I invite you to turn with me
again this morning back to Romans chapter 1. While you're turning, I'll quote
a passage from the prophet Isaiah. God's prophet was inspired to
write these words, Comfort ye. Comfort ye my people, saith your
God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Now that's a picture of God's
church. And he said cry unto her that
her warfare is accomplished. That her iniquity is pardoned. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sin. And my message to you is
taken from my text in Romans 1, and it's titled, Comforted
Together With You. Paul's letter to the churches,
if you'll read them carefully, are filled with expressions of
love. He loved these people. He suffered
to go to these people, to preach to these people. He poured out
his heart before God that God would do a work in them, and
God did that work in them, and established them, and raised
up these churches. And Paul loved them, and he wanted
them to know that he loved them. And all of his letters, all of
his epistles are filled with expressions of love. and of thanksgiving
to God for the work which God had done by His Son and by His
Spirit in the hearts of these men and women. And also His words are seasoned
with expressions of His devotion to God, praying that God would
continue to use him to their benefit and use him as a faithful
servant. In Romans chapter 1 and verse
9, we'll begin there. For God is my witness, whom I
serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son. That without ceasing
I make mention of you always in my prayers. He didn't pray
for him one time and then forget about him. He continued to pray
for him. Their hearts had been joined
together through his ministry of Christ, and by the presence and power
of the Holy Ghost, and he loved them and cared for them, and
he held back nothing that was good for them. He knew some of
the things that he would say would be offensive to them, but
he loved them. He loved them. You parents, if
you love your children, don't be afraid of hurting their feelings.
You tell them the truth. You tell him the truth. He loved them, he cared for them,
and he held back nothing profitable to them. He loved them that loved
Christ, and he gave himself to the work which God had given
him. I was thinking about that this
week in my study, and it's a grueling trip for me at my age to drive
13 hours in a perfectly luxurious automobile. It took him months,
months, just to get there. He didn't sleep at the Holiday
Inn. He slept out in the open air on a blanket with the spiders
and whatever else was crawling around at that time, scorpions. He talks about that, perils of
beasts and things that were out there where he was at, and he
lived that way a lot. Traveled on foot. I can't imagine
crossing all of that country on foot. He loved them that loved Christ,
and he gave himself to the work which God had given to him. And
Paul knew that he could do nothing without God. He said in 2 Corinthians
chapter 3, he said, we're not worthy to thank anything of ourselves. There's no sufficiency in us
whatsoever. God is our sufficiency. He knew
that. He knew he couldn't do anything.
He was an intellectual. He knew a lot, but he knew that
his knowledge couldn't get to first base without a work in
that heart, and God had to do that work. He knew that he could do nothing
without God, but at the same time, he realized that God who
called him and sent him would also accompany him and make his work effectual in
the hearts of chosen sinners. Now watch this, verse 11. For
I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual
gift to the end that you may be established. Now this, it's
one thing to impute something, that means to charge it to him,
but it's another thing to impart. That means work done in you.
And he was so confident that God the Holy Spirit would accompany
him that that was his desire. He said that I might impart unto you some spiritual
gift to the end that you may be established. That is, he's
gonna explain a little further, that I may be comforted together
with you by the mutual faith, both of you and of me. Now he's not talking here about
physical comfort, but a comfort of mind and heart before God. He's talking here about a comfort
in the light of our present condition. And I know some of you here are
not aware of your present condition, even though I've told it to you
many times. We're sinners. Hopeless, helpless
sinners. We can do nothing for ourselves.
We've been told by religion all we have to do is make up our
minds. All we have to do is make a decision. All we have to do
is exercise our free will and walk down an aisle and shake
somebody's hand and join the church and a multitude of other
things. We've been told if God's done
all he can do, now it's all up to you. Somebody find that and show it
to me in the word of God. It's not in there. Salvation's
of the Lord. It's of the Lord. We're sinners.
