I invite you to turn back with
me to Romans chapter 10. And if you will, just hold your
place there. It's going to be a little while
before I come back to our text. I want to talk to you this morning
about the confession of faith. There are many in our day who
would turn to faith of God's elect. into nothing more than
a feeling. A feeling. All you have to do
is talk to them and ask them to give you their testimony when
they make a profession, and they'll tell you about it. And most will
go back to some kind of a feeling or a decision or some kind of
an emotional experience. My next door neighbor, when I
first met him after I moved here He assured me that he was prepared
for death and judgment because in a meeting, and he named the
day and the month and the year, in this meeting he accepted Jesus
as his personal Savior. I heard a preacher several years
ago. He gave his testimony in which he stated that God came
to him when he was eight years old. not in a dream, not in a
vision, having read nothing and heard nothing at eight years
of age, and just made him to realize that he was saved. He was saved. And then at 12,
in the same manner, God called him to preach. And my father's own testimony
was among some of these. He said he was a A Kentucky moonshiner
back in the day, they have a show now that you can watch on there
on the History Channel, talk about the moonshiners up in the
mountains. My father was a moonshiner. This
is before I was born. And he was on his way to make
moonshine for Al Capone. Work was slack. He had a lot
of children. My mother was pregnant with me,
and he left to go make moonshine for Al Capone. He was on his
way to Chicago, and he got down as far as Louisville, Kentucky.
And there was an evangelist down there preaching whose name was
Darwin Lewis. And he went to this Nazarene
revival meeting. And of course, they had this
long altar call, very emotional altar call, and he went to the
front of the church and gave his life to Jesus. A bricklayer
who used to work, do some work for me, gave me his testimony
and he said, when I was, I was just a young man when he gave
it to me, and he told me, he said, I was laying out on the
battlefield and my throat was cut ear to ear. Life was just
gushing out of me on the battlefield. And he negotiated a deal with
God. He said, if you'll spare my life,
he said, I'll serve you until I die. And he said, suddenly
a medic appeared and took him in, and he was saved. And I have no doubt in my mind
this morning as I speak to you that untold thousands will make
their journey to the front of the church after some kind of an emotional
field meeting, and after this long altar call,
and they'll go home with their own stories, their own stories,
believing they're ready to meet God. I want you to understand
something before I get into this message. This thing of saving
faith is not so because I say it is. It's not so because you say it
is. And it's not so because somebody
else says it is. I remember one morning Henry
was greeting the people coming into the church, and I was right
behind this man. And Henry said, everything all
right? He said, if what you're preaching
is so, it is. Well, that'll make you think
about what you're preaching. But a thing's not so just because
I say it is. And it's not so because somebody
else says it is. And it's not so because I choose
to make it so. That's not what makes this thing
of saving faith a fact. It's so if it's in harmony with
the Word of God, with the will of God, with the means of God,
and by the power of God. Then it's so. And if it's not,
if it's not, it's not so. It's not so. I don't care how
sincere you are. I don't care how much you believe
it. I don't care how much you're convinced. It's not so if it's
not in harmony with these things. If what I feel and what I believe,
be I ever so sincere, be I ever so convinced, be I ever so willing,
if what I feel and what I believe has no basis in the Word of God,
it's no more than an idle wish. That's all it is. Faith, Peter
says, requires A new birth. A new birth. Except you be born
again, our Lord said, you cannot perceive the kingdom of God nor
enter into it. And this birth, John says, is
not of blood. Paul tells us in Romans 9, 7,
and 8 that the physical children of Abraham were not the children
of God. You children here this morning
who have believing parents, don't you get the idea because your
parents are believers that that makes you one? It doesn't. And just because
Abraham was a believer and God made a covenant with him didn't
mean that all his children were automatically accepted into the
kingdom of God. Children of God are not born
of blood, and it's not of the will of the flesh. It's not of
a man's will. It's not of him that willeth.
That's what the Scripture says. So many this morning will be
deceived because they've been told that salvation is by their
will. You have to make a decision.
