10 of the book of Romans and
I'd like to read the first 10 verses. Romans 10 beginning with verse
1. Brethren my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness
which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things
shall live by them. But the righteousness which is
of faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine heart who shall
ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above,
or who shall descend into the deep, that is, to bring up Christ
again from the dead. But what saith it? The word is
nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. that is the
word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. Now I read the first 10 verses
of the 10th chapter of the Book of Romans to you, but I had Brother
Halbert to read the 9th chapter of the Book of Romans, and you
might just want to turn back there with me just a moment.
I'll kind of give you a preface here for our message this morning
and mention a couple of verses here in the 9th chapter of the
Book of Romans. Now people, for the most part,
in and outside of our churches in this day and time have the
wrong idea altogether about our preaching. They just simply do
not understand what it is that we're trying to do when we get
up to preach. Now the common idea is that the
preacher is out to change somebody's mind about something, that the
preacher is out, if he can possibly do it, that he's trying to convince
people of something that the Bible says, that he's trying
to convince them that Jesus Christ is Lord and that they ought to
believe that, that he's out to convince them of these things. that I'm trying somewhere or
another to get them to stop doing something that they are doing
and to start doing some things that they're not at this time
doing. That's the common idea of people
that sit in the pew. Well, let me assure you this
morning that everybody here that is here this morning in this
building that's lost, everybody that's here that is a stranger
to the Lord Jesus Christ and has not the love of Christ in
their heart, And they're on the road to hell, they're on the
road to eternal judgment, they're on the road to the place which
is described in the Bible as that place where the worm doth
not and the fire is not quenched, that those very people, that
they're going to stay on that road if they can. They're going
to stay on that road. And there isn't anything... Now
listen, if it depends upon you, if it depends on me, if it depends
on anybody here, you're going to stay right on the road that
you're on now, the road to hell. You're going to stay on that
road. And there isn't anybody going to change it. I'm not going
to turn you from this road. I'm not going to turn you from
this way. And you left to yourself, you're
not going to turn either. And nobody else is going to turn
you not into the way of God's salvation. There's no man going
to be able to do that for you. He's not going to be able to
turn you into that way wherein you will miss the judgment of
God because your heart is set on staying in the road that you're
now traveling. Now, I'm not going to turn, as
we said, and you left to yourself, you're not going to turn, nobody
else is going to do it. Now, I don't care who your preacher
is. You say, well, my preacher's Billy Graham. You say, well,
my preacher's Rex Humbard or Jimmy Swaggard or my preacher
is Hyman Appleman or someone else. Well, let me say this to
you this morning, that not even the Apostle Paul himself, could
turn you this morning from your sin unto God as a man. He's not able to do that. Preachers
are not able to turn people in and of themselves. Now, they
might have some effect upon somebody, move somebody emotionally, or
cause somebody to make a decision about something, but preachers
are not able to turn sinners from the way of sin and the way
of death unto eternal life. They cannot do that in and of
themselves. And that's not what I'm about
here this morning. I'm not here to do that for you
because I'm unable to do it for you. Now then, not even if one
rose from the dead and stood here this morning before you
and preached to you would you repent and turn from your way. You wouldn't do it. And we remember
that Abraham told the rich man in hell that about his brothers.
He said if one rose from the dead and went into their community
and preached before them, they would not repent. They would
not repent. Now you're dead set on going
to hell then if you can. That's what you're going to do.