We're helpless, hopeless sinners. Paul said, what are you bragging
about? What are you guys over here going back and forth about
who you were born under and who brought you the gospel and all
these things? He said, what have you gotten that you haven't received? And if you received it, why do
you act like you didn't? By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should boast. If he had a speck in it, he'd
brag on it for all eternity. That's man. He's talking about a comfort
of mind and heart before God and a comfort in light of our
present condition and in the light of God's infinite holiness. Well, I tell you, I need comfort
when I think about God's infinite holiness. He spared not His own
son. And people talk so flippantly
about God overlooking their sins and God winking at men's sins. My own sister, who's dead now,
she told me, she said, I just don't believe a good God would
send anybody to hell. And I said, a good God wouldn't,
but a holy God would. A righteous and a just God will.
And he will. And he does. And he has. And
he'll continue to do it. I need comfort in the light of
God's infinite holiness. And I need some comfort in the
light of a final judgment. To be absent from the body is
to be present with the Lord. And I tell you, if you go out
of this world and you don't know Him, the next thing is judgment,
isn't it? And I'm talking about the final
judgment. I know we were all judged in Adam. We all fell in
him. We have this nature that we're
born with because of that fall and so on. And then we practice
sin because of that nature. We practice sin our whole lives.
But there's a judgment coming, a final judgment. And there's
no mercy after that. It's appointed unto men once
to die, and after that, the judgment. That's next. I need comforted
in the light of eternal judgment, final judgment. Is there something in the light
of these things, something real and genuine that can bring comfort
to a weary sinner? Is there something I can say,
something I can do, something I can read, something I can believe
that will bring me comfort in the light of these things? Well, I hope by the grace of
God to show you in the scriptures that there is a source of comfort
and assurance before God and in the light of this present
evil world. Now, he begins by telling us that this comfort
comes through a mutual faith, a mutual faith. Now the scripture
said there's one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. So this faith
is a mutual faith. Somebody said, well, you believe
this and I believe that. No, they're just one belief,
just one. Just one faith. Just one faith. And that faith is a mutual faith.
Everybody in the kingdom of God has that faith. That faith is
the gift of God. That faith is a product of God's
Holy Spirit. That faith is a product of the
revelation of God in the gospel. That revelation of Jesus Christ. And there's just one faith. It's
also described as the common faith. Scripture uses that term,
the common faith. It uses this term, the faith
of God's elect. All God's elect have faith, and
that faith is the common faith. It's the same faith. And then
Peter uses this phrase, like precious faith. It's the same. And then here in verse 12, he
calls it mutual faith. It is the same faith, Paul says,
of both you and me. The same thing that comforts
me will comfort you. Isn't that what he's telling
them? The same thing that speaks peace
and assurance to me will whisper the same thing to you. I don't have to go home and find
a message for you, I just have to find the message for me, and
it'll be to you, because we have mutual faith. And that's what
I tell these young men that fill in for me. You find the message
that blesses your heart, it'll bless theirs. It'll bless theirs. Because we're comforted through
mutual faith. And then secondly, I want you
to see that Paul did not pray contrary to the will of God. He didn't just pray that they'd
be comforted and leave it at that and hope that God would
in some way send him some comfort. He didn't pray contrary to the
will of God. He didn't pray like a wish or
a baseless hope or desire. He prayed knowing how these things
come and how these things are given. Look at verse 10 with
me. Making a request, that is request to God, if by any means now at length
I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come to
you. I don't want to go into a Big
long dissertation on this, but just suffice it to say this,
faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And if you'll
look that up in Romans chapter 10, that is at the end where
he asks those four questions. How you gonna call on him in
whom you had not believed? How you gonna believe in him
of whom you not heard? And how you gonna hear without
a preacher? And how's he gonna preach if God don't send him? And he goes down and he said,
therefore, faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And
so Paul prays. He knows that God has already
ordained the means of these things and now he's making requests
that God would use him for that very thing. Paul was not just an inspired
writer of the scripture and an apostle. But he was an evangelist
whose calling and burden was to preach the gospel. He said,
he revealed Christ in me that I might preach him among the
heathen. And he understood and taught
the churches which he established, he taught them the necessity
and the value of gospel preaching. Not only at the conversion of
the saints, but as a continual source of their faith being matured
and nurtured and strengthened and established and preserved,
all under the hearing of the gospel. He gave these offices,
he said, the ascended Christ in Ephesians 4.12, for the perfecting
of the saints. Now there's churches and people
around who say that this is a possibility because here he talks about it.
that they could reach some kind of state of sinless perfection,
but that's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about
that perfect man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the object of
faith. It's for the perfecting of the
saints, not in character, but in their understanding, and it's
for the work of the ministry, and it's for the edifying of
the body of Christ. Now listen, verse 13, Ephesians
chapter four. till we all come in the unity
of the faith. We're gonna come into this mutual
faith, this like precious faith. He's gonna bring us into this.
