512. This will be to the tune of The Last and
Did My Savior Bleed. 512. Thy church, O Lord, that's
planted here, O make it to increase. With numbers blessed with filial
fear, Enjoying heavenly peace. O may we all, dear Lord, As one,
united ever be, Rejoicing in what Christ has done, Who groaned
upon the tree. May all each other's burdens
bear. Be simple, meek, and kind. And keep us safe from every snare. and all of humble minds. Let's bow and have a word of
prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you so much today for
your mercy and grace. We thank you for the Lord Jesus
Christ and the ability that we have today because of him to
come together as your people, gather in this place to worship.
We thank you for the Word of God that's been preserved for
us throughout the years. so that we might take it and
open it now, Lord, and learn more of you. We pray, Father,
as we come to this time, that you just might help us and minister
to us and among us, Father, as we gather around your word. I pray, Lord, that you'd help
me to minister this word. And, Father, I pray that you
might be with all of us as we fellowship together, as we hear,
as we minister one to another. Lord, I pray that that might
be. a thing that is done in spirit
and in truth. I pray, Lord, that we might be
pleasing in all of our worship here today. I pray that each
heart has been made receptive by the Holy Spirit to receive
the things that you have for them today as you speak and minister
to them. And Lord, I just pray that you just might be with us
as we continue throughout this life, Lord, that we might be
witnesses and testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
Lord, I just pray even now that today that you might make yourself
known and glorify yourself wherever the word of God is being preached
and taught. Of course, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. How about,
let's go back in the Gatsby to him, that's right there, I can't
read it on the writing, 980. Looks like the 80, 980, yes,
980. 980, because I live, ye shall live
also. This is out of John 14, 9. We can sing this to the tune of Just
As I Am. With sins and fears prevailing
rise, And fainting hope almost expires. Jesus, to Thee I lift
my eyes, To Thee I breathe my soul. desires. Art Thou my mind, my living Lord,
and can my hope, my comfort die? Fixed on Thy everlasting Word,
that Word which built the earth. and sky. If my immortal Savior lives,
then my immortal life is sure. His Word a firm foundation gives,
Here let me build and rest secure. Here let my faith unshaken dwell,
Immovable the promise stands, Not all the powers of earth or
hell can err, Dissolve the sacred bands. Here, O my soul, thy trust
restores, If Jesus is for ever mine. Amen, that's true. Now, we've been talking about
the preservation or perseverance of the saints, I think that's one of the reasons
why a lot of people don't realize or believe or hold to the fact
that we will be preserved and that all saints will persevere
is because they don't understand the truth of the doctrine of
union. They don't believe that we have an eternal union. It's
not a union that's been there forever. It's something that
took place in time whenever they may their decision or exercise
their faith or made their choice or whatever it was that they
had to do for their being saved. However, the Bible is clear that
our union with Christ is an eternal union. And because that's an
eternal union, just like this stanza in this psalm says, it
should never break. No matter what happens in this
lifetime, that union will never break because it was a union
made and we didn't unite ourselves to Him. We got to remember that
also. We didn't unite ourselves to
Him. He united us to Christ. God united us to Christ. The union came by the act of
God within Godhead. And so union has nothing to do
with us at all. Even though it's outside of us,
it still didn't have anything to do with us because of who
we were, anything that we would be or foreseen to be or anything
like that. We were a group that God had
written our names down, given us to Christ. He loved us, give
us to Christ, united us with Christ. And that life became
ours by way of union. And it cannot be broken. So I
appreciate the writer there. bringing that about because it
is a divine union. It cannot be separated. Does
anybody have a hymn that's one that you would like to sing? Anything that's on your mind?
I've got a few wrote down, but we can sing some now that I've
got wrote and some later if you've got one that you'd like to sing. You have one 460? 460. Master, the tempest is raging.