You have to do this. You have to do that. It's not
of him that willeth. And no man is willing until God
makes him willing. And he makes him willing in the
day of his power. And this new birth is not of
the will of man. It's not of the will of the flesh,
that is, of my own will or the will of any man's flesh. He's
cursed of God. He's got a fallen nature. He's
not willing to do anything. He hates God. But it's not of the will of all
mankind either. I don't care how many get in
a row and agree on it and say, well, you know, this is the way
it's going to be. New birth is not of the will
of man. And churches today are attempting
to impose their will over yours. That's what they're trying to
do. They're trying to impose their will over your will and
get you down and out. Well, what is it then? Well,
it's the will of God. That's what it is. It's the will
of God. Of His own will, James said,
begat He us with the word of truth. Listen to this scripture,
Ephesians 1 verse 11. I'll tell you honestly, I about
passed out the first time I read this scripture. It was so contrary
to everything that I'd been taught and everything that I'd heard
up to that point. Listen to this, Ephesians 111,
in whom also, talking about Jesus Christ, we have obtained an inheritance
being predestinated according to the purpose of him, now listen
to this, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will. Now that's, if you're going to
be a child of God, if you are a child of God, it's going to
be according to the will of God because he doesn't work any other
way. The scripture says this, he does
everything he pleases to do and he does it in heaven and he does
it in earth and all deep places. He does everything he pleases
to do. Well, what are you saying, preacher?
I'm saying that God doesn't save men by accident. He saves men
on purpose. That's what I'm trying to say.
It's not an accident when a man's saved. It's an act of God's sovereign
will and purpose. He saves men on purpose. And
that purpose is exercised and manifested and brought to pass
exactly. exactly according to the will
of God. Everything that leads up to it,
everything after that point is exactly according to the will
of God. I don't know. I listen to men
preach on TV and I read their literature when I go to the hospital.
Salvation is not a surprise party. And that's how they're presenting
it, like it's a surprise. It's not a surprise party. It's
not something that just happens without explanation or reason. It's not random. It's not circumstantial. God hath from the beginning,
isn't that what Paul said? Hath from the beginning chosen
you unto salvation through sanctification of the spirit, belief of the
truth. Whereunto, because of that, he called you by our gospel.
That sounds like he did it on purpose, don't it? Old Brother Barnard said one
time, he said, we need to give this Bible a little time. He
said, it sheds a lot of light on them commentaries. And it
does. It does. In Titus chapter 1,
verse 3, Paul says, this salvation promised by God who cannot lie
before the foundation of the world is now manifested through preaching
Now listen, according to the commandment of God our Savior. Now that's how it's going to
be done. That's how God's commanded it to be done, and that's how
it's going to be done. He purposed it that way. He commanded
it that way. He blesses it that way, and that's
how it's going to be done. And while this might not be in
the mainstream politically correct, it is according to the Word of
God exactly how God saves sinners. Now what I want to do this morning
is show you from the scriptures three things. I want these three
things to be as clear as I know how to make them. I want to tell
you first of all what faith is. What faith is. This world don't
have a clue what faith is. They think faith is a big old
sack and it's filled with treasure and you can reach in the sack
and have anything you want. That's what faith is. It's the
power of an unending wish list. I want to show you what faith
is, and I want to show you where it comes from, and then I want
to talk about what it confesses before me. All right. Here's the first thing. What
is faith? Well, I know what men say it is. What I want to know
is what God says it is. I don't much care what men say.
I've heard a lot about what men say, and most of it don't amount
to a hill of beans. I want to know what God says
on this thing. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1,
now faith is. That's what we want to know,
isn't it? What is faith? Faith is the substance of things
hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. What is the
substance? of a statement. I'm standing
up here this morning and I'm making statements to you. I'm
making declarations to you. What's the substance of it? What's
the substance of it? The substance of a statement
is the essence of it. It is that which goes to the
heart of the matter. You make a statement. Well, the
part of that statement that really takes hold is the heart of it. That's the essence of it. That's
the substance of it. That which gives it a solid foundation,
a real basis, and proves it to be substantial. Faith is the
substance of things hoped for, holding the essence of it, which
is Christ. Which is Christ. And it's the
evidence of things not seen. Now just listen to me for a minute.
I've never seen God. Anybody here ever seen God? I've
never seen God. If he has a look, I wouldn't
know what he looks like. People draw pictures of Christ,
but they don't know what he look like. I've never seen God. I've never
seen God. I've not seen him in a dream.
