If you want to turn to Romans
4, I think we're guilty of some
things that need to be dealt with right here. I was in a meeting not so very
long ago when a man got up to read the word
in the service. And I got a little bit upset
and agitated as he read the word. He just read it rapidly and carelessly, like
you'd read an account happening in the newspaper. And that's
not the way to read this book. We've got to learn to read God's
word carefully and prayerfully. And slowly, this is the word
of God. Each phrase, each word deals
with the mysteries of God and eternal matters. You see, this
book is not a rabbit's foot. People get the idea that it can
make you spiritual if you carry a Bible. You might as well carry
a reader's digest, if that's all you're going to do, you know.
There's no magic in carrying a Bible. There's no magic blessing
in reading the Bible. I know folks that say, well,
I read my Bible every day. What good is that? You see, the blessing, now understand
what I'm saying. The blessing comes as God blesses
the Word to your understanding, and to your faith, and to your
experience. That's when it's a blessing to
read the Word of God. If you just read one verse and
God blesses it to your knowledge and faith and experience and
comfort and joy, it's better than reading rapidly and carelessly
and indifferently whole pages of the Bible. You understand
what I'm saying? And I think we're guilty of reading the Word
of God so carelessly and rapidly that we miss We miss these key
statements which robs us of assurance and peace and joy. And I'm going
to show you Romans 4. Now, let's look at it. I'm going
to show you something that, as we read a while ago, I hope most
of us caught it and got hold of it. But if we'd have been
looking for it, we'd have found it. But we're not those who read
the Bible. Most of us aren't looking for
anything. It's Bible reading time, you know. But I'm fairly
familiar with Romans 4. I've been in this preaching business
for a long time, and I've read Romans 4 a lot of times. I've
preached from it numbers and numbers of times. I've written
a commentary on Romans 4. I know something about Romans
4, and some of you do. I know that Romans 4, the subject
of Romans 4, this chapter I read, is the faith of Abraham, right? That's the subject, the faith
of Abraham. Abraham believed God. Look at verse 3. What sayeth
the scriptures? Abraham believed God. No one here has any doubt about
that, do you? Abraham believed God. You have any doubt about
it? I don't. Abraham believed God.
The old man was 75 years old. And he was living in his father's
community. He'd lived there all his life.
He and Sarah were married. They had no children. But they
lived under the protective custody of his father and family and
relatives, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, the
whole family lived in this protective commune and custody or whatever.
And they worshipped idols. They weren't believers. They
didn't know God. Abraham's father was an idol
worshipper. So was Abraham. God appeared
to Abraham, the living almighty God, called Abraham and said,
Abraham, Abraham, get thee out of thy father's house. Get out
of the association. Get out of the protective custody. Get out of the identification. Get out and go to a land I'll
show thee. And Abraham believed God. That
75-year-old man believed God. He didn't know where he was going,
but he went out, the scripture says, not knowing where. Now
anybody have any questions about the fact he believed God? He
believed God. Sometimes we know where, but we don't want to go,
and we don't believe God enough to go. But Abraham believed God. That was dangerous, humanly speaking. He got out. And you know he never
owned a foot of land after that. He roamed in tents looking for
a city. But he believed God. All right,
secondly, Abraham, God came to him again. And he said, Abraham,
I will return to thee according to the time of life and Sabra. Now here, Abraham's approaching
100, and Sabra's in her 90s. And God said, you're going to
have a son. you're going to have a son, a true son from Sarah. And you know that old man of
nearly 100 believed God? Yeah, he did. You say he tried
to have a son by Hagar. That was Sarah's idea. You read that carefully. It says,
Abraham hearkened to the voice of his wife, Sarah. Abraham never
doubted God. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief. I beg your pardon. He never doubted
God. His wife offered him that young
girl, and he took her. His wife kept putting pressure
on him. His wife said, now God's this, that, and the other. You
might as well speed this thing up. We'll just do it our way.
We'll have something. He listened to his wife. But he never stopped
believing God. It says that. That old man believed
God. He staggered not at the promise
of God, and against all human hope, he believed God. And then, well, he had the son
by Sarah, but in the meantime, he had a 14-year-old boy named
Ishmael. And Ishmael was dear to the heart
of that old man. That boy had been in the home
14 years. He was really, before Isaac came, the only son Abraham
ever had. And they were awfully close.
Doesn't matter it wasn't Savior's son, it was his son. Doesn't
matter if it was born under questionable conditions, he's still his son,
he loved his son. And God came to him one day,
now here's the son of the bondwoman, Ishmael, the son of the free
woman, Isaac. Here's the son of works, and
here's the son of miracle, Grace. Just a baby. And God came to
Abraham and said, Abraham, your works and my grace can't live
on the same root. Your works and your efforts and
my miracle and mercy and free gift can't live on the same root.
