down. Lord willing, we'll work
out through verse ten today. Let's bow and go to the Lord
in prayer. Heavenly Father, you truly are
a wonderful Savior. Jesus Christ our Lord, a wonderful
Savior to us, your elect. What grace and mercy that you've
given to us, Father, and that's why we gather here today. to
give you worship and praise for your death for us, for your life
of obedience that is credited to our account, for your death
in our place, taking on the sin that is ours. We give you worship
and praise this morning for the salvation that is in Christ Jesus.
Father, I pray this morning that you might speak to us by your
spirit, that you might give us understanding that each one here
today will learn of you and that they will be edified. Lord, we
just pray that you'll be uplifted and glorified in all that we
do and all that we say. Father, we just ask now that
you would just be enabling to us to worship, to help me preach. Father, I pray that you would
keep me from error as always, Lord, I pray that because I know
that without your giving utterance, without you giving the speech
without you giving the words that we just speak in human wisdom. So Father, I pray that the words
that I speak are the very words of the scriptures, the very words
of God. And Lord, we pray that the interpretation of it also,
Father, will be in keeping with the truth that is in the scriptures.
Father, Lord, I pray that you just might bless us through the
teaching of this, that you might grow us in the grace and the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And Father Lord,
we just once again thank you for all that you have done, the
way that you take care of us, the way that you provide for
us, the way that you give safety to your people as you have promised,
and the way that you have kept us even now through this pestilence
that you have sent upon our country, Lord. We pray that you'll continue
to keep us safe as you promised in Psalm 91. And Lord, we just
look to you for all things. We know that without you, we
can do nothing. That as we abide in you, that we will bear much
fruit, spiritual fruit unto God. And we know that those works
that were ordained for us to walk in, those spiritual works
will be fulfilled because you are in us and you are working
and willing to do all your good pleasure through us. And so Lord,
we just again ask that you would be with us today to help us in
all these things. We're in Christ's name that we
pray. Amen. Let's start reading in verse
eight and I'm gonna read down through verse 10. The apostle
Paul by inspiration of scripture writes, and the scripture foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before
the gospel unto Abraham saying, shall all nations be blessed. I want you to pay close attention
to the word blessed here. It's gonna come up a few times
in our passage here. So then they which be of faith,
which be of faith, are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as
many as are under the works of the law are under the curse,
for it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not
in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them." Now, we're gonna stop right there. I don't plan on
going much further than that today, unless the Lord enables. But I want us to go back into
8 and 9 and look, because it ties in with what we're gonna
see in verse 10. We need to know this what eight and nine is saying
before we can understand 10, because what we have before us,
brethren, is two sides to the same coin. You have preaching
before you justification, and on one side, you see the positive
side, which is justification is of faith, the faith of Christ. On the other side, you see Justification
is not of the law. Okay? So to be justified is of the
faith of Jesus Christ, and it is not of the law. And so what
8 and 9 are saying is just the opposite of what we're going
to see verse 10 say. So it's good for us to know what
exactly is 8 and 9 talking about. What are we blessed with whenever
we are, whenever we have been justified by the faith of Christ?
What blessing is that besides justification itself? I mean,
justification in and of itself is the grand blessing that we
have been given apart from eternal life. Justification to be, have
our sin stained, removed, to have our guilt before God completely
taken away, where we are not guilty before God, is probably
the pinnacle gift that we can have. It's hard for me to say
the pinnacle gift, actually, to be honest, because to have
God's love given to us is a paramount gift. To have His election of
us is a paramount thing. I mean, all spiritual blessings
are given to us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and they're
all of equal importance. But whenever we look at justification,
that is really the heart of the gospel, because we know the Bible
says that God will not justify the guilty. He will not justify
sinners, and the only way that he can do so and still be a just
God is there has to be an equal and equitable Payment made. There has to be
a substitute in our place, taken, who walked in our shoes, who
lived the law perfectly, okay? God demands righteousness. Christ
was our righteousness. He walked perfectly before God.
He obeyed all that God had given him to do, and he didn't miss
anything, whether in thought, word, or deed. And so his obedience
through all of his life is our obedience. You know, sometimes
it's hard for us to comprehend and I often think, especially
whenever I see, you know, movies of Jesus and everything, whenever
they depict him as a kid and everything, it's hard for me
to fathom, you know, a little boy like Alessandro's age and
everything going around and he literally, you know, did nothing.
I mean, we've raised five kids, and as good as I think that they
are, I can't say that about my children. I can't say that about
myself. Nobody can say that. We, for
all of sin, have fallen short of the glory of God. But yet,
here we see Christ, even as a little child, who is, as we know children,
they're mischief. They like to get into things.
