I invite you this morning to
turn back with us to Romans chapter 4. My subject, and I pray that it's God's message
to you and I, is hope against hope. Hope against hope. There's two kinds of hope in
this world. One, Brother Mahan described
years ago, is I hope, I hope, I hope. That's one kind of hope. I sure hope it don't rain. I hope somebody remembers my
birthday. I hope, I hope, I hope. And then there's a hope based
on a solid foundation. There's hope based on divinely
inspired truth, inspired by the Spirit of God, written for our admonition. And what I preach to you in this
place is vastly different and totally
contrary to the vast majority of churches around us. It's different. It's not the
same thing. After all, we're all just preaching
the same thing. I hope not. I hope not. And I'm well aware that there
is A broad spectrum of religion out there, every size, every
shape, every creed, every color. But when they're all boiled down,
there's just two. Works and grace. Works and grace. Works religion
is all about man. It's about man's will and man's
rights and man's potential and man's glory and man's nature
and ability and man's value. It's all about man. All about man. God feeling sorry
for man. God seeing potential in man. And that's what I heard when
I grew up. I grew up in works religion and
everything I was told in this worldly religion, I found to
be denied in the Word of God. Everything they told me, now
I'm not talking about His second coming and the tribulation and
things like that. What I'm talking about is concerning
the salvation of my soul. Everything they told me, I found
to be denied in the Word of God. It just wasn't in there. It wasn't
in there at all. I was told man had a free will. Man had a free will. He was free
to choose good and evil. He was free to choose salvation
or damnation. He was free to serve God or Satan. His destiny was in his own hands
and God could not and would not violate his free will. What I
found out was that man's will is biased by his nature. He comes forth from the womb
speaking lies. He was conceived in iniquity. He loves darkness rather than
light. And if left to himself, he'll
continue on that broad road to destruction. That's where Paul
said, God found us dead in trespasses and sins. And he tells us what
that is in Ephesians chapter 2. wherein you walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, that spirit who even now worketh in the children
of disobedience. That's where he found us, on
that broad road. And it's left to himself, he'll
continue on that broad road to destruction. rejecting and refusing
all the means of grace and the message of grace and the Son
of God who brought that grace down to this world. Man's free will. Man can't choose
to fly, can he? When I was just a kid, I used
to daydream and I'd sit out on the edge of the hill and I'd
watch them birds out there and I'd dream about flying. Dream
about flying. I can't will myself to fly. Can't
do it. Can't do it. I took a little
kid swimming pool one time, jumped off the shed to see if I could
fly. I found that real quick. It was
contrary to my nature. I couldn't fly. I can't will to live underwater. I loved diving. Boy, when I was
a kid, I loved the water. swim around, especially in the
ocean where you can swim around and see all these shells and
all this stuff down on the bottom, I just hold my breath as long
as I could. I can't live underwater and I
can't will it to be so, because it's contrary to my nature. And
I tell men and women this, here's what I found out in the Word
of God, your will's not free, your will's in bondage to sin.
And these things that men talk about choosing are contrary to
their nature. They're contrary to your nature. We're bound. Bound by our natures. Suppose you just had one window. You lived in a house and it just
had one window. And no matter No matter what
came through that window, it was darkness. Everything, I don't
care what was out there, when it went through that window,
it was darkness. Do you know that that's how our
Lord Jesus Christ describes the condition of the life? And He said, if that be evil,
if that be darkness, how great is that darkness then? If everything
that comes into your mind and heart Darkness. How great is that darkness? How
are you going to choose to get out of it? How are you going
to reason a way of salvation? There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof is death and destruction. The carnal mind. That's the mind
of the natural man. The carnal mind. It's enmity
against God. It will rejoice in anything.