That boy's got to go. Now you put a bottle of water
on the shoulders of his mama, get rid of the covenant and get
rid of the covenant child. Get rid of it. And that old man
of 115 years of age believed God. One of the most difficult
things he ever had to do in his life was put a bottle of water
on the shoulders of that young woman and send her away with
his boy. But he did it. I have preacher friends who come
to a discovery of the miracle of grace and the gift of God's
mercy in Christ Jesus and the message of Christ and Him crucified. and they're bound up with their
works and their organizations and associations and methods
and all these things, and they have a little difficulty putting
them out. But if you believe God, you don't.
There's no excuse in this world for not preaching what God reveals
to you. You see, the bondwoman and the
free woman cannot live together. And the son of the born woman,
your works and your deeds and your methods can't live with
God's pure, free, sovereign grace. One has to go. Well, Abraham
believed God. Alright, here we are again. God
came to Abraham when he was 130 or 135, somewhere like that. He said to him, he said, take
that son, thine only son, Thine only son. Now I'll tell you,
salvation under works is not salvation. A man who's brought
in under the works of the flesh is not a son. He said, Abraham,
he didn't say you got one son by works and one by grace. He
said, take your only son. It's the only one you got. Is
that what he says, Ron? The only son you have. whom you love and
take him on a mountain, offer him as a sacrifice to me." And
Abraham at 130 believed God. Alright, now listen to me. There
was no point in Abraham's life, like we have in this modern day, when he could look back and say,
I got saved here. That's what we do. That's what
many people do. I made a profession when I was
10 or 11 years old, 12 or 13 or 14 or 20 or 25. And I believed
God and walked the aisle, got baptized, joined church, and
I got saved. Now, I haven't acted in faith, and I haven't lived
in a faith, and I haven't walked with God, but I'm saved because
I did that. Isn't that what we do? and you run into a circle of
salt, you challenge one of them on it. You say, well, the person
has no interest in the Bible, no love for the gospel, no interest
in the things of God, no dedication, no identification, no generosity,
no sacrifice, no walking with God, no faith, and yet he got
saved. But we don't have that in the
life of this man, this pattern of faith, this father of believers. He believed God at 75, And he
believed God at 130. He walked with God at 75, walked
with God at 95, he walked with God at 115, and he's still walking
with God at 135. And he's still walking with God
when God called him home. There was never any let up. And
actually, to be honest with you, each time, each trial, was more
severe and more difficult. And Abraham, like some of us,
did not say, Lord, I got saved, I believe, when I came out of
my father's house, that was it. No, no. No, no. Let's try you
a little harder here. Let's try you a little harder.
Let's take Ishmael out and send him through the wilderness, see
if you believe God. Well, I'm not going to do that, but I'm
still saved. I'm not going to give Ishmael up, but I'm still
saved. Take your son Isaac to the mountain and sacrifice him.
Well, I'm not going to do that. That's too hard, but I'm still
saved. You think he would be? No way. In fact, it was after
that last trial at 135 that God said, now I know you love me. That too hard? That's what the
Bible says. Now, there was never any point back
yonder to which this man looked and proved he knew God. He believed
God. It doesn't say Abraham made a
profession of faith. It doesn't say Abraham got saved.
It doesn't say Abraham walked the aisle. It doesn't say Abraham
made a decision. It doesn't say Abraham went with
God. It says Abraham believed God. Is that right, Jim? I'm telling the truth. And it was imputed to him. Now
I'm going to read several. Look at verse 3. Abraham believed
God. It was a living faith, a continual
faith, a loving faith, a walking faith, a confident faith. He
just kept believing God. And it was counted unto him for
what? Righteousness. Verse 3. Read it now. It was
counted, imputed and reckoned to him for righteousness. Now,
here's what I'm doing this morning. I'm talking about this thing
of salvation. I'm talking about faith. I'm talking about a relationship
with God. And I'm using the scriptures.
And I'm showing you the very example that Paul used in Romans,
and they're used in Hebrews, and God used all the way through
the Word. We're sons of Abraham if we believe. We're children
of Abraham if we believe. We're the seed of Abraham if
we believe. Abraham is the pattern of faith. all the way through
this book. Is that right? Well, you know
it is. And he believed God and it was counted to him. What's
righteousness? It's holiness. It's perfection. It's sanctification. It's acceptance
with God. It's the robe of holiness. He
believed God. This man believed God. He believed God in every turn
of events, under every circumstance, in whatever condition, he believed
God. He believed God. It was counted
to him for righteousness. Look at verse 5. To him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted. It's counted. It's counted for
righteousness. Somebody said to a friend of
mine one time, well, I've given to charities and I've done all
these things. Surely that counts for something. No, it doesn't
count for anything. Not for righteousness, because
it's not holy in God's sight. But if you can believe God, it'll
count for righteousness. That'll count for something.