Boy, I sung this before, but it was like my little kid. And
I don't remember how it goes. You'll remember it. Master, the
tempest is raging. The billows are tossing high. The sky is all shadowed with
blackness. No shelter or help is mine. Care is mine and me perish. I can still lie asleep. When this moment so madly is
threatening. A break in the angel's redeemed. The winds and the waves shall
obey my will. ♪ Peace be still ♪ ♪ Whether
the wrath of the storm-tossed sea ♪ ♪ Or demons or men or whatever
it be ♪ ♪ No waters can swallow the shipwrecked lives ♪ ♪ The
master of ocean and earth and skies ♪ ♪ They all shall sweetly
obey thy will ♪ ♪ Peace be still ♪ Peace, be still. They all shall sweetly obey thy
will. Peace, be still. Master, with anguish of spirit,
I bow in my grief today. The depths of my sad heart are
troubled. Awaken and save, I pray. Forms of sin and of anguish sweep
o'er my seeking soul. And I perish, I perish, dear
Master. Oh, listen and take control. The winds and the waves shall
obey thy will. Be eased, be still. Whether the wrath of the storm
tossing or demons or men or whatever it be. The waters can swallow
the ship where lies the master of ocean and earth and skies. They all shall sweetly obey thy
will. Peace, be still. Peace, be still. They all shall sweetly obey thy
will. Peace, be still. Master, the terror is over, the
elements sweetly rest. Earth's sun and the calm of His
mirror, and Heaven's within my breast. Linger, O blessed Redeemer,
leave me alone no more, and with joy I shall make the blessed
harbor and rest on the blissful shore. The winds and the waves
shall obey thy will. Peace be still, whether the wrath
of the storm doth seem, or demons or men or whatever it be. No waters can swallow the ship
where it flies, the master of ocean and earth and skies. They all shall sweetly obey thy
will. Peace be still. Peace be still. They all shall sweetly obey thy
will. Peace, peace, be still. That wasn't the one that I thought
it was. All right, anybody else got one
that you'd like to see? How about 609? Send this to the tune of Take
My Life in the desert heat. Lord, we fain would walk in love,
But alas, how slow we move! Pride, that haughty monster pride,
Often makes us start aside, Often makes us start aside. Lamb of God, thy power made known,
sweetly draw, and we will run. Make our love to thee and thine,
like the sun at noonday shine, like the sun at noonday shine. As the purchase of Thy blood,
may we seek each other's good, and be it our great concern,
Thee to view, of Thee to learn, Thee to view, of Thee to learn. May we mourn with those that
mourn, make each other's cause our own. Ever keeping this in
mind, we are to each other joined. We are to each other joined. Flesh of flesh and bone of bone,
with the King of glory one. Of one body, each a part, Jesus,
make us one in heart. Jesus, make us one in heart. King of kings enthroned above,
come and shed abroad thy love. Fill us with that source of joy
which can never, never cloy, which can never, never cloy. Amen. We'll see a few more in a little
bit. Why don't we turn over into Romans,
if you would. Romans chapter 4 Romans chapter 4 still got quite
a few verses that I've gathered together on showing the overall teaching of scripture
that the child of grace will be preserved by God. We've been
talking about the doctrine of perseverance or preservation. I keep saying those two words
side by side because they're two sides of the same coin. The
Bible teaches us that we are to persevere But we find that
the reason that we persevere is because we are being preserved
by God. He's the one who is doing that
work in us. And so whenever we talk about
persevering, it's always with that understanding that it isn't
us who by our own will, our own power, our own desire, our own
ability can keep ourselves in the faith, but we are kept in
the faith by God, and so that causes us to persevere. And so
we've been talking about the doctrine of perseverance, preservation,
and it's amazing the amount of verses, and again, as with the
rest of our study that we've been doing there's probably a
whole lot more verses that I've probably left out somewhere and
probably some good ones that could have been put in here that
I just didn't think of but we see that there's a lot of places
in scripture that teaches that we are preserved and what a blessed
doctrine that is I mean I got to thinking this week as I was
going over some of these passages that really whenever you look
at it if If God who has promised to give us eternal life and saves
us can't keep that promise and that we can fall away. You
know, there's no hope at all, period. I mean, we absolutely
have no hope. If salvation isn't something
that is eternal, if salvation isn't something that is based
on something outside of ourselves, all of us will fall. All of us
will fail. All of us will transgress God.