You can tell a natural man that if he could just believe bananas
were purple, he'd be saved. He'd jump up and down, dance,
and start worshiping God around purple bananas. He'll worship
anything but the living God. The minute you begin to define
the nature of God, begin to declare to him who God is, oh, he's angry
then. Then my eyes begin to snap. What's
he angry? The carnal mind. Enmity. Always enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God. Are you listening to me? Neither
indeed can be. His understanding is darkened
and so alienates him from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in him. He walks in the vanity of his
mind. His want to is broken. It's broken. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. He won't have them because they
seem foolishness, seem to be foolishness to him. I'm telling you this, we better
take another look at the Word of God. Man's free will just
isn't there. It's just not there. It's not
of Him anyway that willeth nor of Him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. And that's the second thing religion
lied to me about. They told me salvation was by
works. I could have salvation if I'd
choose it, number one. Number two, if I'd just walk
down that aisle. If I could just get myself out of that seat,
come down to this aisle, and pray at this old mourner's bench,
I could have this salvation. I could have it. It's all by
work. I found out after that work, there's another work. And
after that work, there's another work. It just works and works
and works and works and works. And then I picked up a Bible,
and it said, it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth. Not up here. I'm going to tell a story on
my wife. I took over some activities in
an Armenian church. I was going to do my best. I
was going to do my best to serve the Lord. So I took over working
with the young people and I took all the young ladies and the
young men in the church down. We had a car wash. I was going
to raise money for the church and do some work on it. And we
washed cars from early that morning. We wasn't expecting hardly anybody
to show up. Everybody showed up. And we washed
cars from early in the morning by hand. We washed them all day
long until about 6 o'clock that evening. And we come in and my
wife's hair was hanging straight down and she was sitting there
on the couch. And my brother-in-law and I were talking about some
of these things that I'm talking to you about this morning. And
I said, it says there, by grace are you saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And we started talking about
that, not of works, not of work. And finally, she looked up through
that wet hair at me and she said, you mean we did all this for
nothing? That's what I'm telling you.
You're doing all that for nothing. It's not of works. Not of works. Not of Him that willeth, nor
of Him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. They told
me salvation was by works. I used to see people holding
up signs, we'll work for food. Did you ever stop and try to
get one of them to do something? They won't do it. They won't
do it. And that's what men do. They
put up that profession. I'll work for salvation. But
they can't and won't do it. Man has no heart. He boasts that
he'll work for his salvation, but he cannot and will not do
what God requires. He's got no heart for it. God
declares salvation to be the free gift of His grace. And the
moment you mix in man's works, it ceases to be grace altogether
and becomes works altogether. By grace, he said, are you saved
through faith. And Paul said, if we so much
as be circumcised, Christ will profit us nothing. He said, I
do not frustrate the grace of God. That was a concern of his. It is of no concern to these
men and women that I hear around here preaching. They are not
worried about frustrating the grace of God. They are not worried
about God being just and justifying as long as He justifies. Paul said, I do not frustrate
the grace of God if righteousness come by the law. Christ died
in vain. His death was for nothing. His
appearance in this world, His condescension to take our human
flesh upon Him to be our representative and substitute, that was all
for nothing. If you can save yourself by your
works, His death is in vain. All in vain. And then thirdly,
religion told me there was a system of rewards concerning my service,
and the more I gave and served and sacrificed, the more I'd
receive in that day. But the Scriptures say that Christ
is our reward. He's our reward. I'm not looking
for a reward there. Are you? What would He reward
you for? What good thing have you ever
done that you take before the Lord of glory? Now, you remember
who He is. John the disciple. I'd say of
all the men in my mind who were close to the Lord, it'd be John.
John's name just comes always having his head leaning up on
his breast. He loved the Lord. When John
saw the Lord as He is, he fell at His feet like a dead man.
