By Faith Alone

A preacher one time told the story of a frog that somehow ended up in a pale of milk. Milk was too deep for the frog to reach the bottom of the pale so he could not get out that way, the side for too slick for the frog to be able to climb over the edge. And so there he was in this pale of milk, probably going to drown. And so he decided the only thing I can do is start paddling, frog paddling. And so he did, he started paddling. And he paddled and paddled and kept paddling until low and behold, he churned a pad of butter and was able to crawl up on that pad of butter and jump out of the pale of milk. Now the preacher that used that illustration went on to say, that's how we get to heaven. We paddle, we do our best, we keep working, we do the very best we can, and low and behold, you will eventually be able to get there on your own. Now obviously that preacher did not understand what Paul is talking about in the book of Romans. We've been looking at Paul's description of what it means to have a righteousness from God. A righteousness that has not worked up from ourselves and offered to God, but a righteousness which comes down from God, that's the theme of the book of Romans. And the first three chapters Paul has dealt with the fact that we all need that righteousness. We're all sinners and we need the righteousness of God. Last week we saw that Paul talks about what it means to become righteous or to be declared righteous by God. Now when I just described for you the pale and the frog in the pale, the frog paddling, butter churning, self effort striving, jumping out of the pale frog, that is the man on the street religion in America. The average person on the street believes that's the way you get to heaven. To use an old motto or slogan of an investment company, we get our salvation the old fashioned way, we earn it. The average person in America and across the world believes that's the way you get to heaven. The old fashioned way, you earn it, you do your best, you keep paddling, you try as hard as you can. You live a good life, you may join a church, you try to straighten up, get over certain sins in your life and you can eventually churn that pad a butter and get out of the pale of milk and get yourself to heaven. Paul is telling us in the book of Romans no way because the Jews in Paul's day felt exactly the same way. They believed you could get to heaven by your own works. And you know who they used as their favorite example, Abraham. The Jewish rabbis in Paul's day, and I could quote from their writings, but they say things like this, Abraham kept the whole law. Abraham was perfect in all of his deeds. Abraham had no need of repentance. The rabbis, the Jewish religious teachers of Paul's day used Abraham as the chief example of one who did not need to be saved in the sense of a gift from God. But one who was perfect, one who could work his way to heaven. And Paul says, no way did that happen with Abraham. And no way will that happen with you. We are saved by faith alone. Now, what Paul is going to do in Romans chapter 4, we've already seen Romans chapter 3, Paul describes this salvation by faith in terms of a word that's very critical, very important to understand, the word justification. Justification we saw in Romans 3 means to be declared righteous. It's a courtroom term. It's a legal term that you are declared righteous. It doesn't mean that you work up righteousness to give to God, but God looks at you as a sinner and says, I declare you righteous. I changed the record books in heaven to declare you righteous. And we saw that Paul talked about how that happens. It is by the grace of God, God offers that as a free gift to you without you doing a thing to earn or pay for it. It is based on the death of Christ because when Jesus died on the cross, he paid the full price for your sin. That's redemption. He satisfied all the holy requirements of God for you to get into heaven. That's propitiation as we saw in Romans 3 or an attaining sacrifice. So Jesus did all the work that was necessary on the cross. So it's a free gift of God's grace. It comes through the death of Christ and it is received by us, by faith. We simply open the arms of our heart to receive that free gift of God that Jesus died on the cross to give you. And when you do that, when you trust Jesus as your Savior, the Bible says God declares you righteous. Now that's what Paul has said in Romans 3. But that whole concept of faith now he's going to expand on in Romans 4. In fact, the word faith is found in this brief section of the epistle 27 times. 27 times by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith, over and over again. Paul drives this home. We are saved by faith alone. And you know what he's going to do in chapter 4? He's going to use Abraham as his example. So he's going to call the hand of the Jewish rabbis who said Abraham is our example of working your way to heaven. And Paul is going to say no way Abraham is the classic biblical example of salvation by faith alone. So let's see what Paul says. By using Abraham as an example, Paul rules out any other means of salvation. He literally knocks the props out from under three methods that people use or people propose to get to heaven by. By using the Jews' favorite example, Abraham, he literally knocks the props out from under Jewish theology and anyone else who would claim to be able to get to heaven on their own. And he