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[0:00] Romans chapter 3 verse 31 says, Do we then make boy the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we established the law.

[0:11] 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 wherefore to glory, but not before God.

[0:24] For once 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 death.

[0:37] But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justified the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. That's all I want to read right now. So again we have Romans 3 verse 31 leading into this, it says, Do we then make boy the law through faith?

[0:57] God forbid, yea, we establish the law. Paul asked the question, Do we make boy the law by faith? In other words, Paul is asking the question here that now that Jesus Christ has come.

[1:12] Now listen, Paul here asks the question, he says, Do we then make boy the law through faith? Absolutely not.

[1:22] And Paul says that here, he says, God forbid that we make boy the law through faith, yea, we establish the law. How do we establish the law with our faith, folks?

[1:34] We don't establish it within ourselves. We cannot establish it within ourselves. That's the whole reason that Jesus Christ had to come and had to bleed and had to suffer and had to die for us anyway.

[1:48] It's because we were incapable of keeping the laws of God. We were incapable of following the Ten Commandments or any other command that God put forth in Scripture.

[2:01] It was impossible for men to do this thing. No, we do not make boy the law through our faith, but we establish the law through our faith.

[2:11] Not by our own works and not by our own deeds, not by our own merits, but by the merits and by the works of Jesus Christ. If our faith is what reconciles us under God, it is our faith in Jesus Christ and his righteousness and his keeping of the law that the law may be filled.

[2:34] Hallelujah. It ain't nothing that I've ever done. It is nothing that you've ever done, it's nothing that we could do. It is by everything that Jesus Christ has already done.

[2:47] The man lived 33 plus years here on this earth and never once told a lie, never once was gall banded in his mouth, never once did he sin, did he steal, did he cheat, never once did he have lust over another man's wife, never once did he do any of these things.

[3:08] The man kept the law, that's what made him the perfect sacrifice for you and for me. Because we couldn't do it.

[3:19] No, this is how, this is how the law was not made void. Folks, we still born again Christians. I'm a born again Christian as far as I know everybody in here professes to be a born again Christian.

[3:34] We still can't keep the law. Even though I'm saved and I'm born again, even though I know good and well I'm on my way to heaven by the grace of Almighty God that saved my unworthy soul.

[3:47] Even though I know these things and even though he's cleansed me, even though he watches me, even though he guides me, I'm still incapable of keeping his law.

[3:58] The law has been kept by Christ. The law is established in my faith in Jesus Christ. When God looks on me, he doesn't see my righteousness because it amounts to nothing more than filthy rags.

[4:14] But he looks upon me and sees the righteousness of his blessed Son Jesus Christ. That's how it's established, not through us.

[4:26] Not through us. It is established in Jesus Christ. It is established in him and him alone. To chapter four, what shall we say then that Abraham our father has pertaining to the flesh that hath found for Abraham were justified by works.

[4:45] He hath wear of the glory but not before God. If he were justified by works, what is he found? It says in verse one or it asks in verse one, what is he found?

[4:57] Then it says if he were justified by works, he would have means of glory. He would have a way to glory if it was by his works that he were justified.

[5:07] But it wasn't by his works. Now listen in the book of James. James asks the question, he says, was not Abraham justified by his works? James and Paul do not contradict one another at all.

[5:18] And James is talking about the works as far as in front of mankind, but as far as in front of Almighty God goes, that's what Paul is discussing here. That's what he's talking about in this very scripture.

[5:31] He says he might be able to glory in mankind as far as his works here on earth. He might get some glory from mankind, from his neighbors, from his family, but before God, he can get no glory whatsoever.

[5:46] Because as I said, Romans 3.23 says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That included Abraham, that included Moses, that included David, that included Noah, that included all.

[6:03] The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15, that in Adam, in the first Adam, all of us die. In the first Adam, all of us die, but praise God, there was a second Adam that came on the scene.

[6:17] That second Adam being Jesus Christ, and in him in Jesus Christ, and the second Adam are all quickened, are all made alive, are all redeemed by his blood.

