Other than our Lord Jesus Christ, if there's one man in all of
history and in the scriptures whose life and relationship with
God ought to be studied, it's Abraham. His name is mentioned 29 in 29
of the 66 books of the Bible. The Bible has 66 books, and Abraham's
name is mentioned in almost half of them. His name appears in the scripture
over 300 times, Abraham. God himself gave him the name. He was named Abram. And God in
Genesis 17 said, Your name shall no longer be Abram, but Abraham. God called Abraham my friend. Two or three scriptures say that
Abraham is a friend of God. Christ our Lord is called the
seed of Abraham. So if we are going to study the
life of a man in the Bible other than our Lord, Abraham is a good
subject. And here in the opening verse
of chapter 4 of Romans, Paul asks this question. What shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? What did Abraham have that the
rest of the world did not have? What did he have that made him
the friend of God? Well, the question is answered
over here in the beginning of Scripture, in Genesis chapter,
let's look at chapter 12 and chapter 15. It tells you what
he had that the rest of the world did not have. In Genesis 12,
let's read the first four verses. Now, when this word was given
to Abraham, he was 75 years old. He was living in Ur of the Chaldees
with his father, with his family. No children. He had no children.
But he was living with his father and all of his brothers and sisters
and kinfolks. That's the way they lived back
then. And the Lord said in verse 1, the Lord said unto Abraham,
Abram, get thee out of thy country from thy kindred, from thy Father's
house, the land that I shall show thee, and I will make of
thee a great nation. And I will bless thee, and I
will make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And
I will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse them that
curse thee. And indeed, through thee, through thy seed, Christ
shall all families of the earth be blessed." So Abraham obeyed
God, he believed God. As the Lord had spoken unto him,
and he departed. And Lot went with him. And Abram
was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Now turn to Genesis 15, and this is a few years later. Abraham
departed and went out from the land of his father. And God came
to him again in Genesis 15, verse 1. After these things, the word
of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram,
I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward. And Abram said,
Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childish? And
the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. Abraham
said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed. He's about 85
here now, no seed. And lo, one born in my own house,
a servant is my heir. My heir is just one of these
servants here. Behold, the word of the Lord
came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that
shall come forth out of your own bowels. You'll have a son,
you'll have a child, and he'll be your heir." And he brought
Abram forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven and tell
the stars, if you're able to number them, and he said unto
him, so shall thy seed be. Now here it is, and he believed
in the Lord, he believed God. He believed God. He believed
God back yonder when he told him to leave his father's house.
He believed God. And here he told him he'd have seed as the
stars of the heavens. And Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him for
righteousness. That's when it was counted to
him for righteousness. And that's how he believed God.
He found righteousness. He found true holiness. Someone
asked Charles Spurgeon one time, said, if Almighty God were to
give you one request, just one, like He did Solomon, ask of me
whatever you want. Ask me. I'll give you one thing. What would you ask for? Spurgeon
said, if God gave me one desire of my heart, one request, I asked
him to give me true holiness, true righteousness, the scripture
says, without which no man will see the Lord. That's what I want,
and that's what Abraham received, true holiness. One day our Lord
was talking to his disciples about the Pharisees, about the
religious people of their day. Religion dominated everything
in Jerusalem. But our Lord was talking to his
disciples about these Pharisees. And he said to his disciples,
if your righteousness, your holiness, does not exceed theirs, you'll
in no wise enter the kingdom of God. You've got to have something
a man can't produce. No man, however moral or religious
or self-righteous. You've got to have a righteousness
man can't produce. but you'll never see the kingdom
of God. In other words, we've got to be in the sight of God,
as Paul wrote in the book of Colossians, holy, unblameable,
unreprovable, and as Jude said, faultless in his sight. And that's
the righteousness that Abraham received. He believed God and
it was imputed to him, charged to him, reckoned to him, true,
perfect holiness in God's sight. In the 2nd verse, we know Abraham