If you can flat out, honestly believe God, it'll count for
righteousness. That's what's said. It'll count
for righteousness. Look at verse 9. Cometh this blessedness then
upon the circumcision only? No. It comes on the uncircumcision
also, for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for what?
Righteousness. Righteousness. All right, verse
20. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. He was
strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded.
that what God promised he was able to perform. When God told
him to leave his father's house, he believed God. He believed
God was able to care for him, didn't he, John? He believed
God. When God told him he'd have a son through that woman's saver,
he believed God. When God told him, let Lot have
Sodom, let him have the well-watered plains, you go to the mountains,
I'll bless you, Lot wound up broke, Abraham wound up rich,
he believed God. When God told him to send Ishmael
away, he believed God. He didn't know why, but he believed
God. And he believed God in this Isaac situation. And it says
here, it was imputed, it was counted, Abraham was accepted
by God as being holy, righteous, and pure. Not by his works, not
by his circumcision, not by his obedience to the law, because
he just flat out believed God. He believed God. He believed
God. See that? I believe God. Is that
right? That's what this says. Do you believe that? I do. You say, of course I do. All
right. Now let's see what we overlooked here. Verse 22, therefore
he believed God, therefore it was imputed, reckoned, charged
to him for holiness, righteousness. Now don't come to me and say,
I believe I'll wear my sleeves down to here and let my hair
grow long, take off my makeup, And you men, I'll start wearing
black and a broad brimmed hat and I'll sell my TV and I'm going
to get holy before God. That's not righteousness. You
do what you want to about that, but that's not holiness. That's
outward shame and show and that's outward veneer put on a dead
body. You see, holiness and righteousness
is a principle, an attitude, a spirit that God gives us in
Christ through the obedience of Christ. We're holy in Christ,
robed in his righteousness. And Abraham got that by faith,
right? By faith. All right, look at verse 23.
Now, did you notice this when I was reading? Now, it was not
written for his sake alone. God's not just talking about
Abraham. Abraham, now you pardon my vernacular and so forth, my
words, but Abraham was a man just like I am. Abraham put his
britches on one leg at a time. Is that what they used to say?
He wasn't some kind of angelic being that could fly in them.
That's right. Abraham shaved just like I do.
Abraham worried about baldness just like I do. That's right. Abraham got tired and said, I'm
just too tired to go outside just like I do. He's a man. Abraham's
not some You know, we get the idea these Bible characters are,
God says they're men of like passions. You know what he said?
People. People, people, people. All right, this wasn't written
for his sake alone, that righteousness imputed to him, but watch verse
24, but for us also. Us. Us. Clarence, that's me and you,
isn't it? Us also. Huh? Yeah, that's us. We've got Abraham up here on
a pedestal. That's all right for Abraham,
but Abraham's not in my... Oh, wait a minute now. Not only
for Abraham, but for us also. Us also. Watch this next line. To whom it... What's the it?
Righteousness, holiness, acceptance with God. To whom it shall be
imputed, reconcharged. if we can believe. How did Abraham get so holy?
He believed God. How did Abraham get accepted? He believed God.
Well, how did Abraham make it to heaven? He believed God. How
did Abraham get to be the friend of God? He believed God. And
you can have, you mean to tell me, preacher, think of having
the same standing before God as Abraham? the same standing. Abraham talked with God as a
friend. He was called a friend of God.
Well, Peter called it lack precious faith. Jude called it that common
salvation. We're said to be sons of Abraham.
And I'll tell you, that son of yours is just as important to
you and as vital as you are. He's part of you. What you have,
he can have. Sons of Abraham. Seat of Abraham.