Now what good thing have you ever done? Can you imagine yourself
giving it to the Lord of glory and standing there waiting on
your reward? What prayer have you ever prayed? What task have
you ever done? It's not there, is it? That whole
thing of rewards is a bunch of baloney. Christ is our reward. And then, fourthly, religion
dangled to carry the fleshly desires to get me to pull their
wagon of lies. Now, they did that. Meet Mama
in Heaven. Meet Mama in Heaven. Meet Daddy
in Heaven. Streets of gold, and gates of
pearls, and mansions in glory, and pie in the sky, and the sweet
by and by. On and on and on it goes. Believers had one great hope
concerning heaven, and that's to see the Lord. To see the Lord. I forget who it was, but one
of the old writers, I think it was John Newton, he said there's
going to be three surprises in heaven. He said, number one,
all them folks that you thought wasn't going to be there, some
of them are going to be there. And he said, the second surprise
was all them folks that you knew absolutely for sure were going
to be there, aren't there. But the biggest surprise is if
you're there. If you're there. That would be
the biggest surprise. We won't see the Lord. We won't
be with Him, and we won't be like Him. That's the believer's
hope. Well, preacher, what's all that
got to do with the believer's hope? What's all that got to
do with this hope against hope? Well, that's what I want you
to see, that the believer's hope is a hope against hope. God promised
Abraham a coming seed. And that seed, He took him out
one night and He pointed up to the heavens and He said, I'm
going to make your seed as the stars of the sky and as the sands
of the seashore. Man, he was excited. He was excited. Years passed. On and on and on. Had no children. Had no children. One day Sarah come in and she
said, I've been thinking about this thing. Aiden, he said, She
said, here's what I think we need to do. I'm not going to
have any children. I can't have children. And so
I've got this maid. And maybe what God was talking
about was he was wanting us to, we'll have this promised seed.
We'll bring it to pass with this maid, with this handmaid. And
so they finagled around, and he had this young boy. And he
loved him. He loved that boy. But that wasn't
God's promise, see? And when Abraham was a hundred
years old and his wife a hundred years old, there was no more
hope then. No more hope. Actually, Sarah laughed even
at the thought of having any pleasure in having children. She laughed at the tempest. But God came in His appointed
time, and that's what He's talking about here in Romans 4. This
Father of Faith, this One who is the example of faith back
here, His hope was against all fleshly reasoning. All fleshly
reasoning. Contrary to everything that fleshly
reasoning and knowledge can muster up. It's contrary to our will. His people shall be willing."
When? In the day of His power. Until
then, they are not willing. They are not willing. Israel was willing to leave Egypt
when God broke their back and cast their firstborn face down
in the dust. Then they were willing. And they
were willing. When God calls their enemies
and those people that they serve in the iron furnace to just go
over and take their gold and silver and all their precious
belongings and bring it over and hand it to them. Then they
were willing. They were willing to walk out
of Egypt when God closed even the mouths of the dogs. He wouldn't
even let the dogs bark in protest when they left Egypt. They were
willing in the day of His power. And they weren't willing to pass
through that sea either. until God told His servant to
hold that staff out. And when he did, He caused the
waters of that sea to stand in a heap. And then they were willing
to cross the sea. And they weren't willing to go
into that desert, into that wilderness and be led of Moses into that
wilderness until they turned around at the sea and saw God
close in the waters on their enemies and bury their enemies
in the sea. Then they were willing. And they
were willing. And you'll be made willing, if
you're one of His, in the day of His power. In the day of His
power. You'll be made willing. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power, willing to hear an old country preacher. What does he know? He's never
been to school. He's never been to college. You mean to tell
me I have to submit to Him? I have to listen to Him? What
was it that one fellow wrote in the letter I let you all read?
He can't even conjugate verbs. I don't even know what it means.
You mean I have to listen to Him? That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Willing to
hear an old country preacher, willing to receive his message
as God's message to you. I tell you, those folks at Thessalonica,
Paul said, he said, I know your election of God. I know your
elect of God. Because when I preach to you,
he said, you receive my message as it is in truth the Word of
God to you. You received it that way. You
received it. And God's elect will. They're
not going to argue about it. They're just happy to hear the
truth. willing to rest in Christ and find satisfaction in Him,
willing to wait upon the Lord. You know what that means? Wait
upon the Lord. Oh boy, I tell you, He can put
you in a place, can't He, Caleb? You have to wait on the Lord.
You have to wait on Him. Wait on Him. I'm in a hurry,
but He ain't. Wait on the Lord. willing to wait with patience
for His return, and willing to give God all the glory. My people shall be willing in
the day of my power. They're going to be willing.