They're curious. and they're disobedient and they're, you
know, they get angry, they get mad, they throw fits when they
don't get their way and all these things. But to think back, Jesus,
even at those very small years, never sinned and thought word
or deed. I mean, that's hard for us to grasp that. You know,
we think, well, yeah, as a man, he was able to do that, but even
as a child, there was never a time that Christ ever, ever transgressed
God and his law and his holiness, his righteousness. Christ fulfilled
all righteousness. Christ kept everything for us
so that I've obeyed my parents perfectly because Christ obeyed
his parents perfectly. Sometimes we don't think about
those things. You know, even before I was conscious of my
salvation, I was justified before God. Even before I knew I was
justified, God didn't count my sins against me. And all that
time that I grew up disobeying my granny, disobeying my parents,
disobeying the school, whoever it is, you know, the authorities. In all those things, Christ and
His obedience stood in my place so that I, my whole entire life,
have lived a life of perfection, as it were, before God. And brother,
I just can't fathom that because I know that I'm a sinner to the
core. I know that in me dwells no good thing. But that's the
blessedness of justification. Justification is God's decree
upon us, not guilty. Matter of fact, the Bible says
this, and if God says this, we should not let other people and
even our own thoughts and minds and doubts come in and rob us
of this joy that we have in salvation, but the Bible itself, God says,
who shall lay any charge to God's elect? I mean, not one charge
can ever, ever at any time be laid to our account, whether
it be me laying it to myself, whether it be you laying it against
me, whether it be the government laying it against me, listen,
or whether it be Satan laying it against me. Satan is all the
time the accuser of the brethren, the Bible says. He's always accusing
the brethren, but listen, the Bible says that no one can lay
any charge against God's elect because in God's eyes, that person
is justified. Even God himself cannot lay any
charge to his own elect because his dear son, justified them. Brethren, that is a tremendous,
tremendous thing. That should be a joyous thing
to all of us to know that. And so that's what we are seeing
in view here. But what specifically, as I'm
talking about this, this obedience that has been reckoned to us,
this death that's been reckoned to us, what is it? Is that the
blessing? And I say, yes, that is the blessing
that Paul has in view here because he's already wrote about this
in Romans, look at verse eight and nine there. He says, and
the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith. Now, we know that to be true
because whenever, in Genesis chapter 12, God declared unto
Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, that
he would see that out of him all of the nations would be blessed. There's that word again, being
blessed, that all of the nations would be blessed. Does that mean
everyone in the nation? No, that's not what we're talking
about. We're talking about everyone, or excuse me, being blessed out
of every nation. I believe it's, is it Revelation
17? Turn with me if you would, Revelation
chapter 17. Well, I've got it mixed up in
my head. Well, brother, I've got the scriptures
mixed up in my head, but it's the scripture that I'm looking
for is where he talks about how that it will be out of every
tribe, language, nation, and tongue. He breaks it down into
the even very smallest categories. It's not just gonna be out of
every nation. In the United States, we're considered
a nation. But even within the United States,
we have the South, we have the North, we have the East, we have
the West. We have different dialects when we talk. I mean, when you
come down here to the South, we all have a different way that
we talk. You go up to the North, they talk really fast and a little
bit different, kind of funny. So even within our own nation,
we have, different different groups of people and God says
that listen there's going to be there's going to be elect
represented out of every category of people there's not going to be one people
groups it's not going to be represented within God's elect okay so Abraham
was told that he would be blessed as the father of of all these
nations that out of him, that all the nations would be blessed. And now that's going back to,
if you remember, we talked about it last week or the week before,
that it is the seed. They're gonna be blessed. They're
gonna be found being blessed by the seed that was being considered
in Genesis 15. Remember, we went to Genesis
15. and said, and the word of the Lord came to Abraham and
showed him in a vision that he would be the father of all these
people and that he would have a seed and we learn that that
seed was talking about Christ and Abraham was preached the
gospel there. That's what we're seeing in our
scripture here. Whenever it says that, and the
scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through
faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham. Abraham had the
gospel preached unto him by the word of the Lord. The word of
the Lord came to him and preached to him the gospel. And Abraham
then counted it, the seed, unto him as righteousness. He counted Christ for himself
as righteousness. He looked to Christ as being
the one who would give him the righteousness before God. And
so because of that, he was blessed having faith also to receive
that. God had blessed Abraham with
faith to receive that message that faith had done. That's why
we see in the scriptures, the Bible says that it is delivered
from faith to faith. The faith of Christ being delivered
to the faith of us. Christ's faith, his outworking
of righteousness in his life and death, That in the gospel
is conveyed to the faith that God has given to us in the new
birth, and that faith receives that faith of Christ. Remember,
we talked about the hearing of faith. What does faith hear?
What is it that faith hears? It hears the righteousness of
Christ alone for us, that we have that righteousness. And
you say, well, I don't know about that, Mike. You're just kind
of putting that together, and I don't know if that's what that
means. Well, that's what I say. I think that's what that is talking
about, unless I be in error, and I would be more than glad
to be reproved and corrected on that. But turn with me, if
you would, back to Romans chapter three. It's hard to preach Galatians
without going back to Romans, because we see the treaty that
Paul wrote to the Romans, this great doctrinal letter, and most
of this is filled with justification. But we have to know, because
one of the questions whenever we speak about justification
by faith, and as I've mentioned to you guys before, we understand
justification by faith a little bit different than other groups
of people do. The Reformed people, they believe
justification by faith means that God declares us just, When
we, by our God-given faith, receive that gospel to ourselves, then
God declares us just based on that righteousness, based upon
that faith. And the reason they believe that
is because they are in error in how they understand the Genesis
15 that we just talked about. They think that it, in that verse,
whenever it says, and he accounted it, for him, as righteousness,
They think that it is talking about believing whenever it was
talking about Christ, the seed, okay? So there's a little bit
of difference there, a little bit of nuance between us, and
that little bit of nuance is huge when it comes to the gospel.