obeyed God, we know that. We've already seen that in a
few scriptures we've read. When God commanded him to leave
his father's house, he left. Scripture says, not knowing where
he was going, God just told him, And you go to land, I'll show
you, I'll show you later, but you just leave." And Abraham
left, he obeyed God. That's a good work, wasn't it? And then our Lord, Abraham, pulled
around and God seemed to delay the promise. Abraham was about
80 when God told him he'd have a son, 80, 85, and years passed. Savior got older, and he got
older, and there was no son came. So the Savior said, I reckon
you'll have to just help God out a little bit. So she gave
her handmaid, a young girl, to Abraham. She bore him a son. And the son grew. And Abraham
got to be 100 years old. That boy was 10 or 12. Loved
him. Oh, he loved that boy. Special
to him. Loved that boy. But God said
to him, He said, That's not your heir. The son of the bondwoman
can't be the heir. The son of the law can't be the
heir. The son of your own doing can't be the heir. It's got to
be the son of promise. It's got to be the son of Saber. It's got to be the supernatural
born son of Saber. Now you get rid of that other
boy. Send him and his mother both
packing. Now that wasn't easy. That was as difficult a thing
as that man ever had to do. But he sent him back in. He put
a bottle of water on his shoulders and told him goodbye. He obeyed
God. And then the years passed after
Isaac came along, his true son, the son of Saber, the son of
Promise, the son of the miracle. And he got to be a pretty good
sized young man. And God had not talked too much
to Abraham about him. But he appeared to Abraham one
day and he said, Abraham, he said, here I am. He said, take
that boy, your son, Isaac, whom you love, take him to Mount Moriah,
the mountain I'll show you, and you sacrifice him as a burnt
offering to me. You take that lad, that young
man, put him on the altar and quarter him, burn his body, put
his blood on the altar as a sacrifice to me. And Abraham obeyed God. He started that mountain. He
packed the ashes and got some young men to help him, and he's
an old man now, 120 years old. That young boy, young man, son
of his was probably in his teens or late teens, early 20s. And
they start for that mountain. Three days' journey. God never
spoke another word. never heard another word. But
he came to that mountain, and Abraham said to the servants,
he said, You men stay here. The lad and I are going up on
the mountain to worship God, and we'll be back. He believed
God. He knew if he sacrificed that
boy, God would raise him from the dead, because God had already
promised, and Isaac shall thy seed be called. Isaac shall be
the promised heir. He's the promised heir. And Abraham
believed God, even to the point where he was willing to sacrifice
that boy. And on the way up the mountain,
the boy turned to him and said, Father, Abraham was carrying the knife,
I guess. He had to cut up the lamb off for him. The boy was
carrying the wood and the fire. They didn't have matches. They
had fire on these sticks, you know. He was carrying the wood
and the fire. as our Lord Jesus carried his
cross up that same mountain, Mount Calvary. And he turned
to his father and he said, Father, here's the wood and here's the
fire, where's the lamb? Abraham had taught that boy without
the shedding of blood there's no remission. He taught that
boy that a lamb was coming, that a lamb was coming through him,
God's lamb. Like Abel offered, there's a
lamb to be sacrificed. And that boy said, now where's
the lamb? He said, listen to this man's faith. He believed
God. My son, Jehovah-Jireh, Jehovah will provide a lamb. But here's
the key. Talk about Abraham knew the gospel. Our Lord said, Abraham saw my
day. Abraham, by revelation, saw the
day of Christ. He saw the day of the cross.
He couldn't explain it to you, but he saw it some way. God's
lamb would die for his people. Abraham saw that. Christ said,
Abraham, rejoice to see my day. He saw it. And he was mighty
glad. Mighty glad. He said, now my
son, God will provide himself a lamb. God's going to be the
lamb. That's what he said, and he will
provide himself. And he said, God will provide
for himself a lamb. He'll provide the sacrifice that
we're to offer. And God himself will provide
it. God will provide it, he'll provide
himself, and he'll provide for himself a lamb. That's profound. Ninety-nine percent of preachers
in the world don't know what that means. If you do, you know
the gospel. Abraham knew what it meant. He
couldn't diagram it. But he knew what it meant. He
knew there was a substitute coming, there was a Lamb to be revealed,
there was a Lamb of God, and he'd bear our sins, and Isaac
was not that Lamb. But he was going to carry out
what God commanded him to do. So he obeyed God. Abraham intrigues
me. His works are so profound, aren't
they? So pure, so obedient. Was he
justified by those works? That's what Paul is asking here.