[6:29] And the first Adam were all cursed. Adam and Eve received a curse, and it has fallen to you and me, everyone before us, and everyone that will be after us, has received that curse.

[6:41] But God, through Jesus Christ, through his perfect keeping of the law, through his blood, through its shed, and through his own works, has made a way for us to be redeemed.

[6:54] Hallelujah. So, in our own works, in Abraham's own works, he had no right to glory before God. He had no right really to glory before man, but he could have.

[7:07] He could have, but he didn't. For what Santa's scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted in him for righteousness. Therefore, from the very get-go of this thing, from the very beginning, it has been by belief, it has been by faith, it has never been of works.

[7:31] It's not of works now, it wasn't of works during Paul's day, it wasn't of works during David's day, or Moses' day, or for that matter, in Abraham's day.

[7:42] It has always been of faith, and it will never be of anything but by faith. Hey, Noah, Noah, the account of Noah and the flood, it was before Abraham's day was.

[7:53] But folks, Noah, when God saw him and God sought him out, and he told him, I want you to build an ark, I want you to build an out of gopher wood, you build it so high, so wide, you build it exactly.

[8:06] As I say, Noah believed the word of God that he had spoken to him, and because he believed, he and seven others were saved. That's all it was meant to, was Noah believed what he heard.

[8:21] He believed the report that he got from God himself. He believed the word of God. Abraham here, Paul quoting to the church in Rome, quoting from Genesis chapter 50 says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted in him, Herod'sness.

[8:38] Abraham's account begins over in Genesis chapter 12, when God first calls him out of the land of earth. He says, get you out. He says, get up and get out. You get away from your family.

[8:49] You get away from this land, get away from the idols, get away from everything that you know here. You get unto a land that I will show you, a land that I will give you for an inheritance, for yourself and for your seed after you.

[9:05] That's Genesis 12. Just three chapters later, we see Abraham believed God, and it was counted in him for righteousness. He believed God the whole time.

[9:16] Folks, listen to me. Abraham didn't have perfect faith. Abraham, you read in the account yourself, from Genesis 12, in fact, you see in the book of Acts, in Stephen's sermon that he gives him the book of Acts, you see that God actually had to call Abraham out of earth twice.

[9:33] He had to tell him to get out of there. He said, get out of here, get out of here. You get out of this place here. You get out of this, says, pull us in and go to the land. Twice God had to call him out.

[9:44] That shows me that Abraham was not righteous of himself. His faith certainly wasn't perfect. Anything else about him was not perfect, but there was a perfect God that was calling him to do something.

[9:58] Hey folks, when God saved you, it's not because you deserted, God saved you to bring himself glory, to bring himself honor. We didn't deserve it. We deserve nothing more than the praise of hell.

[10:12] That's all we deserve. As sinners against the holy and the righteous God, that is all we deserve. That's all I still deserve. If God put me in hell right now, He'd be completely justified in doing so.

[10:26] If God puts you in hell right now, He would be justified in doing so, because we have sinned against Him. But praise God, He says that if any man confesses in his mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and if any man believe in his heart, that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

[10:45] Hallelujah. That's right here in the same book, 10th chapter. If we do those things, then we are saved. We believe God.

[10:56] That's all it takes. Not our works, not keeping the law. It is believed in His faith in the God that is promised. Abraham believed that same God.

[11:07] He believed the promises of that God. God promised this land will be. He had, Abraham didn't even know where he was going. He packed up his stuff.

[11:18] God told him, get away from your family. The very next verse, we see Abraham leaving earth with who? With Lot, his brother's son, his nephew.

[11:30] After God had just told him, lead your family behind. Lead your family. We see him taking off with his family. His faith wasn't perfect. His obedience wasn't perfect. That's why he got in trouble along the way.

[11:42] Why do you think we get in trouble along the way? Because our faith is not perfect and our obedience isn't perfect. But our God is perfect. Our God, the God, just our God that leads us.