Because whenever you say that God declares us or cannot declare
us just until we believe, that's no different than the Arminian
who says that God cannot save me until I repent, believe, make
a decision for him, whatever, be baptized, whatever the case
might be. The other difference is this,
is that now justification is hinged on, is based upon your
doing something, which would be worse. And it's not, it's
based upon Christ, what he did. So, we have to answer the question,
Do we believe that for by grace are you saved through faith?
Absolutely, but we gotta know, well, whose faith is in context
there in Romans chapter five, where that is found, okay? In
Romans chapter five. Whose faith is in view whenever
we see that? Well, let's go back to Romans
chapter three. And we're gonna see Paul reiterating
some of the very same verbiage that he used with the Galatians
or vice versa, that he used with the Romans to the Galatians.
To be honest, I don't know. I think that Galatians was written
before Romans, but I don't know on that. That's stuff that I
have more to learn about, but regardless of that, it's all
God's word. So whether it was written first or second, it's
still the truth. So it doesn't matter. Verse 20 of Romans chapter
three, it says, therefore, By the deeds of the law, there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight. Now, brethren, that can't
get any plainer. We are not justified by keeping
the law. We are not justified by trying
to keep the law, okay? That's just plain as day. Now,
Paul has said that here. He said it back in Galatians,
remember? Well, it's actually, we haven't
got to it, but verse 11, but that no man is justified by the
law on the side of God is evident. Okay, that's verse 11 of Galatians. So we see that there is no justification
whatsoever found in obedience to the law. Okay? Everybody got that? Can we move away from believing
that? Thinking that? Trusting in that? and trust upon Christ? Let's
go on, it says, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. See,
that was the purpose of the law. The law wasn't given to make
us righteous, but to show us how unrighteous we truly are.
We are unrighteous. And the law, whenever we are
compared to the law, we see that we sin daily, that all we can
do is sin against the law, because we can never meet the standard
We can never meet it. It's futile to try to meet it. It's impossible for you to gain
righteousness by the law. The law wasn't given to make
you righteous. It was given to make you guilty
before God. It was to make you guilty. Look
at verse 21. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. See, the law and the prophets,
they spoke of this righteousness that would be given outside of
the law, and that was a righteousness by faith of Christ Jesus. The law and the prophets, they
all spoke of the coming Messiah who would take away the sins
of the people. It spoke of the anointed one of God, the root
of Jesse. It spoke of Christ, the branch,
who would come. It spoke of the Redeemer, the
Messiah, the Son of God. You mean the Son of God? I didn't
think that they talked about the Son of God. Oh yeah. Remember whenever Daniel, or
excuse me, whenever the three men were thrown into the fiery
furnace? And they said, wait a minute, it looks like there's
four men in there. And that fourth man walking around looks like
the Son of? Man, the Son of God. See, they knew about the Messiah,
the one of God. That's why it was so amazing
that the Jews and why Jesus told Nicodemus, you know, I'm astounded
that you are a ruler in Israel and you don't know these things.
You don't know about me. If you would know what Moses
said, what Abraham believed, you would believe on me because
all of them talked about me. See, they just had a complete
misunderstanding of all the Old Testament. Jesus took his disciples
and taught them that he was everything that was talked about in the
Old Testament. On the road to Emmaus after his resurrection,
he talked to them and he told them everything about himself.
Remember whenever Philip met up with the Ethiopian eunuch
whenever he was traveling and preached to him Christ out of
Isaiah and told him all the things about what Christ had done. I
mean, Christ is, the Bible says that in the volume of the book,
it's written of him. The whole volume of God's word
is written of Christ, right? And so we learn that Abraham,
he was preached the gospel. He was told about Jesus Christ
and he believed in him. So the faith that we have reaches
out just like Abraham. It reaches out to Christ alone.
If we are of that seed, that spiritual seed, then we will
trust Christ alone for our justification. It says, but now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there
is no difference. So what's Paul saying here to
these Roman believers? He's telling them, listen, that
the righteousness of God has always been and will always be
by the, what? By the faith of Jesus Christ,
by his faithfulness, his work. It was told to us by the law
and the prophets, and it is told to us now in this gospel. It
is by Jesus Christ. And who is it for? It's upon
all them that believe. By faith of Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference. See,
this righteousness that is to be had by the faith of Jesus
Christ wasn't just for the Jews, but it was also for us Gentiles.
That was also preached in the Old Testament. And verse 23 says,
for all have sinned and all come short of the glory of God. Now there's a lot of people out
there that think, well, I know that says that, but there's a
little good in everybody. You know, have you ever heard
somebody say that? Yeah, there's a little good in everybody. That's
what they tell you on TV. You know, we're just trying to
find the good in everybody. Matter of fact, you look, watching
the Olympics, we was talking about this yesterday at breakfast,
you looked at the Olympics and how hard they were trying to
get everybody to be just unified in one big group of people. And that's what Antichrist wants,
right? Antichrist wants this one world
government where everybody is the same and everybody comes
together in this one, what they're calling this one utopia. This one being able to bring
the peoples together and have this peace among everybody. But what does the Bible say?
Just whenever everybody says peace, peace, there is no peace.