But verse 2, if Abraham was justified by works, he has whereof the
glory. He can glory in his works, but
not before God. But not before God. There's the
key. Abraham made glory before men, but not before God. God
knows his eye. God sees that little episode
between him and Hagar. God sees his unbelief. The Savior's
unbelief. Faith always has some unbelief
mixed with it. I don't care who you are, or
where you are, or what you are, how long you've been saved, you've
still got some unbelief in you. You've still got some doubt and
fear. Isn't that right? Well, of course you do. And Abraham
had it too. So he couldn't, he could boast
before men, but not before God. God looks not on the outward
countenance, he looks on the heart. He knew Abraham was just
a man, like any other man. A believing man, but a man. And
there's no place or time or cause for any human being to glory
in his works before God. God looks on the heart. There's
not any work we ever perform, any prayer we ever pray, any
song we ever sing, or any sermon we ever preach, or any good deed
we ever do that's perfect. No such thing. No such thing. Christ did. This is my beloved
Son. I'm pleased in Him. But man at
his best state is altogether vanity. And even man's best works
in the sight of God, weighed in the balances of God, are filthy
rags. Best works, that's right. He
knoweth our praying. He knows we're dust. So that's
what it says here. Abraham, if he is justified by
works, if he received righteousness by his works, he hath whereof
the glory, but not before God. Not before God. But what say
the scriptures? And that's where we need to go.
What does the scriptures say? What does the Word of God say?
I'll tell you one of my favorite scriptures over here in Isaiah
chapter 1. Chapter 8, Isaiah chapter 8. Listen to this. Isaiah chapter 8. Isaiah chapter
8. Listen to this. Verse 19. And when people shall say, Isaiah
8, Nitro, and people shall say unto them, unto you, seek them
that have familiar spirits. Go to these fellows that say
God speaks to them, God talks to them. Last night I was praying
and God said this to me, and He gave me a new revelation.
I got something new, not off the hot pot, you know. They tell
you go to those fellows, don't you do it. Don't you do it. Don't you do it. Don't go to
the wizards that peep. Don't go to them that mutter.
Should not a people seek to God? Should we go for the living to
the dead? That's like when the women came
to the tomb, the angel said, why seek ye the living among
the dead? He's not here. Seeking Christ in a tomb, seeking
Christ in Bethlehem, seeking Christ at Jerusalem, seeking
Christ in a church building, seeking Christ in some some religious visual aid. Listen, verse 20, to the law,
to the prophets, to the testimony, to the written word, go to the
scriptures. Don't go to them that peep, wizards,
mutter, familiar spirits, claim to have familiar spirits, claim
to be unfamiliar, speak in terms with God Almighty. Don't go to
them. Do the scriptures to the Lord and to the testimony. If
these people speak not according to the word of God, it's because
there's no light in them. No truth. And that's what Paul
is telling us in verse 3 of our text, Romans 4, verse 3. What
saith the scriptures? What does the scriptures say
about Abraham? What saith the scriptures? When I read it to
you a while ago in Genesis, do you remember chapter 15, he stood
out there under the stars? He didn't even have a son. Bent over with age, his wife
was an old woman, wound dried up, no possibility of ever having
a child. Human possibility, no human hope. Stood out there under the stars.
And God almost seems to be mocking him. Count the stars, Abraham,
count the stars. I can't count the stars. That's
how many are going to be in your seed. That's how many are going
to be in heaven. A multitude which no man can number. Is God
mocking him? No, sir. God's making a promise
only God can make. That's right. I'll give you a
son. I'll give you an heir. I'll give
you a seed. I'll give you a Savior, I'll
give you a Redeemer." And what does Scripture say? He believed
him. He believed him. And right then it was counted
to him for righteousness, right then. There wasn't a son in the
cradle. You know, I could believe if
there was one already in the cradle, pretty good, couldn't you? But
not even one in the hangar, not even one in his imagination.
No, but he believed him. I believe God. And the scripture
says it has counted to him for righteousness. Righteousness. Now, let that issue be settled
once and for all. Look at verse 4. Now, religion
today and every day is taken up with two things, faith and
works. That's right, everybody talks
about faith and works, faith and works. They get them all
messed up, though, faith and works, believing and obeying.
