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Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mold me and make me After thy will While I am waiting Yielding and still Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way Search me and try me Master today Wider than snow, Lord Wash me just now As in thy presence Humbly I bow Have thine own way, Lord Have thine own way And weary, help me, I pray Power, all power Surely is thine Touch me and heal me Save your Divine Have thine own way, Lord Have thine own way Lord, are my being Absolute sway Fill with thy Spirit Till all shall see Christ only always Living in me Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, you can lift up your hand nice and high. If you haven't gotten one, our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin on the front. Our Bible memory passage, we're on Revelation chapter 20. And we'll be having a grace week this upcoming week. So you still got a week and a half to get this thing finished. And of course, if you're a child, you can quote verse 20. It's a big one, but you can quote it and you can get an ice cream treat after the service. On the inside, we have our service time, soul winning times, and our church stats. Also on the right, our expecting ladies list, if you continue to pray for them. We also have a prayer list that we like to go over. If you continue to pray for the Negeras for their health. We've been praying for Miss Lucy's mother's tumors. We've been praying for brother Cameron Hall's leg. We've been praying for brother Wallach's daughter Haley for her pregnancy. We've been praying for Miss Cooley's stepdad cancer treatment. We've been praying for Suhail, but I think that this one's come to fruition, so all right. Praise the Lord on that one. That's exciting. Miss Lori May is with us. That's great. Also, we've been praying for Miss Linda for a new car and job. And then we've been praying for Miss Holden for health. We've been praying for Jackson. It's a family of brother Jimmy's coworker. Safety while they're in boot camp. Also been praying for Miss Urbanic's grandmother, Nancy. We've been praying for her surgery. And then if you could add to your list, just pray for the Naim's children. I guess they were sick, and he was asking for prayer for them. And then praying for brother Nate for a job. So we'll just continue to pray for all of those throughout the week. And we'll just say a quick word of prayer right now. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for our church. Thank you so much for our expecting ladies. Please be with them during their pregnancies. Please help their children to have proper development and to have a timely birth. I pray that you would also bless our church family that's struggling with health issues. Please, if possible, please give them a miracle. Please heal them. Please also just give them comfort right now while they're going through affliction and difficulty. Those who are not able to be with us tonight, I pray that you would give them quick recovery and health so that they can be back with us. I pray that you would also bless our church family that needs jobs and help with their vehicles or help with travel. And we pray that you would help our church family friends and their family that also need help with their health. And I pray that you would just help us to continue to be a bright and shining light and that we could reach many people with the gospel. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Also upcoming events, July 12th, Pastor Anderson is going to be guest preaching for us. And August 17th and 19th is our Mighty Men's Conference. October 12th through the 15th is the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship. And so we'll have a lot of guest preachers coming in for that as well. And so I think that's really all I have as far as announcements are concerned. Let's go ahead and sing our third song. It's going to be Psalm 139 and it's in our special handouts. Or you could just follow along in your Bible, Psalm 139. All right, that was Psalm 139. Singing out for the haters, Psalm 139. Everybody sing it out on the first. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God. Depart from me, therefore ye bloody men. Depart from me, therefore ye bloody men. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. Am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. For they speak against thee wickedly. For they speak against thee wickedly. And thine enemies take thy name in vain. And thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. Am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. I hate them with perfect hatred. I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. I count them mine enemies. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. Am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. All right, great job everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter four. That's Romans chapter number four. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter four. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter four. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter four. Romans chapter four, Romans chapter four, the Bible reads, What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath aware of the glory, but not before God. For what sayeth the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness, even as David also described the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputed righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned, when he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a sign of the seal of righteousness, of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also. And the father of circumcision to them, who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of non-effect, because the law worketh wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be of faith Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, which is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were, who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Let us pray. Father, thank you so much for this great chapter of the Bible, Lord, this great book. Lord, I pray that you would work Pastor's heart right now and help him preach what he's prepared unto us, and we just thank you for all the admonitions of this chapter, and just how it just pounds home faith alone, and not by the works of the law. Help us, Lord, to go out and preach the gospel of peace, and help us, Lord, to just give you glory, and your son glory, and everything that we do in honor, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So we go into the book of Romans, and we're in chapter number four now, and the Bible starts out here in verse one saying, What shall we say then, that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Now, this is coming on the heels of the fact that we've kind of talked about there being no distinction between Jews and Gentiles. If you kind of have an idea from Romans chapter number one, faith was revealed through the gospel, and in chapter two, it kind of makes it clear that everyone's going to be judged, that it doesn't matter if you're the best sinner, you're still going to be judged as the best sinner, and if you're a Jew, it doesn't really change anything, you're still also going to be judged, and really the true Jews were not a physical determination through circumcision, but rather it was having faith in Jesus Christ that makes you a true Jew. In chapter three, we kind of talk about, you know, is there an advantage to being a Jew? Sure, there was advantages to being a Jew, but at the same time, we're all sinners, so by result of being a sinner, we all need salvation by grace through faith, and that's kind of where it was ending in chapter number three, and we're concluding that salvation and justification is by faith, and it says in verse 30 of the previous verse, seeing it as one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith, do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law. So, you have to understand again, the chapter divisions, while they're not necessarily God-breathed, they're there because a lot of times it's helping you understand that we've kind of made a transition again, and the transition here in this opening question of verse number one, in chapter four, it's kind of going back to the question of circumcision, because that's kind of how chapter three started, didn't it? What advantage then hath the Jew, or what profit is there of circumcision, and so it's like, okay, well, if circumcision didn't really get you saved, then what did Abraham even find? Because notice what it's saying in verse number one. What so he said, Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, as pertaining to the flesh hath found. So it's like, well then what did Abraham find pertaining to the flesh? Now, I believe that understanding this chapter as a