You're going to stay right on the way and you're going to keep
on going until you get to hell. That's exactly what you're going
to do. Now you, my friend, only have
one hope. There's only one hope for you
this morning. If you're sitting here under
the sound of my voice, there's just one hope for your never-dying
soul, and that is that God, in sovereign mercy, will look upon
you and stop you on your road to hell and turn you about. that
God will intervene, that God will do something to turn you
around and to start you on the way unto himself and to eternal
salvation. Look at verse 15 and 16 of Romans
9. For he saith to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then, in verse 16, it is not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. The mercy of the Bible is sovereign
mercy and it's God's prerogative to show it or to withhold it. Salvation is of the Lord altogether. It's the only hope you have and
I cannot do it and nobody else can do it for you. Nobody else
can do it for you. Now if you will, I don't want
you to entertain the idea at all that a preacher can change
you or your mind. Your mindset is toward sin and
it's toward hell if you be a lost soul. Your mindset is toward
no preacher then can help you in all the logic all the argument,
all the illustration, all the human reasoning, and all the
digging up of lost scrolls. If you can, if you can find the
Dead Sea Scrolls and read them, all of these will never convince
you that this Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus Christ
can save your soul unless the Divine Spirit undertake for you. Unless God opens your eyes, unless
the Spirit of the Lord does the work in your soul, nothing will
ever convince you of the truth. Salvation is of the Lord. Now I'll tell you something else
too. And that is that Everest Pharisee that's here this morning
in this building. You might be here this morning,
you might be wrapped in the robe of self-righteousness, in the
robe of human merit. Righteousness, you know, that
you feel is sufficient to get you into glory. Everybody here
that is trusting their own works, their own goodness, and their
own merit to approve themselves before God, you're going to stay
in those garments. You're just going to keep on
wearing those rags. You're just going to keep on
believing somewhere that you're going to take comfort from those
self-righteous garments that you're wearing. You're going
to believe that somehow or other you're going to be all right
because of what you've done, because of what you're doing,
or because of what you're not doing. That somewhere or another
God's going to approve of you and that you're going to enter
into heaven. And all the arguments that I might use. It's not going
to convince you that it's not going to work. There's no way. And listen, it doesn't do any
good to argue scripture. And I don't want to argue it
with anybody. I believe in preaching the Word
of God and proclaiming the Word of God. But it doesn't do any
good, you see, to argue with a man because you persuade a
man against his will, he's of the same opinion still. It won't
do any good for you to argue with an individual. And unless
God comes and does something, unless God comes and strips you
of all of these rags of your own righteousness and your own
self-worth, unless God strips you of those things, you will
never really be persuaded. Now Saul of Tarsus is a good
example of what I'm talking about. You remember that he was all
wrapped up in his religion and in his religious tradition, in
his righteousness, his Phariseeism? And how long was he all wrapped
up in that? I'll tell you how long he was
wrapped up in that. He was wrapped up in that until
God Almighty unhorsed him and arrested him and smoked him and
revealed Christ to him on the road to Damascus. And if the
Lord hadn't intervened, If the Lord had not intervened in Saul
of Tarsus' case, he would have died and went to hell a Pharisee. You believe that? Well, I want
you to know it's the gospel truth. He would have never been saved.
His eyes would have never been opened. He would have never believed
on Jesus Christ unless God would have intervened in his life.
And the same is true with you here this morning. The same is
true, I say, with you. Now listen to me this morning.
Everybody here that believes, and this is something that you
just gotta face. Everybody here that believes
that salvation is by free will is just gonna keep on believing
it. They're going to keep on believing it. You believe salvation
is an act of the human will. That man is God when it comes
to salvation. That it depends upon man. And
that only man can let God save him. And that man is in the driver's
seat. And you believe in a man-centered
religion. You believe that? You're just
going to keep on believing it until God who made eyes Until
He's pleased to open your eyes and to show you that He's God
sitting on the throne and that salvation is all together of
Him. Until God who made ears, until
He's pleased to open your deaf ears and to make your deaf ears
hear that He is the Lord, that He's God, and that He is the
God of salvation. He's the God that turns sinners
into the way. Now this is so, what I'm telling
you here this morning is so. Now you look at verse 29 and
you see that in Romans 9. And as Isaiah said before, except
the Lord of Sabaoth hath left us a seed, we had been of Sodom
and been made like unto Gomorrah. Why there would have been no
such thing as a Noah, there'd have been no such thing as an
Abraham, no such thing as an Isaac, Simeon, David, no such
thing as Saul of Tarsus converted. If it had not been for the Lord,
if it had not been for Him leaving us a remnant, we'd all been like
Sodom and Gomorrah. We'd all went to hell. We'd all
die under the flames of judgment and everlastingly be damned if
it wasn't for the Lord intervening. And that's exactly what you read
there in verse 29. If the Lord had not left us a
remnant, if God hadn't intervened and left us a seed, if God hadn't
done something, if God hadn't taken the initiative, if the
Lord hadn't got into the business of saving sinners, then we'd
all went to hell. We'd all been to Sodom and Gomorrah. You have to face these things.
These are real and true things that I'm preaching to you this
morning. And I want you to understand this. The preacher is helpless.
