Romans 4 and verse 17. I want to talk about foundations
of faith. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ
is the chief cornerstone of the foundation. God laid him in Zion. If you've got the right foundation,
everything else will be all right. And so I want to talk about four
or five things of foundations of faith here in verse 17. As it is written, I have made
thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed,
God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which
be not as though they were. Here's the first foundation of
faith, right here. You know what it is? It is written. It is written. Don't need no
more than that, does it? God said, you know, it is written.
It is written. You know, when our Lord Jesus
Christ was on the Mount of Temptation, he had fasted 40 days and 40
nights. And about the last day, when
he was in that wilderness, and he didn't drink anything. Satan
came to him. And he showed he was hungry and
he said, if you be the son of God, see these stones right here,
turn them to bread. Go ahead and eat. You know you're
hungry, turn them to bread. You can, if you're a son of God,
you can do that. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, it is written, a
man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Well,
he said, well, I'll do what I'm gonna do. He said, I'll take
it, I'll put him up on this great big temple. And he put him way
up on this big pinnacle. And you know, Satan's a liar.
He couldn't do this, but anyway, he's a liar. He took Christ up
there and they sat on that pinnacle. He said, now, if you be the son
of God, throw yourself off. Throw yourself off. He said,
it's written that he said, you know, it says that he was angels
will give charge over you and you won't dash your foot against
the stone. Our Lord Jesus said, it is written, thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God. So our three times, Satan come
to him, and three times our Lord said, it is written, it is written,
it is written. And that's what we live by, it
is written, what God says. You know everything about this
blessed book, and I say it all the time, with whatever God says
is right. My mother-in-law used to say
this, she said, I don't know very much about the Bible, but
what I don't know, but I believe every word that's in it. I believe
everything there is about it. And, and, you know, here's the
thing, you know, if, and I said this last night, if you put a
question mark on one place in the Bible, who's going to be
the one to put that question mark. You know, the Bible tells
us about who created, why created, who created it for it, tells
us about how we're saved, who saves us, how long we're going
to be saved. It tells us everything we need
to know. It is written. It is written. And I'll tell
you what the scripture says, and that's what the first foundation
of our faith is, is it is written. It's written. You know what?
Paul said that oftentimes in his writings. It is written.
It is written. It is written. And our Lord Jesus
himself quoted from Isaiah more than any other book in the Bible
while he was on this earth. He quoted from Isaiah. And how
many times did he say it is written? It is written. And I tell you,
and that's the only thing I need to know is what God said. If
God said it, People say, well, God said it, I believe it, that
settles it. No, it settles it whether you believe it or not.
You know, when people say, well, I don't, there was a woman, she
just died, and there were some dear folks in our church live,
and she died, and they was, you know, going through all her stuff,
cleaning out her house and things for her. And her and her husband
was brilliant. I mean, they were brilliant.
They read books that I can't even pronounce the names of them.
You know, they were just, you know, they're smart. And she
said, I believe the Bible, but I don't believe all of it. Well,
I tell you what, I believe every single word in it. You know why
God put the genealogies in the Bible? You ever wonder why that
was said, so and so begat so and so and begat so and so and
so and so begat so and so and so begat so? You know why he
done that? So he could show in genealogy who Jesus Christ was
born, what genealogy he come through, and what family he come
through, and how he come into this world, that he would be
a king, he'd be a son of Abraham, he'd be a son of Jacob, he'd
be a son of Isaac, and then how some of the people he'd be related
to. You know our Lord Jesus had a harlot in his genealogy? Rahab? You know he had Ruth in
his genealogy? That one who said, listen, I
gotta go out here, I'm so poor, I gotta go out and pick up little
bitty pieces of grain just to eat and to live. And then he
met a, there's a fella there named Boaz, gonna be her husband.
He said, see that maiden right there? Every time you see her
in the field, when she gets close, she'll get you a great big hand
and you lay it right down in front of her. And so you said
that's what those are the things we learn and that's why God wrote
the genealogies So everybody could know who Christ is and
that's why the Jews is it well it could any good thing come
out of Nazareth Can any good thing come out of a Galilee no
prophets come from here? But they've missed Christ because
there's looking for him in the wrong places our Lord Jesus says
this He says you know you search the scriptures and And there
they will testify of me. You search them, but you can't
find me. And people search the scriptures.