We're going to sin. Even though that we've been born
again, we will sin before we get out of this place. We're
going to sin again. We're going to fail. We're going
to have wrong ideas. We're going to have wrong thoughts.
We're going to have wrong actions and motives. And we're going
to have all kinds of issues that is going to disqualify us from
righteousness. It's going to disqualify us from
heaven and keep us from God. And so we can't ever, ever, ever
base or look and put our trust in what we do and how we keep
ourselves pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We just
can't ever do that because as sure as we look to that, we're
going to fail. The Bible says that whenever
you have sinned in one point, you've sinned in all points.
So if you think, well, all I've done is one sin today, no, actually
you've broken the whole law today. As soon as you sin one sin, whether
that be I just had an evil thought. I just had an evil motive. I
just had a lustful thought. I hated my brother
in my heart type of thing. You've killed him according to
Jesus. I mean, see, we don't understand, we don't realize,
brethren, that our sinfulness is more egregious
than we really realize. I mean, in God's sight, we don't
realize how holy God is. And so in God's sight, whenever
we sin, whenever we transgress Him, you might as well do everything
that could ever be done of every sin, because it's all grievous
to God and the transgression of His holiness. And so we think
we can just get by with these little one or two sins, or three
or four sins, or you know, I can keep sinning, keep sinning, keep
sinning, and keep asking forgiveness, keep asking forgiveness, and
He'll keep me and won't turn me away. and I won't lose my
salvation. Okay? I don't know exactly. Honestly,
I wasn't raised in any teaching that taught that you could lose
your salvation, so I don't know fully how that mind thinks because
I've never been of that mind necessarily. But I just can't
imagine. I mean, I've talked and had enough
friends that have believed that and do hold to those doctrines. And, you know, just that constant
fear of surely there's got to be in the dark of night when
they're all alone in their bed like I was when I was a little
kid, had that fear of have I said, I'm sorry enough, have I asked
forgiveness. Going down the list, I used to
lay in my bed, I remember we lived out on a dirt road called
Coon Hunters Road outside of Bristol, about five miles outside
of Bristol, in an old trailer house and we had me and my brother
had bunk beds and I used to lay in that bed and I would go down
a list of everything that I could think of at night and try to
remember everything that I knew that I did wrong and then try
to think of things that I knew I should have done but I didn't
do and ask forgiveness for that. I imagine that's kind of what
it probably felt like feels like to those people that hold that
you can lose your salvation. You know, and I'd try to remember
that and I'd feel bad and then I'd always end my prayer before
I went to sleep. And God, if I forgot anything,
please forgive that too. Just making sure, you know, that
I covered it all. Well, what a horrible life. That's
not a life of hope at all. That's a life of fear. And the
scriptures are very clear that He's not giving us a spirit of
fear. We've been given a hope. We've been given faith that looks
to Christ and what He has done and not what we have done. And
in that, we see that He has saved us and provided for us that perfect
obedience, a perfect righteousness that we'll be able to stand in
the day when we stand before God. And so, whenever we look
at perseverance or preservation and we look at that from a perspective
of the fact that, you know, I have to, I have to, I have to, at
the end of the day, brethren, that is a dismal thing. Because at the end of the day,
we have sinned and sinned egregiously. And we don't know how far we've
sinned and probably will never will know until that day. And
if it's all about us making reparations with God, then we're doomed. But praise the Lord, he's given
to us all these scriptures that say that he will keep you, he
will do it. He will help you. He will hold
you. All the verses that we've been
reading, all these things are given to the child of grace as
comfort, as encouragement to edify them and build them up
in the faith to know that their God's salvation is a sure salvation. and that we don't need to look
to anything else. You remember we were talking about the, I
guess it was last week maybe, that we talked about that in
us will be a well springing up and we'll never thirst again.