[11:52] Our God, the God that shows us the way. He is what's perfect. And He is the only one that is perfect. Our way will never be perfect outside of a straight narrow path that God has set us on.

[12:07] Man. Abraham wasn't perfect. No. You read, in Genesis 12, all the way over in Genesis 15, you read all kinds of accounts.

[12:19] You read where there was a famine that came to land that they had settled in for a while. And it was in Canaan. It was right there in the promised land that God had told them about. You read there was a famine.

[12:30] What did Abraham do? His faith wasn't perfect. He packed up and took to Egypt. Went down to Egypt. God had done promised them, hey, your whole sea.

[12:41] He said, you're going to be the father of a great nation. And then a little bit later on in the scriptures, in that same chapter, he said, you're going to be the father of many nations. You're going to be the father of all this.

[12:52] And then a little bit later on, he tells them, he says your seed is going to be as the dust of the earth. And then a little bit later after that, he says your seed is going to be as the stars of the heaven. Hey folks, that tells me that his seed is going to be all over the earth and it's going to be all over the heavens as well.

[13:09] When he compares it to the dust of the earth and the stars of the heaven, hey, the Bible says that if we believe in Christ, then are we Abraham's seed and heirs to the promise I believe in Jesus Christ.

[13:22] I believe he was the propitiation for my sin. I believe he's the one that was given. He's the one that was dead, buried, resurrected, resurrected and coming again.

[13:33] I am an heir to the promises of God. Hallelujah. Ain't nothing better to think. Ain't nothing better to be assured of than the promises of God.

[13:45] Abraham believed the promises of God. He might have believed him with a weak faith, just like you and I do. He might have believed him with imperfect steps, just like you and I have, but nevertheless, he believed the promises of God.

[14:00] He believed, I know the later on him and Sarah got together and they concocted this plan. Sarah said, let me give you my handmaiden, Hagar. Hey, the folks I did once again, that shows how weak the faith of Abraham was.

[14:12] He had faith though that God was going to send a seed and that by that seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. All the nations of the world were promised to be blessed by the word of God, that God spoke himself unto Abraham.

[14:26] It could not fail. And it cannot fail now. It will not fail now. My God is not a failure. My God is not a failure, His word.

[14:37] But when the Bible says the flower fades, the grass withers, but the word of my God will stand forever. The word of the Lord will last forever.

[14:48] When this whole world is on fire, when this whole world is receiving its just condemnation, and it's just sentencing, and it's just punishment from Almighty God.

[15:00] The word of God will go on. It cannot and will not be destroyed. And it cannot and will not be unfulfilled. It will go on.

[15:11] Amen. Hallelujah. Now to Him that works, is the reward not reckoned of grace. But of death. What's Paul saying?

[15:21] To Him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. This is for anybody here, might think that God owes you something. God owes you hell.

[15:34] He owes me hell. That's all He owes any of us. That's what Paul's saying here. To Him that works. To Him that works. In other words, let's say we own a business.

[15:48] I got somebody I can't stand that works. Somebody I can't stand that works for me. Nevertheless, they put in their eight or 10 or 12 hour day. I'm obligated to pay them.

[15:58] I'm indebted to them to pay them, whether I like them or not. I'm indebted to it. In other words, what Paul says here, to Him that works, it's not a grace, but it's of death.

[16:08] It's to say, hey, I've worked for my salvation. God, you owe me something now. You owe me eternal life. You owe me salvation. You owe me the streets of glory.

[16:20] You owe me that mansion that's promised over in John 14. You owe me all these things, because I have worked myself there. I've done it all myself. We have done nothing.

[16:30] It took God to curse you. It took God to save you. It'll take God to keep you safe. And it'll take God to get you home. One of these days, God owes us absolutely nothing.

[16:43] That's what Paul's getting at here. That's what he's saying. Now, to Him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. Praise God. I'm glad it's of grace.

[16:56] I'm tickled pink to tell you that it's of grace. It ain't of my own works. It ain't of my own deeds. Hey, Paul says right over in Romans chapter 3, you can read it for yourself.

