Let's open our Bibles this morning
to Habakkuk chapter 2. For our visitors who don't know,
we've been working our way through the different books of the Bible.
I've been bringing two messages every Sunday, beginning in Genesis
and from each different book of the Bible. This Sunday we've
come to the book of Habakkuk. His name means to embrace. And
by God's grace, Habakkuk, by faith, had embraced the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he embraced Israel. You can
tell that he embraced Israel because he faithfully preached
to Israel. Even though they had gone off
into idolatry, would hardly hear him or listen to him, he faithfully
preached the gospel to them. He warned them of the vision
that God had given him, that God's judgment against sin was
coming. And it was coming in the form of a horrible affliction
from the Chaldeans. I told the people in our class
this morning, those Chaldeans are the same people who today
are ISIS. Same people, same beliefs, same
violence, same vile beliefs and activities. But Habakkuk also
told Israel that God in his time, in his time, would deliver them
from their affliction. Now we should always remember
what Brother Henry told us about the Old Testament scriptures.
I think it's very good. He told us that the scriptures
are bifocal. Now you look up here at this
part through the glasses and you can clearly see the historical
prophecy here, that God would indeed send this affliction through
the Chaldeans and he would deliver Israel from them eventually.
But more importantly, you look down here at these lower parts
that you use to read something up close. And you look closely
and you see that Habakkuk's prophecy is telling us there's a day coming,
a day of judgment, when God will judge sin and there'll be no
escaping it. He'll judge all men in righteousness. And you know, some of the prophets,
if we've gone through the Old Testament, some of the prophets
have had a similar message. God's judgment's coming. He's
sending the Babylonians or the Chaldeans or some, you know,
these, the heathen, you know, to destroy his people and punish
them. But some of the prophets said,
now if you repent, you call on God, he'll turn from his fierce
anger. But Habakkuk never says that. He never says it because
this judgment is coming. God has decreed this is the time
and there is a day coming when God will damn every unbelieving
rebel. Today is the day of salvation,
but it won't always be that way. There's a day coming when there'll
be no mercy left. And God will judge every sin
and He'll damn every unbelieving rebel. But Habakkuk also tells
us this. There's hope. There's hope. There
is salvation in Christ. But now it's not by our works
in any way. This salvation is in Christ.
Christ the Messiah is coming. God will send Him in His time.
He's coming. Now, you wait for Him. and you look for him. You
keep looking to him alone because in him you'll be saved from the
wrath to come. Now throughout the New Testament
Habakkuk is quoted several times and there's one phrase in particular
that's quoted three times in the New Testament and it's found
Habakkuk 2 verse 4. The just shall live by his faith. That's the title of the message
this morning. The just shall live by faith. And you know,
God used that phrase, this phrase of scripture, that just to live
by faith, to start what we call the Reformation. Martin Luther,
when he was a young man, he became a monk because he was afraid. He was afraid of God's wrath
against his sin. He was afraid of hell. And Luther
felt like he had a better chance. He stood a better chance if he
could lock himself away in a monastery some way. So that's what he did.
And Luther was very serious about this now. He was serious. Luther
tried to starve himself into quit sinning. He tried to starve
the flesh out, you know, so it would quit sinning. It didn't
work. He still sinned. He found no
peace in that. Luther was so serious, he would beat himself
with a whip, trying to beat the sin out of him. It didn't work. He still sinned. There was no
peace in that beating and mutilation of his body. But then in the
providence of God, Luther began a series of lectures from the
book of Romans. And he began to prepare for this
series of lessons. And he read in Romans 1, the
just should live by faith. And that phrase stuck in Luther's
head. One day Luther was crawling on his hands and knees up this
staircase. And this staircase supposedly
was a staircase that our Lord walked after he had been beaten,
after the crown of thorns was pushed down on his head. As he
left, as legend has it, as he left Pilate's Hall to be crucified,
he walked down this staircase and he was already beaten and
bloodied and battered and drops of blood, they say, fell from
his body onto these steps. And they say those drops of blood
are still there and people would crawl up those steps. And I guess
they had the drops of blood under glass or under some protective
covering and people would crawl up those steps and kiss those
drops of blood. People still do that today, but
oddly enough, the steps are covered with wood. You can't see the
blood no more. They're covered with wood. And
this just kind of shows you how idolatry gets started. It gets
started with men just not even thinking. I mean, we don't think,
right, because our mind is spiritually dead. Interestingly enough, this
staircase is in Rome. Luther was in Rome. He wasn't
in Jerusalem. Now, maybe you could move that gigantic staircase
from Jerusalem to Rome. I don't know. I kind of doubt
it. And this is the other thing I'm sure of. If this was the
staircase our Lord walked down, Pilate would have washed that
blood off. Pilate ceremoniously washed his hands of the blood
of Christ, didn't he? Well, if there's actual steps of blood
on the steps Pilate walked down every day, he can have somebody
clean that off. So, I mean, that's foolish. Those
drops, whatever they are, are not the blood of the Savior.