You know, you search them, and you know, they're there to testify
of me. And they said, but oh my. And so the first foundation
is, it is written. Here's the second one. Here in
verse one, verse 17, excuse me. I have made thee. Here's the
second one. I have made thee. I made thee. You know what that tells us?
That God does it all. God said, I made you. I made
you. I made you who you are. I made
you what you are. I made you everything that is
done. God has done it. I made you, Abraham. I made you. I make everything. He said, I
made Christ to be sin. For you who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. I have made thee. I have made... He's made after
the law. He was made under the seed of
the woman. He was made. And I tell you,
it's what God has done. Everything that there is about
us, God did it. I believe, you know, who had
ever thought when I was first born and when I was I was looking
back there and they started this building September of 67. I just
got out of boot camp in San Diego, California as a Marine in 1967.
I may not have been out of boot
camp since eight weeks, but I went there in August and got out sometime
in October, November, but anyway, to make a long story short, God,
who would ever think that one of these days that I would've
been saved by the grace of God and called to be a preacher and
called to be a pastor? Who would ever thunk that? I
would've never entered my mind. But he said, I've made thee.
I formed you in your belly before you was ever thought of it. Jeremiah
said, I've formed you in the belly. I made you a prophet,
I ordained you a prophet before you was ever formed in your belly.
I made you, I made you. And I'll tell you people, and
this is what we say all the time. I am what I am. God, by his blessed
grace, made me what I am. Let me show you something in
Psalm 103. Look over here in Psalm 100,
and look in verse three. Oh, God help me. Psalm 100 in
verse three, look what it says over here. Look in verse three here. Know ye that the Lord, he is
God. Listen to this now. It is he
that hath made us. Not ourselves. Oh my. We are his people and the sheep
of his pasture. He said, I made you. We're his
sheep. He made us. He made us to be
sheep, not goats. He made us to be his people.
He made us to be his elect. He made us to be his chosen.
He made us to be people that he loved before the foundation
of the world. He hath made us. We did not make
ourselves. And that's, you know, free will
religion and people who believe in free will. They make that
to be the most powerful force in the world. Do you know that? Free will says this, that God
can't save me unless I let him. Free will says that God can't
do anything for me unless I let him. I can't let you know, open
your heart and let him in. Now let me ask you, how in the
world does somebody open their heart? But here's the thing that
that's what people say. They say, you know, if you'll
open your heart, Jesus will come in. If you just exercise, when
God gives you a chance, if you just exercise that faith, if
you'll just exercise faith, well, you can't exercise something
you ain't got. Faith is not of yourselves, it's the gift of
God, not of works lest any man should boast. And I tell you,
it's God that made us, and he's the one that made us to be new
creatures. If any man be in Christ, He is a new creature. I mean,
God made you a new creature. And what is a new creature? New
creation. Old things passed away. What passed away? Sin passed
away. Death passed away. Self-righteousness
passed away. Self-confidence passed away.
False hope passed away. Oh, listen, the law passed away. Everything, all our self-confidence,
all the things that we trusted in, passed away. And all things
become new. You know what the first thing
he done for you when he made you new? First thing he done,
he gave you a new heart. He said, I'll take out the stony
heart, and he gave us a new heart. He said, I'll give you a new
heart. And you know what else he said? And I'll cleanse you,
and I'll give you a new spirit. I'll give you my spirit. that
we're made new creatures. We got, listen, we got new loves. I didn't love Christ until I
was made a new creature. I didn't believe the Bible until
I was made a new creature. I didn't believe, I believe I
was as good as anybody until I was made a new creature. I
got a new mind, got a new will. You know, when God saves a man,
he saves every part of that man. He don't leave no part of that
man that's unsaved. He takes your mind that was darkened
and he turns on the light in there. Now that mind can see
things that it never could see before. He gives you a new mind.