This flesh is dead in trespasses and sin, has no potential for
life, no basis of hope, yet faith finds hope in the promise of
God. And this hope necessitates a
new nature. He said, except you be born again,
you can't even perceive the kingdom of God. We need not go any further. But we'll just stop the discussion
right here, because until you're born again, you have no understanding. You've got no ability. You've
got no perception. of what God's declared in this
book. You'll take it and flip it around
backwards. That's exactly what you'll do
with it. Those Pharisees, they could tell
you wherever comma, that's what's called a tittle in the Bible,
commas and all of these little punctuation marks and things,
they could tell you if you left one out. They could tell you,
uh-uh, uh-uh, question mark goes right there, period goes right
there. They knew this book inside out. They not only knew where the
book of Jeremiah was, they could tell you all of his grandchildren's
names. They knew this book inside out.
He said, you search the Scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life. And they are they that testify
of me. But you won't come to me that
you might have life. Why not? They've never been born
again. They've been born. He said, I came into the world
and I made the world, and the world knew me not. And I came
unto my own. People I sent prophets to, people
I sent wise men to, people I delivered out of national bondage, people
I came to my own, and my own received me not, but to as many
as received me. To as many as received Me, to
them gave I the power to become sons of God who were born. Ain't that what that says? Born. Except you be born again, you
cannot perceive the Kingdom of God. Well, where's the potential
for that? It ain't in you. I can tell you
that. It ain't in you. It's in the
promise of God. He said, being born again not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. It's the Christian hope that
the gospel which we preach is the good seed of God by which
life is brought forth into the soul. He said, this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. of God's own will begat
he us with the Word of truth. And God directs His providence
and preachers to His elect, and His elect unto His preachers.
He said, How shall you hear without a preacher, and how can he preach
except he be sent? And then the Christian hope is
a hope unseen. Now let me tell you something. When the great high priest entered
into the tabernacle on the Day of Atonement, note everybody
was forbidden to be in that tabernacle. Those who daily had the right
to come in and serve the tabernacle were forbidden on that day to
go in. What he did, he did alone. What he said, he said alone.
What he offered, he offered alone. No man saw Him again until He
came back out the door of the tabernacle. No man saw Him until He appeared
the second time. His apostles all saw Him before
and after His resurrection. But no man saw Him enter into
heaven's glory, and no man saw Him make His priestly intercession,
and no man saw Him crowned with glory and honor. Our hope is
based completely upon the promise of His Word and the presence
and power of His Holy Spirit. And like Israel, we wait outside
the tabernacle. Unto them who look for Him shall
He appear the second time, just like that high priest did, without
sin unto salvation. We wait for the consummation
of it. For we, through the Spirit, wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. That is, we wait for
the consummation of it and the perfecting of it. In Romans 8, verse 24, the Bible
said we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not
hope. Hope that is seen is not hope.
If you see it, why do you yet hope for it? If it's something
tangible, if it's something you can get a hold of, if it's something
you can see, why do you yet hope for it? But if we hope for that
we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Abraham's hope given
to him by the promise of God was not dependent upon the strength
and the potential and the power of the flesh. And when he tried
that, God turned it upside down. He said, Ishmael is not going
to be heir with Isaac. Let me give you just a few things
and I'll wind this up. This world is damned and doomed
under the judgment of God. Did you know that? By one man. Sin entered into
the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all
men. All men. By the offense of one,
judgment came upon all men to condemnation. This world is damned
and doomed under the judgment of God, and there is but one
escape, and that is the person of Jesus Christ. I do not preach
a universal love. God's love is particular. He
said, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. And I do not
preach a universal redemption. If Christ died for all men, then
all men will be saved. But He said, the good shepherd
giveth his life for the sheep. Christ died for His elect. But
I do preach a universal propitiation. He is the propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole
world. I have but one message of hope
to this world, and that is the man Christ Jesus, as God has
set him forth as our propitiation. I set him wholly and completely
as the propitiation, he who can propitiate God. And I have that same message
for anybody I preach to, saved or lost. I don't care who you
are and where you came from. It's the unchangeable will of
God that everyone that seeth the Son, what's that mean? Sees Him as God has set Him forth
as the propitiation for our sins. It's God's unchangeable will
that everyone that seeth the Son and believes on Him may have
everlasting life. He's the only hope we have set
before us in this present evil world. And then let me move just