[17:06] He says that by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified before God. No flesh will be justified by doing the deeds of the law, by keeping the law.

[17:17] It is by grace and by grace alone. It is by faith and by faith alone. It is of God and He alone. It is by the blood of Jesus Christ and by nothing else.

[17:27] It is all of these things by themselves. I have no say so in how God saved me or anyone else. It's by God and it's by grace.

[17:40] Those that work is no longer of grace. It's of death. They're depending on God. All right, let me rephrase. They're depending on self to tell God, you owe me this.

[17:52] There's a great many people out there right now, a great many people that think that they're going to stand before God one day and they think they're going to say, God, I did this and God, I did that.

[18:03] God, I worked every clothing drive that the church had. I worked every soup line that the church sponsored. God, I threw in my tithe every week.

[18:14] Sometimes I threw in 15 or 20 percent God. I've done this and I've done that. God, you owe me a key to get into the gates of heaven. You owe me access into heaven and God will look at them and say, depart from me, ye that work in equity, for I never knew you.

[18:31] These are the people. Hey, it doesn't say I knew you 20 years ago, but I don't know you now. I knew you 10 years ago, but I don't know you now. He says, depart from me, for I never, never, never knew you.

[18:45] These are the people that are depending on self. They depend on self to get to heaven. Instead of grace, folks, I'm glad it's a grace. Because if I was dependent on me, I'd still be hellbound.

[18:57] I would still be on a one-way track, straight to hell, and you would be too. We cannot get there on our own. And the law was never given that we could do that.

[19:08] Hey, don't take my word for it. You regulations chapter three, Paul explicitly states that no law was ever written, no law was ever given, that men could be saved, that men could obtain salvation by any law that was given.

[19:21] If you think that man could have kept the 10 commandments and been reconciled to God, you are wrong by the word of God. No man is saved in that way. No man receives salvation in that way.

[19:33] It is by grace through faith alone. Amen. Now, the end of the work of this is the reward, not regular grace, but of death. But to him that work of not, praise God, that's me.

[19:48] That's you, if you believe. But to him that work of not, but believe in him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. God don't justify those that think that they're already godly.

[20:03] That's the ones I was just talking about. That's the one in the previous verse. That's the ones that are working, feeling like God owes them, feeling like God is indebted to them.

[20:15] You listen to me, God spoke this entire universe into existence. God spoke to life into existence. He separated life from darkness. Don't ask me how, I can't tell you how.

[20:26] All I know is the Bible says he did it and he did it. He divided the firmament. Hey, he spoke to the sea and had it bring forth the birds and had it bring forth all the critters that are in the ocean.

[20:37] He spoke to the land and had it bring forth other critters that come around, that crawl and that creep on the land. But praise God, he took up a handful of dust and he made man out of that and he breathed in a man's nostrils and man became a living soul.

[20:53] Don't tell me that someone in something, some spirit, some being that can do that owes you anything. He owes you hell and he owes me hell.

[21:06] Yeah. That's all he owes. That's all he owes. But to him, but to him the work of none, but believe it on him that justifies the ungodly, that's who he justifies.

[21:18] What Jesus say, what Jesus say himself, he said, I came to seek and to save those that are lost, that which was lost. Yeah. Not those that already see themselves.

[21:29] That's why Jesus couldn't do a whole lot with the Pharisees. He could have, hey, Jesus could have walked over, smacked each one of them in the head and said, you're saved. He could have done that, but they didn't believe.

[21:41] They didn't believe. They did not have the faith. They had faith in themselves and in their own works. That's why Nicodemus was so confused when he came to Jesus by night and he was asking him questions about his teaching and Jesus, Jesus said, Marvel, not that I told you, you must be born again.

[21:58] And because these are Nicodemus, he didn't understand the concept. He said, can I go back into my mother's womb and be born again? And Jesus said, Marvel, not that I told you these things. And then he goes on to tell Nicodemus, are you not a teacher of Israel and you don't understand this?