He gives you eyes to see that you could never see before. You
see things that, I don't know how many people say, well, I
see it now. Oh, I see it, preacher. He gives
you new ears. You hear things you never heard
before. He gives you a new heart. and you love things you never
loved before. Gives you a new will. And now
everybody here is here because they're willing to be here. Anybody
here because they're unwilling to be here? Everybody's here
because they're willing to be here. Where'd you get that will? In a new creature. I mean, he
saved us all. He saved every part of our being. You know, we're supposed to have
five senses. Well, we have five senses in
the spiritual realm. And when God gives a man new
life and he gives him, makes him a new creature, he brings
into existence a person who never existed before. Do you know that? When God saves a man and gives
him a new birth and gives him new life and makes him a new
creature, he brings into existence someone who never existed before. And that's that new man. That's
that new creature. That's that new person. You know,
our Lord says, well, he that's born of the flesh is flesh, but
he that's born of the Spirit is spiritual. And I tell you
what, old Nicodemus, He came to Christ by night. Every time
he mentioned him, it says Nicodemus who came by night. And our Lord
said, oh my, you must be born again. Nicodemus, he was a ruler
of the Jews. He was of the Sanhedrin. And
our Lord said, don't you know these things? He oughta understood
that. You remember that infant that
was cast out in Ezekiel 16? That infant was cast out to the
loathing of his person. He's never had his navel cut.
He hadn't been washed off. He hadn't had nobody take and
wash him off and clean him off. He had the blood and everything
all over him. And it says that the Lord Jesus Christ, he said,
I saw you polluted in your blood. And I passed by you. And when
did I pass by you? It was a time of love. And I said unto thee, live. Yea,
I say unto thee, live. Then he said, I'll spread my
skirt over you. I'll cover your nakedness with
my skirt. Oh, by. And let me show you something. Not only have I, look what he
said, I've made thee, but look what else he says. Before him whom he believed,
God. You know, that's the thing about
he believed God. He believed God. He believed
God. Didn't believe some things about
God. Didn't believe there was a God. Didn't believe that God
just existed, that he was a higher power. He believed God. And let me tell you how that
happened. Abraham dwelt where Baghdadi is right now. That's
where Abraham was. That's where Baghdad over in
Iraq is, that's where Abraham was. That's where he lived. In the Ur of the Chaldees, it's
where he lived. And Abraham, God came to him
and said, Abraham, look up. He looked up and said, see all
them stars? Yes, sir. I said, yeah, I see
them. He said, that's how many children you're gonna have. And
then he said, Abraham, look down at the, look at all this sand
around you. Yeah, you see, I said, that's
how many children you're gonna have. He said, now I want you
to leave there and I want you to go over here. And Abraham
believed God and went out having no idea where he was going. Would
you do that? If God took you out here and
said, look at the stars, you're gonna have that many heavenly
children. And the sand is the earthly children, earthly Israel.
We're the spiritual Israel. We're the spiritual children.
We're the stars. They're the earthly children. And he says,
you know, and he said, Abraham, you go and go to Elandosh. And he went out not knowing where
he is going. Nobody does that. I got on an
airplane knowing where I was going. I was coming to Flint,
Michigan and coming on to Hallmont. I know where I'm going. People
just don't get up and say, well, I believe I'll just head out
and I don't know where I'm going, don't know where I'll end up.
People don't do things like that, but Abraham did. And you know
what Abraham did? He did that all the days of his
life. He was looking for a city. He spent all the days of his
life looking for a city. whose builder and maker is God. He said, when I find that, that's
where I'm gonna stay. And he believed God. Oh my, we
just wouldn't do that. Get up and leave your farm. Get
up and leave your home. Get up and leave. And Sarah,
come on! I ain't going. If you go, you're
gonna have to go by yourself. That's what most women would
say. If you're gonna go, if you're gonna move over there, I said,
you're gonna have to go by yourself. I'm not gonna go with you. Well,
no, no, God makes him willing. If he didn't, it'd be a, but
you know, he's Abraham, Sarah, and they, they, they went, and
they went, and they went, and they, and scripture said he never
did have a dwelling place on this earth. And we ought to be
like Abraham in this sense, that we are pilgrims and strangers
in this world. Pilgrims and strangers. And you
know, let me take time out to say something
here. I didn't, you know, my poor brain
just runs away with me. But you know, when Christ died
on the cross, there's three people that died that day. When Christ
was crucified, I was crucified with him. I died with him. When
Christ was crucified, the world was crucified under me. When
Christ died, I was crucified under the world. The world don't
hold no attraction for me, and the world has no attraction for
me, and the world don't want me either. Huh? The world don't want me either.