But at any rate, Luther was crawling on his hands and knees up those
stairs. You couldn't walk on those stairs. Still not allowed
to walk on them today. They got guards to stop you from walking.
If you're gonna go on those steps, you gotta crawl. He was crawling
on his hands and knees up those stairs. And this phrase was in
his mind. The just shall live by faith. The just shall live
by faith. The just shall live by faith. And God finally put that phrase
from his head to his heart. And he got it. The just shall
live by faith. The just shall not live with
all this foolish ceremony. The just shall not live by the
denial and beating of your body. The just shall live by faith
in Christ. And Luther stood up on those
stairs and he ran down a free man. And he went out and he began
what we call the Reformation. All based upon this truth. Salvation
is in Christ alone. The forgiveness of sin is all
found in what Christ did for his people at Calvary, not by
any religious thing we do to add to it. The just, those who
are justified shall live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
what I want to do this morning is look at the four times this
phrase is in scripture and see if the Lord might be pleased
to teach you and me the same lesson he taught Luther. Put
it in our heart. The just shall live by faith.
Now here in Habakkuk chapter two, Habakkuk says in verse four,
behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but
the just shall live by his faith. Now what the Spirit is teaching
us here in Habakkuk is to wait. You just wait on the Lord and
you believe. If you believe God, you're going
to wait on it. Now just wait on it. Now in chapter
one of Habakkuk, the Lord had promised this horrible judgment
coming to Israel in the form of the Chaldeans. And Habakkuk
prayed for Israel. Habakkuk prayed that the Lord
might deliver them. Lord, how can you allow such
an awful thing to happen? And then in chapter two, Habakkuk,
he's prayed. He's called on the Lord, he's
prayed. Now Habakkuk is going to wait. You just go away and
see what God says. Look at chapter 2 verse 1. He
says, I'll stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower. And
I'm going to watch to see what he'll say unto me and what I
shall answer him when I am approved. Now in faith Habakkuk is waiting
to see what the Lord will say. And he fully intends to believe
and to bow to whatever it is the Lord says. That's what faith
does. Do you know what faith does?
It just believes this book. When you read it, you say, yeah,
I believe that. Because faith believes what God
says. And faith believes that God's
gonna do what he said, no matter how long it takes for God to
do it. And you know, the natural man can't do that. The only person
who can wait on God like that is a person who has been given
God-given faith. The natural man cannot do it.
Look at verse two of Habakkuk two. And the Lord answered me
and said, write the vision and make it plain upon tables that
he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an
appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though
it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will
not tarry. When it's at God's appointed
time, it won't tarry anymore. And what God's telling Habakkuk
here is, my purpose, my promise will come to pass. Your job is
not to figure out when it's going to come to pass. Your job is
to believe and wait for it to come to pass. And you know what? You have to wait a long time.
You have to wait a long time, but you still wait. Even though
you're waiting a long time, you wait because God will do what
he promised to do. Now, again, the scriptures are
bifocal. This is true about the Jews being set free. It's true
that they're going to have to wait a while, but the Chaldeans
are coming. And they're going to have to wait a while. And
then God will deliver them from the Chaldeans. But it means a
whole lot more than that. Habakkuk here is speaking of
the Savior. What God is promising here is He's going to send the
Messiah. He's going to send the Messiah
to set His people free. The Savior that God will send
is not just going to set His people free from earthly reigns
and set up an earthly kingdom. He's got a spiritual kingdom.