When everybody says peace, peace, it's that time that Jesus is
gonna come, right? But see, there is not just coming
together as one big group of people because God has caused
us to be different. We're not like the world. We
can't function with the world. We can't walk in those things
without there being that warfare within us. And so this whole
thing of everybody just being together and everybody doing
all right and there is a little good in everybody, all we gotta
do is get it out of them. The Bible is completely condemning
that thought It says, for all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. Not one person made of Adam is
ever, ever going to attain that glory apart from Christ Jesus. Amen. Look at verse 24. Being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ. So you say,
well, wait a minute. I thought that we were justified
at the cross. Well, What took place at the
cross was the basis and the grounds for our justification. That was the thing that God looked
at. Christ's obedience, his death,
his resurrection, all that is what God, the merit that God
looked at to say that is the substitute for what they deserve. So see, God looked upon what
Christ did as the full payment so that we could be justified,
okay? But it says being justified freely
by His grace. Now, is there a difference between
being justified by His grace and being justified by His blood
or by His death or by His resurrection? Well, yes and no. In the aspect
of that all of our justification is based upon Christ is true. So whether it's his life, his
death, or his resurrection, or the grace that he extends or
gives to his people, all of that is of Christ, okay? So it's all
hinged upon Christ and not anything that we do. But if you look and
see that grace is giving a blessing or blessing somebody or What
do we call it? Unmerited favor, right? That's
kind of the definition that we hear a lot about of grace, is
grace is giving somebody something that they don't deserve, right? Well, whenever we look at grace,
we see in 2 Timothy, if you would, keep your place
in Romans, in 2 Timothy chapter one, Verse nine and 10, this
is a couple of verses that I quote here often. You've heard me say
this and teach this a lot. Look at verse nine. It says, who hath saved us? Who's
the who talking about? We'll look at the verse before
it says, it's talking about God. For God hath not given us a spirit
of fear, by the power and the love of the sound mind. Be not
thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of
me as prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
according to the power of God, who hath, so God, who hath saved
us, past tense, right? Saved is past tense. Who hath
saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our
works. So, if it's not of works, it's
of what? What's the opposite of works?
Grace. Yes, grace. So, it's not according
to works. It's according to grace. Is that
what he says there? Absolutely. Not according to
our works but according to his own purpose and grace. So, the Bible here says that
we were saved and called according to God's purpose and grace. Now, is that a contradiction
to say that we're saved by God's purpose and grace and that we're
saved by the blood of Jesus Christ? Is that a contradiction? Absolutely
not. See, still the ground and the
basis for our justification, the grounds and the basis of
our salvation still is the blood and righteousness of Christ.
The timing of when God declares that is based upon Christ's fulfillment
of that. But see, Christ does not have
to have already fulfilled that for God to be able to deem that
true because known unto God are all his works, the end from the
beginning. God has called these things which are not as though
they were, scripture says, okay? And here we have in 2 Timothy,
He says that we were saved and called, not according to our
works, but according to his purpose and grace, which was, again,
past tense, was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. See, our salvation is an eternal
salvation. And if it's an eternal salvation,
that includes justification. If Ephesians chapter one says
that we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus according as he has chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, then that means every spiritual
blessing has been given to us in Christ Jesus, just like this
says, in Christ Jesus before the world began or before the
foundation of the world. See, that was God. declared that
upon us before anything had ever happened with Adam. We were declared
just and holy and righteous and blameless before God because
Christ, our mediator, stood as the Lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. Why did he have to stand as the
Lamb slain before the foundation of the world whenever he was
gonna be the Lamb slain further in time? Well, he stood as the
lamb slain before the foundation of the world so that God could
look on us in love and being holy and blameless. Look again.
Keep your finger there again, Romans. We will get back to it.
But look at Ephesians chapter one. Brethren, the scriptures
are just replete with this. And these things are the reason
why I had to turn away from my Arminian thinking, why God has
brought me out of that is because his word teaches this. In Ephesians
chapter one, look at what it says there. It says that he is
blessed, blessed be God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places
in Christ according as he had chosen us in him. before the
foundation of the world that we should be, that we should
be. The reason for all of his choosing and giving blessing
and grace before the foundation of the world in Christ Jesus
upon his leg is so that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. That's why I say, the importance
of those two scriptures that we quote here all the time. Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin. If God imputed sin to you at
any time, even though you're the elect, if God imputed sin
to you, then that verse don't mean anything because that verse
is only talking about The people that are blessed without ever
having imputation of sin. So who is the ones that have
not ever had imputation of sin? Well, the only person besides
Christ, Christ never had sin imputed to him. Well, wait a
minute, he sure did. God imputed our sin to him. God
imputed every one of our sins to him, not imparted, but imputed. God laid our sin to his account. He took on our sin, he became
sin for us. So who's the only one that has
never had imputation of sin? It's God's elect. God's elect
have not had sin imputed. And then again, that other verse
that we talked about that says, that he has not beheld iniquity