whole, they're alluding to circumcision specifically. He's basically saying like, well, then what the heck is circumcision about? Or like, why did Abraham get circumcised? Or like, what's going on here? Now, it says in verse two, for if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof the glory, but not before God. So the question's kind of put out there, but before he answers this or really kind of gets deep into it, he kind of starts explaining why or what circumcision's really going to be about. Okay, and it's saying, well, if him getting physically circumcised is what saved him, then that's kind of what it's alluding to in verse two. For if Abraham were justified by works. So it's saying, well, what did he find? You know, what is this circumcision that we're talking about? And it's like, well, if he were justified by works, then he hath whereof the glory, but not before God. So it's saying, hey, if salvation were of works, then there would be glory on our part. There would be glory on Abraham's part. Abraham could say, well, of course, I'm going to heaven because I'm circumcised. That's the work that I did, and you didn't get circumcised. Therefore, you're not going to heaven. So there's this glory in circumcision. And really, even Jews today kind of take glory in circumcision, and they'll act as if somehow that makes them special or unique or they've done something noteworthy. And it's like, it wasn't that great, okay, number one. But even then, it doesn't make you special, okay? And so the point that it's alluding to, it's kind of in the context of circumcision, all right? Verse three, for what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. So it's saying, it wasn't about a flesh thing. Abraham being saved or Abraham being declared righteous wasn't about flesh. It wasn't about works. It wasn't about circumcision. What did the scripture say? What does the Bible say? It's saying that Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. So it's saying, if we just read the Bible and let the Bible speak for itself, we realize that what made Abraham righteous was his faith. Not any works, not anything else. That's what the Bible is just clearly saying, even though he was giving him this particular covenant. Now, keep your finger here. I want to go to Genesis chapter 17 for a moment. Go to Genesis chapter 17. Because obviously Abraham's a very unique character in the Bible, and the Bible does talk a lot about Abraham. The Bible explains that he was given certain covenants even, and it says in Genesis chapter 17, look at verse seven. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a god unto thee and to thy seed after thee. So, Abraham had a covenant established with him and with his seed. Now, I'm not going to read all these verses, but look what it says in verse 10. This is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee. Every man child among you shall be circumcised, and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house and he that is bought with thy money must needs be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He hath broken my covenant, and God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be, and so on and so forth. But here's what I think is important to note is it says in verse number 13, it says, and my covenant shall be in your flesh. So he's saying he made a covenant and it's in his flesh, and I think this is where you're kind of getting that question. It's like, well, what did Abraham find as pertaining to the flesh, right? He was given this covenant. It's a covenant in the flesh. It's this everlasting covenant. What was all this covenant? What was the point of circumcision? Well, before he answers that question and before he talks about that, he's making it clear that it wasn't salvation because he's saying, well, if he was justified by works, he hath wear of the glory, but not before God. What does the scripture say? It says that he believed in God and God counted that unto him for righteousness, okay? So we can go back to other places in scripture like Genesis 15 and find where the Bible tells us that Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, okay? Go back to Romans, chapter number 4. Go back to Romans, chapter number 4, and he's going to continue to explain that salvation is a free gift. It's by grace. It was by faith. It says in verse number 4, Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. So if salvation were of works, then God would owe you something, whereas salvation is not owed to us. We don't deserve it. We don't deserve salvation. And in fact, it would be to a point where God has a debt. He has some kind of a debt he has to owe. Well, God's not going to be someone that's just delinquent on debt or not paying his own debt. God's going to pay. God's going to pay the people that work for him. But salvation is not of works. Otherwise, we would be owed salvation and we would take away from the glory of what Jesus did. And that's what work salvation does is it takes away from the person who paid the debt, which was Jesus. And it's like you trying to pay for it again after it's already been purchased. Well, if it's already been purchased, you can't buy it because it's already been paid for. And Jesus isn't going to sell it to you. So Jesus will give it to you, but you can't buy it and you can't work for it because then he wouldn't owe it to you. Verse 5, But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth in Godly, his faith is counted for righteousness. So notice again the Bible is just hammering the same point over and over. That it's the faith that declares you righteous or what counts as your righteousness. And really this verse is highly contentious in the sense that most people don't believe that someone could literally do no works and be saved. Now, I want to be careful in describing this point, though, because I do believe there's a lot of people that are wrong on what I'm going to teach on this particular verse, but that doesn't mean that they're necessarily unsaved. So I believe that there's probably a lot of Christians and just broadly when I use the word Christian, just people in the Christian faith, who would say that when it comes to being saved, it's just a free gift, it's just by faith, but you're going to always have works, okay? And maybe you'll hear this statement. You're saved by faith alone, but that faith is never alone. Who's heard something like that or something similar? Yeah, yeah. So a lot of people will say this cutesy little statement, but at the end of the day, you know, they're wrong, number one. They're wrong, number one. But here's an important thing for us to understand. Just because someone believes that, I don't think that makes them unsaved, okay? Now, it depends on what they're meaning when they say these type of things, okay? When you start drilling down and you start asking a few more questions, if they say, look, salvation's a free gift, it's by faith, you can't lose it, I just think everyone who's saved is going to have works in their life, okay, you can believe that if you want to, but, and again, 90-some percent of the time, that's probably true. I mean, if we were to really be honest with ourselves, how many people out there get saved and do absolutely nothing ever? They never touch a Bible, they've never gone to a church service, they've never prayed one time, they've never tried to say anything about the Bible. I mean, that's a pretty big extreme, isn't it? I mean, you'd probably have to be, you know, scraping the bottom of the barrel of people that die, like deathbed confessions to find this guy that did absolutely nothing after getting saved. So, again, we're still talking about a hypothetical, a hypothetical person that got saved and just was like, I'm never going to do anything for Christ, which, it's kind of a bizarre scenario, but the Bible wants to make this point that even if that person existed, even if we could find someone that's done absolutely nothing for God, but they believed in him, they're saved. Because notice what it says, his faith is kind of done for righteous. It doesn't say, well, but he also changed his life or he did some good things. No, it's this guy that did nothing. Now, the person that does nothing and has no works but has faith, this is what many people refer to as a dead faith, okay? Now, go over to James, chapter two. Keep your finger here, James, chapter number two. And that's true. It's not that that's not a dead faith, okay? But this is what they'll say. They'll say that a dead faith doesn't save, okay? And really, you know, that cutesy saying, it's actually a little bit different when we talk about its origin. If you kind of trace it, it seems like Martin Luther is one of the people that came up with this cutesy phrase. But Martin Luther's quoted as saying this, we are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. So it's a little bit more