[22:13] You don't know this? Shame on you, Nicodemus. He said, how can I explain the spiritual things to you when you don't even comprehend the natural things?

[22:26] He said, the spirit, just like the wind, it goes where it lists. No man knows where it came from. No man knows where it's going to. He said, if you don't understand these things, these natural things, how can you understand the spiritual things and you're a teacher of Israel?

[22:43] Nicodemus was a pretty high-ranking Pharisee. I'm sure he had a lot of people looking up to him. But he was being taught. We'd say nowadays he was being schooled by Jesus Christ in the ways of the Bible, in the ways of the Word of the Lord.

[22:59] And these were things that Nicodemus had dug just a little bit deeper in the Old Testament scriptures. He would have seen these things and he would have realized before he even came to Jesus, he would have realized that that wasn't my side.

[23:14] I think personally, and this is just a side note on my behalf, I think Nicodemus got right. I think Nicodemus wound up right with the Lord because I don't picture any man that didn't believe going to Pilate and begging the body of Jesus after the fact.

[23:29] I don't picture any man that didn't believe doing that. Nicodemus done that very thing. He went and asked for the body of Jesus. He wanted part in the burial of the Lord. I don't think that if he had thought Jesus Christ was just a lunatic and didn't know what he was thinking, he would have never done that.

[23:44] I think Nicodemus, I think I'm going to see that man in heaven one day praise God. I know why, because God is the one that justifies, not the godly, not those that are not sick.

[23:55] He justifies the ungodly. You are ungodly and I'm ungodly. And you better believe you were ungodly before you got saved. And the only thing godly about us right now is Jesus Christ that lived within us by way of the Holy Spirit of God.

[24:10] That's the only thing that keeps us from being ungodly now. We will still sin. We will still fall short. We will still stumble. And we will fall flat upon our face sometimes.

[24:20] Our faith will be no better than what Abraham's wise. But praise God, it just takes a little bit of saving faith that God gives us with to get us home one day after a while.

[24:32] Hallelujah. God doesn't grade us on how strong our faith is. God grades us on whether we believe or not. What about us?

[24:42] What's Hebrews 11 say? It says, without faith it's impossible to please them. What pleases God? When someone accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior, that's what pleases God.

[24:56] When another soul is saved, when another soul is plucked from the fires of hell, when these things happen, that pleases God.

[25:07] And the only way to please God is to exhibit faith. Hebrews 111 says, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. But it's the substance of things hoped for.

[25:19] Without Jesus Christ, we have no hope. But with Jesus Christ, flip back several chapters at Hebrews. It says, he's an anchor for the soul. Jesus Christ is an anchor for the soul.

[25:30] Hope is an anchor for the soul. It's hope that we have in Christ. Hope in not only his death, but in his resurrection as well. And hope in a life that is to come. Paul taught us it's a blessing.

[25:42] Hope that we have in the return of Jesus Christ. Hope in these things. And I have hope in the God that promised these things. It is not of my own works. It is not of my keeping out of the law.

[25:53] Paul understood death. He understood that Abraham did not keep the law perfectly. He understood the Jews that said that he did were wrong. And he exhibited that the lack of faith that Abraham had did not negate the promise of God that he made to.

[26:11] No, none of these things negated that promise. Your face gonna dwindle at times. My faith will dwindle at times. Yeah. You know, we're going to come short.

[26:22] Our faith will get awfully sparing sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes we might look around and say, God, where are you? God, where are I? I need you now. God knows that.

[26:33] And God's never left us. Bible says he'll never leave us nor forsake us. It says he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it says, I am the Lord.

[26:44] I change not. Folks, I believe all those things. Those are promises made by God. And I believe those promises. Abraham believed the promises. He believed that God would take, would create a seed from him.

[26:59] Now, Paul later goes on and go in the book of relations to explain what that seed was. The human side of it sees a seed multiply. Seeds a seed going into millions and millions and millions.