He's going to set His people free from sin and from death
and from hell. Now you wait on Him. Look to
Him. Salvation is in Christ alone,
not in anything we do. So you look to Him and you wait
on Him. And you all throughout the Old Testament, this promise
was given. What? The Messiah is coming. The Messiah
is coming. He's coming. He's coming. He's
coming. God promised Adam and Eve that when He thrust them
out of the garden, didn't He? There's a Savior coming. There's
one coming. You look to him. And Adam and
Eve, they believe God. They look to him. Oh, they're
gonna have to wait a long time, aren't they? A long time. The
man from God is not Eve's firstborn son. So you have to wait longer
than nine months. So you have to wait 4,000 years
for him to come. 4,000 years is a long time. But
you wait. You keep looking. You keep waiting.
Most of Israel didn't do it, did they? They quit looking,
they quit waiting. Now I tell you one of the reasons
that God waits so long to fulfill his promise to his people. It's
to reveal who really believes God and who doesn't. You just
wait long enough, it'll be revealed. The natural man is just not willing
to submit to Christ. So he's certainly not willing
to wait for him. That's why he says in verse four here, behold,
his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him. Like I said,
now, historically, there are many of the Jews who departed
from the faith, because it just took, by their estimation, it
took God too long to fulfill His promise. They quit looking
for the Savior. They just said, well, He hasn't
come in so long. He's not coming. Men make the
same mistake today. They say, well, God never has
destroyed the world, so He never will. Really? First of all, God has destroyed
the world once with the flood, didn't He? He's coming again.
Now, it's going to be a long time, but he's coming and you
mark it down. But many of the Jews, they quit
looking for the Savior. They quit thinking that the law
was something that would make them look to the Savior. They
started to think the law was something that they were to do.
They started to think the law and the ceremonies were given
to them so they'd have something to do that God would be happy
with them and God would accept them. They departed from the
faith. Those people, by the time our Savior came, were the scribes
and the Pharisees. Their soul was lifted up in pride,
wasn't it? They were proud of their own
righteousness, their own doing. They'd forgotten that the Lord's
not slack concerning His promise. He's coming, but they quit waiting
for Him. They quit looking for Him. And
they were not upright in heart. Well, how could they be upright
in heart? They were trusting in their own works, weren't they?
And all of our works are nothing but sin. Our so-called works
of righteousness are nothing but filthy rags defiled and polluted
with sin. So if we're trusting in those
things, of course we're not upright. And people are saying to people,
the nature of man has not changed. People today, those who are not
upright in heart, are the same people. They don't believe the
Word of God. You know, they read it and they
say, well, it doesn't mean that. Or they just completely change
it, you know, to suit their theology. They don't trust in the Lord
to save His people. So since they don't trust the
Lord to save His people, you know what they do? They don't
preach to people and leave the sinner alone with God. No, they
twist their arms and they rest them and they try to pull people
down the aisle and try to get people to make a decision. And
once they do get them to make a decision, they gotta hurry
and put them to work doing something to keep them interested. And
when they do that, you know what they've done? They've given that
person a work to do that makes the sacrifice of Christ of no
effect. They're not upright in heart.
Those who are not upright in heart, they don't trust Christ
alone and His righteousness alone. They don't think His righteousness
alone is enough to save. So you know what they do? They
give men laws to keep. They give them some rules. Now,
they don't give them the whole law, but they make one or two of them,
you know, important. You've got to keep these laws, you know,
in order to be righteous. And when they do that, you know
what they've done? They've made void the righteousness of Christ. And men who believe them are
damned. Thank God there's some upright.
Now there's somebody that believes God. Most of Israel didn't. They
quit waiting. They quit looking, didn't they?
Simeon kept looking. Somebody's going to keep looking.
And the upright, those who are just with God or those who have
faith in Christ, they believe. They believe the just should
live by faith. Not living by our works. We live. We have eternal life by faith
in Christ. who finished the work for us.