nuanced how he kind of words that. So he's almost making it sound like there's this faith that saves and then there's this faith that doesn't save. And then really, that's what a lot of people teach today. John MacArthur's and a lot of these lordship salvationists out there, they'll say, there's people that have this faith that doesn't save you. It's this dead faith and you have to have a faith that saves or saving faith. And it's like, you know, there could probably be a context where I could agree there's a distinction in faith. You know, you have Bible talks about in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, people believing in vain. But here's the thing, that faith wasn't truly in Jesus. There's not someone that has faith in Jesus and is not saved. Now you could have faith in a fake Jesus, you could have faith in a fake gospel, you could have some faith in the gospel, but you're just not gonna have 100% faith in Jesus and not be saved. You have all of it in Jesus, you're saved. But some people wanna basically put it out there that they believe everything you could possibly believe and trust everything you could possibly trust about Christ, because they haven't repented of their sins or they're not living a holy enough life or there's not evidence in their life that they're not saved somehow. And again, we wanna be careful here to diagnose the situation. I think most people who say these kind of things are probably still saved, they're just wrong and influenced by a bad teacher. But a lot of the teachers of these doctrines, many of them are probably just false prophets. People like John MacArthur, that guy I don't believe saved for one second, okay? And I think a lot of people that are like him are not saved. But there can be people that are pretty mixed up on these things, maybe say some weird stuff. But I even, I was listening to a guy and I found a sermon, it was preaching against what they call free grace. So our position sometimes people would call it free grace and I don't have a problem with that because the Bible says that salvation's free, okay? And the salvation's of grace. So a free grace gospel sounds pretty good to me. You know, I wouldn't wanna be on the team that says lordship salvation because man, that just sounds like work salvation, okay? I like the free grace team anyways. So whether or not you love that title or not, I don't know if I love it or not, but I like the words, okay? And there's this guy named Wayne Grudem. I don't think anybody probably have heard of him, but he's a theologian. I think he teaches at Phoenix Seminary. He's pretty popular online. He's written a lot of books, but he critiques those who believe salvation is without repenting of sin. Now, here's the thing though. I listened to his sermon or his little exegesis of this particular critique point and apparently I'm still saved though because he's like even if you don't believe their doctrine, like if you believe free grace and you made some changes after getting saved, then you're still saved. He's like even though, and he said that we don't even teach a false gospel, just that we have like, I don't know how he worded it. It was like an incomplete view of the gospel. So he's like they're not teaching anything wrong and he's like they're trusting in Jesus so they're saved. They're just leaving out some important points about repenting of their sin and then he just brings up all this dumb stuff. And so I wanted to kind of talk about a few points that he makes, but before we get there, James 2 is of course the place that all these people want to go to and tell us about this dead faith, right? Well, isn't it interesting that James 2 in verse 23 here says the exact same thing that we already read. Look what it says in verse 23. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. Now, how could you come to this chapter and then tell me that salvation is not by faith alone? I mean, it literally teaches salvation by faith alone. It just told us that, hey, the reason why Abraham was considered righteous and saved is because he believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. So it's silly that people can go to this chapter and then still teach its work salvation. Now, of course, I'm not going to do a whole exegesis of chapter 2 here, but, you know, it also says this, and he was called the friend of God. So it wasn't just that he was saved. He was also the friend of God and what made him the friend of God was that he had works that accompanied his faith. He wasn't someone that had a dead faith, which is what the whole chapter is about. There's no argument there. Everybody agrees it's about dead faith. The question is, does dead faith save? And here's the answer. Romans 4 and 5 already told us that it does. Because the guy that had no works, isn't that dead faith? He ended up getting saved, did he not? Now, what's so funny is you'll even hear some of these people say, well, faith, we're saved by faith alone, but that faith is never alone. Okay, well, let's just read a few verses from this chapter to see if that's true. Verse 17, even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead. Notice this phrase, being alone. Oh, wait a minute, that never exists. Why does the Bible bring it up? It literally says that if someone has faith without their works, it's alone. But then they'll say like, oh, it's never alone. It is alone. That's what the Bible's saying. You're just stupid, okay? Of course it can be alone. It's not like it just disappears. Like faith without works doesn't exist. That's what they want you to believe, but that's false. So then they come up with the cuter saying, well, saving faith. Okay, well, show me that in the Bible. Because they always love to tell you like, well, the phrase faith alone is only found one time in the Bible, and it's like, well, show me saving faith. Show me that. Oh, you can't show me that? You can't show me the unsaving faith and the saving faith phrase? So they just make up their own garbage that nobody with a brain should believe. But the Bible's really clear that you can have faith without works. Look at verse 26. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Does it say that the faith without works doesn't exist, can't exist, is impossible? No, because think about the entire context of the chapter. If faith without works couldn't even exist, then why in the world is James trying to tell people to not have a dead faith? The whole reason he's telling them to not have a dead faith is because you can have a dead faith, because people do have a dead faith, because he doesn't want people to have a dead faith, okay? So in order for you to then believe that this dead faith is not what we've been talking about, it's this you can't get saved from it. Well, when is he then preaching them the gospel? Think about it this way. If you want to claim that the dead faith mentioned in chapter 2 is a faith that doesn't save somebody, then you would have to believe that James is telling these people to do works in order to remedy that. Why? I didn't think that works saved us. So, of course, you get all kinds of bizarre teachings on James 2 from people that aren't saved. You'll get teachings like that this is a different dispensation. There's preachers out there that'll say James 2 teaches you have to do works in order to be saved. And then they'll say, but that was a different dispensation, you know, for the Jews. This was written for the Jews, and the Jews have to do works. No, James 2 doesn't teach works salvation. It teaches that you should have works after you get saved. And a dead faith is one in which just doesn't have any works to go along with it. Look, the guy that was dying on the cross next to Jesus, you know what, he didn't have any works. So, guess what, he was still saved, though. And this is what a lot of people, he would have done a lot of works, you know. If he had come off that cross, you know, he wasn't going to steal anymore. He was just going to become a good guy. And it's like, you don't know that. There's plenty of people in the Bible that don't get right. That's silly to just know for a fact this guy was going to be a good guy. He would have gotten baptized, too. You know, it's like, you don't know that. You don't know what this guy was going to do. All he wanted to do was go to heaven. And, of course, he got there because he believed in Jesus. Now, some people say, oh, you have to be willing. That's what repentance really means. You have to be willing to turn from your sin. Okay, well then, when God repented, is that what it meant there? In Jonah chapter 3, when it says that God repented, was that God being willing to turn from his sin? I don't think that he has to be willing. He can't even sin. That's so stupid. So you have to come up with a definition that fits God, too, whenever you decide what your repentance means. Now, can God change his mind? Yes, he