[27:11] And that was true. That was true. God did that. God did that with Abraham's seed. But the seed, Paul points out in the book of relations, it was singular, not seeds.

[27:23] It was a seed. That seeds Jesus Christ. That seed is the one that came from Abraham. And by him, to all the nations of the world, should all the nations of the world be blessed?

[27:36] Should all the nations of the world be blessed? Not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well, these Jews. They were making a big deal about circumcision. They were making, hey, don't take my word for it. You read Acts 15.

[27:46] They had an entire council. They had the Jerusalem council discussing the circumcision and whether or not it was necessary for salvation, whether or not it was necessary to be reconciled back to God, whether or not it needed to be preached along with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[28:04] Read Acts 15 sometimes. You will see and you will read about that very council. These Jews, they were dependent on that. They said, hey, if God told Abraham to do it, then we have to do it as well.

[28:17] Most Paul points out to him a little bit later on in Romans 4. He says Abraham believed God before the circumcision ever took place.

[28:28] That means Abraham was saved. Before any kind of religious ceremony. For any kind of religion was practiced. Abraham was saved. God had already accounted his belief to righteousness.

[28:41] What does that mean? To account something. It means it's put to your account. You go down to store. You buy something. It tears up.

[28:52] You take it back. You say this broke. They might put it on your account. Years ago, they give you a refund. Most of them don't do that. Now they give you a gift card.

[29:02] That's basically giving you an account. They're crediting you something. That's what God's doing with us. I heard a preacher for many years one time say, God works on credit.

[29:19] Or God, no, I think I'm back. He said God does not work on credit. It's pay as you go. I beg to differ. I beg to differ. He credits the righteousness of Jesus Christ to your account.

[29:34] When he accounts the righteousness of Christ, it's not on your own merit. It's not because of something you deserve. It's because of who God is.

[29:44] We tell you something. You don't. You're not a sinner because of what you do. You're a sinner because of pay. You're not a sinner because of what you do. You're a sinner because of who you are.

[29:55] You're a sinner because you're a descendant of Adam and Eve. That's why you sin. And that's why you're called a sinner. God does not save you because of who you are.

[30:07] God saves you because of who he is. He saves you because of his mercy and his righteousness and his just justice, his justification.

[30:17] God saves you because of who he is. Folks, we are sinners because of who we are, because of what we do. We're going to sin regardless. We're sinners because we're descendants of Adam and Eve.

[30:31] Plain and simple. Anybody who tries to argue that with you, take them back to Genesis. Take them all the way back to the beginning and show them when sin creeped in. And you show them the curse.

[30:42] And you can see that curse follow all of mankind, all throughout the scriptures, all throughout the scriptures. Paul says, I'm the work of the believer on him that justified the ungodly.

[30:55] In Romans 3, it says in verse 26, says to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

[31:07] Well, it's both ways. It's the same God, given the same forgiveness for the same reason, believe. It says here, give him the believeth in Jesus. It says here that this is a countenance because he is a God that justifies the ungodly.

[31:23] Every one of us in here are ungodly outside of Jesus Christ. Y'all have heard me preach it and teach it both in the past that outside of Jesus Christ, we are incapable of some of the grossest sins that your mind can possibly conceive.

[31:37] We are capable of things that your mind don't even want to go to outside of Jesus Christ. That's why we should not be surprised at the murder rates through the roof.

[31:47] We should not be surprised that rapists running rampant. We should be surprised at child molestation or drug use or prostitution or anything else because healers have always acted like healers and done what healers will do.

[32:04] Because they're outside of Jesus Christ. They're outside of God. They're outside of his will. Outside of God and outside of the blood of Jesus Christ. You will do anything, anything.

[32:17] Bar now. We'll keep on reading three more verses. Even as David also described the blessedness of the man and to whom God imputed righteousness without works. Saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

[32:31] Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. David would have a grand understanding of this. David, one God chose to be the greatest king that Israel ever knew.

[32:48] And he was. I know Solomon came after him, but David was the greatest king that Israel ever had. As far as a human king goes, as far as the human mind is perceived.