How's he gonna do it? Through gospel preaching. That's
how he's gonna do it. He's gonna teach us. He's gonna
teach us. Till we all come in the unity
of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. That's what
faith looks to Christ. It looks to Christ, that's what
it does. And of the knowledge of the Son
of God, now watch this, unto a perfect man. Unto, now he's
gonna explain to you what he's talking about. Unto the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. There's just one perfect
man and that man's Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory. If Christ be in me, I'm a perfect
man. I don't need anything else. I'm
complete in him. Only one perfect man, and that's
the God man, and we're perfect in him. And faith is perfected
as it looks to him. I know we've got this idea, this
conception, because we've heard it from people and some of us
were raised in religion and heard it every day. Eternal life is
how long it lasts. That's not eternal life. Eternal
life has to do with the quality of it and it has to do specifically
with knowing God. And even more pointedly than
that, it has to do with knowing God in the salvation of sinners. It's knowing the grace of God
and the mercy of God, the kindness of God, the love
of God. And it's knowing these things
in the light of His perfect justice and holiness and righteousness. manifests all these things, where? In Christ. In Christ. Paul longed to come to them with
the gospel of Christ, the very treasure of heaven, being poured
into these frail clay vessels, knowing that this gospel is the
one means God has ordained to save sinners. Now brethren, I'm gonna tell
you something. That's just so. Not because I said it, because
God said it. The world by wisdom knew not
God. He knew that. In the wisdom of
God, the world by wisdom knew not God, but it pleased God through
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. No,
we're not gonna have that. We're gonna go find something
else. No, you're gonna have that. You're going to have that. Why
would you want to go anywhere else? You know somewhere else
where you can go and find the grace and mercy of God like you
can in Christ? I don't get that. When John said
they went out from us for they were not all of us, for had they
been of us they no doubt would have continued with us. He was
talking about all of these people were looking to Christ. All of
these people were glorifying God for His Son. They were worshiping
God, rejoicing in God. I don't know where they're going.
I don't know why they're leaving. And it's the same thing when
it comes to the means. This is the means. You found
a spring. You found a fountain. You went over and you drank of
it. Somebody says, well, there'll be money for it. Go over there
and go get your drink. Why? I have the fountain. I don't
want to drink out of a mud hole. I got the fountain. And so the Apostle Paul tells
them here in verse 15 of Romans 1. He tells them just before this,
he said, I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor to the barbarians.
I'm a debtor to all these people where I've been. It's their support
that has allowed me to come here. They want you to hear this as
bad as I want you to hear this. And I'm a debtor to them. And
so he tells them here in verse 15, so as much as in me is, Can't
go beyond that, can you? Not all of us are equipped to
say. I couldn't carry a candle in
comparison with Henry Mahan, Don Fortner, some of these men
that God has used in a tremendous way. I'm not worthy to hold a
candle for these men. But as much as in me is, ever
what that amount is, whatever abilities that God has given
me, as much as in me is, Paul said, I'm ready to preach the
gospel to you that are in Rome also. I'm gonna ask you something,
and I hope one of these days the Lord will give me a message
on this. When is a man ready to preach? I'm telling you, he made a declaration
there when he said, I am ready to preach the gospel to you. When is a man ready? I've had
preachers here that were so nervous sitting in the pew and they said,
I don't know if I'm ready. When is a man ready? A man's ready to preach the gospel
when he's secure in his calling of God to preach it. Has God
called me? Oh, my soul. Think about that. If God called me, who's gonna
get in the way? Huh? What else do I need? If God called me, Paul didn't
pack up a whole What'd they call them, chuckwagons
back when they made the... He didn't pack up a chuckwagon.
He just hit the road. He just went. God's gonna supply
his needs. He was secure in his calling.