Listen, whenever a child of grace is given life and they have been
given to see the true gospel and they believe that true gospel
and that faith that is from Christ is in us, it looks to that and
that's all that we need. That's all that we need. We don't
have to continue to look at our performance to feel like we are
accepted. We look to Christ alone, and
that is our source. And so these verses here are
to build us up to continually put before us the finished work
of Jesus Christ and what He has done. That's why we preach the
Gospel to the people of God over and over and over again. I'm
always reminded, I've mentioned it here before, I can't remember
if it was Luther or Calvin or one of those quasi-reformer guys
made a statement that whenever he entered into his, it was either
into the meeting or into his class or something that he was
teaching and was preaching the gospel, one of the students come
and asked him, you know, said, you know, why do you always keep
preaching the gospel to us? We're Christians. know the gospel,
why do you keep preaching it to us? And he mentioned to him,
he said, because you don't look like a people who know the gospel.
And so until you look like a people that looks, that knows the gospel,
I'll keep preaching it to you. Well, that's kind of how it is,
brother. Uh, not that we're ever going to attain to something
that's going to look like we're good enough to not hear the gospel,
but the gospel is to be preached to the people of God. Why? Because
we see ourselves as people that like we don't know the gospel.
You know, we continue to sin. We continue to struggle. And
so we need to hear that gospel over and over and over again
because it reminds us of what Christ has done. I don't think
we have to hear that over and over again just because, and
don't get me wrong here and don't misquote me, but I don't think
we have to hear it over and over again just because we like to
talk about Christ's death and resurrection and all like that.
We like to talk about that, but the reason we say it over and
over again is because it puts before us this whole entire doctrine
of the finished work of Jesus Christ and what he has done for
us. That's the good news. The good news is you can try
all you want, but it's not going to be done unless he has done
it. And so we're so thankful that
we have the opportunities to preach the gospel over and over
and over again. It's not old hat. And really,
if you know your sin, if you know your inability before God,
that gospel message of, it is done, it is finished, is a blessed
story over and over and over again, and you don't get tired
of that. Of course, if my grandma was here right now, she would
be wanting to break open the, I love to tell the story. And
that's true. And I think that song is doctrinally
correct as far as, you know, the child of grace loves to hear
the gospel of Jesus Christ. It tells of what their savior
has done for them and is still doing for them. And it tells
them that story, it gives them hope, it gives them assurance,
it gives them calm lives to know and to be able to rest, to know
that I may fail, I may fail, I may fail, but He is always
holding me up. And what a blessed thing that
is. I don't know about you, I often get depressed sometimes. get
discouraged because of my sinfulness or my lack of understanding and
constantly, you know, especially whenever, you know, as a preacher
a lot of times, you know, you get in here and you study the
Scriptures and you've, you know, messed something completely up,
you know. I, you know, for how many years, I don't know
how many years did I preach a wrong gospel. And then to see that,
you know, for years I preached a false gospel. And then to know
the true gospel and to see that. And then just all these things,
you look at those things and you say, man, how often I fail. How often have I got this wrong?
Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I doing right?
Am I doing wrong? And that could easily, easily
bring you down into misery. That's where the Gospel comes
in. And perseverance. If you preach perseverance without
preservation, that's only going to drive that nail even further
down. Whenever you preach perseverance without the preservation of God
giving you that perseverance, That is just, I mean, it's already
bad that we have the weight of our continual sin on our backs,
but to hear, you need to persevere, you need to stick in there, you
need to keep at it, you need to keep doing it, stand up straight,
stand up strong, be this, be the Christian you are, be the
Christian you are, and you continue to hear that over and over and
over again, and at the end of the day, when we come home, especially when we get in the
quiet of our house, If there's a quiet in our house, we have
five kids, that's usually in the wee hours of the morning. You get in the quiet of your
house, mine's off on my road trips at work, taking long drives. You begin to think over your
life, and you think, persevere, how horrible am I persevering?