[33:02] David was the greatest, but David sinned. So he's showing here in these few verses, eight verses that took him. Romans four, one through eight verses to show one Abraham's Abraham's unperfect faith were imperfect faith and show David's imperfect faith.

[33:22] But yet God did not toss them to the side. God did not do that. I said, Genesis 15. It says Abraham believed God and it was counted him for righteousness.

[33:34] He believed God through the famine, through going down into Egypt, through coming back up out of Egypt. He believed God when a messenger came to him and said, Hey, there's some kings of the plane.

[33:46] They've come. They've taken, they've taken lot. They've taken your nephew and they've taken his goods. They went up. He believed God when he went out and he got a lot. He rescued lot. Hey, he had 300.

[33:57] I believe the Bible says he had 318 men that he took out there with kings and their armies to face against them. And he went out and he, and he slaughtered them all.

[34:08] That took faith for a man to do that. He took 318 men, those that were born in his own household and went out there and did that. He believed God through all of that.

[34:20] And then I said, and then he met, meets this man named Melchizedek out in the desert. Says he was a priest. He was a priest of the high, most high God this Melchizedek was.

[34:30] Now, whether that was a theophany of Jesus Christ, I'm not positive. I'm not positive from what I read in Hebrew seven. I'm still not sure about it.

[34:41] But nevertheless, he meets this priest and he pays ties and he gets homage to this priest of the most high God. And that priest, the name Melchizedek, he lays his blessing on Abraham.

[34:51] And then it says the very next, the very next chapter, the Genesis 15 verse once says, after these things, Abraham began to doubt. Abraham began to doubt.

[35:02] He asked God. He says, he said, I still have no seed. You've promised me a seed. What am I to do? He said, I'm going to die in this land. And the only one to inherit my house is a servant named Eliezer that I have here.

[35:15] And he's a man of Damascus. He's a Gentile and he's the one's going to inherit my goods. And God says, I made a promise to you, Abraham. I will keep this promise.

[35:26] I made a promise and I intend to keep it. And that's when it says Abraham believed God and it was kind of him for righteousness, he believed God through all that, even though his faith was weak and even though it faltered and even though he stumbled and even though he had trial after trial thrown in front of him, he still believed God.

[35:48] Then in Genesis 17, you see what the Jews were depending on, the circumstances. God says, he says, you're going to take every man of your household, yourself included Abraham, and you're going to circumcise him.

[36:02] And this shall be a sign of the covenant, not the covenant itself. The covenant was made by the word of God that God himself spoke. It was a sign of the covenant.

[36:14] What's your sign? Women, you're out of the picture when it comes to circumcision, if that's what you're depending on. Men, you may or may not be out of the picture if that's what you're depending on.

[36:28] The sign for us as New Testament believers is the works that we have. Read James. Read James. James says, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

[36:43] If you have faith and have not works, your faith is dead there. And I want to flip side of that. If you have works with no faith, it's just as dead. Your works is just as dead as your faith.

[36:55] But they mingle together. If you have faith, you will have works. And some people want to have more works than other people will have. I don't know between these two, between Abraham and David, who have more works.

[37:07] I don't know who brought more glory to God. I don't know who gave more glory to God. I don't know any of these things, but I know they both believe in Jehovah God that it made a promise that Messiah would come, that there would be a seed.

[37:22] And through that seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. And the Jews and Gentiles alike. There was no difference. There was no difference. The Jews didn't like that.

[37:33] They said, but I'm of Abraham. I'm in circumcise. I'm of this tribe and I'm of that tribe. Hey, Paul said the same things in Philippians chapter three. He went down a great big list of his qualifications.

[37:45] And he even went as far as to say, as far as the law went, he was blameless. He said, I'm of the stock of Benjamin. I'm a Pharisee of the Pharisees. I'm a Jew of the Jews. I'm all these things, but all of these things, even though I sat at the feet of Gamalil, even though I was told by that great Jew, all these things I count as done except to win Christ.