He's not able to do anything for you. My purpose here this
morning is just to preach the truth as it's revealed in the
Word of God and depend upon the Spirit to make it effectual where
He will, when He will, and with whom He will. The God of the
Bible is able to turn the sinner and turn him unto himself. And
everybody that is turned, everybody that has ever been turned, everybody
that ever shall be turned unto God and to his salvation, God
receives all the glory and the praise and the honor of it because
he did the work. I remember, and this is so amazing
how God does this, and we mentioned the case of Saul of Tarsus and
what a wonderful conversion that was, a demonstration of the power
of God in turning that sinner unto himself. I was reading this
last week about a doctor who lived back during the days of
the war between the states, back during the days of the Civil
War. And he was a very alerted man, very intelligent man, and
on one occasion he listened to an old school Baptist man give
his experience, tell of his experience. And this doctor, of course, was
a skeptic and he listened to this old school Baptist, a man
who believed in sovereign grace and mercy, tell about how God
had arrested him, how God had saved him, and how God had moved
upon his heart, how the Lord had done such a great work in
his soul, and this doctor thought he was insane. And so he wrote
a paper, and in this paper he described this insanity, the
insanity here, the insane condition of this man, and he described
this man and what he had to say and so on, and they published
that in a medical journal. And he got several letters of
commendation from other doctors around the country that read
what he had to say about this insanity, you see. And after
just a few years later in his life, God was pleased to move
upon his soul and began a work in his heart. And within ten
years time, this fellow who had wrote this article about how
insane that this primitive Baptist fellow was, he was preaching
the same truth that he described as insanity in this thesis that
he wrote for this medical journal. God turned him about. God undertook
for him. You think that that fellow would
have been left alone, left to himself, if God would have never
done anything in his life, that he would have ever been turned?
No, he would have never been turned. God changed him God saved
him. It was God's work. Now then,
we look at our verses here in Romans chapter 10 this morning
and I want to preach the gospel to you today even though we cannot
change anybody's mind or heart, we cannot alter anybody's direction,
We want to just preach the gospel believing that God is able, that
God is able to change hearts and to turn men and women unto
himself. So notice if you will in Romans
10 here, we're going to use verses 1 through 10. There are four
things here that we're going to mention this morning. The
number one thing we're going to mention is the preacher's
desire. His great desire and his prayer. And the second thing
is the preacher's discernment. His discernment. And the third
thing will be the preacher's message. And the fourth thing
will be the preacher's conclusion. His conclusion. Now then, first
of all, the preacher's desire and his prayer. We find that
in verse 1 here of Romans chapter 10. He says, Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. My heart's desire
and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Now, beloved, God will not bless
Insincerity. If a preacher is insincere, God
won't bless him. I believe that Paul here was
a sincere man. And when he made this statement,
he said, this is my heart's desire. This is what my heart desires. I want to see men and women saved. I want to see Israel saved. That they might be saved. This
is my desire. This is my prayer. Now beloved,
this was Paul's motive. His motive was the glory of God
and the salvation of sinners. prayer was unto God because he
knew that God only could do that for Israel, that God only could
save a remnant out of that people. What about our motive? Is our
motive, listen, we know that in our day and time there are
people that just want to be heard. I know of preachers that's got
great big egos and they want to be heard. Anytime they get
around somebody they want to talk, they want to tell somebody
something and they just simply want to be heard. Everyone in
our day wants a platform to express their views. Now there are those
that would just simply want to promote their religious cause,
their own particular religious cause or denomination. And there
are those that just, well, listen, there are those that just simply
want to get up and get before people and tell out what's in
their minds. Whether it be of God, whether
it be of the truth, or whether it be a lie. They just simply
want to be heard. But listen to what Paul says.
Paul would say to you this morning, I can't convert these people.
I cannot convert these people, but I want God to convert them. I'm sincere in that. And I know
this morning that God's able to save and I want God to save
everybody here. That's my desire. If it would
fit into his will, into his purpose, I wish that God would save everybody
that comes into this place and listens to us preach. Now I cannot
change these rebels, Paul would say, into believers, but God
can do it. God can do it. And so he said,
my heart's desire and my prayer. Now look back, if you will, to
the book of Exodus, chapter 32. The book of Exodus, chapter 32,
and we see Moses here, he's the same kind of a man. And beloved,
this is very, very impressive. Indeed, it's impressive to me
when I see the sincerity of men like Paul and men like Moses. Now Moses had been up on the
mount and he'd been gone four weeks and better. and he came
back off of the mount and the children of Israel down there,
you see he went up there and he got the law of God and here
he come down to the two tables of stone and the people had somewhere
or another they talked Aaron in to making him a god and he
said well give me your gold and they gave him his gold and he
put it in the fire and he said a calf came out And they were
worshiping that calf, as it were in idolatry there, naked, worshiping
that calf. And when Moses come down and
heard all of the singing and the carrying on in the camp,
he threw the stones down, broke the stones, and he went and got
the calf and he ground it all up and put it in the water and
made the people drink it. And he was mildly provoked. Here
in verse 31 and Moses returned to the Lord and said all this
people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold
Yet now this is verse 31 and 32 of Exodus chapter 32 And he
says yet now If I will forgive their sin, and then you notice
there's a line there that means that Moses He said, yet now if
thou wilt forgive their sin. And he just paused. He just stopped
right there. He just waited. He's talking
to God and he's talking to God on the behalf of these Israelites
who greatly sinned against the Lord. And he said, yet now if
thou wilt forgive their sin. And if not, then blot me, I pray
thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." Just blot me out
of the book that you've written. Now this is similar to what we
find the Apostle Paul saying over here in the 9th chapter
of the book of Romans here in verses 1. He says, I say the
truth in Christ. I lie not, my conscience also
bearing witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself
were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according
to the flesh. And so you see where the apostle
here says, I could wish that I was a person from Christ, that
I had no interest in Christ, if it could bring my brethren
to where that they would have open eyes and open ears. Now Paul, as we know that he's
the writer here of the book of Romans, and we know that the
Spirit of God led him as he wrote these things. And I believe with
all of my heart that he was absolutely sincere. And I believe that Moses,
being the great interceder that he was before God for the people,
he was sincere. And it was his heart's desire. It was in his heart. And the
people of God, listen to me, we ought to have a heart toward
those that are strangers to God and those that know not the truth. We ought to pray for them and
we ought to ask God to undertake for them. He says, my prayer
to God, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they be saved. And he says, I speak the truth
in Christ, I lie not. This is the true burden of my
soul. I speak the truth in Christ.
