The problem with the first man is not the desire of his heart: To be a Christian is just about the best thing a man could choose. But the fact is: he has been blinded by Satan, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto him. Usually this sort of man has been deceived by false teachers into thinking that Heaven is like a house bought on time with credits earned by the sweat of his brow. So he joins a synagogue or a church; he is baptized; he forsakes his vices. And he tries really hard to behave in the way that he thinks that a Christian should behave. But this is as wrong as wrong can be: Sinners are forgiven and saved by grace through faith, not by their religious human efforts. They are saved without any works that we might ever do. They are saved apart from any dilution or confusion by obedience to any law. Sinners are saved, and attain to righteousness, by the grace of God received by faith. Any victory over sin comes as a result of God’s salvation; not as the cause of it.
Romans 9 begins with Paul’s compliments and some encouragement toward His people – Israel. He says, “We have been blessed with some of the greatest gifts that God has ever given.” But then the chapter ends with a thorough denouncement – “But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law.”
Salvation by grace through faith was always the preaching of Paul. It is the Truth; it is the gospel; it is Bible; this is Baptist doctrine – Romans 5:1: – “Being justified by faith we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” John 20:31: — “And many other signs truly did Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his name.” Romans 10:9: – “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Acts 13:39: – “And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye can not be justified by the law of Moses.” Galatians 3:24: – “Wherefore the Law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ.” Acts 16:31: – “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Galatians 2:16: – “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed on Jesus Christ, that we might justified by faith of Christ.” On and on and on we could go with verses declaring that salvation is received by faith, not by works.
There is another very sad thing in world; perhaps even more sad than the first that I mentioned. Some people realize that they are too sinful to save themselves, and perhaps they intellectually know that salvation is by God’s grace through faith, yet Satan has been able to keep them as his own, by way of a last-second blindness. These poor creatures have been mis-lead as to what saving faith really is.
Paul’s theme at this point is that God has opened the door of salvation to non-Jewish people – to Gentiles. There have been many Gentiles who did not originally possess the great privileges of Israel, but who have been made saints of God. And they accepted that blessing through faith, just like Abraham so many years ago.
Unfortunately, there is a great deal of confusion about faith and how faith saves. Some people’s mistakes are matters only of semantics and definitions, which can be easily corrected. But other problems, if imbibed, are spiritual poison, more deadly than strychnine. So please take my words seriously this morning; Compare them to the Scripture, and then compare them to your faith.
The problems was not the law, but in the Jewish false perception of the Old Testament Law. This needs to be pointed out and understood by professing Christians, because unlike the Gentiles of Paul’s day, WE have access to the Law in much the same way that Israel did. And the majority of Christendom thinks that Old Testament saints became saints by keeping Moses’ Law. But that is farther from the truth than the moon is from my bedroom.
Yes, God gave many orders to Israel – like a general on the battlefield. And the Lord expected explicit obedience to those orders. But that obedience didn’t make those sinful Jews any less sinful. If mother asks her son to take out the trash, His obedience doesn’t change the trash into t-bone steaks. Neither does that obedience make him any more her son than he was before. Nor does his obedience change him into some sort angel. The only thing that it does is please Mom and make the kitchen a little cleaner. On the other hand, what if Junior refuses to take out the trash? That would prove him to be a descendent of his father. It would prove him to be a sinful rebel, like his father and his grandfather. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. The Bible teaches that sin is passed from fathers to their children. Junior, like his sister, and like every other child on this planet, is a sinner, a rebel, and in need of salvation. Obedience doesn’t change that fact, and disobedience doesn’t create it. Personal disobedience only proves that we are sinners.
Old Testament SAINTS were proven to be sinners by their failure to perfectly keep the law, but those saints, like David and Abraham, were saved by grace through faith, just as were New Testament saints. “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 whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith 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 describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth 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.”
Saving faith is not a New Testament substitute for Old Testament works, neither for the Jews, nor for us.
Satan has filled the world with an army of imitation saviors; like manikins in store windows. We now have human-imitations of plastic-imitations of human beings. Years ago, while I was working at the mall, one Saturday, there were a dozen human models scattered throughout the stores, pretending to be manikins. This is a strange world in which we live. People were pretending to be statues, which were usually pretending to be people. So too, human works and effort – baptism for example – are a kind of Satanic imitation of faith. Another variety is the imitation saviour called “prayer.” There are a lot of evangelists who tell their victims, “Just ask Jesus to come into your heart, and He will save you from your sins.” That is no more salvation than taking a cute little puppy into your heart, makes you a dog. Not once, not one time, do we read an exhortation in the Bible to utter a prayer like that.
Tragically, some other people even have an imitation saviour called “faith.” That “faith” can save a soul from hell mighty be an extremely subtle and despicable lie. But Satan does not fight according to the Marquis of Queensberry rules.