in Jacob, nor hath he seen perverseness in Israel, for the shot of a
king is among them. See, God's never seen or beheld
those things. So being justified freely by his grace back in Romans
three, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ. We've been justified freely by
His grace. God bestowed grace upon us before
the world began, and the grounds for Him doing that so that God
would be the just and the justifier is through the redemption that
was in Christ Jesus that would take place at that moment of
time that He was to die. Now, I've given you guys all
this illustration before, I'm gonna give it to you again so
maybe we can kind of grasp what I'm saying here. We have a courtroom with a judge,
and this judge is a just judge. He doesn't play games in his
judging, okay? You can't buy him off. He's a
holy judge. He's a righteous judge. He does
not bend the law at all, okay? And there is a man down in the
jail cell out there somewhere. And that man is in prison for
all the crimes that he's committed against the law. And he's guilty
as the day is long. He is guilty, guilty, guilty. His punishment is death. And
then a mediator comes on behalf of that guilty man and tells
the judge that I will pay whatever that man owes I will pay the
full amount of payment for that man. I will take his penalty. And that judge looks at that
mediator and he deems whatever merit that mediator has within
himself, that judge deems that right to say, okay, that that
you are offering here is equal to the punishment that he would
have deserved. So I, being a just judge, will
say, yes, I will take this payment for this debt, okay? So as soon as the judge decrees
this man be the guilty man, and this man now is no longer guilty
because that man's taking his place, is that man that's in
that jail cell, is he not at that moment whenever the judge
brings that gavel down and says that man is not guilty. Is he
not guilty? Yes, the sentence or the declaration
of not guilty is given as soon as the surety promises to be
all the full payment for that man. And so now what does the
judge do? Caleb, go tell that man in the
cell that he's free to go. that his record has been wiped
clean, that he is not guilty. Is that man in that cell justified? Absolutely. He doesn't know it
yet. He doesn't know it. He's still sulking in his jail
cell because he's guilty. He's completely guilty. And his
mind knows that he's guilty. But he's just as much justified
as if he would know it, but he doesn't know it yet. And so the
bailiff walks down the hallway, goes down into the jail cells,
walks down to that man's jail, and he tells that man, guess
what? Someone paid your debt in full,
and the judge has declared you not guilty. You're free to go,
and he unlocks that door and opens it up. Is that man justified at that
point? No, he was justified whenever the judge said, I'll take this
payment for that payment, or for that debt. And that man may
sit in that jail cell and think, this is a trick. I don't believe
that. I've done too many bad things.
They're not just going to let me go. They're not going to let
me go. I don't believe it. Is that man
still justified, even though he doubts his justification?
He's still justified, why? Because the judge has already
rendered the payment from this man for that man's debt to be
equitable, to be good. It's gonna be good enough. But
see, this man still don't believe it. He still hasn't come out
of the jail cell. He's still locked up in his cage. He's still held down by the bondage
that's there. But yet he's just as free and
justified but he still doesn't have it in his mind. He's heard
it in his ears, but it hasn't made it into his heart. He hasn't
received it yet. He hasn't received the fact that
he's been justified. He can't believe it. But as soon
as he sits there and sees that bailer walk away and he hears
the message, it's been done, sees the door wide open, all
of a sudden now faith, belief, hey, I guess I have been. So
he probably takes one step out Looks down, makes sure nobody's
gonna attack him or tackle him. All right, okay, looks good.
And then he starts walking down the hallway. And then he walks
out. And what happens whenever he
walks out? Nobody gets him. He begins to rejoice. Hey, someone
took my place. I'm free, no guilt. And guess
what? Nobody can chase him down and
attack him and bring him back and throw him in jail and say,
well, you remember all those things you did? Well, we gotta
put you back in jail. Can't do that, why? because one
man promised to take all the payment that was due. This man
is justified. From the moment that that judge
looks at this for payment and that for that debt, that man
is justified. Now think about us, brother.
Is that not how it is with us? The Bible right here told us
that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world.
It says that we were saved and called to the holy calling according
to his purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the foundation of the world. What do we call that? The everlasting
covenant. It's the everlasting covenant
of God. In the everlasting covenant, Christ came forth as our surety,
came forth as our mediator, came forth as our advocate and said,
I will go in their place. I will take everything that's
owed to them in wrath. I will live the life that they
cannot live. I will die the death that they
cannot die to satisfy you. I will take all the wrath of
God on their behalf. And at that point in the everlasting
covenant, God said, babe, that is, That is gonna be what righteousness
is. That right there is righteousness.
And Christ came and did that. But listen, we were justified
from the moment the judge said, okay, I'll take your payment
for their debt in that covenant of grace. But guess what? The
bailiff had to come to our cell. We didn't know it. We still were
bound in our sin. bound under the condemnation
of the law. The law still was weighted upon
our shoulder saying, the soul that sinneth it shall surely
die. The law was saying that there's no one who can keep the
law. And so we're still bound in our
cell. We don't know it, we have no
idea. Then all of a sudden somebody comes and preaches the gospel
to us. And at first we may not believe
it. We may say, that can't be true. Nah, I've done too much. I've sinned more than the Lord
would ever forgive. Now, I'm too far gone. Have you
ever heard somebody say, man, that person's too far gone to
be saved? Or have you ever felt yourself,
how could God ever save somebody like me? But what happens is,
is whenever God gives us faith, then what does that faith hear?
That faith here is somebody stood in my place, somebody justified
me, boom, we begin to believe the gospel.