can. God can decide to do something different. And, of course, he's not changing his mind like willy-nilly or an unstable person. He changes his mind based on people's decisions. Hey, I'm going to destroy you unless you get right. Well, if they get right, then he changes and doesn't have to necessarily destroy them. It wasn't that he changed. He had already decided that. But at the end of the day, that's what the repentance means in Jonah chapter 3, verse 10, whereas you get heretics that'll teach that, oh, repentance just means you have to be willing. You can't have a death grip on your sin and then still get saved. What is a death grip on my sin? You know, I heard this heretic, Stacey Shiflett, recently. He got up and he said that when he's giving the Gospel to someone, if he can tell they have a death grip on their sin, he stops preaching them the Gospel because it's a waste of time. And I'm thinking, like, what does that even look like exactly? Like, are they just, like, holding beer, like, no, don't touch my beer. You know, it's like, what does that even look like? I got a death grip on my sin. You know, it's like, it's so stupid. Well, how, what if they just have a light grip? You know, like, do I have to just check? Is it about them being strong? What if they have a limp wrist? You know, does that, you know, just if they're a little effeminate, does that make them more receptive somehow now? I mean, it's just a dumb doctrine. It's a stupid doctrine. It's coming from typically an unsaved mind. Someone that thinks that repenting of your sin is willing to turn from sin is just not being intellectually honest with Scripture. He even, Stacey Shuford even says, he gives this, like, parable of this guy and he's saying that he just had to be, he didn't actually have to make a change in his life. He just had to be willing. Well, what's the point of that? Like, God just wants you to want to give up sin. He doesn't really want you to give up sin. He just wants you to want to give up sin. You know, it's like, hey, don't, you don't have to stop being a fornicator, but you have to want to stop being a fornicator, okay, in order to get saved. And then once you get saved, just continue to want to do it, but you don't have to do it. Like, that's stupid. I would say God 100% wants you to give up fornication, but has nothing to do with being saved. And isn't it so funny that the people that are so mad about free grace theology, pretending like we're going out there giving people all these licenses of sin, will accuse us and say, hey, these free grace gospel preachers, they're not telling people to repent of their sins. And I'm thinking like, hmm, I don't know if anybody's really going to accuse me of never preaching against sin, of telling people not to, of saying it's okay to commit sin. It's like, that's so bizarre and it's so stupid and it's so foolish. Look, of course, salvation being free doesn't mean that you shouldn't give up your sin. Give up all of your sins. They'll say, well, but sometimes in the Bible they tell wicked people to give up their sin before giving them gospel. Okay, you know, if I see someone stealing, I might say, hey, stop stealing. I'm not going to be like, hey, let's, you know, give you the gospel real quick. You know, someone's breaking down my door, I'm not going to offer them the gospel. I'm going to defend my house first, okay. And there's nothing wrong with rebuking someone for their sin because they're a sinner. You know what, not every time I speak does it have to be me giving the gospel. Sometimes there's a place for the gospel, there's a place for rebuke sin. They're both great. We should do both. But to say that the Bible is teaching you have to repent of your sin or be willing to turn from your sin is lying. It's lying. It's not what the text says anywhere, any place in scripture. And Romans 4, 5 demolishes it by saying here's a guy that literally has no works whatsoever. None. But he believed and he saved. And of course, oh, well, James 2, James 2 told us that Abraham was saved by faith too. Well, this Wayne Grudem, he says, yeah, but this free grace gospel is a novel doctrine. It's brand new. No one has believed this from history. You know, if you look at the great preachers of the past, no one believed this. So I went back to one of the great preachers of the past, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, okay. This is a sermon of his from December 22nd in 1910 because he claims no one's ever believed this. No one has ever interpreted the word repentance as a change of mind or the Greek word metanoia. They've never said this. And we had great people like Spurgeon teaching repentance, okay. Let's listen to what Charles Haddon Spurgeon said in his sermon in 1910. First, we cannot be saved without repentance. No remission of sin can be given without repentance. The two things are so joined together by God as they are in our text that they cannot be separated. Many mistakes are made as to what true evangelical repentance really is. Just now, some professedly Christian teachers are misleading many by saying that repentance is only a change of mind. So Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, hey, there's all these preachers out there right now saying that salvation is just changing your mind and believing the gospel. But of course, this is not a historical doctrine. The great men have preached. Okay, well, these people, somebody was preaching it back then, weren't they? He says, it is true that the original word does convey the idea of a change of mind. Well, it is true that the underlying word means changing your mind. Okay, this is what Charles Haddon Spurgeon said. But the whole teaching of Scripture concerning the repentance, which is not to be repented of, is that it is a much more radical and complete change than is implied by our common phrase about changing one's mind. So he's like, well, it does mean that, but if you read the Bible, it just seems like it's saying something completely different. Yeah, because you're not saved. That's the problem. And listen to what he said, a radical and complete change. So you've got people like Stacey Shiflett saying you've got to be willing, and then you've got really big heretics like Charles Haddon Spurgeon, like complete radical change. You have other people like this, David Platt, who wrote a book called Radical, and it's like, you know, you have to be radically different. And he's like, he describes salvation as getting hit by a Mack truck. He said, hey, if I told you that I just got hit by a Mack truck on the highway and I didn't look any different, you wouldn't believe me. And he's like, the same as when someone says, I've been saved, and they don't look any different. Wearing a graphic tee and skinny jeans. Mr. David Platt, who's super woke, and now says the next pastor he ordains has to be black because he's a respecter of persons. Look, you know, it's silly because even if, let's just say for argument's sake, no one's ever taught this. I don't care because the Bible still says it, and so Paul taught it. I mean, when we talk about historical doctrines, we can at least go back to Paul. Paul taught it. And as we go through this chapter, we'll learn even more people taught it when we go even further back. But let's just challenge Wayne on some recent history. Hey, Charles Haddon Spurgeon is saying there's a lot of people teaching that in 1910. Oh, well, that's, it was just the 20th century. Okay, let's go further back. How about 1547? That's a little bit further back, isn't it? This is the Council of Trent's sixth session by the Catholic Church, okay? Here's what they say in the sixth session, Canon 12. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence and divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema. So the Catholic Church is basically condemning Romans 4. It's condemning the Apostle Paul, saying if you think that it's just by believing and having confidence and Christ, then you're an anathema. Which means just basically they want nothing to do with you, cut off, and in some cases even just executed for believing such things. Canon 14, they say this. If anyone says that a man is absolved from his sins and justified because he firmly believes that he's absolved and justified, or that no one is truly justified except him who believes himself justified, and that by this faith alone, absolution and justification are affected, let him be anathema. So again, they restate it. Now, admittedly, when you read their session in whole, a lot of it's against Calvinism. And you know, some of the points they even make, I agree with. You know, some of the points they're talking really bad about the Calvinistic doctrine of the absence of free will and how you're just automatically elected and everything like that. And I totally agree with the Catholic Church that that's false doctrine. But they're specifically attacking salvation by faith alone. Now, what sense would it make if no one in the world is teaching faith alone for the Catholic Church to have an entire session condemning people that do it? Like, let's just make up rules that no one believes. No, you know why they made this session? Let's go a little bit further back in history, okay? 1536, so we were in 1547. I wonder why they had to do this. How about a guy named William Tyndale who in October of 1536 was executed. Here is his first charge. First, he maintains that faith alone justifies. No one has ever taught that faith alone saves. It's not a historical position. What about the people being executed for it? What about the Catholic Church making an entire session, an entire council to condemn people for believing this? You know why they had to do that? Because tons of people were believing it. Because it was spreading like crazy that people were thinking salvation was a free gift by faith, okay? Second, this is the second charge against William Tyndale. Second, he maintains that to believe in the forgiveness of sins and to embrace the mercy offered in the gospel is enough for salvation. Sign me up. You know, if I ever get executed, I hope these are my charges. Praise God. Now, you know, some of his other charges, it sounds like he was also probably a Calvinist. And it's also arguable that William Tyndale said some weird stuff about salvation. That doesn't change the point that I'm making. I don't care what William Tyndale believed. What I do know as a fact is that they would execute people for believing these things and, of course, they would never have these charges if no one ever believed them. That doesn't make any sense. You don't pass laws for things that people won't do or have never done. You pass laws for the things that people do. And you'll notice around the workplace when they come up with a new rule, it's because someone just did that thing that they just made a new rule about, okay? That's how rules work. That's how laws work. You know, just like God implements laws like, hey, you know that stuff the Canites were doing? Leviticus 20. Let me tell you all about why you should put those people to death and what they're doing. So, it's just funny that this guy claims, you know what, it's not a historical position. No one's ever believed this. Lie. Number one, that's a lie. Number two, he says, well, no popular preacher believed this doctrine. Okay, we'll go to Luke chapter six for a moment. We'll go to Luke chapter number six. Does that matter? And frankly speaking, okay, who's popular today? Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, John MacArthur. What if we went a hundred years into the future and then we went back and we're like, what do the popular preachers of 2023 believe? What did Joel Osteen and John MacArthur believe? Why does that matter? Why do I care what they believed? You know, the Charles Haddon Spurgeon of today, John MacArthur, who cares what he believed? R.C. Sproul, who cares what he believed? You know, it doesn't really impact what's true or not the most popular preacher's beliefs. And in fact, it almost invalidates their beliefs, the fact that they were so popular. Because look what it says in Luke chapter six, verse 26. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. So, there's actually almost a curse associated with being really popular. And I, look, it's just true, folks. We have plenty of friends and plenty of people that we know that are really well spoken. In fact, sometimes they're just cool. Like our friend Pastor Mejia is just like cool. And if there was a person that could be liked and could be popular, he's definitely on that list. But you know, he's just not going to be super popular because of what he believes. And it doesn't matter, you could take the coolest podcaster, the coolest radio personality, the best celebrity. And if he starts teaching the same things that we do, everyone will trash him. He will lose all of his gigs and lose all of his deals. And you can have a level of popularity, but you're just never going to be that popular in the world's eyes. So, for Charles Adams Spurgeon to be the most popular preacher in everywhere, everybody loves this guy. There's something wrong with him. And of course, this Wayne Grudem is like, well, when did Billy Graham and when did Charles Adams Spurgeon and when did these guys? I don't care about Billy Graham because Billy Graham is a false teacher. Billy Graham taught the after pen of your sins his whole life and even got so ecumenical at the end of his life, he said you need to know the name of Jesus to be saved. The guy said that everyone was saved basically as long as they follow the light that they have. I mean, imagine someone that was raised in a Satanist home, but they follow the light of Satanism. Is that going to save them, Billy Graham? I mean, how stupid is that? No, it's only the gospel of Jesus Christ that will save you. But I just, again, I'm parking on this point for a moment because I think it's important, but let's just break this down for a moment because we kind of have two sides, right? We have us that believe salvation is a complete free gift. You don't even have to make any changes to be saved. Obviously, you should. We want you to. We'll preach really hard at you if you don't change, but at the same time, it's free, okay? And then you have this other group that says, well, no, you have to make changes. There's got to be a change. You've got to do these works too. It's not the works to save you, but they're going to be there, okay? So then let's just take it practically. We have a guy. We preached him the gospel. He says he believes it. He prays and asks Jesus to save him. It's the same guy, okay? We fast forward two years, and then we run into the guy. The guy hasn't gone to church, hasn't read his Bible, and is still living with his girlfriend. He's still in fornication, okay? What would we say to this guy? And let's just say both of us already checked. Both of us, the free grace side, we said, hey, what do you believe about salvation? He says, it's just believing in Jesus. I didn't change my mind on that. And then the lordship guy, he says, hey, what do you have to do? And he says, just believing in Jesus, okay? What would be our response to this guy? Well, we would say, look, God's going to punish you if you continue living in this life of fornication. You need to repent of this wickedness or God is going to destroy you. God's going to punish you for doing these type of things. Now, I'm on the lordship side. I don't think this guy's even saved. So if I truly believe that, I would just preach him the gospel still. And that's what they do. And in many cases, if you go to John MacArthur's church, you go to any of these people's church, they say every week they just give the gospel. And they just think, like, most of their church isn't even saved. So it's just like, Jesus died on the cross, buddy. It's like, is that going to really motivate this guy to stop living in fornication? No. And now some of those people, most of those people that would just still keep preaching the gospel, they're probably saved and they're just mixed up. And so they're not benefiting this guy. Then you've got the work salvationists that are in this lordship crowd or pen of your sins crowd. What are they going to say? Well, if you don't give up fornication, then you're going to hell. You've got to repent of this sin or you're going to go to hell. Well, when in the world does the Bible say that works save you? Now they're just teaching full-blown work salvation when they look at this guy because there's nothing left to do when preaching the gospel. After they've gotten the gospel and they've figured it out, I mean, so we're both telling the guy, give up fornication. Hey, give up fornication, God will punish you. But guess what? I'm saying you're going to be punished on earth. They're saying you're going to go to hell. How is that going to motivate this guy after he's already heard the gospel? Well, now you're just teaching work salvation. Now you're just teaching lies. So when it comes to a practical scenario, many of the people that are good and just mixed up, they don't even help the guy. And then the guys that are really just bad, they're just teaching full-blown heresy work salvation. So, of course, there's no benefit to believing this, teaching this, even practically speaking, they're not practicing what they preach. Obviously there's a Joyce Meyers out in the world that would say, God's not mad at you anyways and she's just a liar, so who cares what she has to say. But go back to Romans, chapter number four. But this is what the accusation you'll get. You're giving people license to sin. How am I doing anything different than what they're doing? I'm still telling them to give up, giving up their sin. I'm just telling them that they're already saved and that