He knew that God had called him to go, and he went. That was
enough. When is a man ready to preach?
When he's comfortable in his understanding of the gospel.
You can't tell what you don't know. Somebody told me one time, said,
you preach like somebody knows what he's saying. I don't know. I hope I do. I hope I do. But a man's ready to preach when
he's comfortable in his understanding of the gospel. I'm comfortable
in my understanding of the gospel because I know the gospel is
talking about Christ. It's all in him. All in him. You don't need to know anything
else. All the redemption's in Him. Of God are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. And a man is ready to preach
the gospel when his hearers become more important to him than his
own welfare. Now he's ready to preach. He's
ready to preach. Paul tells the Corinthians in
one place of some, just some of the suffering he incurred
on his way to minister to these people. They left him for dead, beat
him up, left him for dead outside the city. Beat him within one
stripe of his life three times. shipwrecked, a day and a night
in the deep. Perils of robbers and perils
of storms and all of this kind of stuff that he suffered just
to be able to preach to them. When their welfare, when their
spiritual welfare overtakes your welfare, you're ready to preach.
Now you're ready to preach. Now I know you love who you're
preaching to. Our Lord told his ambassadors,
his apostles, he said, you go and take no consideration for
yourselves. Boy, that's a, hmm. Huh? That's pretty tough, isn't it?
No consideration for yourselves. Listen to this. Provide neither
gold, nor silver, nor brass. That is, don't even take a few
pennies. That's what he's telling them. Don't take any script for your
journey. Don't pack two coats. Don't take
extra shoes. Don't take any staves, for the
workman is worthy of his meat. God'll take care of you. You
take care of that message, you be faithful to that message.
God'll take care of you. Now go. Brother Don said so many times
to those young men he sent out, if you believe God has called
you to the ministry, Throw caution to the wind. You know who's gonna do that?
That man got caught. Nobody else. Nobody else. Everybody else gonna get a resume. Everybody else gonna have a questionnaire.
Now how much you gonna be able to pay me? What kind of house
am I gonna live in? What kind of car you gonna give
me? Do I get an expense account? Not that man God called. But he did tell them this, he
said, you go into a city and you go into that house, and if
they won't receive you, if they're not kind to you, if they don't
provide for you, you shake the dust off your feet as a witness
against them, go back out on the road. If God calls a man, He's certainly
gonna go with him. You remember Moses arguing, oh,
I can't go down to Egypt. God said, well, I didn't plan
on sending you by yourself. What could you do in the presence
of Pharaoh and the most powerful nation on earth? I'm going with
you. Boy, that changes things, don't
it? Huh? Well, who knows that? That man
that God has called. You see what I'm saying? If you're
comfortable in your knowledge that God has called you, then
you represent God. So preach that way, live that
way, walk that way. If God has called you, He'll certainly
provide for you. And if a man gives himself to
the Lord and to his calling, and every called man does, he's
ready to spend and be spent for those he's sent to minister to. And so he says, as much as in
me is, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you. Now watch this,
verse 16. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
Now shame does it, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Isn't that what that says? It is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth. That's how he views it, that's
how he sees it, that's how he receives it. Now I wanna start here, if the
gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth,
then everyone must suffer from the same problem. Otherwise you'd
have a bunch of different cures, wouldn't you? Here's just one
cure, so everybody's got the same problem. Everybody got the
same problem. If the power of God must be brought
to bear to save them, they must all need saving. There's nothing in this world,
and I want you to hear me now, there's nothing in this world,
nothing that you will ever experience in this world that is more offensive
to the unsaved man than the gospel. It is so if it, Paul was afraid
that if he, he said, I don't preach circumcision, otherwise
the offense of the cross is ceased. The preaching of the cross is
the most offensive thing that you'll ever experience in this
world to a natural man. It's offensive. The gospel offends
man's pride. Tells him he's an ignorant, sinful
beggar. You know, somebody come up in
my yard and told me that, I'd probably just punch him right
in the mouth. But that's what the gospel tells you, isn't it?