Believing and serving. Everyone who professes religion
professes some kind of faith and some kind of works. But now
Paul says this in verse 4, Now to him that worketh, here's what he's saying, to that
man who depends on his works, even that man who believes the
Bible and believes in God and believes in Jesus, but he trusts
his works to recommend him to God. He trusts his works to help
him attain eternal life. He trusts his works. This is
what Saul of Tarsus was before he met Christ. He believed in
God. He believed the Bible. He studied the Bible. He was
a teacher of the Bible. And he worked. And he was trusting his
works. But he says here, to him that
worketh, the reward is reckoned not of grace, but of debt. He
earns it. So it's not grace. He's not saved
by grace. He's saved by his works. If a man in religion today says,
well, I'm saved because I did this or because I did that or
because I believed on Christ, because I preached or gave, then
he's trusting his works. He's not saved by grace. It's
a death. God's just paid him for service
rendered. But, now watch this, to him that worketh not, does
that mean the fellow doesn't do anything? See, all of our works are works
of faith. All of our labors are labors
of love. All that we do in the kingdom of God for one another
is done because we're saved, not in order to be saved. But
him that worketh not, that is, the man who does not trust his
works, does not depend on his works, does not depend on his
obedience, but rather, like Paul, he calls his works loss. He depends on nothing but Christ,
nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ, the obedience of the
Son of God. He trusts the merits of Christ,
and he calls himself not good, except in Christ, not righteous,
except in Christ, ungodly, except in Christ. That's grace. The man who believes God and
expects to realize the hope of eternal life only because Christ
loved him and gave him self-righteousness, only because Christ gave to him
a perfect standing before God and a perfect record and justified
him. That's grace. If you turn to
Romans 11, it's got to be one or the other, it can't be both.
It cannot be both. Brethren, don't you think we're
saved by faith, but also our works add to it? No, sir, I do
not. But don't you think we're saved by believing on Christ
and looking to Christ, but we do these things and God recognizes
them and God rewards us for them? No, sir, I do not. I believe
we're saved either exactly as the thief on the cross was saved,
or we're not saved at all. That man hanging on that cross,
his whole life was a life of sin and evil. He was such a sinful
man, such an ungodly man, that the people of the world couldn't
put up with him. They didn't even want him around.
The people of the world, the people in the honky-tonk didn't
want him anymore. The outcast cast him out. That's
the kind of man he was, not fit to live. Nail him to a cross
and forget him. That's the kind of man he was.
And he never washed, he was never baptized. He never walked a step
for Jesus. Not one step. He's nailed to
a cross. He never worked, he never lifted his hands in helping
anybody. Never washed, never worked, never
walked, never witnessed! Except for that other thief.
He said, don't you fear God? But he was redeemed. And Christ
said, today you'll be with me in paradise. Now that's grace.
That's grace. But if a fella says, well, I'm
saved because I've been preaching for years and I've given my tithe
and my talent and my time and all these things to God and I've
done the best I can. We sang a song the other night
at that meeting, when I do the best I can and folks don't understand. It creeps in, doesn't it? It
creeps in, despite all you can do. But that's works. And this scripture says in Romans
11, verse 6, listen, Romans 11, verse 6, if it's by grace, it's
not of works. No such. Otherwise, grace is
not grace. If it be of works, it's no more grace. Otherwise,
work is not work. It's got to be one or the other.
It will be totally, completely, absolutely redeemed by the work
of Christ by grace. But trust in the works. And here in our text, in Romans
4, Paul reaches back and gets another Old Testament man of
God. He quotes David. And you know
all the things David did in the kingdom of God. My, my, my, man
after God's own heart. I mean, servant of the Lord,
willing to tackle a giant when everybody else was running, most
commendable, courageous, daring, devoted, dependable, best king
ever walked the earth besides Christ. But what did he say about
salvation? Listen, verse 6. Even as David
describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputed righteousness
without works. That's David's hope. David said,
blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven. whose sins are
covered. Blessed is the man to whom God
will not charge sin. Why won't God charge our sins?