they, if they don't, they're going to for sure get punished with chastisement. You're confusing them on what they thought they believed. And then there's lots of people, then they get mixed up and they actually think that works and the gospel is like connected somehow and they have to also repent of their sins, do all this work, and then they teach this to all the congregation, they get all prideful and arrogant. And then what happens when this guy gets back in church and then gets backslidden again? Oh, now he lost his salvation or now he was never saved or, you know, it's just this vicious cycle and then it's just they frustrated the grace, they frustrated the gospel. They complicated it and, of course, many of people are going to go to hell confused. I mean, they're just, it's sad. When we go out and knock on doors, there's so many people that are just genuinely confused. They think it's both and when you show them this clear distinction, it really unlocks in their mind what the true gospel is, that it really is free and it's really just faith. And it's not like, well, this is a new thing. Look at verse 6. Even as David also described the blessings of the man in whom God imputed the righteousness without works. So you know what? There wasn't a different gospel and a different dispensation. During David's time, it was the same gospel. Notice it's giving commentary on what David had said. It says in verse 7, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now, that's a quote from Psalm 32. But verse 6 is giving you the commentary and telling you, hey, when David said those verses in Psalm 32, the interpretation was that it was salvation and righteousness without works. It was imputed unto you. And this makes sense because think about this. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. What does that mean by impute sin? It means that it's credited to your account. Well, if all of your sins from the past were taken care of but not the future ones, then when you sin in the future, what happens? Well, then you've got to go back, do the sacrifices again. Of course, and this is how the old sacrificial system worked. Every time you sinned, you had to go back and reconcile for your new sin, for your future sin that you had just committed. But notice what it's saying. He's not even going to impute sin unto you. That's alluding to the fact that your future sins are not going to be imputed unto you. Why? Because you're already saved and you're already saved without works. There's no works and you're blessed because the Lord will not impute sin unto you anymore because you've been saved and you've been given Jesus Christ's righteousness. That's another proof, honestly, of the fact that your future sins have been taken care of. And that was implied in the text, which again, if your future sins are already taken care of, that's evidence of the fact that your salvation is without works because it has nothing to do with what you're going to do in the future. It's already been taken care of because Jesus already paid for all of it. So that's what you have to kind of understand about the commentary here. It says in verse 9, Come at this blessedness then upon the circumcision only. Here's where we kind of get our tie back from verse 1. We're talking about, What shall we say then that Abraham our father's pertain and the flesh hath found? Okay, so is this salvation that we've been talking about? Is this grace that we've been talking about? Is this blessedness that we've been talking about? Is that only for those who are circumcised? Well, it says in verse number 9, Or upon the uncircumcision also. So is it just for Jews? For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? So now it's getting even more nitty gritty. Okay, what was exactly what gave him the righteousness? How did he get it? Was it from the circumcision or what's going on here? This is confusing, is kind of the line of question. Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. So he's saying, Abraham was actually considered righteous before he was even ever circumcised. That's what it's saying. Verse 11, And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised. So it's saying when Abraham finally got circumcised, The circumcision was a sign of what had already happened. So he already was saved. He already was spiritually circumcised. And his outward circumcision was a picture or a sign of what was already taken place in his heart. Now this is similar to what it says in chapter 2. Go back to chapter 2 for a second. And look what it says in verse number 28. For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter. So notice there is a circumcision that is not a physical circumcision. There is a spiritual circumcision. So when Abraham first believed God, he was spiritually circumcised. And that spiritual circumcision was in his heart and he was declared righteous with God. Later in his life he got physically circumcised and what did that physical circumcision represent? It represented an outward picture, an outward sign of the seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised. So he already did all that spiritually. He is doing it outwardly as a sign. Now I believe this and the scripture doesn't necessarily just plainly state this. But in the Old Testament the outward sign for salvation is circumcision. In the New Testament the outward sign is baptism. Again baptism doesn't save you. We are not Church of Christ here. We don't believe in baptismal regeneration. What does baptism do? It represents the decision you already made to trust Christ. You are representing that you died with him, that you trusted in his death, burial and resurrection to save you. And then secondly what does baptism represent? That you want to walk in newness of life. What did circumcision represent? Circumcision represented that you have already been circumcised spiritually. That you have already put your faith in Jesus Christ in your heart. And secondly that you want to serve God in your life. That you actually want to walk after God's commandments and you want to follow in his works. So they are both the exact same. They are just different pictures for different time periods. We have the Old Testament picture of circumcision. We have the New Testament picture of baptism. And I will tell you what I like baptism better. It is called the better testament folks. Now for me my parents decided to circumcise me when I was a baby. So that is great. But think about it if you were an old man. Think about somebody that got saved later in life. And it is like alright come on down. That would be terrible. I think a lot less people would become Christian just because of that. They would be saved and they would be afraid. They are like I don't really want to tell anybody. It is like you think baptism is embarrassing. Think about that. It is like hey brother Ben just got circumcised. Everybody give him a round of applause. That would be weird right? It didn't just happen folks. Someone is going to make that a video. You are welcome. But we understand that what it is trying to communicate is that there was an inward decision. An inward process that happened for Abraham that was outwardly expressed. So again what did Abraham find? Well he didn't find salvation in the flesh with circumcision. It was different. It was something else. And of course we are going to continue to elaborate on this. It says in verse number, let's read the latter part of verse 11 again. Though they be, I am sorry, being uncircumcised that he might be, I want to go all the way to the verse. And he received the sign of circumcision to seal the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised. That he might be the father of all them that believe. Though they be not circumcised that righteousness might be imputed unto them also. So the whole reason that he got saved first was so that us Gentiles and all the uncircumcised people in the future would also look to Abraham as their spiritual father. Verse 12, and the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only. But who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised. So verse 12 is also interesting in what it is trying to communicate. It is saying he is not the father of those who are just circumcised physically. They had to be spiritually circumcised too. So those who did not believe in Jesus, those who did not get spiritually circumcised, Abraham is not their father. And you know Jesus kind of questioned the Jews on this or kind of provoked them a lot of times. By telling them that you know they are not really Moses' disciples, they are not really the sons of Abraham. And he is saying that they are being born of fornication and they are just like so offended at all this. But it is because they were not truly saved, they were not really sons of Abraham. They are not you know the people that are Islamic that have believed in Jesus are