Okay, now we're looking at Romans
chapter 10, and we'll pick up where we left off last week.
Romans 10 verse 4, Christ the Lord Jesus Christ is the end
of the law, righteousness to everyone that believes Him, that
rests in Him. That word end has a reference
to the purpose and goal of the law, is to drive us to the Lord
Jesus Christ for all of salvation, for all of righteousness, that
being justified in Him by His grace, we rest in Him by God-given
faith. It was never the intention of
the law of God, it was never given to save us, but rather
given to convict us of our sin and drive us to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now hold your place there in
Romans 10. Remember back in Romans chapter
7, turn over there. Verse 12, Wherefore the law is
holy, the commandment holy, just and good. Was then that which
is good make death unto me? God forbid. but sin, that it
might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good,
that sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful."
The only way we know the exceeding sinfulness of our sin is by the
holy law of God, convicting us and exposing that unto us. And that drives us to Holy Spirit
conviction, which drives us to look to the Lord Jesus Christ
for all of salvation. Now, if you want to turn to one
more reference on that, in Galatians chapter 3, verse 23, Galatians
3, 23. Before faith came, we were kept
under the law, shut up under the faith which should afterwards
be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster,
our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ that we might be
justified, not by the law, justified by faith. But after that faith
has come, we're no longer under the schoolmaster. no longer under
the schoolmaster for as many of you as have been baptized
into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female,
for you're all one in Christ. And if you be Christ, then are
you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Now
if you want to put a marker there in Galatians 3, we're going to
turn back there in just a minute. Galatians chapter 3. So hold
your marker there and then turn back to Romans 10, Romans chapter
10. In these next verses here from
verse 5 down through verse 10, Paul being directed by God the
Holy Spirit and given instruction and words by inspiration of God
the Holy Spirit, makes a sharp contrast between the righteousness
of the law and the righteousness of faith revealed in the gospel. Look at verse 5, for Moses described
the righteousness of the law. Verse 6, but the righteousness
which is of faith speaketh on this wise. Now there's a contrast
here. The righteousness of the law
and then the righteousness revealed in the gospel. Now, what does
the law of God require? What would we have to do by the
standard of the law to be righteous before God? Absolute perfection. The law of God demands perfection
or death. It demands perfect obedience
in every thought, Every motive, every attitude, every deed, all
the time and in every way. Now, the only person who met
that standard of the law was our blessed Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. But we cannot meet that standard
of the law. Now, if you hold your place there
and then turn back to Galatians 3, and here's what the law of
God says. Galatians 3, verse 10. Galatians
3, 10. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to say to read them, or admire them,
or to observe them, but to do them. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident, the just shall
live by faith. And the law is not of faith.
The law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall
live in them." The man that does the law. If you can obey the
law perfectly, you can work out a perfect, you can work out a
righteousness before God that will be acceptable unto God.
Now, a lot of people are deceived in this matter, in this matter
of righteousness by the law and righteousness by their obedience.
Remember, don't turn, let me just read this to you. In Luke
chapter 10, remember from our study, the lawyer that stood
up and tempted the master and said, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? And the Lord said, well, what's
written in the law? How do you read the law? And
he answered, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And the Lord said to that man,
well, you've answered right. This do and live. Now, could that man do that?
Could he obey that? If righteousness comes by the
law, Christ is dead in vain. If we can get it done by the
deeds of the law, no need for the Lord Jesus to come. Now notice
in verse 5 that reference that's given there is from the man that
which doeth those things shall live by them. And that reference
there is Leviticus 18.5. And let me just read that to
you. You shall therefore keep my statutes
and my judgments, which if a man do, You can live. You can live. You
can have life, eternal life, by doing the law. I am the Lord. But there's a big problem with
that. A sinner, guilty and vile and wretched as we are, can never
obey the law of God. Not personally, not you, not
me, not any man. Not any man. A lot of people
are so, so deceived They think that they take that sign and
they stick that sign in their yard or put it in their business,
stick it on the wall, and they have the Big Ten, the Big Ten. And they say, I'm living by the
Big Ten. Well, the problem with that is you
just put yourself under the curse of the law because the law says
do everything perfectly. Thank God for the gospel of Christ,
for the righteousness which is of faith. That's our second point,
verse 6 and 7. But the righteousness which is
of faith, the righteousness which is of God, which is of Christ,
says this, speaketh on this wise, this case, say not in your heart,
who shall ascend into heaven? parentheses, that is to bring
Christ down from above, or who shall descend into the deep,
that is to bring Christ up again from the dead. Does it really
depend upon you to bring the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven
to earth? Or does it depend upon you to
raise the dead body of the Lord Jesus Christ out of the ground? No, it depends upon Him. and him alone. The righteousness
which is of faith says, and that's the righteousness that's revealed
in the gospel that is resting in the Lord Jesus Christ who
is all of our righteousness before God. You remember back in Romans
9 verse 30. What shall we say then that the
Gentiles which followed not after righteousness, have attained
unto righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith."