So we're crucified. The world don't want me, and
I don't want the world. What's in this world? But I know
you have to go to work. I know you have to make a living.
But ain't you grateful that you got someplace to go to get out
of the world? Some place to go to get that
old feel. You know, people come tell me on Wednesday night. I
said, I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Wednesday night
to come to worship here. Said, you know, I go to work
and by the time Wednesday comes along, I feel so filthy. I feel
so unclean. I just feel I've been among all
these worldly people and I feel so unclean. And I had to come
here and get washed again. Oh my, people come straight from
Word, come right in there. Oh, he believed God. Do you believe God? I believe God. He cannot lie. He cannot change. I believe Him. And you know what
God told me to do? Told you to do? He said, believe
on my son. You know one commandment God
gave us over in John chapter five? He said, this is the commandment
that we've received of God, that you believe on the name of his
son. God said, you believe my son.
I sent my son, you believe on him. I sent my son to die in
your room instead, you believe him. That's why our Lord said,
you know, he said, you believe God, believe also me. If you
believe God, believe me. They said, oh, Abraham, Philip
said, Lord, show us the Father and we'll be satisfied. He said,
Philip, if I've been with you such a long time and you've not
seen me, for he that's seen me has seen the Father. And when
you trust Christ, you're trusting God. He believed God, I believe God. You know, I'll tell you, systematic
theology, all the theology starts out with this preposition. to
prove the, you know, to prove that God exists. And I was up
in, oh, where is it at? Somewhere down,
Sterling Heights, Michigan one time. Down there at a meeting. And I was with another preacher
and we was staying in this place. And these people came, started
talking to us, and you know, said they didn't believe God,
and so this fella's gonna stand up, stay up that night, and prove
to them that God existed. I said, man, save your breath
to cool your coffee, because you ain't gonna believe God exists.
Either you believe He is, or you don't. You cannot prove the
existence of God. You can't do it. You can't see
Him. He inhabits eternity. And the
only way we would ever see him was when he come to this earth
and our Lord Jesus Christ was God. And so he come to this earth
so he could make us, so we could see him, so we could relate to
him in some way. But I tell you what, you can't
see him, you can't prove his existence. You can't do it, it'd be an impossibility. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. So what we do, we believe God. God is invisible. Abraham said
he was, he believed in him, listen to this, who is invisible. How
do you believe in someone who's invisible? God gives you faith. But we do
it, don't we? I can't prove the existence of
God, but I believe he is. I believe he is as he says he
is. I believe Him as He presents Himself. He said He's the, He
inhabits eternity. And He says this, He says, you
know, He said, all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing.
And I will do according to my will in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth and no man can stay
my hand or say unto me what I'm doing. Now, I believe that. I believe that his will is being
done in heaven and in earth. I believe it's being done in
hell even. And I've never laid eyes on him.
And when I get to glory, the only God I'll ever see is the
Lord Jesus Christ sitting on his throne. And when you see
him, you'll see him as a lamb as it had been slain. Huh? Abraham believed God. He went
out, where you going, Sarah said, where we going Abraham? I don't
have no idea. I'm just going in that direction. Going in that direction. You
better hope God don't do that to you that way. I'm gonna tell
you a true story. I've got to hurry, I'll tell
you what. I know you're getting hungry probably. I'll tell you
a true story. I was in a meeting and Pastor
Henry Mahan, and we went out to this restaurant to eat. And
there was a couple visiting there from New Jersey. And they both
had good, good, good jobs. And they come down there to that
meeting and they wanted to move down there. And they wanted to
be somewhere where the gospel was. They said, but we'll have
to wait till, you know, we, our jobs get taken care of and all
that stuff. And you know what Henry told
them? He said, if God ever becomes everything to you and the gospel
becomes everything to you, you'll walk away from them jobs, you'll
walk away from that, and you'll go where the gospel's at. And
both of them quit and moved down there in about three months.
