
a multitude that no man can number out of her tribe, and tongue,
and kindred, and nation, and people under the earth. And we know that Isaac never
saved anybody. Abraham never saved anybody.
But they looked to that one, and they embraced that promises.
They all died in faith, having not received the promises. And yet we've received the promise
of Christ, and we're all going to die in faith of the promise
of inheriting that new city whose builder and maker is God. And oh, and it says there in
verse 9, So then they, which be of faith, Are you of faith? Are you of faith? Are you of faith? They which
are of, which be of faith. Which means they which be believers.
That's what it means. They which be believers. They
which are of faith. They which be of faith, not them
which receive circumcision, not them who have the works of the
law, not them who keep the ceremonies and rituals, they which be of
faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. What does that mean? Blessed with faithful Abraham.
Oh, my. Well, God made a covenant with
Abraham. Oh, my. We've been blessed in a covenant.
And not only that, but as Abraham was blessed with faith, we're
blessed with faith. Abraham was blessed to believe
a promise. We're blessed to receive a promise. And here's the greatest
blessing of all. The blessing of faith itself. Do you know anything that honors
God more than faith? You know carnal mind, the carnal
reasoning, could not have possibly believed what Abraham believed.
The natural mind couldn't have done it. He couldn't have looked
at the stars and God says, you know, that's how many children
you're going to have. That don't even make sense. But God chooses
the foolish to confound the wise. Now Peter said, you know, there's
a village over there that's got about three or four hundred people,
and that's how many of you seed you're going to have. Now he
could have grasped that. A man had five or six young'uns, they
killed a guy over there in Gaza the other day that had forty-two
wives. I believe he had eleven wives and forty-two kids. So
I mean, you could have a house full of young'uns real quick
Fifteen, fifteen wives. Abraham could have believed that,
but you know, he looks at the stars. Counting stars for me,
Abraham. That's an impossibility. God said, in your seed, that's
how many children you're going to have. Now look at that sand all around
you there. Count that sand if you can. You couldn't pick up
a handful of sand and count it. You couldn't count a handful
of sand. But stress all of it. He said, that's how many children
you're going to have. Abraham said, Amen. Oh, bless
you, Lord, for that wonderful promise. Bless you, Lord, for
that wonderful promise. And when they put him, when he
got ready to die, He is still looking for that city whose builder
and maker was God. And He was blessed him to persevere
all the way to the end, to believe God, to believe God all the way
to the grave. And they which be of faith are
blessed with faithfulness. They'll do the same thing. Every
one of the children of Abraham will go to the grave like Abraham
to believe in God. Believe in the promise that's
already fulfilled in Christ. Our Father, blessed be your name
for allowing us to have this privilege to meet you tonight. I pray that you'd cause the word
to be a blessing, cause it to be made understandable, to be
made to rejoice in, find great comfort and assurance in. Oh,
Father, we pray for those that haven't yet believed or haven't
confessed their faith. We ask you to enable them by
your grace to one day, one day, if they believe in their heart,
if they believe in their heart, God counts them righteous. And
I pray that you'll enable them by your grace to confess that
righteousness like Abraham did, that the only righteousness I
have is the righteousness you gave me, O God. The only righteousness
that you'll accept is the righteousness you gave me, that righteousness
of Christ. God bless them to do that. Thank
you for this glorious faith. Thank you for this blessed gospel
that goes to all nations and all people. In Christ's name
we bless you. Amen. Amen.