[38:07] Amen. That's what mattered to Paul. What mattered? Not what he did. Not what he was. Not what he felt that he was. Not what his buddies felt that he was.

[38:19] He understood grace. He had to and he understood grace in the life of Abraham and he understood grace in the life of David. You read this quote that we read in Romans 4, 6, 3, 8 and Psalms chapter 32.

[38:34] That's the first two verses of Psalms chapter 32. David understood that David was God's man. David, David, David done what God wanted him to do.

[38:44] David, David went where God wanted him to go. David done everything right in the eyes of God, except in the matter of your eye of the hittite.

[38:55] And that would be his affair that he had with Bathsheba. I'll take my word for it. Read the 15th chapter of 1st King. You'll read the same thing that I just said. Everything that David did was right in the eyes of God, except in the matter of your eye of the hittite.

[39:11] That was a great fall. That was a great sin. But David knew a great God. David knew a great God, and he knew that great God is where he would find mercy.

[39:22] And he knew that's where he would find forgiveness. And it says here in that quote from Psalms 32. I'll read it again. Praise God. It says, even as David also described the blessedness of the man under whom God imputed righteousness without works.

[39:36] Righteousness without works. Folks, that's what we have gotten. If you're safe and you're born again, it wasn't your works. God didn't look down and say, okay, you've been a good boy, or a good girl for this many years.

[39:50] I'm going to impute righteousness under you. He looked down and he saw the faith that we had in him and the faith that we had in the blood of Jesus Christ. Then he imputed righteousness to us.

[40:01] That took no work of my own. It took every thing of Jesus Christ. Same blessing are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, God imputes righteousness under us.

[40:16] Don't say, don't you ever say, I hope God gives me what I deserve. Don't you ever say that. If you all heard me say it this morning, I've said a thousand times in the past, we deserve the flames of hell.

[40:30] I hope he don't give me what I deserve. I hope he gives me what he wants to give me, what he promised me as being a believer in Jesus Christ. That's what I hope that I get.

[40:40] I get life everlasting. I know that I get that because my Bible teaches that. It ain't something that I just have to hope on with a chance of it not happening.

[40:51] The Word of God says it will happen, therefore it will happen. But blessed is the man under whom God does not impute his sin. When God looks on me, he don't see my sin.

[41:04] He doesn't give it back to me. Folks, I'll tell you what, he sure as the world doesn't look back and say, okay, you committed this sin 10 years ago.

[41:14] I forgave it then, but I'm going to bring it up now. God don't do that. When he forgives sin, when he wipes it away, when he washes it clean with the blood of his precious son, it is thrown into sin.

[41:26] Forgetfulness. Never to be remembered. You know who reminds God of our past sin? We do. Yeah. We do. I know a man right now and he struggles with his past sin.

[41:38] Now he's born again. I have no doubt in my mind that he's born again between him and God. I understand that, but he bears fruit, his spirit bears witness with my witness and I believe I'm going to be in heaven with him, but he struggles with past sin.

[41:53] I don't know if he struggles taking that as not forgiven or if it's just Satan or demons sitting on his shoulder whispering in his ear saying, you remember when you did this and you done that? He does that to all of us.

[42:05] He does it to every stinking one of us that are sitting in this room right now. He will bring up our past sins, but folks I can take him back in my mind to the very place on a greasy two room floor in Bristol, Virginia on the February the 10th, 2009, when God saved my unworthy soul.

[42:24] I can take him back to that place. I can say, demon, this is where it happened. This is where my sins were forgiven. You cannot bring this up to me and it'll fit me.

[42:35] Because my God has promised forgiveness. My God gave me eternal life right then. Praise God. He didn't impute sin to me. He imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ unto me right then.

[42:49] How can I let the demons of this world drag me down knowing that what God has said is true? Abraham knew what God said was true. He faltered and he failed.

[43:00] He didn't want to believe in it, but nevertheless, even though his fate dwindled, even though it wasn't perfect, he still believed.