He said, if you're just talking, and that's what God said to Abraham,
God's not just talking to us, just to have something to say.
God says this, and this is where you're gonna go, and this is
what you're gonna do. I left Ohio and come to Tennessee. Bruce
Crabtree is in Tennessee and went to Indiana. Now, why didn't
God keep Bruce Crabtree in Tennessee, the priest down there, and blessed
me to start a work in Ohio? That's not the way God does things.
Why didn't God bring a fella from Oregon all the way to Michigan? Huh? He said, go when you go. That's
what I'm talking about. And listen, you keep your stakes
real, real loose. Don't drive your stakes too down
in this world, because just as sure as you drive them down,
God's going to do something to pull them stakes up. And listen,
I'll tell you this much. Your children belong to God.
Your homes belong to God. Everything you got belongs to
God. And anytime he wants to, he can come and get it. And you
better hope he don't have to break your arm to take it away
from you. But he'll do it, won't he? He'll take the most precious
thing in your life one of these days, and your heart will break,
and you'll cry, and you'll weep, but you'll say, it's the Lord.
It's the Lord. Let him do what seems good. Ain't
that right? Yeah, he believed God. He believed
God. And then look what else it says
there. He believed God who raised the dead. He said, I'll make you the father
of many nations before him who quickeneth the dead, who quickens
the dead. He believed God would quicken
the dead. Y'all remember the story very
well about Abraham. And look over here in Hebrews
11. Let's look at this together. Abraham, you know, God told him
to take his son, his only son, and you go up to the mountain
that I'll show you, and you take your only son, and you offer
him there. You offer him there to me. And you know, you remember when
Abraham, it took him three days journey to go up there. And they
started up that mountain. But Abraham did say this before
he ever started out. He said, took his services, you
all stay here and I'm the ladder going up to the mountain. We're
going up there to worship and we'll come again. Now he's gonna
take his son up there and the scripture says that he put him
on the altar, he fastened to the altar and he had the wood
and he was just fixing to draw back the knife to slit his son's
throat because God said, offer your son. About that time, God
stopped him. God stopped him because he believed
that if God, he did slay that boy, that God would give him
life back because me and the boys going up there to worship
and we're coming again. And that's exactly what it says
here in Hebrews 11. Look what it says here. Look what it says now there in
verse 17. By faith, when he was tried,
offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered
up his only begotten, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall
thy seed be called, accounting or believing that God able to
raise him up even from the dead, from which he also received him
in a figure. What he was saying was that if
I do that, God's gonna give that boy life because all the promises
is in him. Christ is gonna come from him,
me, him, and Jacob. So he took that boy up there
and he told the truth, said, we will go up, we went up there
and worship. And you know, some farmer down
there had a bunch of sheep. One of them rams got loose, went
up on that mountainside. I'm just, I'm talking now, you
know, I don't know if this happened or not, but just to say somebody
had a bunch of sheep and they opened the gate and the ram got
out. Ram got up there and got caught in that thicket. Abraham
said, stopped him. And he looked around, there's
this ram caught in a thicket. And he took that ram and put
him in Isaac's stead. And that's what God did. He took
his blessed son and put him in our stead. And we get to get
up off the altar, give a new life in Christ. And that's what
he did. He believed that if God's gonna
kill him, God's gotta give him life. God's gotta give him life. And I tell you what, God raised
the dead. There's three types of dead people
in the New Testament that Christ raised up. First of all, there
was Jairus' daughter. She was 12. She was just a child. Wasn't very sinful, wasn't very
corrupt, but she was still lost, and she was dead. She was dead.
Christ went in there, And he said, she's not dead, she's asleep.
