I believe that every one of you
are going to be interested in my topic this morning. I'm going
to speak on this subject, how to obtain saving faith. Now, don't turn away your ear,
even if you claim to have faith, even if you believe that you
do have faith, even if you are seeking faith, if you have no
faith. Listen carefully to the message.
I preach this message to myself. I'm talking to myself as I'm
speaking to you. I don't want to miss Christ.
I don't want to be hiding in a refuge of religious ceremony
or ritualism or, as Isaiah said, a refuge of lies and miss Christ
and miss eternal life. I want to know Christ. You know,
the Apostle Paul said that. He said, Oh, that I may win Christ
and be found in him. that I may know him and the power
of his resurrection. Let a man examine himself, whether
he be in the faith. Peter wrote, Give diligence to
make your calling and election sure. It won't do to take this
most important part of your life for granted. You better examine
your faith while I examine mine, because our Lord said many will
say unto me in that day, Lord, have we not preached in your
name? And in your name cast out devils, and in your name we've
done many wonderful works, and then will I profess unto them,
Depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity."
Wouldn't that be tragic? Well, listen to this message.
How to obtain saving faith. Now, Paul wrote in Romans 5.1,
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God. By faith. we're justified, and
because we're justified by faith, we have peace with God. And then
in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, he wrote these words, "...for by grace
are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." And
then in Acts 16, 31, when the convicted, troubled, repentant
Philippian jailer fell fell at the feet of Paul and Silas, and
cried, Sirs, what must thou do to be saved? Paul replied to
him, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
Salvation is by faith. Four times in the word of God,
four times, this statement is recorded. The just shall live
by faith. That was the scripture that convicted
Martin Luther and brought him out of a religion of a religion
of deeds, a religion of do's and don'ts. That brought him
the knowledge of salvation, that scripture right there, that just
shall live by faith. And our Lord made this statement.
He said, if you believe not that I am he, that I am the Christ,
the Messiah, the Redeemer, you will die in your sins if you
believe not that I am he. I must have faith. Whatever else
I miss, I don't want to miss faith. I've got to have saving
faith. Now, so here's the question for
us in our message today. How can I obtain saving faith? Well, I want to begin where I
am. I have to begin there, and that's what you ought to do.
Begin with what you know. Begin with what you know. Begin
with where you are. Well, first of all, I know this.
I know there is God. Now, notice I didn't say there
is a God. I hear people say, well, I believe
there's a God. I don't. God is not an idol. There is a God in Japan in Kamakura. His name is Buddha. He is a God
in a location. There's a God over somewhere
else, a God in a location, an idol. But I believe there is
God. God is not in anything. Everything's
in God. He created all things by the
word of his power. There is God. I hear folks say,
well, I believe God's a God of love. Now, wait a minute. God
is a God of love? That means love is over here
and God's over here and he fills the bill. He follows the way
that love points out. Oh, no. God is love. The Bible
doesn't say God is a God of love. The Bible says God is love. Love
is God. There's no love apart from God.
Love is in God and of God and from God. And without God, there
is no love. God is light. God is not a God
of light. He is light. Light came from
God. God doesn't come from something
and God is not situated over here. Most people go down to
church, to a church building to meet their God. You don't
have to go down to a church building to meet God. Everything's in
God. In God we live and move and have our being. That's where
we start. I believe there is God. God is light. God is truth. God is life. God is love. You see that? I believe there's
God. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. Everything came from God. These
things didn't just exist and we set God in here somewhere
and we recognize God and we recognize this and that and the other.
Everything came from Him. It originated with Him and sprang
from Him and is sustained by Him and kept by Him. There is
God. Don't be guilty of talking like
an idolater. I believe there's a God. I believe
God is a God of love. That's idolatry. God is love. God is light. God is truth. There is God. That's where we
start. That's where everything started.
All right? Secondly, I believe that God is holy. God is holy. God is almighty. God is sovereign. God is powerful, God is love,
God is wise, but when Isaiah saw the Lord, there's one attribute
that stood out above all attributes to Isaiah. He said, I saw the
Lord high and lifted up. His train filled the temple,
and the cherubims and seraphims around the throne of God cried,
holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts. He's holy. God is immaculately, infinitely,
immutably, unchangeably holy, so holy that no man can look
upon God and live. That's what God said to Moses.