I'm not lying to you. This is my desire. I want to
see people born of the Spirit of God moved and changed and
brought in to the living family of God. Now listen to me this
morning. Paul always told men the truth. He spoke to men the
truth. He wasn't out handling the Word
of God deceitfully to get results and trying to build a name for
himself. He spoke the truth because he
believed that God would own the truth and honor the truth and
that through the truth being preached that God would save
His people and that the people of God needed no other attraction. except the truth of God's grace
to draw their hearts, if they were the elect of God, unto himself. Now then, we have no business
teaching and preaching and witnessing, and we have no business in this
business, if this is not our business to be an instrument
in the hands of God to the glory of God and the salvation of the
lost sheep. If we're not interested, if we're
not sincere, if it's not our only cause, If it's not our only
cause, we've got no business being in the business of preaching. And certainly the man whom God
has called and laid hold of and sent out to preach, this is his
only business indeed. I want God to work. I live for
that. We've seen it before, and I believe
that God will do it again. And I want to live to see it
again. I want to see those whose hearts the Lord has touched and
whose hearts the Lord has changed and see them brought in to rejoice
in a sufficient, all-sufficient Savior. Well, it seems to me
that our motive will dictate indeed our message, and if we
have the right motive, then we'll probably have the right message. And I hope that our desire is
right toward God, that we want to see the salvation of lost
sinners. Now the second thing that I want
to mention is the preacher's discernment. the preacher's discernment. Now here in verse two, he says,
for I bear them record. He says, I know these people.
I know these people. I know them better than anybody
else. I know them. And he says, I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God, but this zeal, this enthusiasm
they have for the things of God, he says, it's not according to
knowledge. He said, these people are ignorant. Now that was Paul's discernment.
He knew these people and he knew their situation. They have a
zeal of God but no knowledge. I know these people are zealous.
They're zealous for their religion. They're zealous, very zealous
for their traditions. Why they won't wash their hands?
They must wash their hands before they eat. They will not eat until
they do. They're very zealous about their
tradition. They won't eat any pork. And
they want to keep the Sabbath. Oh, they must keep the Sabbath.
They won't even gather sticks on the Sabbath day. Oh, these
people are very zealous indeed. Paul says, I know them. I know
them. Now listen to me. They're ignorant
of God's righteousness in verse 3. Notice this. For they being
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. holy, and if you don't know that,
then certainly you do not know him. Now they're going about,
Paul said, to establish their own righteousness, and this is
proof that they don't know God. This is proof that they're strangers
to the truth of God and strangers to God's gospel. Well, they'll
join the church, they might stop smoking, they might stop gambling,
they might stop drinking and playing cards, and they will
go to church on Sunday, and they read the Bible, and they're good
to their wife all week and their family, and they pay their debts,
and they're good moral people, and they think that God is going
to notice it. That God will surely take account
of it. That surely it's going to bring
them into favor with God. And surely God's going to reward
them for it and give them a place in heaven when they die. Surely
God will do this. No, no, my friend. That's filthy
rags in the sight of God. All that stuff that I mentioned
is filthy rags in the sight of God. It's an abomination to God. This is evidence that they do
not know God, that they're doing this very thing. Listen to me
this morning, the holiness of God is so immaculate, infinitely,
it's infinite, it's unchangeable, it's unapproachable that we cannot
conceive of the holiness and the righteousness of God much
less to believe that we can by a little something that we do
become holy enough and righteous enough to fellowship Him that
is thrice holy, that this God that is absolutely so holy that
not even the heavens are pure in his sight. His requirements
are beyond our abilities in the flesh and we cannot, we cannot
produce our own righteousness. He does not just require in his
holy law that you love him But he said, you must love me with
all of your heart, all your mind, your soul, your strength. You
got to love me supremely, not just have a little love for me
and come around once a week and drop a dime or two in the offering.