Now, I can ask this question, which righteousness do you have? A righteousness that is of the
law? Or the righteousness which is
of faith? And that righteousness that is revealed in Christ who
is called the Lord our righteous. Righteousness. Now it's interesting
in these verses here that Paul quotes the law to show us that
the message of the law is Christ. The reference there is to Deuteronomy
chapter 30 verse 10 down to verse 14. But the law is given of God
to point us to Christ. Every blood sacrifice under the
law says salvation through the substitute Jesus Christ. Every
priest that went in officiating as a representative man for those
people Israel, every priest, every sacrifice, all those things
point us to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our sacrifice, who is
our great high priest. You remember the Lord said to
those Jews, You are they which search the Scriptures, but they
are they which testify of Me." And we're talking about Old Testament
Scripture. And then our Lord said, had you believed Moses,
you would have believed Me, because Moses wrote about me," the Lord
said. He wrote about me. And then Peter,
when he's preaching to Cornelius in his house, recorded in Acts
chapter 10, he said to him, give all the prophets witness. That
is, all the prophets, beginning with Moses in Genesis, all the
way through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the prophets, they all
tell us and bear witness to the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, if you're reading along,
and most of you have the commentary by Brother Mahan from the book
of Romans, and I copy and pasted a quote that he has from verses
6 and 7 from an old preacher by the name of John Brown. Now,
I'm not real familiar with his writings, but Brother Mahan included
it in his commentary, and he said this is the best that he's
read. And he's read all of them. But here's what John Brown said
on these verses where it says, Who shall ascend into heaven?
That is to bring Christ down from above. Or who shall descend
into the deep? That is to bring Christ up again
from the dead. And again, he's quoting here Deuteronomy chapter
30 verse 10 through verse 14. Now here's what John Brown said,
quote, Do not think that divine justice depends upon something
to be done by you or anyone else. No need to say, who shall ascend
into heaven, to heaven to bring the Messiah down, He's already
come, He's already performed the work, finished the work which
He came to do, He has finished our righteousness and our redemption.
The Lord said it is done, it's finished. Quoting John Brown
still, there is no need to say who shall descend into the deep
to bring up him from the grave. He's already risen, delivered
for our offenses and raised again for our justification. He is
risen for our justification, interceded for us, the gospel
which reveals it tells you that they are all finished, the all-sufficient
Savior is to be believed and received by faith, not by works. And that's the end of John Brown's
quote, and I thought it would be a good thing to include that
in it. Take a look at Romans 10 now,
verse 8, but what does it say? What does the righteousness of
faith, what does it say? Verse 8, what saith it? The Word. The Word. Now, whenever I think
of the Word, I always think of it in a twofold sense. We have
the written Word, don't we? But we also have the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is called the Word. The Word,
capital W-O-R-D. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. But what sayeth
the righteousness which is of faith? The Word, written and
living, is nigh thee, even in thy mouth. And in thy heart,
that is the word of faith which we preach. The word is nigh thee. Christ in you is the hope of
glory. The word of God lives in our
heart. And because it does, we preach
the word of faith or we testify of Christ being the word, being
the object of faith, the message of the gospel we preach is the
Lord Jesus Christ. The word is at hand, nigh thee. That is the word we preach. Paul
said, we preach not ourselves. but Jesus Christ the Lord, and
ourselves your servant for His sake. We preach not ourselves,
we preach the Word. We preach, thus saith the Lord. And that's the charge that we
have, as Paul charged Timothy, I charge ye before God, and the
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead
at the appearing of His kingdom, to preach the Word. Be instant,
in season, out of season, always preaching the Word. What's the
occasion when we should preach the word? Every time we have
an opportunity to do so. Every time we preach the word.
And then he said we preach the word of faith. The word of faith. That is, how is salvation received? And we know that faith does not
accomplish salvation, does it? Faith does not accomplish salvation.
Faith receives the Lord Jesus Christ who did accomplish salvation. Now this faith, where does it
come from? Faith is a gift of God. We are going to see, turn
one page over here in Romans 10 verse 17. So then faith comes
by hearing, Romans 10 verse 17. Faith comes by hearing. Hearing
what? The Word of God. Faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, by the power of
God. We hear Christ in the message. And we preach, that is the Word
of Faith, which is nigh thee. We preach the Word of God, we
preach the Word of Faith, we preach Christ and Him crucified. That's our message. That's our
message. Not what you must do, what Christ
has done for us. Salvation does not depend upon
depend upon you. It's not D-O-N-E. It's D-O-N-E rather, done not
do, D-O. It's done, done. We preach not
ourselves but Christ. We preach Christ and Him crucified.
It's a done thing. The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
salvation for us. Now, this is all you need to
hear. It's all you need to hear. We'll
preach your written or something else we need to hear. No. No. We don't need to preach social
skills or financial skills or any of these other maladies of
society and these different things. We're not trying to put the bootlegger
out of business or the pornographer out of business. That's not our
mission. That's not our goal. We're to
go and preach the gospel of Christ. This is all you need to hear,
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is all you need to believe
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is all you need to know. Do
you need to know anything else? Nope. You see, every doctrine
that we learn comes from Christ. When we talk about election,
He is the elect. When we talk about the atonement,
He is the atonement. When we talk about the effectual
call, He is the one who calls us. When we talk about perseverance
of the saints, He is the one who preserves us by His grace. Christ is all we need to hear.