You know, different? Think of having the same deliverance
as Noah, who found grace in Nazareth. Think of having the same standing
as a man after God's own heart like David. Why not? Why not? He believed God. Think of belonging
to God, being beloved of Christ as John, who leaned on his breast,
called a beloved disciple. Why not? I tell you, and I tell
you this, and I say this with a positiveness and a certainty, I tell you it's the same righteousness
that's given to us, imputed to us, when we believe God as Abraham
had. The same righteousness. That's
what it says right here. I think you ought to underscore
that. But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe. Now, here are three things, and
I'll let you go. If we believe what? All right, if we believe on Him
that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Now, let's be
careful of an error on this particular point. Some people overlook the
Father in this matter of salvation. The Father chose us, the Son
redeemed us, the Holy Spirit called us. And our God is one. And no man can believe the Father
who doesn't believe the Son. And a man who believes the Son,
believes the Father. That's exactly right. I like
that statement in Genesis 22a, when it says Abraham and Isaac
went up to the mountain, they both went up. And I'll tell you,
when our Lord went to the cross, the Father was right there. It
pleased the Lord to bruise Him. When our Lord was born in Bethlehem,
it pleased God in the fullness of time to send His Son. I believe
in the purpose of the Father, the design of the Father, the
decree of the Father, the salvation of the Father wrought out in
his Son. We believe on him who raised
up Christ our Lord from the dead. All right. Secondly, the second
statement says, who was delivered for our offenses. And let me
tell you something, this thing of faith, faith that justifies,
faith that brings a perfect righteousness, a perfect holiness, and a perfect
standing before God is not just to give mental acceptance to
some facts, it's to believe God. It's to believe God. And it's
to believe God gave Christ and that Christ was delivered for
our offenses. Now what does that mean? Well,
let me give it to you briefly. First of all, he was delivered or sent
into this world in the flesh. numbered with the transgressors,
came into this world, became a man, took upon himself the
likeness of sinful flesh, the form of a servant, became obedient
unto death. He was delivered into this world.
He was delivered into the hands of Satan to be tried and tested
and tempted. He was delivered into the hands
of the law to be tried in all points as we are. He was delivered
into the hands of a fallen world. He knew hunger and thirst and
rain on his face and sweat on his brow and thorns in his hands
and rocks and heat and cold and had no place to lay his head.
He was delivered into this world. He was delivered into the hands
of cruel men who crucified him, belittled him, mocked him, rejected
him and crucified him. And he was delivered into the
hands of a holy God who put his wrath upon him for the sins he
bore. until he cried, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Do
you believe that? He was delivered for our offenses.
The justice of God charged him, convicted him, and slew him. Do you believe that? All right,
watch this now. It shall be imputed if we believe
on him who raised our Lord from the dead. That's the Father who
decreed him, who sent him, who bruised him, who smote him, and
believe our Lord who was delivered from our offenses, all our guilt
upon him, and was raised again for our justification. What does
this mean? Let me read you something written
by an old-timer years ago. The Lord Jesus Christ took all
our sins upon himself. He bore our sin in his body.
He was made sin for us. He was numbered with the transgressors.
He made intercession for the transgressors. He took all our
sins on himself. He stood in our place. He endured the full
penalty. He paid the price for all our
sins before the judgment and wrath of a holy God. He cried,
it's finished. They took him down from the cross,
this one who all the sins of all believers before Calvary
and after Calvary met on him. Augustus Toplady said, it's unimaginable,
inconceivable, how much sin was present at Calvary's Cross. All
the sins of all believers, of all generations, of all ages,
of all time, millions and billions, met on Christ. And there the
judgment of the Father fell on him. He was delivered for our
offenses. You get the picture? All right,
he died, and they took him down and put him in the grave. They
put him in the prison of the grave. He had paid the debt in
full. Now, he must wait in the grave
till the certificate that all the debt being paid was accepted. That's right. It took three days. I can't explain
that three days and three nights fully, but I do know he laid
in the tomb. And then the Heavenly Father,
to whom we owed the debt, before whom we were guilty, before whom
we'd sinned, Heavenly Father, sent an angel messenger down
and said, roll away the stone, and set him free. And he was
a representative person now. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was on him. He was buried as our scapegoat.
Our guilt was on him, right? All of it. So the angel comes
down and rolls away the stone and tells him to go free. And
I'll tell you this, when he went free, he went free without sin,
without any charge, without any guilt. And when he went free,
we went free. He was raised for what? Our justification. Our justification. Now then,
I can't make you believe that. I can't even help you believe
it. I wish I could. But if you can
believe that, that's the promise of God, that's the purpose of
God, that's the redemption of God, then you will be as holy
and righteous as Abraham ever was or is now. That's right. That's what that chapter says.
Does it not? Abraham believed God. It was
counted to him for acceptance and righteousness, holiness. And it wasn't written for his
sake alone, but for us also, us common, ordinary old Kentuckians
here in Ashland, a tri-state area, with nothing going for
us but the fact we're hillbillies. But it was written for our sake
too, if we believe. on him who planned and purposed
the whole thing, Senny's son, who was delivered for our offenses,
our transgressions and iniquities, who was buried. And when the
whole thing was presented before the court of glory, the supreme
court of the universe, the father said, let the prisoner go. The
debt's paid. And that old stone rolled away,
and he walked out. When he walked out, I walked
out. And when he went back to glory and went within the veil
and sat down, everyone who believes him sat down with him. And that's
a perfect righteousness. That's just so. And that's faith. That's the evidence of His grace.