Now faith, let me make this plain. We don't live because of our
faith. We live because of Christ, right? We live because of Christ who's
the object of our faith. Faith is how we lay hold upon
Christ who is our righteousness. Faith is how we look to Christ
who is our salvation. And the just, who have faith
in Christ, you can tell them. You can just tell them by their
methods. They believe that God's gonna save His people. And you
know why they believe that? The only reason they believe
it is because God said it in His word. Okay, so I believe
it. That's what faith says. And you
can tell when somebody has true faith. You know how you can tell?
They preach Christ. They just preach Christ. And
they keep preaching Christ over and over and over and over again. They preach Christ and then they
leave sinners along with God. And they wait on God to save
his people. In full confidence, God's going to save them because
he said he would. I never said one word to Wendy about being
baptized. Not one. Wait, now she's been here a little
while. You know, I'm Wendy Berry baptized. Never. I just preached
Christ to her. And she came to me. That's what
the Lord will do for His people. So no matter how long it takes,
don't get impatient now. No matter how long it takes,
you wait on Him and you just keep preaching to Him, keep believing
to Him. That's what the justified ones will do because God's given
them faith. They believe and they trust God
and they're willing to wait for His salvation. They believe God
and they're willing to wait on God to deliver them from every
tribe when God's pleased to do it too. See, the just should
live by faith. Now, that's true spiritually.
We have faith. We have life through faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And physically, in this physical
life, we live by faith. We live believing God. We live
waiting on God. Look at Romans chapter four. The just believe God. even when
the world tells you it's foolish to do so, even when human logic
and human reasoning tells you it's foolish to do so, that just
believe God. Romans 4 verse 17. As it's written, I've made thee
a father of many nations before him whom he believed, even God
who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as
though they were. who against hope, against any
human hope, against any human logic, believed in hope that
he might become the father of many nations. According to that
which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in
faith, he considered not his own body, now dead, when he was
about 100 years old, nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
Abraham's 100, Sarah's 90. It's impossible for them to have
a child. But Abraham staggered not at
the promise of God through unbelief. but was strong in faith, giving
glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised,
he was also able to perform. And that's what the just do.
They're fully persuaded that whatever it is God's promised
to do, he's fully able to do it. If God hasn't done something,
it's not because he's not able. It's just because he's not been
pleased to do it yet. But he will be. Then just keep
believing God. That's what Habakkuk is telling
us. No matter how long it takes for God to do what he promised,
you just believe him. And this is what I can tell you.
It will take a while. It's just gonna take a whole
lot longer than we think, but you keep waiting on him. Human
reasoning says if God hadn't done something by now, he never
will, so he may as well forget about it. Faith doesn't say that. Faith says, I'll just keep waiting
on him because I believe him. All right, now look at Romans
chapter one. Here's the next time the phrase is used, the
just shall live by faith. Verse 16. For I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. For therein, in that gospel, is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. As it's written, the just shall
live by faith. Now here what the scriptures
are teaching us here is justification is by faith, by faith in Christ. And Paul says, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel. I know the world disagrees with it. The world
hates it. It's contrary to human nature, but I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ because the righteousness of God is revealed
through the preaching of that gospel. Paul's not talking about
the fact that God himself is righteous being revealed in the
gospel, although it is, but what he's talking about specifically
is what's revealed in the gospel is the righteousness that Christ
earned as a man, as the representative of his people, that righteousness
that he freely imputes to his people through which he makes
them righteous. That's how God makes his people
righteous by imputing the obedience of Christ to them. That's what's
revealed in the gospel. We're not made righteous, we're
justified by us keeping the law. We're justified by Christ keeping
the law for us as our representative. Justified, I tell you this often,
does not mean just as if I'd never sinned. That's a cute saying,
but it doesn't mean that. Justified means without sin,
no sin at all. The only way you and I can have
no sin at all is if Christ's obedience is our obedience. And
that's what Paul says in Romans 3. This is what's revealed in
the gospel, verse 26. To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, that he might be just
and the justifier of him which, what? Believeth in Jesus. Believes in him by faith. That's
how we're made without sin. It's through faith in Christ.
Now all of us, this is important, because all of us have a problem.