sons of Abraham. And the real Jews physically that did not believe in Jesus, they are not. They are Ishmael. Isn't that funny how God works that way. But of course they did not get this sign and it says in verse number 13, For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law but through the righteousness of faith. So also the promises that we read about in Genesis chapter 17 and other places in Genesis. When it talks about him making a covenant with him and with seed, it is not about physical Jews. It is not about physical circumcision. Galatians 3 makes it abundantly clear it is about Christ. And that he is the one who was given this promise. Now it says to Abraham or to his seed, keep your finger here, go to Galatians 3 for a moment. Let's just clarify again who is the seed that we are talking about here. The seed is not a bunch of tassel, hat wearing, Christ rejecting, money lenders. It is people who have believed on Jesus Christ. And specifically the seed is Jesus but he also allows us to get in on the deal. Now Galatians chapter 3 verse 16 says this, Now to Abraham and his seed, isn't that the same thing that we just read? Abraham and his seed were the promises made. Aren't we talking about the promises made to Abraham and his seed? He saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ. So apparently the S is important. And if you read a New King James or some of these modern versions, they will even change those verses and say descendants. Instead of descendant or seed or something that is singular. And I am thinking you just made a contradiction in the text because the text is telling us it was singular. So the seed is specifically Christ. Look at verse 18, for if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. So if the inheritance, if the promised land and all the covenants were given by the law, then it is not about some kind of a promise as soon as you chop off that foreskin you got it. But he is saying no, no, no it is not about some law or doing some action. It is a promise that you will get this. Now promise is obviously something that is going to be in the future. And of course that future is Christ and his kingdom and it is still future even. Go over to verse 29. And if ye be Christ, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. So we are also included in that seed because we are Christ. Now I think that this is something that is really interesting, a verse that is kind of interesting in this point. Verse 21 it says this. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came we were kept under the law. It says shut up under the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our school master to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come we are no longer under a school master. For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. So according to the Bible, again, we are not, you know, under the law anymore. We don't have to do that because faith has finally come and we are the children of Christ by faith. We are the sons of Abraham by faith. And so we are kind of going and reverting back to the time when Abraham is uncircumcised in a sense. Because at some point in time Abraham was uncircumcised and he was saved, right? And he wasn't under the law. He wasn't under any kind of compelling thing. Whereas a circumcision is kind of a picture of the law even though it hasn't been given just yet. And in the New Testament circumcision again is nothing. So it's like you kind of have this uncircumcision phase, circumcision phase, but then you go out of the circumcision phase back to an uncircumcised phase. Which is what we are in. And that's what the point of Abraham having been uncircumcised and saved is to show us that we are in that same timeline. And of course the law was given, look at verse 19. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions. Again, why do people make laws? Because people are doing stuff that we've already talked about, right? It says, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. Now that's a huge statement. Wait a minute, I thought the Jews, they were in the promised land. No, no, no. It hadn't even happened yet. Notice what it says. Till the seed should come. So had the seed come before Christ had come? No. So are any of the physical Jews before Jesus Abraham's seed? No. Because the seed hadn't even come yet. That's what the Bible says. Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. So any of the promises given to Abraham, were any of them realized before Christ? No. Because the promise wasn't made to any of them, it was made to Jesus Christ. And of course we're not even going to get to enter into that until, what? We have the judgment seat of Christ. And we enter in the millennial reign of Christ. And then we're going to be in the promised land. And then we're going to be there. And of course that's going to be an everlasting covenant. Everlasting kingdom. Think about, I had someone challenge me on this. Every time the Bible says everlasting and all and forever, you don't even believe those. And it's because they're a Zionist. And they think like, you know, because I don't believe that these Jews have these everlasting stuff. But I'm thinking like, okay, well when have they ever had an everlasting kingdom? I feel like it kind of fluctuated a few times there in the Old Testament. How about before 1947? How is that going? Where was that everlasting kingdom going? But let me tell you something. When Christ gets seated in the millennial reign of Christ, it's an everlasting kingdom. It's an everlasting covenant. Everything's everlasting at that point. Everything's forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. But, you know, don't start getting these carnal John Hagee eyes where it's just like, oh man, these Jews, you know, it was given to them back in Genesis. No, you fool. It hadn't even happened until Christ had come. What does the Bible say? Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. Who was the promise made to? It was made to Jesus. Go back to what you would have Roman chapter number four. Verse 13. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of none effect. Notice, if the Jews had been the heirs by what the law said, well, then faith would have been meaningless. Then none of that even matters. Because the law worketh wrath for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore, it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all. So Abraham is all of our father. That was a mouthful and I don't have a lot of time, so I'll just tell you plainly. What it's saying here is that if inheritance were by the law, no one would get to inherit anything. That's the whole point. The whole reason why it wasn't by the law is because then you would have no one inheriting anything. Because we've all sinned. So that's why it was by faith instead so then we could actually get to inherit it. Because otherwise we had no chance. That's why it says that to the end, notice this, to the end meaning the goal or the purpose, the promise might be sure to all the seed. Meaning he wanted us all to actually get in on the deal and if it had been by the law, notice the Jews already screwed that up and lost it. They still didn't have it. And they would never get it if we got what we deserved according to the law. So the only way to actually get the promised land is by faith. Verse 17 as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations. Before him whom he believed, even God, who quickened at the dead and called those things to be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not of the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what he promised he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. And I like how this is worded in a few ways because it kind of gives us some other language as to what we believe about salvation. We believe that if we were to describe someone what it means to believe in Jesus, here's a great way to word it, being fully persuaded. Being fully persuaded and specifically if you think about what he had said here, being fully persuaded about what? That what he had promised he was able also to perform. That's great from an Old Testament perspective. Think about it, they're thinking about a coming Messiah that will then take away all of their sins. So they were fully persuaded that by putting faith in a coming Messiah that he was able to take away all their sins and that he was able to take them to heaven. Just like the thief on the cross looking at Jesus and believing he was able to take him to heaven with him. And of course that's what we believe. Salvation is not just mere intellectual assent. And that Wayne Gruden, he kind of falsely accused free grace theologists of only believing in intellectual assent. I don't believe that at all. It's a full persuasion. It's being fully persuaded and then placing your faith in Christ. And of course the only quote action