Now, at that point, we are justified in our mind, but not before God
because we are already justified before God based upon Christ. And then whenever we begin to
believe the gospel, we are justified before ourselves. And then whenever
we begin to profess that gospel, we are justified by our works
before other men. But brethren, we're never justified
before God based on anything that we do. That was before the
foundation of the world. So that's what Paul is getting
at here. Verse 24 in Romans 3, being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ, who God has
set forth to be the propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at
this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." So he is the just
and the justifier, not to those who keep the law, but those who
believe in Jesus and what he did. Verse 27, where is boasting
then? It's excluded. Can't boast about
this, why? Because you didn't have any hand
in it. It happened before the foundation of the world, and
it was based upon the merits of someone outside of yourself.
Where is boasting then? It's excluded. By what law? Of
works? Nay, but by the law of faith.
It's excluded. Boasting cannot be, cannot happen,
it's excluded because it had nothing to do with our works.
It had everything to do with faith. And that faith was the
faith of Christ. And even your believing the faith
of Christ that justified you is not your believing. That in
and of itself is a gift of God given to you. Your faith that
God has given you in the new birth to receive that message
of Christ, that's God's too. You didn't exercise that out
of your own ability. You didn't strum that up in the
flesh. No, that's a divine faith that's
given to you in the new birth. He says, therefore, we conclude
that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Again, whose faith is in view here? Christ, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Christ or Jesus Christ. Remember,
That's the first place we start reading of this in this letter,
and so that bears weight upon how we interpret the rest of
the letter, how we interpret Galatians, the faith of Christ. It's the faith of Christ, not
our faith, it's the faith of Christ. Is he the God of the
Jews only? Is he not also the Gentiles?
Yes, of the Gentiles also. seeing it as one God which shall
justify the circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith. Now, I asked my question to myself
in studying on this, is there a difference in what this is
saying? That he justified the circumcision or the Jews by faith
and the uncircumcision through faith. Well, actually, it's saying
the same thing. There's no difference in what
it's saying here. To be justified by faith, it's by the faith of
Jesus Christ, and to be justified through the faith of Jesus Christ
is the same thing. We're justified by grace through
faith. But it's by the faith of Jesus
Christ, not our faith, right? So it doesn't say anything different.
It's saying the same thing. It's just saying the same thing
a different way. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish
The law, how do we establish the law? We establish the law by trusting
in Christ Jesus. That's how we establish the law.
Not by trying to fulfill the law. Because the law can never
be established by our works. It's only by faith. So we can't
work for that. It's by faith. Now, here we are
into verse chapter four, because this is where we're getting down.
Because the question is, is what exactly is this blessedness?
What is the blessed that's talked about in Galatians that we've
been talking about? What shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if
Abraham were justified by words, he hath wherefore to glory, but
not before God. See there, brethren, if we think
that we are justified by what we do, we can boast about it
all we want before men, but God ain't gonna hear any of it. We're
not gonna boast before God because God does not look on our works
for justification. Verse three, for what saith the
scripture? Abraham believed God, and here it is again, this is
the quote of Genesis 15. Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness. Again, this is where the Protestant
and the Reformed get off, they think the it is speaking of Abraham's
believing. But if we go back to the quote
of Genesis 15, where this is quoted here, and it's also quoted
in Galatian, we see that the it is in reference to the seed
that was promised to Abraham. Abraham accounted the seed, Christ,
as his righteousness. And we have to take that interpretation,
brother, for it to coincide with the rest of Scripture. Because
we know, reading Romans 3, 4, and 5 in Galatians, we see that
we are not justified by our words or by anything that we do, but
by the faith of Christ. So we're not gonna see, Paul's
not gonna say, we're justified by the faith of Christ and then
turn around and say, well, Abraham was justified by his faith. We're
not gonna say that, can't say that. For the Bible to be uniform,
for it to be speaking the same thing, whenever we see what Abraham
looked at, it was Christ for his righteousness, which goes
with what we've been talking about here. even the righteousness
of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all
the believers. See? For what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Abraham believed God and it, the seed, was counted unto him
for righteousness. Now, to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. So if you work,
you're not receiving grace, you're receiving debt, or you're receiving
your wages, right? We've talked about this before.
I go to work every day, and whenever I work and put in those hours,
every two weeks, my boss gives me a paycheck and says, there
you go, thank you for your service. I've worked for that man to do
things for him, and in exchange, he has paid me for that labor. So that's not grace. If my boss
would say, you know, if I would say, oh, he's so gracious, he
is so gracious, he just give me that out of nowhere. I didn't
deserve that. No, wait a minute, I put in,
according to these last couple of weeks, I put in about, you
know, I don't know, 120 hours or whatever, but. No, I worked
for that. Now, every year, at the end of
the year, My boss does come to me and says, I know that I told
you that I would pay you this much per year, which I have for
all the work you've done, but because I appreciate how well
you work, here's a bonus. I didn't work for that. I didn't
deserve that because I just agreed to work for the amount that he
told me he would pay me. And I was paid every bit of money
that I was owed for working. So anything that he pays me above
that, well, I didn't deserve that. That's just by his grace
he's given that to me. Well, brethren, you can't work
for grace. It don't work. It's either one
or the other. It's either of works or it's of grace. It's
not a mixture of both. And remember, isn't that not
the argument that Paul has been making with these Galatian believers?
That the Judaizers was coming in and saying that we need to
mix the two. Yes, we're saved by grace through Jesus Christ,
but we have to keep the law. We have to be circumcised and
keep the law of Moses to be righteous or to be saved. We have to continue
in those things. That's what that's doing is trying
to mix law and grace. And the Bible here says, no,
no, no. It's either one or the other.