Moses, you can't look upon God and live. God is awesomely holy,
spotless holiness, love in perfection, greatness in perfection, holiness
in perfection. That's where we are now. Then
we go on to something else. I know that I'm unholy, and I know that
you are. I know that all flesh is unholy
before God. The scripture says all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. All have sinned. God looked
down from heaven and saw that every imagination of man's heart
was only evil continually. Listen to the apostle. In my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. In the flesh, no man can please
God. We're not talking only about
the outer man, we're talking about the inner man. Everything
that God is, flesh is the opposite. God is life, flesh is death. God is truth, flesh, all men
are liars. That's what scripture says. Let
God be true and every man be a liar. God is light, flesh is
darkness. God is love, flesh is hate. Which comes easiest for you?
hatred or love, evil or good, prayer or frivolity? Well, you know and I know too.
That's easy to answer. God is life and we're death.
God is good and we're evil. That's what the scripture says.
Every man at his best state is altogether vanity. All right,
where are we? There is God. God is holy. We're unholy. And two can't walk
together except they be agreed. And I know then, I know the fourth
thing, I know then that I cannot, by my works and by my deeds,
justify myself in God's sight. Job, one of the most righteous
of all men, said this, if I justify myself, my own mouth would condemn
me. If I say that I'm clean, my mouth
would prove me to be perverse. That's right. By the deeds of
the law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. That's what God's
word says. In the flesh, by the deeds and works of the flesh,
shall no flesh be justified. Not by works of righteousness,
which we've done according to his mercy he has saved us. So
we know this. That this enmity and wrath and
judgment that separates me from my God like a great cloud It
cannot be removed by my works and by my deeds and by my efforts. Something else has got to be
done. The fifth thing I know is this. I know God is merciful. Moses one day said, Lord, show
me your glory. And God said, all right, I'll
cause my goodness to pass before thee. I will be merciful to whom
I will be merciful. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. That's God's glory. God's goodness,
God's mercy. The Lord's going to have a people.
He said to Abraham, he said, Abraham, I'm going to have a
seed through you as the stars of the sky. You know how many
stars in the sky? There are billions of them. They
go on and on and on and on. And he said, we're going to have,
I'm going to have a people. Heaven's going to be populated
by people as the sands of the seashore. You know how many sands,
grains of sand are on the seashore? That's what God said to Abraham.
God's going to have a people. I want to be one of them, don't
you? I don't want to miss glory. I don't want to miss that inheritance.
God's plenteous in mercy. He delights to show mercy. All
right, I know that. So far, these things I know.
I know there is God. I know God's holy. I know I'm
unholy. I know I cannot make myself holy.
I know I cannot blot out my record or my sins or justify myself
before God. I could call on my hands and
knees from here to Mecca. I could pray not five times a
day, but twenty-five times a day. I could go through every religious
ritual known to man and known to every sect or cult in this
world, and still I'd have a heart of sin, evil thoughts, blasphemy,
all of these things, jealousies and envies and pride and All
these things that live within, like wiggletails live in a corrupted
cistern? Well, here's the sixth thing
I know. I know that God Almighty will redeem a people by faith.
I know that. When Christ left this earth,
he said to his disciples, you go preach the gospel to every
creature, every creature, black and white, rich and poor, old
and young, just every creature, learned and ignorant, It doesn't
matter where they are, just preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believes it and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believes
it not shall be damned. That's what he said. Our Lord
said to Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness,
back then the days when the people of Israel were bitten by the
fiery serpents, and Moses lifted up a brazen serpent, and they
looked, and they lived, they looked by faith, and they lived
by God's mercy. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him." Salvation is by faith. Not by work, by faith. And Christ
died for sinners. He says that over and over again
in his word. He said the world don't need
a doctor. Sick people need doctors. And he said, I didn't come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. I didn't come
to call, to save good people. I came to save sinners. Our Lord
ministered to the publicans and harlots and these folks, you
know, religious, pious, moral Pharisees sitting up there in
their uppermost seats in the temple, look down their noses
and says, well, what's he want to associate with those people
for? They're nobody, they're sinners. We're not sinners. He
ought to associate with us. We're righteous. We're good.
But they're sinners. And our Lord looked at them and
said, the well don't need a doctor. Sick people need doctors. I didn't
come to call you righteous Pharisees. I came to call sinners. You will
perish clothed and wrapped in your own ragged, filthy garments,
which God says are filthy rags in his sight. Self-righteousness. God sees through it. He said,
you are they which justify yourselves, but that which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God Almighty. That's what most
religion is, it's an abomination to God Almighty, highly esteemed
among men. But it's just a bunch of people
trying to work their way to heaven, trying to appear to be better
than their neighbors, and trying to appear to be holier than thou,
and trying to appear to be more pious than somebody else, when
they're all dug out of the same pit, they all came from the same
daddy, they got the same fallen, evil nature, they have the same
wicked, filthy heart, and they all need the same blood to make
them white as snow. Flesh is flesh, I don't care
what you call it, call it Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian,
Call it male or female, call it old flesh or young flesh,
black flesh or white flesh or whatever it is, it's still flesh.