I'm not persevering very well. Some days it may seem like you're
persevering really well, Hey, I'm striving for the Lord. You know, I've read my Bible
for 30 minutes this morning. I read my guidepost for 45 minutes
this morning. And I read my great theologian
for an hour and a half this morning. You know, whatever it is. We've
done all of our religious duties. Let's just put it that way. But
at the end of the day, we still in our heart know we've not persevered
enough to make it worth anything. How do you deal with that? How
do we deal with that? I mean, how do we go home at night, after
all that we've been through all day long, of the struggle with
our sin, the struggle with our incompetence, the struggle with
our lack of motivation, whatever it is, How do we go home and
deal with that? Well, praise the Lord again.
He's given us His Word that says the other side of perseverance
is preservation. To trust in the Lord. See, we
talk a lot and we preach a lot about trusting in Christ to save
us, right? We hear that herald from pulpits
all the time. Just trust in Christ And you'll
be saved. If you'll trust in Christ, you'll
be saved. You know, that's the thing that
we hear on TV and radio and probably in the majority pulpits. If you
will do this, then you'll be saved. Now, I'll say this. We are to
trust in Christ. But that too is given to us.
And the trusting is something that comes because we've been
saved. But how often do we preach about
trusting for our salvation, but yet when it comes to everyday
living, continuing in the faith, studying the Word of God, living
before our fellow brothers and sisters, service to one another,
When it comes to all those things, why do all of a sudden we think
that we can either be instructed or instruct other people how
to do that? How come we believe that it's the eternal, sovereign,
monergistic work of God to save us, but yet everything that has
to do with life and godliness that we do here and now in time
after we've been born again is something that we think we can
hurry everybody or instruct everybody or correct everybody or make
everybody be at the level we think they ought to be. Is that not also a monogistic
work of God? Didn't Jonas say salvation is
of the Lord? He didn't just say the initial
part of salvation. He said salvation is of the Lord in all of its
facets, whether it's the eternal aspect. whether it's the positional
aspect, whether it's the timely aspect, whether it's the future
aspect, all those aspects, all are a monergistic work of God.
It doesn't have anything to do with us. And so whenever I begin
to see that, I begin to see that, hey, maybe there's more to this
trusting in Christ for salvation than just trusting in Him to
get me saved. There is a trusting in keeping
me saved. there is a trusting in helping
me to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. There's a trusting
that Christ is teaching me all things whatsoever Christ has
commanded. There's a trusting that Christ is doing the work
that he promised that he would do whenever he said he would
send his spirit in you and it would testify of me and tell
you those things that I have said and remind you of those
things that I have said and it will lead you into all truth.
That it will convict you of sin. So often we think that we have
to be the convictors of each other's sins, right? But yet
the Holy Spirit is the convictor of sin. He's the one that comes
and convinces men of their sin. He's also the one that brings
them to repentance. He's also the one that brings
them to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there's
a trusting that's far more than just believing in the initial
part of salvation. There's a trusting that preservation,
perseverance is the work of God. and it's the work of God alone.
Look with me, if you would, and the first verse that we'll look
at this morning is in Romans 4. Romans 4. And look with me, if you would,
at verse 8. As a matter of fact, I'll tell you
what, Let me just go back up to verse
1 and work my way down. Because I want to put it in context
here, but I want you to understand that this is a quote actually
from Psalms. But verse 1 it says, What shall
we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the
flesh, hath found? Okay, now remember, Paul is making
an argument to the Jews through the book of Romans, and I would
say he's making an argument to the Jews about the doctrine of
salvation by sovereign grace. The middle portion, basically,
of Romans culminates in chapters 9, 10, and 11, but then it continues
on. But he's leading up to the works
of God in salvation. He's talking about justification. He's talking about the calling of God. He's talking
about predestination. He's talking about all these
things. And so Romans is an argument to the Jews. And so he brings
us in. He says, What shall we say then
that Abraham our father as pertaining to the flesh So you Jews who
say that you're of Abraham, but you're Abraham of the flesh,
what did Abraham find? For if Abraham were justified
by works, he hath weathered to glory, but not before God. For
what saith the Scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted
to him for righteousness. Now, that's back in Genesis 15,
and I don't want to get off track today, but I would ask that you
guys go back to Genesis chapter 15 and look at the context and
see what the it refers to. But it says, And it was counted
unto him for righteousness. 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 justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works." Now again, that's going back to the Psalms. saying, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin." Now there's a lot to be said
in that verse, and we've talked about this verse quite a bit.