No, no, you must love me supremely. All the spirit of the law. Very
few people know anything about that. Few people know something
about the letter of it, but not about the spirit of the law.
Now listen, man at his best state, the Bible says, is altogether
vanity. That's in his best state. We
won't even waste any time talking about him in his worst state.
Except your righteousness, Jesus said, exceed the righteousness
of the best man on earth, You will in no wise enter into the
kingdom of God. If you're trying to gain the
favor of God by what you're doing, it just simply won't work. Only
Christ, only Jesus Christ please God. Now this shows that you
don't know God to think that you can do or give or that you
somehow or other can induce God to have favor upon you. Now we
get through a day once in a while that's a pretty good day. Every
once in a while we remain cheerful all day and somehow or other
we're able to be kind and benevolent all day and we just don't get
put out with anybody or anything. Everything just goes real smooth
and you know we come to bedtime in the evening Maybe we'd get
the Bible and we'd look at a few verses and wink up at God, you
know, and say, well, now we've just been, oh, haven't we been
so good this day? We've just been so good. We just,
I mean, we just, surely, surely, God, you will take notice of
how good a day I've had and just how good I've been. Well, listen
to me this morning. I want to say it clearly. I want
you to understand what I'm saying. I want to shoot, listen if I
can, burst your balloon and I want you to see what I'm talking about
this morning. I want you to understand the
message of the gospel. God Almighty, in the best day
that you ever lived, In the best moment that you ever spent, the
best second that you spent in life, God would have to send
you to hell for it if you stood before him on the basis of that
moment, that second, or that day. If that's all you have,
God will have to send you to hell. Because that ain't good
enough because of who you are and what you are. God would have
to send you to hell, and he would. Now there's none righteous, the
Bible says, no, not one. And we cannot have favor with
God except as we stand in another, except as we're in the substitute,
except as we're in Jesus Christ, we cannot have any favor with
God. God will only look at us as we're hid in the Lord Jesus
Christ, so that he cannot see us Anything that reminds Him
of us, only Christ. And as God looks upon Christ,
He'll have favor upon your poor soul. But He'll not have favor
upon your poor soul until you have a standing in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now who is the best man here
this morning? Who is the best man here? Is
it the deacons? Is it the preacher? Is it the
fellow who reads the Bible most? Is it the man who prays the most?
Is it the man who gives the most money? Who is the best man here?
Now there's not a man in here this morning that is good in
and of himself. Say what you want to. Tell me
anything you want to tell me about yourself. There is not
a man or woman in here that is good in and of themselves. There is none righteous, no not
one. Now that man's goodness, whoever
you pick out and say this man represents us, he's the best
man in here. Well whoever you pick out this
morning, listen to me, Christ must be his goodness just the
same as the worst man in here if he's going to heaven must
have Christ as his goodness. The best and the worst of us
must have Jesus Christ or we will not enter into heaven. We must be in Christ or we cannot. We have no goodness Now listen,
our goodness is Christ or we're damned and God will never look
our way until we get into the Lord Jesus or we're in Christ. Now if we're in Christ, God will
look your way. He'll look your way. It doesn't
make any difference whether you think you've had a good day or
haven't had. God will look your way if you're in His Son. God
will have mercy on you if you're in His Son. If He has put you
in Christ, then He'll bless you just like Christ ought to be
blessed. Because Christ has been cursed with a curse that ought
to have fallen on you, my friend. Well, Paul says, I know these
people. And they will not, look at verse
3 here, they will not submit themselves unto the righteousness
of God. I know them. I know these people. God has provided what he demanded. He provided righteousness and
these people won't have it. They won't have it. I preach
Christ to them, they won't have it. Their eyes, listen, their
eyes are, the veil is over their eyes. Their ears are all plugged
up. God's provided everything he
demands and says just believe it and they won't have anything
to do with it They'll have nothing to do with it Now my friend,
this is Paul's discernment Now we notice here, he says, I know
these people, and he says Christ in verse 4 is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Now that means
that he's the goal of the law, Christ is the goal of the law,
or he's the consummation of the law. Christ is the believer's
righteousness, he's the end, the consummation of the holy
law of God. And the law ends with Christ
as far as righteousness is concerned. When an individual believes on
the Lord Jesus Christ, now that he doesn't look any longer to
law righteousness and law obedience, he looks to Christ who is the
E-N-D of the law. Christ is the end, the goal of
the law. And no man No man establishes
the law until he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the
law can only bring condemnation to the sinner. The Bible says
by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his
sight. It's only as we submit ourselves
unto the righteousness which God has provided in his own Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. My friend, why would you want
to stay and hang on to these old rags? Why wouldn't you want
to put them off and get them garments that are white? Those garments that God will
accept. Worship, believe upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now the third thing that we have
is the preacher's message. We've had his desire, we've had
his discernment, and now we have his message. Now the message
of the Apostle Paul here is twofold. Number one is what the law says.