He charged them to Christ, and Christ paid for them. Blessed is the man to whom God
imputeth a perfect righteousness. Did we do it? We didn't have
anything to do with it. Christ did it by his perfect,
holy, immaculate life. That's just what the You just look at Abraham and
stand back in awe. But Abraham was a sinner saved
by grace, by the gift of God. Stand to David and look at his
life with amazement and envy. But he was a rich, amazing grace,
how sweet the sound, that saved a rich like him. He was lost,
but now he's found. He's blind, but now he sees,
by the grace of God, all of grace. And here is the sealer now, here
is the sealer, here in verse 9. Come at this blessing upon the
circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? We say that
faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. When was it
reckoned? When was Abraham saved? When
up on that mountain he raised that knife to slay his son? Believe
in God? When was Abraham saved when he
told Ishmael and Hagar they had to leave? Believe in God. No. When was Abraham saved when
God said circumcise? He's 100 years old. He said circumcise
yourself and all the males in your family and in your commune
or wherever you are. And that's a seal of the covenant.
That's a sign of the covenant. It's a sign that you're mine.
Was that when he was justified? No, sir. What does he say? Verse 11, He received a sign
of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith, which
he had yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of
them that believe. In other words, when was Abraham justified, righteous? When he stood out there under
the heavens, way back, John, 15 years ago. and said, I believe God. I believe
God. And everything he did after that
was because he believed God, because he was a child of God,
because he knew God loved him. All of our works, if we have
any fit to talk about, are because we love him, because he loves
us, not in order to marry his love, and because we're saved. That's just it, that's so. Verse
16, Therefore, this thing of salvation, righteousness, it's
a faith. You believe God, you justify. You don't believe God, you're
not justified. You believe Christ is the Son of God, you justify.
You don't, you're not justified. You believe that Jesus Christ
died on the cross for your sins and he obeyed the law for your
righteousness and all acceptance of holy God is because of Christ?
Yes, I do. I do with all my heart. You justify
it. Don't you not? It's a faith. Why? That it might be by grace.
If you add anything, it's not by grace. If you add anything.
If you add a trip down the aisle. Old Brother Mews used to say,
While I'm preaching, you come to Christ, but don't you move
a hand or a hair. You come to Christ by where you
are. By where you are. Don't you move a hand or a hair.
That's right. He's not down here. He's not. It's up grace. And
why? To the end, to the goal that
the promise might be sure. To all to see, you might be sure. Let me give you a personal illustration. We talked yesterday, getting
up in years. At the end of this road, and
the road's end is near for some of us, if at the end of this road there
is a promise to me of life eternal, of glory, of eternal peace to
be made like Christ and to dwell with him forever, if that promise
is conditioned on my faithfulness, or my obedience, or my integrity,
or my works, or my holiness, I have absolutely no assurance
at all. None whatsoever, because I don't
know what's going to happen. I have none at all. I don't know
whether my works are good enough. Are yours good enough? Mine are
filthy rags, without Christ, and I have no hope. If this promise of God, of life
eternal, is conditioned on anything that I produce, I don't have
a hope. Not a sure hope. I might have
a hope, a hope, a hope, but don't have a sure hope. But now wait
a minute. If now at this juncture, That
glory is promised to me freely as a gift of God's sovereign,
particular, discriminating grace, because he wanted to, because
he will to, based wholly and completely on the work of my
Lord Jesus Christ, who perfectly obeyed God, who willingly suffered
for the remission of my sins. And in Christ alone, boy, I've
got a hope of hope, hope, hope, hope, sure hope, good hope, blessed
hope. That's right. I've got a good hope. If everything
God has for me is outside myself, in Christ, I've got a good hope.
Because I know where He is. He's the right hand of God. I
know where He is. And I can rejoice. I can rejoice
when the doctor says you're not going to make it. Yes, I am,
too. You just don't know how soon. I can rejoice when the doctor
says you're leaving the land of the living and going to the
land of the dead. I said, you got that backwards. I'm leaving
the land of the dead and going to the land of the living. I
got a sure hope. Aren't you afraid? Afraid? Afraid to graduate? Afraid
to end this mess? Afraid to be made like Christ?
I would be. if I was trusting the fact that
I'm a Baptist. I would be afraid if I was trusting anything I've
ever done. I'd be afraid. I would be if
I tried to go back and prove I'm saved by a profession I made
40 years ago. I would be afraid. But when I
look at him, look into Jesus, the author and finisher of my
faith, I'm content. And old Abraham was totally content. He went through some tough places,
totally content. It's got to be by grace, through
faith, that it might be sure to all to see.