Matter of fact, as you all well know, this is one of the verses
that I always contend for when I talk about eternal justification
and eternal salvation. That this passage, and even if
you go back to where it originally was taken from, back in Psalms,
I think it's Psalms 32 is where it was found, that this passage
If this passage exists in the Bible, then there is a person
or persons whom the Lord will not, it didn't say will take away and then impute. He said will not. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. If there's ever a time that somebody
is imputed sin, then this verse and its mother verse back in
Psalms 32 is not true. I mean, I'm open for correction
on that. Honestly, I've studied this 150
different ways and that's the same conclusion that I keep coming
to, brethren, is that there is an imputation of righteousness given to the
child of grace and not an imputation of sin. Now, here's where the
inconsistency lies. To the Calvinist who says, that
we're imputed with sin in Adam, then every man, woman, and child
has been imputed sin, right? Everyone that comes from Adam
has been imputed sin. Now, do I believe in original
sin? Absolutely, I do. I'm not denying original sin.
I just think sometimes that the theologians that have written
down their creeds and confessions throughout time has not always
been biblical in their understanding of some of these things. At least
that's my understanding. And we can't always trust them.
So don't always go to creeds and confessions to look for the
truth. Go to God's Word. And if God's
Word contradicts what that theologian says, then put away the theologian
and the confession of faith and the creed. Now if the creed or
confession or whatever aligns with the Word of God, great.
It's truth there, you know? But if it's not there, then the
creed and confession has no weight at all with me. And hopefully
with any child of grace, I would hope. But if the case is that
there has been imputation of sin to any person, then this
verse doesn't make sense because it says unto whom, blessed, well
that's how it says it in Psalms 32. Blessed is the man to whom,
in Psalms 32 it says unto whom, to whom the Lord will not, future
tense, impute sin. Now whenever this was talked
about, this was talked about back in David's time, before
Christ died. But it was talked about after
Adam sinned. So at this point, if Adam's sin
brought an imputation of sin upon all mankind as him being
the seed, original seed, and everybody being imputed the guilt
of his sin, then this verse don't make sense. Now, however, if this is talking
about an imputation of sin to everyone else, then I would
probably agree to that because the child of grace has never
been imputed sin. It said, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now, with that being said, then
brethren, how can a child of grace ever fall from grace? If they never were imputed with
sin in a legal fashion, then they
never can be lost. Now that doesn't mean that we've
not sinned. That's where we need Christ. Because we have sinned. In Adam, that sin transferred
to us. We are sinners by nature. Adam was created of the earth,
earthy, natural, He died, brought sin and death into this world
and passed that sin and that death onto every man, woman,
and child that will ever be born. And so by nature, we are all
sinners. And we sin because we are sinners. And every one of us have sinned. Every one of us has transgressed
in reality, in practicality, the Word of God. We've transgressed
God's Word. We've maligned Him. We have rejected Him. resisted
Him, we have sinned against Him, transgressed His law, and we
have shook our fist in the face of His holiness. But God, before the foundation
of the world, had designed, decreed, purposed that there would be
a people that would fall into this mess be of this mess, but
He would never count that sin against them because of a Savior
who would act in their stead, who would stand for them, so
that He never would have to impute that sin to them because Christ
bore that sin for them from eternity to eternity. At least that's my understanding
of things. as I've come to see it in scripture. I don't believe that there's