We're sinners. We have nothing but sin. So the
million dollar question, I mean the billion dollar question,
the question that all religion is trying to answer is this,
and they're trying to extort your money from you to give you
the answer. God gives you the answer for free. This is the
question. How can my sin be put away? That's the question. Well, I
know this from Scripture. Our sin can't be put away by
anything I do. No. In Luther's day, that meant going
to confession. And you think telling some fella
behind a screen what you've done is going to take your sin away?
Foolish, isn't it? In Luther's day, they would buy
indulgences. I don't know if the Catholic
Church still does that, but what they would do, you could pay.
You know, I'll pay for my next ten sins so I don't have to worry
about them. You know, I'll just pay in advance so I can sin for
free, you know, and not have to worry about it. No. Our redemption
is not bought with silver and gold. We can't justify ourselves
by beating ourselves or denying our body and beating a sin out
of it or starving it out. No. And in our day, men have
tried to get more refined, but your tithing's not going to contribute
to your justification. Walking in the aisles isn't going
to do anything for you. If you're baptized thinking, well, those
waters of baptism are going to wash my sin away, you're sorely
mistaken. That's not going to do that.
Trying to live a moral life, that doesn't make you justified.
What do all those things I listed have in common, both Luther's
day and our day? What do all those things have
in common? They're an activity of the flesh. And our flesh can't
do anything to put our sin away. All our flesh can do is add to
our sin. So the scripture teaches us this.
Here's a million dollar question answered for free. How can my
sin be put away? only in the sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ, only in His blood. And the sacrifice of Christ,
when we preach the sacrifice of Christ, it makes manifest,
it makes this obvious. Here's how God can be just and
still show mercy to a sinner like me. It's through the death
of the substitute. It all has to do with Christ.
And that righteousness is laid hold on by faith in Christ. Sinners are made righteous. They
receive that righteousness by faith in Christ. That's what
the scripture teaches. That's so plain. That's so simple. Simple. It's so obvious. Now
just quit. Just quit. Quit trying to please
God by what you do. Quit trying to earn some sort
of favor with God and just believe. Just believe Christ. Now you
and me trying to keep the law. trying to keep any part of the
law. This is another thing that irritates me. Men say, we got
to keep the law, but what all they do in Paul's day, it was
circumcision in our day. It's, you know, they were, they
make up just one or two things that, you know, the law takes
up pages and pages and pages and pages of God's word. It's
utterly foolish to think you mean, keep the law. So what,
and people know that. So what they do is they refine
it down to one or two that they think that you can keep outwardly.
You're going to break them, but they think you can hide them
from your neighbors, you know. Us trying to keep any part of
the law does not have one thing to do with us being justified.
Not one. Look in Galatians chapter three,
that's what the book of Galatians is all about. And in Galatians
chapter three, Paul makes this plain. where he uses this phrase
again, the just shall live by faith. Our attempts to keep the law
can't have anything to do with our justification. And Paul proves
that very wisely by pointing out to us, Abraham was justified,
wasn't he? Is there any doubt in anybody's
mind from reading the scriptures, Abraham was justified, wasn't
he? We know so because God said so. When was Abraham justified? 430 years before the law was
ever given. Then the law cannot have anything
to do with justification, can it? Isn't that obvious? Abraham
wasn't justified by keeping the law. Abraham was justified by
faith in Christ. Abraham wasn't even justified
by keeping part of the law. Abraham wasn't justified when
he was circumcised. Abraham was justified when he
believed God. And Scripture says that. Look
here at Galatians 3 verse 6. Even as Abraham believed God,
and it was accounted, it was reckoned, it was imputed unto
him for righteousness. Abraham was justified when he
believed God. And you know what? Abraham wasn't
alone in this. Abraham's not just the single
example of this, and everybody else was justified a certain
way. All of God's children, are justified the exact same way.
There are many Old Testament saints, besides Abraham, that
were justified before the law was ever given. Abel, God said
he's justified. Noah, God said he's justified.