And number two, it's what the gospel says. We have here, first
of all, then, what the law says. And what does the law say? Well,
look at it, if you will, here in the fifth verse. He says, For Moses describeth
the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth
those things shall live by them. It's the man that doeth. Do you
see that? Do you see that word? This is
the message of the law. The message of the law is that
the man that doeth these things shall live by them. Well, what's
he saying? He's saying, Moses says, that
we must keep the whole law if we're going to be saved by it.
We must stick to it. We must not offend in one point
of the law or we're guilty of all. We must keep the spirit
of the law and the letter of the law perfectly. I mean we've
got to do it all. And so this is your assignment
as long as you live, if you're going to be saved by the law,
is to do it and do it all and to do it perfectly as long as
you live. That's your assignment under
the law. Now perfection, that's what the
law says. Perfection. You do it perfectly. if you're going to live by it.
Now Galatians 3 and 10 says this, for as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written cursive is
everyone that continueth not in all things that are written
in the book of the law to do them. Galatians 3 and 10. Charles
Spurgeon one time met a Jewish rabbi and he was talking to this
old rabbi He asked him a question. He said, Rabbi, he said, what
is your religion? And this rabbi said, well, he
said, my religion is the law of God. That's my religion. And Spurgeon said, well, he said,
I've got a question I want to ask you. He says, does not your
law say that cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
that are written in the book of the law to do them. What are
you going to do about the curse? What you going to do about it? He paused for a while and his
head dropped and he said I've never yet figured that out what
I'm going to do about the curse. Well Paul, he'd tell us what
to do about the curse. And we notice that here in verse
6, look at it. He said, but the righteousness
which is of faith speaketh on this wise. The righteousness
which is of faith, it speaks a different message. It speaks
another word. There's hope in this word. Listen to what he says here.
Now then, as we read this verse of scripture, he says, who shall
descend Well first of all he said who shall ascend into heaven
that is to bring Christ down from above. Well who's going
to do that? There's no need for that. Christ
has already come down from above. God sent him down from heaven.
We couldn't get him to come down. No way we could have ever got
him to come down and even if we could have got up there to
get him to bring him down he wouldn't have come with us. But
the father, when the father sent him he came, didn't he Carl?
He did. He came down from heaven because the father sent him down
here. Alright, so he's already came
down. So that isn't, that isn't, you don't have to lay your hands
on that, do you? Christ has already came down. And then we take note
here in verse 7, or who shall descend into the deep? That is
to bring up Christ again from the dead. Anything required on
your behalf? Who was it raised him from the
dead? Who raised Christ from the dead, I ask you? Well, the
Father raised Him up. The Father raised Him up. The
bonds and the bands of death could not hold Him. And He came
forth out of the tomb. The Father raised Him up. And
so there's none of us here got to go down there and get Him
and bring Him up. Get your hands off of it. There
ain't anything in the world that you need to do. Take your hands
off. Salvation is not what you do
for God. It's what God's done for us in
the person of His Son. Take your hands off. Hands off
if you please. Then he goes on here to tell
us what this is. He says in verse 8, this is,
this verse here he says, the word is nigh thee. This is what
the word says. Well, it's in your mouth and
in your heart. That is the word of faith which
we preach. The word of faith which we preach. Now listen to this in verse nine.
That thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. If
you confess that this Jesus who came down from heaven, who was
born of a virgin, This Jesus who lived on earth and obeyed
His Father's will and submitted Himself to the law of God and
obeyed every jot and tittle of it. If you believe that this
Jesus is Lord, that this Jesus is Lord if you believe that he's
the one God sent and the one that God anointed to come to
be Savior and to deliver his people if you believe Jesus if
you believe on him in your heart and confess him with your mouth
that God raised him from the dead if you believe that God
did this that God sent him and that God raised him up from the
dead If you believe it, you'll be saved. Even though you don't
have any law of righteousness. Even though you've never done
anything that you think will commend you to God. Even though
all you've got is your sin, that's all you have. It's your waywardness
and rebellion and your wicked nature and all you've got is
just pity, pitiful, pitiful sin. Listen, God will save you if
you believe this. That's what it says. Alright? Now then, you say, well preacher,
I just can't see it. I just can't see it. Look back
here at Romans 4 with me real quick. Romans 4. And look at
this. Romans 4. And we'll start right
here at verse 20. It's about Abraham. It says,
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. But
was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And being fully persuaded
at what he had promised he was able to perform. And most of
you know what this is about. You know Abraham was 100 years
old and his wife was 90 and God said you're going to have a baby.