I've not seen him in a vision. I haven't looked up into the
clouds. You know, every now and then
somebody looks up in the clouds and they see God or see the Virgin
Mary or something and everybody flocks over there to that place
and looks up. I've not seen him, not in a vision,
not in the clouds, not in the mist. But I have seen him in
this book. Now, if you want to see God,
this is where you'll see Him, right here. I wasn't around when God the
Father appointed Christ to all of His offices. Were you anybody
here around when God appointed Christ to His offices? Well,
how do you know He did? I know that He did by the Word
of God. I wasn't present to hear the
names of God's elect as God spoke them to His Son
and chose them by divine election in His Son. I wasn't there to
hear that. But God's book tells me that
He did. It tells me that He did. And long
before I was born into this world, our Mediatorial King, the Lord
Jesus, created this world. He formed man of the dust, took
from his side a rib and made his hemp meat, made the woman,
put him in a garden, and he did all of these things exactly according
to his eternal purpose of grace. I wasn't there to see it, but
it declares that in the scripture. Thousands of years before I was
born, God the Son robed Himself in human flesh, and the Word
was made flesh and dwelt among men. I wasn't present at the
manger to see Him. Not sure He'll ever show that
to me. But I wasn't there. I wasn't there. I wasn't there
when He lived under the law as God's obedient servant. I wasn't there when they took
Him and judged Him and nailed Him on a cross and He died before
God. I wasn't there. I wasn't there. I didn't see the stable, the
manger, or the cross. But I know these things are so
by the Word of God. I was not present in glory when
God the Father declared His justice satisfied and His righteousness
sufficient. But I know that they were by
the Word of God. And I was not there when the
women visited the tomb and found it empty and heard the angel
tell them that the Lord was risen from the dead. But it's God's
testimony that He did. Huh? And I've never heard the
voice of God telling me anything concerning the faith of God's
elect, but I've seen it, and I understand it, and I can teach
it to you if you listen by the Word of God. I don't have any
other information on God other than what he's left in this book. This is the most valuable thing
physically that you can have in this world is this book right
here. And we give it less attention
than we do the map of the lake where we're going to go fishing.
That's just the truth. It is. We ignore this book. And I don't know anything apart
from it. Do you? Huh? I don't want to hear somebody's
vision out in the fog, out on the lake. I don't know what he's
been smoking or drinking. I don't want to hear that nonsense. I want to hear what this book
says. And if there is no God, then
the books have no value, and it doesn't matter whether you
hear it or not. But this book says He is. What is faith? It's the evidence
of things not seen. It's the essence which gives
substance to the things hoped for, and it takes God at His
Word. Believers are called believers
because they believe God. They believe Him. Paul said, let God be true in
every man's life. What about the Pope? Every man. Huh? What about Billy Graham? Every man. When Paul made that statement,
Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He'd been taught by Gamaliel,
the most famous preacher the Jews ever had. Paul said, let
Gamaliel be a liar. Let the Sanhedrin be a liar.
Let the whole Jewish nation perish as liars. Let God be true and
every man a liar. You know, every so often I run
into somebody, and we'll get along pretty good until I make
some kind of a statement to go sideways from whoever it was
that they loved the most, whether it's their daddy, their mama,
their grandma, or something. And boy, then they have a meltdown.