ever a time that he imputes and then unimputes and then re-imputes
this and unimputes that. Again, I don't mean to be dogmatic
about this, but it seems funny how a lot of Calvinists like
to talk about God and how He's unchanging in His love. They'll
say, well, that don't make sense. You mean God hated us and then
loved us? God doesn't change. But yet they're
okay with He imputed, but then He doesn't impute? That don't
make any sense to me either. Of course, and I held that view
for a few years, that he imputes, then he doesn't impute, then
he imputes again, a different righteousness. Well, what does
this have to do with perseverance or preservation? Well, the fact
is, if our imputation of righteousness is from eternity, then how can
we ever, just like in the fall of Adam, whenever he fell into
sin and death, just like that, how can the child of grace ever fall
from grace? If in Adam and in their actual
sins, they do not lose the imputation of righteousness, then how can
at any time, can they lose their righteousness? How can they lose
that? And I'll be honest, guys, I may
not be saying that in the right way. I may not be oratating this in a fine orator way. And it may be
coming out jumbled. I'm hoping it comes out all right,
the way that I'm thinking at least. But to me, it seems like
that if there is no imputation of sin, there can never be any
imputation of sin. And if there's never any imputation
of sin, then there can never ever be a falling away. because God has imputed the righteousness. God has decided not to impute
the sin. And so even though sin, and we
all know that we've sinned, so even though there's an imputation
of righteousness, there still is sin in actuality on our part. That again is another fallacy
that I've found among Reformed teaching, is that they always
equate justification with no more sinning. They seem to equate
that. Well, you've been justified.
Well, justification doesn't mean that I've become perfect. Justification
is a legal thing, a positional thing. It's not a practical thing.
Justification is not the opposite of obedience. Justification is the opposite
of condemnation. See, a lot of people don't think,
well, you mean to tell me that before you were born again, before
you ever was, that you were justified before you was ever born again?
You was justified before you was ever believing? You were
an unbelieving, justified unbeliever? Well, I'm justified now, and
I still have times of unbelief. I don't lose my justification
whenever I have times of unbelief. It's because my justification
isn't based upon my faith, it's based upon Christ's faith. My
justification is based upon the finished work of Christ. Its
foundation is the blood of Jesus Christ. The foundation of salvation
is not how I receive it or how I respond to it. The foundation
of salvation is what Jesus Christ did. And if that is the foundation
of salvation in all of its forms, then the foundation is what it
is based upon, not upon anything of me. And so in that case, then
whatever happens with me cannot get it, cannot lose it. And so,
this whole circular thought of mine here, I hope it's coming
back to that, about this being the imputation of sin. If someone
is blessed to not be imputed with sin, then there is no way
that God can ever in position, in position, can ever look on
that person as having lost their salvation. Because they never
was imputed sin. They was always imputed with
a foreign righteousness. They was always counted as having
never sinned because Jesus stood as their advocate. He was the
Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Why? So that He
might stand for His people that will one day sin, who do sin. And He now intercedes at the
right hand of God. How does He intercede? Because
the blood has been taken and put on the altar. That blood
on the altar speaks whenever the sacrifice is not there. The
blood speaks and it says justified. And so until the day that we're
taken out of here, Christ comes back. Brethren, there is no imputation
of sin. If there's no imputation of sin,
then we cannot fall from grace. That doesn't mean we can't sin.