He believed it, and Isaac was born. And therefore, listen to
this, he was fully persuaded what he had promised, he was
able to perform, and verse 22, and therefore it was imputed
to him for righteousness. Imputed, that means to reckon,
that means to charge to the account of. And so his faith was charged
to his account as being for righteousness. He just believed God and God
said you're righteous in my sight. Now look at verse 24. In verse
23 and 24, now it was not written for his sake alone that it was
imputed or accredited to him. but for us also to whom it shall
be accredited or imputed if we believe on him that raised up
Jesus our Lord from the dead. And so you see, it will be imputed
to us likewise, just like it was to Abraham. Abraham was the
father of the faithful, as God dealt with him, he'll deal with
us. Abraham believed God, he was imputed to him for righteousness,
and the same is true with us. If we believe that God raised
up Christ from the dead, if we believe it in our hearts, God
will impute righteousness to our account. The righteousness
of Jesus Christ, which is a law of righteousness, which God will
accept. God will accept it. All right, now you say preacher
I just can't see it anyway. I know you said it, I know you
said it, I just can't believe it. Well, you can talk to a blind
man you know about a beautiful sunset and he would say to you,
he'd say you know I can't see that, I can't see it. But you
know if you were to, you would say to him but if you had eyes
you'd see it. If you had eyes, you'd see it
for sure. And you talk to a deaf man, you'd
say, you hear that beautiful orchestra? You hear that beautiful
music? He said, no, I don't hear that.
And you'd tell him, if you had ears, you'd hear it. If you had
some ears. And this is true. You say, well,
I don't think there's, you talk to, listen, there's some people
here that are saved. There's some people right here
this morning that are saved. in a gospel sense. And you say,
well, I know the people around here. I'm not so sure there's
anybody around here saved at all. Well, you're wrong. You're
wrong, my friend. There's some people here that
are saved this morning because they believe that God raised
Jesus Christ from the dead. They believe that God sent Him
down here, and they believe He died for them, and they believe
that God raised Him up, and they're righteous before God. They're
righteous before God as God demands that they be. They're righteous.
Oh, yes, they are saved. Now listen, you may question
it. According to the gospel, there's some people here that
are saved. Now salvation is by the faith
of Jesus Christ, and if you judge it on any other basis, then you're
wrong. You're wrong. If you're judging
a person's salvation by one or more incidents in their life,
you have proved your own self that you don't know nothing about
the gospel. You say, well this sinner did this, he did that,
he did something else, how could he be saved? Well my friend,
on the same basis that you're judging, you're putting yourself
out of the kingdom of God. Salvation has got to be by faith
through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's got to be by imputed righteousness
or we're all going to hell. Salvation is by Christ and by
Christ alone. Salvation is by the faith Jesus
Christ. That's how men are saved. Now
number four, the preacher's conclusion. Let's see it. And that is here
in verse 10. He says, For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. Well, there is one word here
that Paul uses three times That I believe will help us to see
what the real problem is The real problem now verses 8 9 and
10 and you see this word heart Look at it here. He says, In
thy heart, that is the word of faith which we preach, and that
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe
in thine heart. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. Now you see then, beloved, that
we're not talking about a head faith here. We're not talking
about intellectual faith. We're talking about a heart faith. This heart business is very important. Faith is a heart business, and
salvation is a heart business, and the Word of God says keep
your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues
of life. My son, give me thine heart. The Lord is nigh them that have
a broken heart. And Peter said to Simon Magnus
in Acts 8, he said, your heart is not right in the sight of
God. Now there are three things about
this heart faith that I want to give you quickly. very quickly
and then we're through. And this will help you, I think,
to understand a little bit about what I'm driving at. That this
is where the problem is. Is that we don't have a heart
faith. There's too many people who got
this stuff in their head and not in their heart. Well, first
of all, when Paul's talking about your heart, what he's saying
is it indicates a sincerity. Sincerity as opposed to hypocrisy. It indicates something real other
than something fake. Don't you see? It's in the heart.