And in the flesh, no man can please God. This thing of salvation
is by faith, and it's not inherited from my mamas and daddies either.
My mother and daddy can't give me faith. They can give me life
and sin, a sinful life, that which is born of the flesh is
flesh. But they can't give me faith. And faith doesn't come
by dreams and visions, and faith doesn't come by the eloquence
of a preacher, and faith doesn't come by sacraments and ordinances
and rituals and ceremonies, and faith doesn't come by feeling
and emotion. How does faith come? Get your
Bible and turn to Romans 10, 17, and you'll find the answer
to that question. How can I obtain saving faith?
It's right there in front of you. God tells you how to obtain
salvation is by faith. Not the works. You don't have
enough works. You and all the sons of Adam, whoever lived,
don't have enough works to justify one sinner before God. Even our
works of righteousness are filthy rags in God's sight. My prayers
are full of sin. Yours are too. Nothing we do
is totally and completely free from sin. Everything we do has
some sin in it somewhere. a little selfishness, a little
pride, a little haughtiness, a little arrogance, a little
envy, a little of this, that, and the other, no humility, no
total love for God. There's no man who loves God
with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, and his neighbor
as himself, and that is the law. We need help, don't we? We need
mercy is what we need. We need a righteousness that
somebody else worked out for us, that God will be pleased
to accept in our stead. We need to be cleansed in something
besides our own religious jargon and decisions and professions. We need a Savior. Oh, how we
need a Savior. God, be merciful to me a sinner.
God, be merciful. The old Pharisee stood there
in the temple and he said, God, I sure thank you I'm not like
other folks. Why, he said, I go to church and keep the Sabbath
day and tithe and give alms and fast and pray. I do all these
things. I'm not like this publican over here, and the old publican
Christ said didn't so much as lift his eyes to heaven. He was
ashamed of his thoughts and his deeds and his nature, and he
swore upon his breast and cried, Oh God, be merciful to me, a
sinner. Which one of them was saved?
You care to venture a guess? You already know, don't you?
The old Pharisee went to hell. That's what our Lord said, bragging
on himself. And God justified the publican. He needed help and he found it.
He cried for mercy and he received it. He sought the grace of God
and he got it. And the same thing can be true
of you and me if we can find faith, if we can obtain faith,
if we can turn loose of our works and lay hold on Christ. If we
can turn loose of our doing and rest in what he's done. That's
right, that's the key. Look! L double O K and two of
the letters are just alike. Simple, isn't it? Too simple
for the profound mind. Too simple for the intellectual.
Too simple for the fellow that wants to make it his own, on
his own. But that's the way it is. And that's where it's going
to stay. And that's where it's always been. Abraham was justified
by faith. Rahab was justified by faith.
John was justified by faith. But how can I obtain saving faith?
Open your Bible to Romans 10, 17 and look at it. It says, faith
cometh by hearing. Hearing by the word of God. That's where you obtain faith.
Not hearing what men say about the word. Not hearing the plans
and patterns and propositions of zealous soul winners. Faith
cometh by hearing the naked, bare, powerful word of God. Faith cometh by hearing the word
of God. You better get acquainted with
God's word. You better get acquainted with God's word. Faith cometh
by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Don't trust your
soul to some preacher. Don't trust your soul to what
some preacher tells you to do. You know those noble Bereans
in the book of Acts that said they heard Paul, the apostle,
and then they went home and searched the scriptures to see if what
Paul said was so. Boy, I admire that. You say,
well, if Paul told me anything, I'd just believe it. I wouldn't.
I'd search the scriptures to see if it's so. That's what they
did, and God commended them. They searched the scriptures.
They come at the hearing and hearing by the word of God. Listen
to John 5, 24. Our Lord said, Verily I say unto
you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent
me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death unto life. Preacher, what are you
trying to get us to do? Read God's word. One man said one
time, he took a Bible in his hand, and he looked at the great
Spurgeon, and he said, Mr. Spurgeon, salvation is to be
found in this book. And by God's grace, I'm going
to find it. I'm going to get in this book
and stay there until God saves my soul. That's what Christ said
to the Pharisees. You search the scriptures. In
them you think you have eternal life, but they are they which
testify of me. While you're reading the scriptures,
remember this. They reveal a person. Salvation is not in the scriptures.
It's in Christ. But the scriptures point to Christ.