The Scripture says: “For by grace are ye saved, through faith.” In other places it says, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Why does one verse say “saved by grace,” and another says “saved by Christ,” and a third says “saved by the blood of Christ?” Seeing the link between Christ and His blood is fairly easy, when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. The sinless, infinite, perfect blood of God’s ordained sacrifice, is the only remedy there is for sin. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” We are saved by the blood of the Crucified One. And it was through God’s grace that Jesus Christ was sent into the world to shed that blood. It was grace that the sacrifice of Christ was offered to and for sinners like us. But that sacrifice and that salvation is perceived, received and enjoyed through faith. We are saved by grace; we are saved by the blood; and there is a sense in which we are saved by faith. Is that just playing with words? No, it is not.
There are far too many people who end up putting faith in their faith. This is an idea that sometimes develops after our first profession of Lord. When asked about their souls, some people say, “Well, back in ’04, I believed on Jesus.” There may be nothing wrong with that statement. But question is: “Are you now trusting Jesus’ shed blood, or are you trusting what you did back in ’04?” Forget about when, where and how you once believed on Jesus; is your faith in Christ now? And even now, it’s not your current trusting that saves, but in whom you trust. Just as reading may be the reaching out for knowledge and bringing it home to the mind, Faith is our reaching out to Christ and His saving blood. Faith is the purse in which we bring home the pearl of great price. Faith is valuable, faith is essential, but only as the carrier of the real gem – Christ. Reading may be the reaching out for knowledge and the bringing it home to the mind, but I know for a fact that reading is not the assimilation of knowledge. The other day I was cleaning off my desk and ran across a magazine that I needed to look through. As I read it I saw articles that I thought were pretty good, and then other articles that looked familiar. Eventually I concluded that I had read that magazine, but unfortunately I retained next to none of it.
These Gentiles were saved by Christ; but this was described as having faith in Him.
A million times – “no!” Saving faith is merely the recognizing and accepting of the gift of the grace that God has offered. There is no obligation laid upon the Lord to save a single soul – with or without our faith. The obligation is upon the sinner, whether Gentile or Israelite, to repent and receive God’s gift. How do we receive it? By faith, by believing God, by trusting God at His Word.
That many verses couple faith to hearing the gospel confuses some people – But it clarifies the minds of others. The Lord has ordained that Who we are to trust, is to be conveyed through His Word. It’s by the “foolishness of preaching” that people are saved. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” If Paul, or some other evangelist hadn’t told these Gentiles that Jesus is the Christ – the Saviour – then they would never have trusted the Lord.
Such things as these are only the grounds upon which saving faith is built. The question remains: “Are you trusting Christ and his shed blood?” Even believing God’s promises, that Jesus’ shed blood can save, is not trusting Christ and His blood. Saving faith is not an intellectual acceptance of certain facts no matter how true they might be. Saving faith is resting upon Christ, relying and depending upon Him.
Faith is not directly linked to any of the five senses. It is the gift of God, flowing out of His heart to you and then back again. It doesn’t originate in any of your five senses, in your mind or in your heart. Spurgeon said: “If all my senses were to contradict God, I would deny every one of them and sooner believe myself to be out of my mind than believe that God could lie. And I desire to feel that in every emotion of my spirit, every throb of my heart, every thought of my brain, and every thing that is contrary to the plainly revealed truth of God, I will count myself a fool and a madman, and I will reckon God to be wise and true.” So you’re not sure that you have saving faith? Don’t go examining your heart for some indication of it’s presence there; don’t feel for it. Stop looking inside and start looking top side. Faith is the gift of God. It can’t be grown or maintained inside a believer. If you have doubts about your faith, then beseech the Lord for it; don’t go trying to manufacture it yourself.
And saving faith is not presumptuous confidence in spiritual safety, either. Just because a person may say, “I believe,” or “I think that I’m a Christian,” that doesn’t make it so. Saving faith is grounded upon the promises of God, nothing else. I hope that it can say, “I am child of God, because here is what God has said.” That means that faith is simple; if it weren’t simple we’d be kept in life-long perplexity. Biblical faith is sure; it doesn’t have any secret closets of conjecture, speculation or doubt.
And by the way, it’s not sufficient to repeat what some preacher has said that God has said. This is important stuff, and it needs to based upon the assured Word of the Lord. John said, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” This has got to be faith which God has given to you, not faith which others around you have.
Why not? What are the doubts that are killing your ability to believe? Is the problem that you love sin too much to repent and turn from it? Are you so ignorant of Hell, that you’re willing to spend eternity there just for a few years of insipid pleasure here in this world?
Israel was, in some ways, the most blessed of any society of people. But until they have Christ, they have nothing at all; no man does. You may be of Gentile blood, without the past privileges of Israel, but that is not necessarily important. If you will repent before God and when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will begin to possess more than Israel ever knew. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” Repent ye therefore and believe the gospel.”