You either do it by works or you're doing it by grace alone.
If it's by grace alone, your hands have nothing to do with
it. Believe in Christ alone for all your stuff. If it's by law,
then you better get to working over here. And by the way, you
have to keep every law all the time with perfection, no exceptions. Matter of fact, he gets into
this here in just a second. He says, now to him that worketh
is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him
that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly,
His faith is counted for righteousness. Again, this is where the Reformed
say, aha, there you go. The one who worketh not but believeth
on him, his faith is counted for him as righteousness. Again,
can I ask you, can our faith ever be considered righteousness?
Has anybody in here, and I don't want to see, you don't have to
raise your hand, because I know everybody's gonna have to raise
their hand, but I want to ask this question. Has there ever
been a time that your faith has wavered? Has there ever been
a time where you've doubted? Or has your faith been 100% all
the time? Not one of us. Well, I know, at least I know
this group here, because you're my family. Every one of us, I've
exhibited where we've doubted, okay? So our faith can't be considered
righteous at all. and neither can anybody else's,
by the way. His faith is not counted to him for righteousness.
Whose faith is counted to him for righteousness? The one that
justifies. Look at the verse there with
me. Is that not what the verse is saying? But to him that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith,
the one that justifieth the ungodly, is counted for righteousness.
Is that not saying the exact same thing that was told to Abraham,
or that Abraham said? And he counted it for him for
righteousness. Counted it who? Christ, the one
who justifies the ungodly. The one who justifies the ungodly
is the one that is counted for our righteousness. Jesus Christ,
the Lord, our righteousness. See, it's not our faith that
is righteous. Is faith important? Absolutely. I'm not trying to
belittle faith. We're to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But
that faith in and of itself is given to us divinely from God. That is not the basis. That is not the grounds. That
is not the time that God declares you righteous. He does that through
Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. Say, Brother Mike, that just
is totally against what I've been taught. whether it be because you believe
in an Armenian gospel or whether you believe in a reformed gospel. It just goes against everything
I've taught, I just don't know. What about John Gill and what
about Martin Luther and what about the Westminster Confession
of Faith and the Baptist 1689 Confession? What about all these
men who keep saying that? I mean, are you smarter than
they are? No, I'm not any smarter than
they are. But they are just like me, they're a man who can, fail
and be fallible. This right here is the only truth.
Right here. This is the only truth. Let God
be true and every man a liar. I don't care how good of a theologian
he is. If it's what God's word says,
that's what we have to believe, not because some theologian says
it. And look what it says here. It keeps saying that Jesus is
our righteousness. Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus
is counted for our righteousness. He's accredited as our righteousness,
okay? And so we're talking about this
blessing, again, just to remind you. So then they which be of
faith are blessed with faithful Abraham, okay? That's what we're
talking about. What is the blessing? Blessed
with faithful Abraham. What was Abraham blessed with?
What are those who are of the faith of Abraham blessed with?
What is that blessing? Look at verse six, Romans four.
even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto
whom God imputed righteousness without works, saying, blessed
are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute, will not. That phrase, how it's written
grammatically, will not means that he has not yet and will
not that means there's at that point
no man that man who whoever's in view here whoever's in the
mind of god is that group of people that's going to fulfill
this verse he has not imputed sin to them yet and will not
impute sin to them but it's only because Jesus has stood for them. It's only because they are in
Christ. They are in union with him, united
with him. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Cometh this blessedness then
upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was reckoned
to Abraham for righteousness, okay? The faith of Christ was
reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. Now, Paul's fixing to start asking
some questions. When? When was that done? Well, it was before Abraham was
ever circumcised. I can say that you were justified
before God before you were ever born again. Circumcision, the vision of circumcision
in the Old Testament speaks of the new birth in the New Testament.
Some people say that it's, the Presbyterians say that it's the
baptism, that baptism and circumcision are the same thing. It's not,
it's not. Circumcision, Abraham was not
even in circumcision whenever he was declared, or where he
understood or believed that his righteousness came from Christ.
It says, how was it then reckoned? When he was circumcision or in
uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision,
a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had yet being
uncircumcised. that he might be the father of
all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, the
righteousness might be imputed unto them also. Again, why does
Paul bring this up? Well, because number one, our
salvation is an eternal salvation. But remember, remember in Galatians,
what is the argument there? The Judaizers had come in and
told them, you still need to be circumcised. You still need
to be circumcised to be saved. but yet Abraham was saved before
he ever was circumcised. So if they're gonna go back to
the lineage of Abraham and say we are Abraham's children, well
what did Abraham believe? Well Abraham believed that the
Lord was his righteousness and he believed that before he was
ever circumcised. So circumcision had nothing to
do with Abraham's believing. Circumcision had nothing to do
with Abraham's salvation or justification. So Paul is saying the argument
for works for righteousness, works for continual daily walk,
works for anything is absolutely ridiculous because works has
never been in the mind of God for righteousness before him.