literally rules out any other means of salvation. So let's look at what he says there in Romans chapter 4 beginning in verse 1. Paul first of all says using Abraham as an example, salvation is not by works. Salvation is not by works. Now let's look at the example of Abraham that he uses beginning in verse 1. What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather discovered in this matter? Notice he calls Abraham our forefather. A little bit of background is important to understand where Paul's coming from here. Paul is describing the greatest character in the Old Testament in the Jewish mind and that's Abraham. There were lots of heroes for Jews in the first century from the Old Testament. Abraham, Moses the Great Law Giver, David the Great King, Daniel the Great Prophet and others. But if you were to boil them all down to one, say pick one of those people that is the most important of the Jewish nation hands down it would be Abraham. Because Abraham was their father without Abraham there's no Jewish nation. Abraham is the man that God called out and said you are going to be the father of many people and I'm going to make you the father of a great nation. I promise you a son and your descendants will form a great nation, the nation of Israel. So Abraham is the father of the nation of Israel, the father of the Jews. So for that reason he was their favorite character. Jewish rabbis pointed to him as a way that you can look as an example of how to get to heaven by your good life and your good deeds. And Paul says no, no, no, what did Abraham find? How was Abraham saved anyway? Let's go back and look at the example of Abraham and see how he was saved. Verse two. What did he discover in this matter of salvation? Verse two. If in fact Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about. And then a pause indicated by a slash in your Bible. But he finishes the verse this way but not before God. In other words, if Abraham could have worked his way to heaven, he would have something to boast of. This is what I did to get here. But God doesn't see it that way. You would never be able to boast before God. You may be able to boast to your neighbor but you'd never be able to boast before God. Why? What does God say about Abraham's salvation? Verse three. What does the scripture say? And here Paul quotes from Genesis 15 verse six. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Genesis 15 verse six describes very clearly how Abraham was saved. Was Abraham saved by his works like the Jewish rabbis taught? Paul says no way. The Bible declares God tells us Abraham was justified by faith. He believed God and that was credited to him for righteousness. Now to go back and read the story of Genesis 15 which we won't do, let me bring you up the speed on it though. In Genesis 14 Abraham has just had a successful military campaign against a coalition of five city kings. And he has rescued his nephew Lot and God blessed him in that great victory and gave him a lot of spoil and plunder of battle. But when he comes back Abraham seems to have a restless heart. Because God has made him promise way back in chapter 12 and said I'll make a great nation of you. I promise you a son and a great nation from you and he doesn't even have a child yet. And so in chapter 15 he cries out to God, God I don't see the promise yet. I have not seen the fulfillment of your word yet in my life. God says go out and look at the stars. Can you count them? And on a sky where there was no artificial light Abraham could not even begin to count the number of stars. God says just like that I will make your descendants as numerous of the stars of heaven. And Abraham believed God. He believed the promise that God made him. When there was nothing visible to base that on, he believed the promise God made him. He trusted the promise God gave him. And it was credited to him for righteousness. Now Paul's quoting that to show how Abraham was saved. Key word is the word credited. If you don't understand that word you'll miss everything else we're talking about. The word credited there in verse 3 is a word that's used 41 times in the New Testament, 35 of those by the Apostle Paul. Of those 35 times Paul uses this word 11 of them are found in Romans chapter 4. It's an incredible concentration of this concept of righteousness being credited to someone's account. It's actually a difficult word to describe with one English word. So in various translations you may see it translated by the word counted or imputed or reckoned. But I like the word the NIV uses here because this is an accounting term. It is a term of the accountants ledger book. It was credited. It was placed in the credit column when he trusted the Lord. When he believed God's promise God's righteousness was credited to his account in heaven. That's exactly how Abraham was saved. And that's exactly how any person who saved today is saved. You trust the promise of God, the promise God makes you is different than he made Abraham. The promise God makes you is that if you will believe in his son Jesus Christ who died on the cross for your sins, then God will give you eternal life. That's his promise to you. When you believe that promise, then righteousness is placed in your deposit. It's deposited on your account. The record books for change in heaven, righteousness, God's righteousness is credited to your account. Stuart Briscoe who for many years passedored