Here's what Paul's saying. Let grandma be a liar. and God
be true. Let's hear what God has to say
on this matter and let it be settled. Let it be settled. Might be through you. It was
through me that my father heard the truth. He was a Nazarene
preacher for 50 years. Isn't that something? It might be through you that
that dear old grandma might be saved. And that's what Paul begins
this chapter saying. My prayer to God, the desire
of my heart for Israel is that they might be saved. They might
hear this. I know where they're at. That's
where God found me. And I know if God purposes it,
if it's in His will, He can save them the same way He saved me. Believers believe God. David
said back in Psalm 51, he said, I acknowledge my sins that thou
mayest be justified when you speak. God's Word is justified. Therefore, I'll confess my sin
exactly as the Word of God reveals them. And God said through His prophet
Jeremiah. Now, I want you to listen to
this. This is in Jeremiah 23. He said,
I am against the prophets that steal my words and use their
tongues and say, he saith. Twist God's Word. Rest the Scriptures
to their own destruction. They steal my words and they
use their tongues and they say, God saith. He said, I'm against
them that prophesy false dreams and tell them and cause my people
to err by their lies and by their lightheartedness. He said, I've
not sent them, I've not commanded them, therefore they shall not
profit this people at all. He said, the prophet that hath
a dream, let him tell his dream. That prophet that has a dream,
let him tell his dream. And he that hath my word, let
him speak my word faithfully. What is the calf to the wheat? What is faith? Faith is a godly
persuasion. Listen to what Paul said. He
said, I know whom I have believed. And I am, what, persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against
that day. It's a godly persuasion. I can't
persuade anybody of anything. But I tell you, when God moves
in His heart, I can. All I've got to do is open to
Him the glories of this book, the glories of Christ, that sure
foundation. All I've got to do is bring those
things to Him, and man, they go home to the heart right now.
He's persuaded of them, and this world can't take it away. What is faith? It's a godly persuasion,
a godly persuasion. Paul said he was persuaded over
in Romans chapter 8, right down at the end of the chapter. He
said, I'm persuaded that neither life nor death nor principalities
nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor life nor
death nor any other creature shall be able to separate me
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord. He
was persuaded of that. How was he persuaded of that?
Right here. All right. That's what faith
is. That's what it is. All right. Here's the next question.
Where does it come from? Where does it come from? Faith
comes from God. That's the only place you can
get it. Comes from God. Listen to this
over in John chapter 6. This is the teaching of our Lord.
He said, And they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. They are taught of God. It comes
from God. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. He said,
it's the gift of God. It's not of works, lest any man
should boast. Is that not what people do with
their professions? They boast. They don't talk about
Christ. They don't talk about His glory.
They don't talk about God's justice. They don't talk about the glory
of His holiness. They don't talk about any of
those things. What they talk about is the day and the month
and the year. And they talk about their acceptance
of God, and they talk about their dreams, and their visions, and
their grandma, and everything under the sun except this. Isn't that what we're talking
about over here in Romans chapter 10? What does faith confess? Men and women do not just accidentally
hear and then randomly believe. He tells us in Matthew 13, 11,
it's given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God,
but it's not given to them. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 and 10, I hath
not seen nor e'er heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. And then John
6, 37. He said, all which the Father
hath given to me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. And then our Lord said this to
the Pharisees. They were really getting upset
after all of these things. The resurrection of Lazarus was
the icing on the cake. They said, if we don't stop this
man, we're going to lose our jobs and we're going to lose
our place under Roman rule. We're going to lose it all. And
finally, they just looked at him and they said, if thou be
the Christ, tell us plainly. He said, I told you. I told you. But you believe not. Now listen, because you're not
my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice. The means of faith, the spirit
of faith, the enabling of faith, all designed and given of God
to chosen sinners. And every one of His sheep is
going to hear. Every one of them. Every last
one that He died for is going to be brought to faith. He is
not willing that one should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
And not one thing is going to happen to this world until that
last man repents and believes. God saves men on purpose. And you might find all sorts
of things to justify your profession, but there's only one way to justify
faith, and that is as God has set it forth in His Word. He
said, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Know you're
not? Lest you be a reprobate, don't
you know whether or not you're in the faith? All right. Romans chapter 10,
verse 14. How shall they believe on Him that they have not heard? How shall they hear without a
preacher? And how are they going to preach except they be sent?
Where does faith come from? It comes from God. And I tell
you, it will do your soul a great justice. if you get in this book
and find out how God gives faith to men. Not how men say they were given
faith, what God says on the matter. All right, here's the last thing.