I'm gonna wake her up. And they just laughed him to
scorn and said, oh my goodness, she is dead. What are you talking
about asleep? He just got her by the hand and said, I say unto
thee, arise. She came up. The second person
that Christ raised from the dead was a widow woman. She had a
boy. He was about 21 years old. She
had a son, one son. And that was the only child she
had. And they put him in his casket. Had him wrapped up, they
put him in his casket, and they was on their way to the graveyard
with that boy. Great crowd was following her.
And then as death is walking out, life is walking in. And
he stopped that funeral possession. He said, stop. He looked into that box. I say unto thee, arise. And that
boy got up out of that box, got out of that casket, and he took
him by the hand and said, woman, here's your son. And he was, he's older, more
corrupt, more sinful, but he's still dead. And then there's
Lazarus. Oh, Lazarus. He'd been dead four
days. Christ let him die. He said,
I said, he's gonna die for the glory of God. And he was laid
there dead and Martha, you know, our Lord said, he said, go up
there and remove the stone. And Martha, she wasn't worried
about him stinking. She was worried about her, you
know, her reputation and I don't want to be embarrassed and I
don't want my brother to be embarrassed and don't want, you know, he
said, roll away the stone. Said, Lord, if we do, he's stinking,
he's been dead four days. He was corrupt, really corrupt. Christ stood there, Lazarus! Come forth! Here he comes. How can he walk
with them grave clothes on? We all was born with grave clothes
on. But when Christ called us, you know, he said, take them
off, take them off. And that's what they started
doing. They started taking them off. And we've been taking off
grave clothes ever since. But I tell you, that's the way
all those, but the thing is, all of them was dead. And Christ
is the only one can give them life. And that's why Christ raised
him up. And like I've already told you,
One of these days He's gonna raise us up. Oh, what a blessed,
glorious day. We got three ladies that sing
down home. What a day, what a day that'll be, when Jesus I shall
see, when He takes me by the hand and leads me through the
promised land. What a day, what a day that'll
be. Oh my, huh? Well, and let me,
this is my last point, and I'll tell you what, I bet y'all glad, ain't you? Oh
my, I just, and our Lord raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the
dead, oh my. Put him up there, set him up
there at his right hand. I'm satisfied with him. I accepted
everything he did. And oh my, set him in his right
hand, raised up Christ. And then look what else it says.
He believed God who quickens the dead. And this is what I
like right here. And call us those things which
be not. He calls things that don't even
exist, things that don't even enter our mind or anybody else's
mind. He calls us those things that
don't even exist as though they do. It calls those things that be
not as though they were. Things that ain't even happened
yet. He's done called them. There's a verse of scripture
over in Ephesians that says that God is able to do exceedingly
abundantly what we think Now, we can think awful big. We can
think big. Oh, our minds can think big.
We can really think big. And he says, well, he can do
more than what we can think, exceedingly abundantly of what
we think. And we can ask for some big things.
We can ask for some awful big things. But he can do exceedingly
abundantly of anything we can think or anything we can ask
for. He always gives more. Huh? Always gets more. Huh? You see, anybody here doing without? I live from hand to mouth, God's
hand to my mouth. And that's the way we live. Huh? It's like that fellow, you know,
he said, I won't take all my money with me when I die. His
wife said, OK, I'll see that you get it. Put him in the casket, she come
up to the casket, wrote a check, put it in there. That's all you're going to take
with you. She's taking the rest of it with you. Ain't that right?
We're going to all leave it behind. This is a true story, too, and
I got to tell it before I sit down. You all know Brad Harmon
very, very well, Brad. He's preaching for me today.
And Brad, years and years ago, he had a new, Firebird And he
is out there polishing on that firebird making that thing all
shine up and everything like that and Scott Richardson walked
up to him one day and said Brad God gonna burn that thing up
one of these days You know what he did he went sold it and So you know the next time you
go to somebody's house and they want to, you know, let me show
you this wonderful house I've got and all this wonderful stuff
I've got and all that. Just remember, God's gonna burn
it up. Yeah, but He's not gonna burn
us up. We're going to glory. We're gonna
leave it all behind.