Huh? You're an ignorant, sinful beggar. Scripture says you walk in a
vanity of your minds, having your understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in you. Wow. Scripture says they say they
are rich and increased with goods and have needed nothing and don't
know that they're wretched and miserable and poor and blind
and naked. Scripture tells us that the natural
man is worthless. They are together become unprofitable,
no profit at all. And tells us that they know nothing,
none that understand. And then secondly, the gospel
offends man's dignity. Calls him a liar. Calls him a liar. Let God be true and what? Every
man a liar. Calls him an enemy of God. Oh,
I took some things when I was younger Cheated on my taxes a
little bit, but I'm not an enemy of God. I'll go one step further than
that. You hate God. You hate God. Scripture calls you a murderer. tells him in no uncertain terms
that he's under the curse of God. Cursed is everyone who continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
The gospel offends man's dignity, tells him that all his religious
acts and hopes are an abomination to God and that all his righteousnesses
are his filthy rags. And then thirdly, the gospel
offends man's reputation. He said, I'm a deacon. God said,
you're a sinner. You're a sinner. Gospel tells him that he loves
darkness rather than light. Pharisee said, we have God our
father. He said, if God was your father,
you wouldn't hate me, because I proceeded forth and came from
God. I'm God's son. And you hate me. God's not your
father. You're of your father the devil. It offends man's reputation,
calls him a sinner, tells him he loves darkness rather than
light because his deeds are evil. And the gospel offends man's
intelligence. God will use nothing that a man
thinks he knows. Nothing. Oh, that rich young ruler came
to Christ, and I can tell by the way he said that, I've been
around so many Christian people, or so-called Christian people,
that say, good brother. How many times have you heard
that in your lifetime? Good brother. And that's just exactly the way
this man approached the Lord. He said, good master. And the
master said, why callest thou me good? There's none good but
God. You think that was offensive?
Man, that was his leading, that was his lead off statement. God will use nothing that a man
believes or thinks or has confidence in. That none other name under
heaven given among men whereby they must be saved. Other foundation can no man lay
than that which is laid. And the gospel so strips a man
or a woman that their mouths are completely stopped and they
become guilty before God. The gospel, and the gospel alone
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And then the second thing I want
you to see here is that the gospel is sufficient for the work. I
don't need anything else. If I have the gospel, I've got
everything I need. I hope there's no one in this
place today who believes that God's gonna save his people no
matter what. That's hardshellism. You've heard
people talk about a hardshell Baptist, that's what a hardshell
Baptist is. He just believes God's gonna
save his elect no matter what. That's not true. That's not true. God's gonna save His people no
matter what. With a hearing or without. With
a preacher or without. With a knowledge of the truth
or without. With a believing mind or without. In 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and
14 it said, God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through Let that word sink in through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. Whereunto, now he's gonna apply
it, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the first epistle of that
church, he told them that he knew their election of God because
his gospel came not unto them in word only, but it came in
power and it came in the Holy Ghost. And nowhere in the scripture
does it even hint that anyone will just suddenly be enlightened
and believe. It's just not so. Man don't just, he's not just
walking down the road and all of a sudden pow, a light comes
on. I believe. No, it don't happen
that way. It don't happen that way. What it does say is that it pleased
God through the foolishness of preaching to save them but believe.
What it does say is that there were some who were ministers
by whom you believed even as the Lord gave to every man. 1 Corinthians 3, 5. The gospel
is God's ordained means to save his elect and it's sufficient
in and of itself to do the job. And Paul knew that. He knew that. It's the power of God unto salvation. Nothing else is gonna faze him.
The Spirit's not gonna accompany anything else. It's gonna accompany
that gospel. Our Lord gave one commission
before he left this world. He said, go ye into all the world
and preach my gospel. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. He makes that chosen sinner meet
to be a partaker of the inheritance of enlightened saints. And then
the third thing I want you to see in our text is what this
gospel is. It is the gospel of Christ. It is the gospel of Christ. This
gospel is a person. Religion would have you focus
on the event, the cross. The cross, a man crucified on
the cross, but the Romans crucified a lot of men. Crucified three
the day that Christ was crucified. A lot of men died on their crosses.