Enoch, Job. Get a hold of your seeds. Even the heart. Oh, that gives
hope to me, even Lot. Lot, who as far as I can tell,
never did one thing right. God says he justified by faith
in Christ. The law got nothing to do with
it, does it? Now remember, it's not faith that justifies, it's
Christ that justifies. Don't make a work out of faith.
Don't say, well, because I have faith, I'm justified. No, you're
justified because Christ died for you, because Christ washed
you from your sin. Our faith doesn't contribute anything to
justification. It receives justification. It receives righteousness in
Christ. And it's just obvious. Christ has to be the one to justify
us because it's impossible for us to be justified by our obedience
to the law. The law can never justify us.
All the law can do for sinners like us is show us how sinful
we are. All the law can do is curse us.
Paul tells us that, Galatians 3 verse 10. For as many as are
of the works of the law, they're under the curse. For it's written,
curse it is everyone that continueeth not in all things that are written
in the book of the law to do them. The law can't justify us.
All it can do is curse us because we can't keep it. So isn't it
obvious? Has this been made obvious in
the preaching of the gospel? that the only way a sinner can
be justified is by Christ, verse 11. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, for it's evident, this is obvious,
that just shall live by faith. Now this is evident, it's obvious,
that just shall live by faith, not by our attempts to keep the
law, by faith. It's obvious because of the many
saints that were justified before the law was given, It's obvious
because all the law can do is curse you and me and show us
our sins. So the justified ones must live
by faith, faith in Christ. And they're free from death that
the law demands because Christ took their sin. The law demands
death for sin. Why would you who believe be
free from that death, from eternal death? Because Christ took your
sin away. He died for you and made you
righteous. One last point, the just shall
live by faith. We're justified by faith. We've
been given spiritual life by faith. Now the just, those who've
been given God, who God has given faith, they live in faith and
they walk in faith. They walk through this world
in faith, never by their own works, not their works before
conversion and not their works after conversion. Paul says that
here in Galatians 3 verse 3. He said, are you so foolish?
Having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh?
Well, no. You began in faith and you're
gonna finish in faith. Back in Romans 1, Paul said the
same thing. Remember we read that phrase
in verse 17, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith. What's Paul talking about there? Well, there's several
things that he's probably meaning, but I think this is the best
one. What he means is that faith in Christ, it grows. It gets
stronger over time. It grows and it continues from
one degree of faith to another degree of faith. So that the
believer, he begins in faith. He begins looking to Christ. Look and live, that's how you
begin, right? The believer continues in faith.
We walk by faith. And we end in faith because salvation
from beginning to end. Salvation in its entirety is
Christ. So the believer's life from beginning
to end is faith in Christ, always believing Him. Now look at Hebrews
chapter 10. Paul told us we're not justified
by faith and then we continue in the law. The believer always
walks by faith. Hebrews 10 verse 36. For you have need of patience,
that after you have done the will of God, you might receive
the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come
will come, and will not tarry. Now the writer to the Hebrews
is saying the exact same thing Habakkuk said. God's gonna come
just like he promised he would. In Habakkuk's day, they were
looking forward to the first coming of Christ. Now we're looking
for his return. But either way, he's coming just
like he promised. But I can tell you this. Now
it's not going to be in our time schedule. It's just not going
to be. We're going to have to wait on the Lord. And we're going
to have to do it patiently because we're going to have to wait a
good long while. And waiting like that takes God-given
faith. Verse 38. Now the just shall
live by faith. But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we're not of them who
draw back under perdition. but of them that continue to
believe to the saving of the soul. True faith continues through
every sunny day and every dark and cloudy and rainy and stormy
day of this life, faith continues. Those of you who are here very
often know that I tell you this often. You look to Christ. Have you heard that from this
preacher before? You look to Christ. You look to Him right
now. You look to Him. And don't you
ever take your eyes off of Him. Never. Poor old Peter. The Lord came walking to him
on the water. And Peter said, Lord, bid me to come to you.
I'm walking on the water. The Lord said, come on. Peter
got out of that boat in a storm and started walking to the Lord
on water. And then what did he do? He took his eyes off the Savior.
How many times have I done that? And every time I start to look
at the wind and the waves and the rain, I sink like a rock. You look to Christ and don't
you ever take your eyes off of Him. You look to Him. Only Christ
can give you spiritual life. Have we seen that from the scripture?