is calling upon the name of the Lord in faith. That's kind of that signifying moment of you being fully persuaded and putting your faith in Jesus. And that's what we see in the Old Testament and we see everywhere. People calling upon the name of the Lord to be saved. And the Bible is also though describing here that, you know, of course Abraham had to do a lot of actions to exercise his faith. You know, he was considered the friend of God. And, you know, while he's the father of us for faith, for salvation, and that's the context here that we're talking about. There's also an underlying context of the fact that Abraham was walking out his faith. He was exercising his faith. He was in the steps of his faith. And we see that here that even when God was asking him to do something very difficult, like have a child when he's 99 and his wife is 90, notice what it says, he didn't even stagger. He didn't even stagger this. Now maybe it's just because he was excited about the task. You know, I don't know. But all I know is he didn't stagger at it. Okay? He was like, that's what you want me to do? I'm on it. You know? Date night for us. But at the end of the day, according to the Bible, he believed that God could do it. And Abraham, of course, had great faith. Think about what he's going to be challenged with next. He's going to be challenged with actually taking the son from this union and being willing to sacrifice it, believing that somehow God could raise him from the dead. So Abraham's such a great picture of faith in the Christian life. Someone who really believes that God can do things that test our natural understanding. From a natural understanding, this is impossible. From a natural understanding, killing your son and him somehow surviving, it breaks all understanding. Naturally. And of course, God is going to sometimes challenge us to believe the Bible above our own natural understanding. You know, in Proverbs chapter number three, the Bible tells us to trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. So that's truly, us sometimes happen to say, I don't get it. I don't even see how it's possible. I don't even know how it would work. But I know that God said it and I know that it's going to happen. So I don't know how it's going to happen. It doesn't make any sense to me. But I just believe it and so I'm just going to do it anyways. I'm just going to follow in his footsteps anyways. You know, like having lots of kids. That just sounds scary. But you just do it and then it happens. Right? Or anything. Soul winning, preaching the gospel. Sometimes just you feel like maybe especially in our world today, living the Christian life is dangerous or hazardous or something like that. But you know, really it's the exact opposite. When I was talking with another pastor friend of mine and we were kind of talking about how there's a chance you could be martyred, right? There's a chance you can die for the Christian faith. But he was saying it's like 1%, probably that's even too high. He was saying like a 1% chance. When you study all the people in the Bible of the great men that got martyred, it's so low. And that was of the leadership. That wasn't even just the pews. In the pews it's way safer. Okay, you guys like it's really low chance of being martyred. But I said what about the Christians that were backslidden and being punished by God? That was like a higher percentage. So I was like thinking about it. I was like serving God is actually still safer than being backslidden. Okay? And so it's like the logical thing is like being sold out for God. Because even if I get martyred, that percentage was way lower than being backslidden and God just killing me for having decided just forsake him and going back on his word. Plus I'll be ashamed and embarrassed for all of eternity. I don't want to be the lot in Christian. You know, Christian dumb. Like, hey lot, what's up man? How's it going? He's like, what'd you do? Nothing. What'd you do? Nothing. You know, it's like it's the nothing section. You know? It's like I don't want to do that. I want to be hanging out with Abraham and Peter and James and John and William Tyndale, if you made it, I hope. You know, all these guys. You know? I'm not going to be hanging out with Billy Graham. He's in hell. Okay? He's going to be hanging out with these people. Oh man, he's like afraid of what's coming. A lot of bad people are going to show up. Oh man, it's rough for him. But you know, when it comes to us, we need to realize that obviously Abraham's a great picture of just getting saved by faith. But you know, he's also a great picture of someone who exercises faith. And he's our father. And we want to follow in his footsteps. Look at verse 23. Now it's not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. Great finish because the chapter is making abundantly clear that everything that was written was forced to explain to us how salvation is just by believing in Jesus. And, you know, another thing that's interesting here is I've heard, you know, in the last few years, stupid people saying things like when Jesus died on the cross, that was everything necessary to pay for our salvation. But what does the Bible say? It says that he was raised again for our justification. So it sounds like there was something else necessary for my justification. It was called him being raised from the dead. It wasn't just like a vain exercise that he went through or something on top of. It was part of the process that gave us justification was him being raised from the dead. And we have to specifically believe that he was raised from the dead to even be saved. So think about this. If he didn't have to raise from the dead to be saved, then what would we have to believe? Because don't we have to specifically believe he was raised from the dead to even be saved? So then how could you say that that wasn't even necessary for your salvation when that's what you have to believe? I have to believe in this fact that wasn't important. Think about that, right? I have to believe in this fact that has no relevance to whether or not I get saved. No, you have to believe in that fact because it's everything to do with you being saved, his resurrection from the dead. And I also like this, that it was already written in the very beginning in the book of Genesis how to be saved by believing in Jesus. And notice, hey, this was already written to explain to you that you just believe in Jesus to be saved. That's the whole, you know, it's like where was the gospel in the Old Testament? It was in Abraham. It was all the way, way back at the very beginning of him believing in God and being saved and trusting in the Lord. And of course, we get a really nice commentary called the New Testament that explains to us all of these things in even greater detail and reveal them even more, make them even more manifest. But you know what? It was the same gospel. It was the same message. And we also are saved with the exact same faith. It's not a new faith. It's not a better faith. We might know a little bit more of the details, but we're believing the same essence. We're believing the same core factors. And just like Abraham believed, we believe and we're saved by faith. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this evening. Thank you so much for our church. I pray that you would just help us to not only be saved but also to try to follow in the footsteps of our Father Abraham and to follow and have full persuasion of the challenges you give us in scripture that we wouldn't stagger at them, that we wouldn't balk at them, that we wouldn't be faint, that we wouldn't be unbelieving, but rather we would trust in you and that we would allow you to keep us safe. We would allow you to bless us. And I pray that you would just continue to use our church to give you honor and glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. In closing, let's go to song number 301. Song number 301, sweet hour of prayer. Song number 301, everybody sing it out on the first. Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, that calls me from a world of care and bids me at my Father's throne, make all my wants and wishes known. In seasons of distress and grief, my soul has often found relief. He oft escaped the tempters there by thy return, sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, thy wings shall my petition bear to Him whose truth and faithfulness engage the waiting soul to bless. Believe His word and trust His grace, I'll cast on Him my every care and wait for Thee, sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, may I thy consolation share till from Mount Pizgah's lofty height I view my home and take my flight. This robe of flesh shall drop and rise to seize the everlasting prize and shout while passing through the air, farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer. Great singing everybody, we're all dismissed.