The object of faith is Christ. The foundation of faith is the
scriptures. The reason for faith is the scriptures. The source
of faith is the scriptures. But Christ is the object of faith.
He's the one who says, listen to John 6, 63. It's the spirit
that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing.
The words that I speak unto you, they're spirit, they're life.
Listen to 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 3. Paul said, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel. which I preached unto you, which
you also received, and wherein you stand, and by which you are
saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless
you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you how
that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, and
that he was buried, and he rose again according to the scripture."
The Bible, the word of God, is the seed which the Holy Spirit
plans to bring forth life, the word of God. Our Lord gave this
illustration, he said a sower went forth to sow. The sower
is the Son of God, the seed is what? The word of God. Now listen to this, in 1 Peter
1.23, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible
seed. Now, when we were born the first
time of the flesh from our mother and father, it was from a corruptible
seed, a fleshly seed. But the second birth is incorruptible
seed by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Listen
to James 1.18. Of his own will begat he us. What does the word begat mean?
Conceive, give life. Of his own will gave he us life. How? By the word of truth. Christ is our life, but you can't
separate Christ from his word. His word reveals him. Now listen
to this. He created all things by the
word of his power. That which we see about us, the
stars, the universe, the earth, the sea and the land, everything,
the mountains and valleys and deserts and plains, God created
by the word. He spake. He said, let there
be light. There was light. In the same
way, he creates spiritual life from nothing by speaking. He said, Lazarus, come forth.
Lazarus came forth. He received life. It was the
word of God that brought him forth. It was the word of God
that caused creation to come into being. And it's the word
of God that gives life to a dead sinner. You remember that. It's
the Word of God. It's the Word that reveals who
God is. It's the Word that reveals what
I am. It's the Word that reveals God's
mercy in Christ. It's the Word that reveals the
gospel. It's the Word that reveals our
mediator. If you neglect the Word of God,
you neglect the source of life. That's just being honest with
you. If you neglect the word of God, you neglect the very
source of conversion. That's what troubles me when
preachers do not use the word of God. Every message ought to
contain a few of our words and a whole lot of God's words. God
hasn't promised to bless my word. He didn't say, your words will
not return unto you, Lord. He says, my word will not return
unto me, Lord. It shall accomplish that whereunto
I sent it. Neglect the word of God, you
neglect the source of assurance. Neglect the word of God, you
neglect the source of hope, the source of comfort, peace, and
growth. He says, desire the milk of the
word, that you may grow thereby. God's word, that's the seed of
life, and he uses it to bring forth life. Now, somebody might
say to me, now preacher, I've read God's word, I've heard God's
word preached, And I have a Bible that I study, but I don't have
faith. I've been reading the Word, I've been listening to
the Word, and I've been studying the Word, but I don't have faith.
Well, let me tell you this. There's nothing wrong with the
Word. There must be something wrong with you. There's certainly
nothing wrong with God's Word. Maybe I could suggest some things
that are between you and faith that are causing you to stumble,
some obstruction. Let me ask you this. Maybe it's
lack of intention. Just how serious are you about
your relationship with Christ? Just how serious are you about
your sins and your guilt and your danger? How troubled are
you about death and judgment and eternity? Our Lord said,
you shall seek me and find me when you search for me with all
your heart. You don't play at this, and that's
what some of you are doing. About one day a week you run
down to the church and open your Bible and dust it off, you know,
and listen to a preacher a few minutes, close it up and go home
and forget it the rest of the time. You're not serious about
this thing. You're playing with your soul. You're not like Bartimaeus
who cried, Jesus, our son of David, have mercy. You're not
like Jacob who took hold of the angel and said, I won't let you
go, you bless me, I'm hanging on. And when you get to that
place, you'll find faith. And then maybe it's lack of attention
and meditation. Some of you couldn't tell an
hour from now what I preached on. You're not listening. Now,
you listen to the voices of this world, but not to God's Word.
You get serious and pay attention and meditate upon these things,
and maybe it's lack of honesty. Maybe your heart closed. You
say, well, he's a Baptist, I'm a Methodist, I'm not going to
listen to him. You can't hear the word if you've got a closed
mind, if you're filled with custom and prejudice and tradition.
It's got to be open. Lord speak, I'm listening. I'll
hear. Lack of courage? Lack of dedication? Let me read you a scripture over
here in Hebrews 3.1 and I'll close. Hebrews 2.1. Therefore
we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we've
heard, lest at any time we let them slip. For if the word spoken
by angels was steadfast, and every transgression received
a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation? Don't neglect it. Buy your Bible. Find out what God says.