What made his cross effectual is who it was that died. Christ
died. Christ died. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. That's
what the scripture said. The God-man mediator, our federal
head and representative, our substitute and redeemer, it's
Christ and him crucified, not just the crucifixion. It's who it is that died. The
Christ of God is he whom the Father has trusted all things
to. Everything put into his hands. He's the faithful steward. Here
it is. Here's my purpose. Here's everything
that I'm gonna do. Here's the book sealed with seven
seals. Here it is. You alone are worthy
to unloose the seals. He alone has received from the
Father all His eternal offices for the salvation of His people. And so he says it's Christ that
died. He to whom death was appointed
for His elect, the just for the unjust that He might bring us
to God. The Lord hath laid on Him, Isaiah
said, the iniquity of us all. But not only did he die, but
yea rather that's risen again who's even at the right hand
of God who also maketh intercession for us. Romans 4.25 said he was
delivered for our offenses, for all the offenses of God's elect. He was delivered and he was raised
again for their justification. God raised him from the dead,
he justified all for whom he died. Their sins are gone, they're
gone. They were laid on him and God
justified them. And now he said, who's gonna
condemn you? God did justify it. Is there a higher court? Is there somewhere you can go
appeal? No, it's God justified and Christ died. That awful cross
was a place our appointed substitute was fashioned by the will of
God to satisfy his divine justice and to exact from him to the
last farthing all that his elect owed. We're justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be the propitiation through faith in his blood to
declare his righteousness for our remission of sins. The gospel
is sufficient to save men and women to the uttermost because
it's the declaration of a person. And then here's the last thing
I want you to see. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. I'll tell you, when you find
out you're a sinner, and I hope God will convince you, that you're
a sinner. And if he does, then he's going
to have to convince you of a righteousness because you're not going to have
any in yourself and you're not going to find any sitting around
you. He's going to have to convince you of this righteousness. Well,
there's only one place where you can be convinced of that
righteousness and that's in the gospel. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. Where is it revealed? It's revealed
in the obedience of the Son of God, who came as our representative
and was made of a woman and made under the law to redeem them
that were under the law. He obeyed that law. He lived
a life, now listen to me, he lived a life of faith. And he perfectly obeyed God. He perfectly obeyed God. That's
my righteousness. I don't have any other righteousness.
Now you wanna eat fish on Friday instead of pork chops and call
it righteousness, you go ahead. But I'm telling you, there's
just one righteousness and that's in Christ. That's it. The gospel alone is where the
righteousness of God is revealed. God's righteous anger and wrath,
God's righteous vengeance and justice, His imputed righteousness. All these things satisfied on
the cross by our dying substitute. Who dare put a question mark
on the sufficiency of the death of Christ? Who dare add anything to it or
take anything from it? All the glory of God, all the
glory of the Godhead, revealed in a day, in a moment, on a cross. God's love, his mercy, his kindness,
his justice, his righteousness. God bared his soul on the cross,
and that's where you'll discover it. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. Now watch this, verse 17. From
faith to faith. What's that talking about? Well,
faith has a singular source. It comes from Christ. And it finds in him the mother
load. It finds in him an endless supply. And that's where it stays. That's
where it stays. It finds in him such a sufficiency
that it never sees any reason to leave. We're not of them,
Paul said, who draw back to perdition. Why? Why not? We have the same nature. We have
the same temptations. Why don't we go back? Because
we found the spring. That's why. We found the mother
load. We found the treasure. And it says, Christ is the son
over his own house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence
and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Now hear this and I'll close.
The just, who's that? That's God's elect. That's those
people that Christ justified when he was resurrected from
the dead. That's those people that he intercedes
for in glory. The just, that's who he calls. That's for whom the gospel sent. The just, now listen, shall live
by faith. Scripture says it three or four
times, the just shall live by faith. That's how he lives, that's
how he walks, that's how he thinks, that's how he acts. That's what
his hope's built on. Everything that pertains to the
believer has to do with faith. That's how he understands how
the world was made. That's how he understands that
he walks with God. He understands all things, by
faith. By faith. Read Hebrews chapter 11. The
whole chapter talks about it. These all died in faith. He lives
in faith. And he never departs from it.
He never departs from it. He dies in faith. Oh, may the
Lord let us see that and have that in our hearts for Christ's
sake.