Now you call me Lord, Jesus said to some of his day when he was
here on earth, with your lips. You call me Lord and you draw
an eye to me with your lips. But he said your heart is far
from me. You can talk it, but your heart's
not there. And so listen to me, it's a depth
of experience we're talking about. We're talking about this thing
being in the heart. We're talking about a man believing
in the inner man, which he can only do as God gives him faith. As God gives him real faith,
he believes in the inner man. And he may not be able to read
a word out of the Bible, but he's still got faith. He's got
a God-given faith. Then lots of people died, left
this world, couldn't read any at all, but God gave them real
faith. They had this deep inner faith. God did something inside of them.
I do believe this is a God-given heart faith. I do believe! And
I've met people, you couldn't shake them off of it. I believe,
I believe. A lot of things not right, and
at least everything with a lot of things around me was different,
but I do believe in my heart. Well, that fellow's saved. Well,
heart faith number two distinguishes between traditional religion,
or hand-me-down religion, and personal faith. personal real
faith. Turn to John chapter 18. Look
at these two verses here in verse 33 and 34 of John 18. Then Pilate
entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus and said
unto him, Art thou the king of the Jews? Now listen to what
Jesus said here in verse 34. Listen to the question. He said,
Jesus answered him and he sayeth, he said, Sayest thou this thing
of thyself? Did you say this thing of thyself,
or did others tell it thee of me? Which is it? Now you said,
I'm king. Art thou king of the Jews? Do
you say this of yourself, or did others tell you this of me? Where'd you get this? Where'd
you get what you believe? Where did it come from? Now then,
listen, true salvation is your heart. Your heart. Your faith. Your mouth. All got to be involved in this.
Now, your daddy and mother may be, they might just be the finest
people on earth. But let me tell you this, it's
not going to do you a dime's worth of good when it comes to
God's salvation. You say, I believe it because
my daddy believes it. That isn't good enough, my friend.
Your daddy's told you this thing, and you believe it just because
your daddy believes it? Well, now there's a lot of things,
and if children respect their parents, I guess they're just
gonna believe a whole lot of things their parents believe. And I was raised back there in
Indiana, and there was 11 of us kids, and my dad, he was a
Democrat. He always voted for FDR, he always
did. He's a Democrat. And I was of
the opinion that if somebody grew up in Indiana, nobody mess
with them. They'd just be a Democrat, that's
all. That's all I knew about it. But I'll tell you something
right now. When it comes to this salvation
business, you say, I just grew up believing in sovereign grace.
I always believed in sovereign grace. My daddy believes it,
my mother believes it. It ain't gonna do you no good. Just hand
me down religion, I ain't gonna get it. It's your faith. It's your heart. It's your mouth. It's got to come out of here.
It's got to be real. And that's the difference between
a whole lot of this stuff you see going around here. People
in these Armenian churches, you know, that had Jesus weashed
off on them. I won't do it. I won't do it.
I don't want to get in that business. No sir. Now hear me, this is
a personal thing. If everybody else goes to hell,
if this whole bunch runs down the road and runs off a cliff
and goes to hell, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to trust
Christ. I'm going to cling to Christ. That's what I'm talking
about. If everybody turns from Christ, I'm going to cling to
Him. It's the same thing with me. Christ is my all. He's the all in all of a sinner's
hope. Christ. is the all in all. And so that's
where it is with me. That's where I stand. You say,
well Preacher, you come up short a lot of ways. That's true. That's
true. But Christ is my all. Christ
is everything to me. You just preach Christ. If I
can have that on my tombstone, here lies John Mitchell, he preached
Christ, the all and all of a sinner's hope. That'd be all I need right
there, that's all I need. If I can die still preaching
Christ, that's all of it, that's all I got. And that's what I
cling to, and that's God's salvation. That's God's salvation, Christ,
it's all of it. Say, well, I just like that.
You know, maybe there's some... No, no, no, that's all of it. Let's
get down to the bottom. Christ is all. Okay, then the
third thing. Heart faith distinguishes between
material covetousness and real affection for Jesus Christ. Now, I know that you want to
be healthy. And I know that you want a good job so you can pay
your bills. And I know that you want to go
to heaven when you die at the same time. I know you want these
things. I know you do. But listen. A
man's life, Jesus said, consisteth of more than the things that
he possesses in this world. I may not have what others have.
And you know, somehow or other we've got this idea that God's
people, if a man is saved, if he's a child of God, that he
certainly will be healthy, and he certainly will be wealthy,
and he's probably going to be a little wiser than the normal
person. Well, there's not a lick of truth
to it. I may not have a whole lot that other people have, but
if I have Jesus Christ, then I have all that I need. Now we
must not base our relationship with God on this idea that you
must have the things of this world or you're nothing or you're
nothing. Now listen, we must separate
the two, they are not one and the same. Faith in Christ does
not guarantee that you're going to have money and that you're
going to have all the things of this life. Now listen, if
we don't ever get another square meal in this world, Christ