a little bit closer. Every individual in this place
is cursed with a carnal nature. Destruction, he said, and misery
are in our ways, all gone out of the way. mouths full of cursing
and bitterness, no fear of God before your eyes, filled with
evil thoughts and murders and adulteries and fornication and
thefts and blasphemies. And there is only one hope for
the sinner, and that is that the living God, according to
His eternal purpose and by His free and sovereign grace, call
you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Just one hope. You can't find any hope in this
flesh if God doesn't call you, irresistibly call you. Overcome all your reservations
and all your putting off and all these things. Overcome all
your ideas about worldly religion and works and free will. If He
don't call you with an irresistible call like He did Lazarus, He
called, there wasn't but one man came out of the tomb, and
that's whose name He called. Lazarus came out. Raised you from spiritual death
into which you were born. And He said, make you meet to
be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in life. This flesh
is not in a present state of evolution. This flesh cannot
be reformed, changed, or brought into subjection. He said that
which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's all it's ever going
to be. But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. I wonder
sometimes how much of that I really know. Paul said he knew. He said, I know that in my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. Do I really know that? Huh? I quit looking to it when
I do. I quit searching for something
there when I do. I have only one way of escape
out of the same bondage. Will you listen to me? Those
angels which left their first estate and sinned against God,
God hath bound them in chains of darkness. everlasting chains
of darkness. They can't get out. They can't
escape. They can't move. There's no hope for those fallen
angels. And man is under the same condemnation and held by
the same chains. And I've got only one hope of
escape out of that same bondage that binds the fallen angels
with those chains of darkness. And that is, by the grace of
God, He send me a preacher and accompany him and his message
with the power of the Spirit of God. And call me, call me,
move me, create me anew. And this world, this world is
filled with antichrist religion. This world serves the prince
of darkness. They all walk according to the
prince of the power of the air, that spirit, he said, who now
worketh in the children of disobedience. And this world is filled with
temptations and trouble. And there is no end to what it
offers and dangles before the flag. Only one way of escape
out of it. Only one hope. How can any man
survive this world? How can he endure these temptations
and persevere against such odds? Are you listening to me? Philippians
chapter 1 verse 6. being confident of this very
thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it unto the day of Jesus Christ. That's your only hope. If it
wasn't for that, you'd be swallowed up. The devil will take you captive
at his will, just like he does everybody else. Our hope is that
God works in us. both to will and to do of His
good pleasure. And then listen to this. He says
at the end of Hebrews chapter 10, and if you've never read
that chapter, don't put it off. Go home this afternoon and read
that chapter front to back. But at the end of that chapter,
He said, now the just shall live by faith. You read that chapter
and God opens your eyes, you'll understand what He's talking
about. The just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back,
Judas did, Demas did, he said, my soul shall have no
pleasure in him. But we are not of them that draw
back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul. And then lastly, what's my hope
when I close these eyes in death and this heart stops beating,
my body turns cold and they put me in that box and shut the lid?
What's my hope now? Huh? What's my hope now? Here's my hope. Paul said, for
we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved,
we have a building of God and house not made with hands, eternal. in the heavens. To be absent,
he said, from this body, just like that, to be present with
the Lord. And then at that last day there
will be a bodily resurrection. Job said, though after my skin
worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Oh, but what an awful thing in
that day when loved ones, those we've preached to and ministered
to, shall be separated from us forever. Those that we've spent years
weeping over, labored to preach and teach,
counsel and talk to, what about that day? What about that day
when maybe some of your children depart, you workers of iniquity? I never knew you. What about
that day when your friends and all these loved ones departed? What's your hope then? What are
you going to do then? What's going to be your hope
in that day? Here's the believer's hope. God Himself shall wipe
away all tears. God Himself shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes, and there be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former
things are all passed away. They're gone. They're gone. That's what it means to hope
against hope. Hope rises above this flesh and
above this world and above reasoning, and it lays hold on divinity. It lays hold on divine wisdom. And that wisdom altogether is
in the person of Jesus Christ. And so what can I tell you? I
can tell you what I've been telling you ever since I've come here.
Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Seek Him. Go to Him. Embrace Him. Rest
in Him. Hope in Him. He that hath the
Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life.