Only Christ can give you spiritual life. Then only Christ can sustain
that life. So keep looking to Him. And true
faith never quits until one time. True faith will
never quit until we're in glory and we don't need it anymore.
See, those who have true faith say with Peter, Lord, I'm not
going with them. To whom shall we go? True faith's not gonna
quit. So Hebrews 11 verse 13. These all died in faith. These didn't quit. They kept
on looking to Christ, believing Him in faith until this body
died. These all died in faith. Not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off
and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that
they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say
such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly,
if they had been mindful of that country from which they came
out, they might have had opportunity to return. They could have turned
their back and gone back if they wanted. They could have quit
and gone back if they wanted. Our Lord told the twelve, will
you also go away? You can go if you want. But now
they desire a better country, that is a heavenly Wherefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared
for them a city. And now all these saints who
died in faith, they got what they longed for. I'm so jealous
of them. They got what they longed for.
They're with Christ. They finally laid down that faith.
They don't need it anymore. Now they see Christ face to face. That's faith. Just to live by
faith. Here in a few moments, Wendy
Rodriguez is going to confess her faith in Christ, her Savior,
and believers' baptism. And that's what faith does. This
is how the believer is to confess my faith in Christ, that all
my faith is in Him. It's in His death. He died the
death I deserve. When He died, I died in Him.
He's my representative. He died the death I deserve.
He was buried. Put underground. We're going
to put Wendy under the water. Buried. He didn't stay there. We're not going to leave Wendy
under that water. We're going to bring her up. Why? Because
Christ rose again. He rose again for our justification. And faith believes that. And
faith confesses that. But now confession of Christ
is not just a one-time thing. If this was the last day, When
do you ever confess Christ? That'd be kind of sad. Not kind
of, that'd be very sad. Confession of faith is not a
one-time thing. It's continual. Faith is seen in a life believing
God, walking with God. And we wonder, do I have true
faith? Do I have this true, saving,
God-given faith? I wonder, do I? Sometimes, a
lot, I wonder often. Let's wait and talk about 20,
25 years and we'll have a whole lot better idea because faith
continues, continues to believe Christ and continues to confess. I have no hope other than the
Lord Jesus Christ. All right, Mike, you come lead
us in a song. When do you change and we'll make everything ready. Let's turn in our handbook to
103. 103. Let's stand, please. One day when heaven was filled
with His praises, One day when sin was as black as could be,
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin, Dwelt among men, my
example is He. Living, He loved, Dying, He saved
me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day He's coming, O glorious
day. One day they led Him up Calvary's
mountain One day they nailed Him to die on the tree Suffering
anguish, despised and rejected Bearing our sins, my Redeemer
is He Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day He's coming, O glorious
day. One day they left him alone in
the garden One day he rested from suffering free Angels came
down o'er his tomb to keep vigil of the hopeless, my Savior is
He. Living He loved me, dying He
saved me, buried He carries me. Rising he justified, freely forever,
One day he's coming, O glorious day! A couple of weeks ago, Wendy
came and told me she wanted to talk to me about baptism. And I have to tell you, I wasn't
really surprised very much. Wendy, as I told you this last
week, she years ago had come and she'd heard Brother Henry
preach for a pretty good while, and then she left and went around
some different places for a while. But you know, the Lord, they
want him, but He's not going to let them go very far. He's
not going to let them fall off the cliff. He brought her back, didn't he?
He brought her back here. He could have brought her different
places. The other gospel, he brought her here. We're thankful,
aren't we? She sat and listened for a while.
She began to ask me for things to read. And I'd give her something
to read. I think it would take her a while.
It took her four days, you know, and she'd come look for something
else. And she's reading God's Word. Well, you know, when somebody
starts to read God's Word, it's not surprising that the Lord
reveals Himself to them. That's the seed God uses to give
life. And that's what he did for our sister, Wendy. We're
very thankful, aren't we? We rejoice. So, Wendy Rodriguez,
in obedience to the commandment of Christ our Savior, upon your
profession of faith in him, I baptize you, my sister, in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.