The work of Christ alone has been the righteousness that God
requires for our justification and for our daily walk. Now back in Galatians. Verse nine, so then they which
be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham, for as many
as are under the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. As many as are of the works
of the law. So if you're trying to gain righteousness
by the works of the law, the Bible here says you are cursed. The curse of the law is always
going to be upon you. Why do we want to go back under
the law if we're going to just bring ourselves back under the
curse? The curse of the law is just what it says there. Curses
everyone that continueth not in all the things that are written
in the book of the law to do. If you're seeking to be righteous
before God by law keeping, that means you gotta keep every law
all the time perfectly. And if you mess up, and James
it says that if you offend in one, you've offended in all of
them. If you mess up even one little skittish bit, I just stubbed
my toe just a little bit, you're guilty of all the law breaking.
and you're cursed by God, because the Bible says, the soul that
sinneth it shall surely die. That curse is gonna come, condemnation
is gonna come. God is not gonna bend on your account. You're
gonna come before him with all those works that you thought
were righteous, and that was your ticket to heaven, your acceptance
before God, or your pleasing God, and God's gonna say to you,
Away from me, you doers of iniquity, for I never knew you. We have to keep all the law,
otherwise we're under the curse. But praise the Lord, if we are
a child of God, and to the ears of God's children, this should
be glorious news. Blessed are they unto whom the
Lord imputed not sin. He is your righteousness. Look
to him alone for your righteousness. That's what's gonna stand up
in the day of judgment is his righteousness. You're not gonna
be able to stand there in your works. They will surely be burnt
up as quick as they get in front of you. All right, well, we'll stop right
there, and Lord willing, we'll pick up with verse 11 next week. Does anybody have
any questions or comments or corrections or prayer requests. As you can remember, my family
in Oklahoma, a few of them has had COVID and has COVID now. My Aunt Jay and her husband,
Cory, are quarantined right now with COVID. Dealing with that
and continue to remember them. Seems to be a pretty hot pocket
down there around that area. Remember them if you would. Also, be in prayer for Lori. She got a Gallbladder surgery
coming up here in a couple weeks or so, a few weeks, September,
first September area, September the 7th, right? September the
7th, she's gonna be having surgery, so be in prayer for her with
that coming up as well. All right, anybody else got anything?
Y'all are pretty quiet today. All right, let's go. Jesus, we don't have the words
to even describe the things that we have for what you've done
for us. As the hymn writer wrote, free
from the law, oh happy condition. We have true freedom because
of you and we thank you today. We are grateful for all that
you have done for us. We know that any scheme of man
could never have thought up a salvation so perfect as yours, so that
a fallen sinner like us could be saved by a holy God like you,
and you still be just and the one who justifies. That we could
be the sinner, yet be righteous as Christ is. Father, we truly
don't deserve that grace that's been bestowed upon us. But Father,
we just take that and we say thank you. And we trust that
your promises are true. You've promised that to your
people, that you will not hold our sin against us, that you
will forgive us of our sin and of our iniquity. You've promised
that you would remember them no more, that you've removed
them as far as the east is from the west, And Father Lord, we
believe that you cannot lie. You've said you cannot lie. And
so we believe that those promises are for us. We live in that,
trusting you in that, knowing that we can never provide a righteousness
in our flesh, that by our spirit that you've given to us from
Christ, that you have given us faith to trust on you alone for
our righteousness. You are our righteousness. And
so, Father, I am so thankful again that you have given us
the gospel to tell us the good news of what Christ has done
for us. I'm sure there's so many out there, Lord, that are just
saying, you mean to say that's all? That's it? That's all there
is to do? It's just trust on Christ? And truly it is simple gospel. But yet that true, simple gospel
is foolishness to those who are not your sheep. It doesn't make
any sense. They stumble at the stumbling
stone of Christ. Whenever Christ is put forth,
the religious people will stumble at that because they believe
that their works have to be intertwined with the grace of God. But Father,
we know that salvation is by free grace alone. It's by the
work of Christ alone, and it's bestowed by your sovereign hand
alone. So Father, we're thankful for
every man, woman, and child that you have purchased with your
blood, that you have called to yourself. And even today, Father,
we're among these that are gathered here. Lord, I pray that if any
of these are your children that have not yet been converted of
the gospel, been given faith to believe on Christ, Lord, I
pray that you would draw them by your spirit, that they might
come forth and profess that faith through baptism, so that we might
unite them with the membership of this church, Lord, so that
they might be part of the service here, the serving of the gospel,
the service of Christ here, Lord, and I pray that you just might
Work of mighty, work of grace among us as a church, Lord, that
you might keep us faithful. Lord, we see this wicked nation
and the world, Lord, waxing worse and worse. But our hearts are
encouraged because you say that in those days will be the days
that you come. And Lord, we just are so ready
for you to come. But Lord, I pray that until that
day comes, that you would keep this church and each one of its
members faithful to the word of God, Lord. I know that we're
not gonna be liked. I know that we're not gonna be
popular among the crowd here in Joplin. That many of even
the churches here in Joplin are gonna look down upon us for what
we believe. But Father, we can't do anything
else but believe what you've given for us to believe and to
stand in the truths of God's word. For they alone are truth. Christ alone is truth. and to
stand for him and to stand for this word, Lord, we pray that
you give us faith to continue in and take not our lampstand
away from us, but that we might continue to shine within the
city the gospel of Jesus Christ. I thank you again for all these
brethren that are here. I pray that today's message has been
edifying to them and has been glorifying to you. We ask you
to bless the food that we're about to eat. and the fellowship
around the table together. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.