We sin. That doesn't mean that we can't enter into times of
backsliding. and say, you know, boy, I just
kind of got to get away from all this. You know, I mean, I'll
just be honest. There's a lot of times, brethren,
I told my wife yesterday, a lot of stress, a lot of things going
on, a lot of things happening. I just sometimes I want to get
away, get away from everybody, including here. I love you guys
very much and I desire the worship that we have together and the
meeting together. But sometimes I just want to get away from
everything. I can't stay away though. That
is the thing. I can't ever stay away. Every time I start feeling like
that, then I get convicted. And if I do try to get away,
then the whole time I'm away, I'm like, you know, I'd really
like to be back here. Why? Why is it like that? Well, I
think it's like that because there's someone who is preserving
us. There's someone who's preserving
us. Look at chapter 6, if you would. Verse 23. Familiar verses. Put this to
memory. For those of you that grew up
in a Southern Baptist, this was on what we called the Roman's
Road fallacy. The whole Roman's Road thing. All that was was a mantra that
we thought would get people saved. Doesn't mean that the truths
of those scriptures that were in there are there, but we thought
that that was some magical potion that you can read and get saved,
you know. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. So the gift of God is eternal
life. Have you been saved? If you've
been saved, then you've been given the gift of eternal life. And I asked the question last
week, and I'll ask it again this week. Again, I ask, if eternal
is eternal, then when did it begin and when does it end? And
if you've been given it by God, who can take it away? If it can
be taken away, then it's not eternal. If someone else can
take it away, then it wasn't a gift. Because, as we'll see in Romans
11-29, the gifts and the callings of God are without repentance, are turning away. When God gives
the gift, He doesn't take it away. And as we learn, nobody else
can take it away. Look at chapter 8 and verse 17. We'll read this and we'll take
a break before we dive into the golden chain of salvation. Romans
8 and verse 17 says, let me back up to 16. The Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. What
a blessed truth that is. Many of our old school primitive
Baptist brethren for some reason don't understand that. They don't
believe that the Spirit, not our works, the Spirit testifieth
and beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God, that we've been born from above, that we're His. They
believe that we have been given this hope that we've got to hang
on to as a maybe-so and won't know until the end. And they say somehow that believing
what this verse says and what we believe here and teach here
is not hope at all. Well, my mom and dad is coming to visit
us on Tuesday and I have a hope that they're coming. And whenever they get here I
will have known that they were coming and there they will be.
But until then I have the hope that I get to see my mom and
dad in a couple days. So, you know, that doesn't take
away the fact that we have been given great and precious promises.
That's what builds the hope. If you remember, I taught on
that a while back. What causes us to have hope is faith. God
has given us faith and that faith is the foundation or the undergirding
of hope. The reason that we hope, have
a hope in Christ is because we've been given a faith of Christ
and a faith in Christ. And here the Spirit bears witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now, does the
Spirit quit doing that? for those who believe that we
can fall away and not persevere, be preserved, does the Spirit
quit bearing witness that we are the children of God?" Well,
someone will say, well, yeah, if you sin. Verse 17, and if
children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ,
if so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified
together. If we are children of God, then
we have been made heirs of God. We've been made joint heirs with
Jesus Christ. We're heirs of God because we
are the children of God. And we're joint heirs with Jesus. That means a joint heir has everything
in common together, right? If my brother, me and him, My
mom and stepdad pass away and they have a will and they leave
us something. It won't be much, I can tell
you, but if they leave us anything and they say this is to be divided
between you guys equally, we are joint heirs. He's as much
of an heir as I am. Okay? He's as much of an heir
as I am. Well, let that sink in a little
bit. We're joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything
that's going to be given to Jesus Christ has been given to us.
That's amazing to me. I mean, that's unfathomable.
A sinner, a transgressor, is join heirs with Jesus Christ. I don't understand that. It says,
if children, then heirs, heirs of God, join heirs with Christ,
if so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified
together. So everyone who has been made
a child of God has been given the Spirit, and that Spirit testifies
to them that they are the children of God. But it also says that
we have been made heirs of God. So we have the Spirit, we have
a testimony inside of us, we have an heirship that is unequal
with Jesus Christ. And it says here that we will
be glorified together with Him. Now brethren, how all that's
going to work out, fall out at the end? How we're going to be
glorified with Jesus Christ? I don't know exactly how it's
going to happen, but I know it's going to happen. The Bible says
that we are going to be shown forth as vessels of glory, vessels
of honor, vessels of mercy of what Christ has done. He's going
to be glorified because of His work, but we are going to be
the objects of that mercy that is seen, that He redeemed, that
He saved, that He kept, And so we'll be glorified. So how if
the child of grace can fall away from grace and not persevere,
not be preserved, how then can we take these verses and say
these are true? Unless there be a condition put
upon it. All right, let's just stop there
and we'll get a drink and use the restroom and all that good
stuff. And we'll meet right back here in just a few minutes.