What does faith confess? Right here in Romans chapter
10, I want you to look at verse 8. All kinds of controversy. All kinds of arguments about
what faith confesses. Well, we believe this. You know,
a young man that I recently learned I was his uncle, he called me
up on the phone and he's a Methodist preacher and he said, this is
what we believe about baptism. What do you all believe about
baptism? You know, and he said several
things to me. What does faith confess? Romans
chapter 10 verse 8. What saith it? What does faith
confess? Now are you listening? The Word
is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy
heart. That is, did you really want
to know what it is? Here it is. The Word of faith
which we preach. That's what it confesses. That's
exactly what it confesses. What did these men preach? Paul says it's right there. It's
in your mouth. It's in your heart. It's the
word of faith which we preach. Well, what did he preach? What did he preach? Well, he
preached to them at Antioch that through this man, this Jesus
of Nazareth, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
He preached a person. He said to the Corinthians, I
preached unto you that which I also received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures. They was buried
and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. What did they preach? They preached
a person. This Bible, if you were to break
it down into three areas, you take the whole Old Testament
from Genesis to Malachi, and what this book is saying to you
is somebody's coming. Right after the fall of man,
the promise of the woman's seed was given to Adam and Eve. That's
the first gospel message in the book. And it just keeps on from
that point telling you somebody's coming. Somebody's coming. Somebody's
coming. The Jews just didn't dream up
this thing of Christ and the Messiah. It's the message of
the Old Testament. Somebody's coming. All right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
are the four Gospels of Christ, and they say there's somebody
that these prophets have been talking about has come. He's
here. He's been here. We're witnesses. And then from Acts through Revelation,
it tells us this same Jesus that was taken away is going to come
again. Somebody is coming back. You can't preach the gospel and
not preach the person of Jesus Christ. He is the gospel. They preach the person. They
preach one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
God said to Abraham, in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the
earth be blessed. All the kindreds? Huh? What about all them lost tribes
and all these people and nations and islands? Every now and then
on the sermon audio, they give you a graph that you can go look
at, and it'll tell you where these downloads are, just generally
where they are. We have downloads from people
out on islands I've never even heard of. Well, way back yonder, he told
Abraham, he said, through thy seed, all the nations of the
earth, all the kindreds of the earth, are going to be blessed.
They're going to be blessed. There's no other way for all
the kindreds of the earth to be blessed except through Abraham's
seed. And then he tells us in the book
of Galatians who the seed was. He said, now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds as of
many, but unto thy seed, which is Christ. They preached the God-man. God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. They preach Christ, the all-sufficient
Savior. He's able to save to the uttermost
all those that come unto God by Him. They preach Christ, our
righteousness. Listen to this, Romans 3.21,
but now the righteousness of God without the law. Without
the law, without anything to do with the law, the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Even the righteousness of God
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe. And then right here in Romans
10 verse 4, Paul says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to all who believe. They preached a person. An all-glorious,
eternal, all-sufficient Savior. What did they preach about this
person? He was appointed by God the Father as our covenant head
before the world began. They preached that. The average
church around you offers you preach that. But these men preached
that. And those who believed confessed
that. They confessed it. They preached, I could go on
and on and on. But to seal up this bag of God's blessings,
Paul said, but of Him, of Him, of God, are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. All in Christ. All in Christ. Aw, preacher, why can't you just
tell us how to live? I can. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in Him. That's how you live. That's how
you live. I don't need a bunch of rules
and regulations. Can't you just tell us how to
give? Present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service. I tell you. Marriage. Love your wife. Christ
loved the church. Fellowship. We walk in the light
as he is the light. We have fellowship, one with
another. The man who preaches Christ preaches
the whole counsel of God. And God worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will. When this world crucified the
Lord of glory, they did it according to His determinate counsel. When
all those nations joined together, Israel and the Gentile nations
joined together to crucify the Lord, they did what God's hand
and God's counsel determined before to be done. Oh, what does faith confess?
Well, the Word's in thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart.
The gospel of Jesus Christ declares salvation by the free and sovereign
grace of God in Christ. And those who hear it, embrace
it, and rejoice in it, confess it. They confess it when they
hear it, understand it, and believe it in their heart. They'll confess
it. And if it goes sideways with the world, it goes sideways with
the world. But it don't go sideways with the believer. It's all his
hope and all his desire. That's what Old David come to
die. And they offered him everything
under the sun. And David said, although my house
be not so with God, yet hath He made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure. And he said, this is
all my salvation and all my desire, whether or not he makes it to
grow. It's all my salvation, all my desire. All my soul. What a gospel. What a gospel.