All we need to believe and all we need to know, as Paul said,
I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able
to keep that which I've committed unto Him again that day. Now
someone put it this way, when it comes to preaching the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need nothing more, nothing less,
and nothing else but Christ and Him crucified. There was a man
that attended this ministry for a good number of years, ten years
or longer. And one day he showed up to my
study and came in my study and said he wanted to talk to me.
I said, okay, I'm all ears. And one of the things he said
to me, he said, I've got to have more. I've got to have more. I said, more than Christ? You
need more than the Lord Jesus Christ? I said, if you want more,
if you have to have more, you're going to have to go somewhere
else, because all I have is Christ and Him crucified. Well, that's
not what he wanted to hear. Needless to say, he's no longer
here either. But it's sad when someone listens
to the message of the gospel for ten years or longer, and
then comes to the conclusion, well, Christ is not enough. Well,
if He's all you've got, You've got enough. You've got everything. And if you're looking for something
else, you're going to have to go somewhere else, because all
I have is Christ and the gospel. And I'm not being narrow, I'm
not being hard, I'm just being honest with you. Now look at
verse 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, confessing with
thy mouth, Jesus Christ to be Lord, and that's a better rendering
of that, confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, or Jesus Christ
to be Lord, and believe in thine heart that God raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth,
with the heart man believeth." This is talking about not that
old deceitful heart that's desperately wicked and who can know it. This
is talking about believing with that new heart that's given in
regenerating grace. When he talks about salvation
being a heart work, he's talking about the whole will, mind, affection,
all the different things that make up who we really are. And
when God gives us a new heart, He gives us a new will, a new
motive, new affections, and all these things. If any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold,
all things have become new. That if thou shalt confess with
your mouth from the heart Jesus to be Lord and God our
Savior, God had raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Salvation we know, what does
a sinner believe? When he is saved by the grace
of God, he believes that his salvation is of the Lord. It's not I did my part, he did
his part. Salvation is of the Lord. Because
we believe in the heart, given a new heart of God, by God, because
we believe in the heart, we confess Him with our mouth. We own Him,
openly and publicly confess the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
Lord of glory. We own and believe and confess
that Jesus Christ accomplished salvation for us, that God raised
Him from the dead. Why did God raise Him from the
dead? He was delivered for our offenses and He was raised again
because He justified us by His blood. We own and believe and
confess that Jesus Christ accomplished our salvation. He said it is
finished, it is done, that God raised Him from the dead by the
power of God, signifying that His work was accomplished, that
His work was accepted of God. His resurrection declared that
all He did was accepted of the Father. When He by Himself purged
our sin, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
all of God's purpose in the saving of His elect. Now look at verse
10. Here is the nature of true saving
faith. With the heart man believeth. with the heart, man believe it. Now, when we see that word heart,
it's not talking about this organ in our body. It's talking about in regenerating grace, God giving
us a new heart, a new mind, new understanding, new affections
that were not there before. He causes us to love things that
one time we once hated. For with the heart man believeth
unto this righteousness." Now this is the message all the way
through the book of Romans, isn't it? Righteousness, righteousness,
righteousness. It's not the righteousness which
is of the law. It's the righteousness revealed
in the gospel who is the Lord Jesus Christ. With the heart
man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth we confess
what's in our heart. As I've often said, what's in
the well of the heart comes out through the bucket of the mouth,
and that is so. When God has done that hard work
of saving mercy in us, and that's what the faith of God the elect
confesses, the true Christ of God, the true way of salvation
in Christ, that the Lord Jesus Christ alone is all of our righteousness
before God. And this is our confession, that
salvation is of the Lord. Verse 11, "...for the Scriptures
saith," and this is going back, he quotes this twice here, Isaiah
28, 16, in Romans 9 and here in Romans 10, "...for the Scriptures
saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." As
Paul said in Romans 1.16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone
that believe it, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, for
therein is the righteousness of God revealed. When God operates
upon our heart in saving mercy, He opens our mouth to praise
Him. As Paul said, God forbid us the
glory saved in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. David put
it this way in Psalm 115, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us,
but unto thy name. give glory for Thy mercy and
for Thy truth's sake. But of Him are you in Christ,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, that according as it is written, He that would
glory, let him glory only in the Lord. For the Scripture saith,
Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed." Now that's the
last part of Isaiah 28, 16. Can we quote the rest of it?
Let me see if I can try. God said, Behold, I lay in Zion
for a foundation of stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation, whosoever believeth on him shall not make
haste. Will never be forced out, will
never be confounded, will never be ashamed. That's what the mouth
confesses, that salvation is of the Lord. And that's our heart
confession publicly before God and before his people.