Elmbrook Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was from England. And he tells the story of when he got married. I'm going to use his words. I'll just quote him. He said shortly before I married his daughter, my father-in-law said to me, Stuart, if you will drive over to Austria and go to the little border town of Feldkirk, at a certain address, you will find a person who has some funds I have placed in your name. Go and collect them and you will have more than enough for three weeks' vacation with my daughter as your bride on the continent of Europe. I believed him, traveled over, met the person in faith, claimed what he had promised, and found that my father-in-law in sheer grace had actually placed the funds to my account. For me to have traveled around Europe, bragging about my newfound wealth, and pretending that it was the product of my work, would have been as insulting to my father-in-law as it would have been removed from the truth. If any boasting was permissible at all, it was limited to boasting about the generosity of another in my behalf. That's exactly what Paul's saying here in Romans 4. God in His grace is willing to deposit on your account in heaven His own righteousness. If you will trust His promise that Jesus died for you on the cross, and if you trust in what Christ has done to get you to heaven, rather than your own works, then you will have the promise of eternal life. You will have eternal life. If you trust that promise, then those credits that righteousness is placed on your account in heaven. That's the way Abraham was saved. That's the way you will be saved. If you know Christ in your record book in heaven, righteousness is credited to your account. The example of Abraham shows that salvation is not by our own works. Now from that example, Paul draws a principle of salvation. Notice in verses 4 and 5, the principle of this for salvation, verse 4. Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. Now this principle is first of all stated in a negative way. When a man works, his wages, what he earns because of that work, wages are not credited to him as a gift, Paul says, but as an obligation. We all understand that, don't we? You go to work, you work for two weeks, payday comes. And the boss comes into you and says, don't you think I'm such a wonderful guy to give you this nice gift? I'm being so gracious to you. I don't have to do this, but I'm giving you this gift today and hand you a paycheck. You'd look at him and say, if you weren't afraid of losing your job, you'd look at him and say, you're crazy. What do you mean? I work, I earn that. I deserve that. You're paying all the way. You owe me. You're obligated to pay that because I worked for that. Now that's what Paul's saying. If you can work your way to heaven, you place God in your debt. God is obligated to give you eternal life. There's no such thing as a gift of grace anymore. He's obligated to give, he's paying you what you've earned. If you can get to heaven by your work. Now that's the principle stated negatively. Notice the principle stated positively in verse five. However, Paul's saying the opposite really is true, to the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked. His faith is credit as righteousness. My friend, that's the essence of the gospel right there. That's the essence of the way of salvation in that one verse, Romans four five, what Paul is saying is that you do not work to earn salvation. But you trust the one, trust God who justifies, who declares righteous, who, the person who's trying hard, the person who's churning that pad of butter, the person who's doing better, the person who's churning his life around, the person who's giving up this or giving up that. No, no, he justifies the wicked, the sinner, the person who really is a sinner, he justifies, he declares righteous. And then he places on your account, he credits, he credits righteousness to your account apart from works. There is no better way in all the Bible to describe how you get to heaven than that verse right there. That's the principle for salvation. That's the principle of what it means to be saved. That you don't work your way there, you trust the one who died for your sins on the cross. And when you do that, God does a legal accounting maneuver in heaven. And he places on the record books of heaven under your name, the righteousness of Christ. And you are justified, you are declared righteous. That's the principle for salvation. And after Paul has stated that so clearly, then he describes in verses 6 through 8, the blessedness of salvation by faith. And he calls in another witness. Abraham is a key character here, and he'll go back to Abraham, but he calls in a witness in the courtroom here, the witness is David. And he's going to call in David to kind of support the testimony of Abraham. I've shown Paul says that Abraham was not saved by his works. And you know what, one of your other heroes, David agrees with him. And so notice what he does in verse 6. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. And here he quotes from Psalm 32 verses 1 and 2. Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man who sinned, the Lord will not never count against him. Three times he uses the word blessed or blessedness. It's a word which means the deepest kind of happiness, probably the best way to translate it would be joyful relief, joyful relief, the person experiences that God forgives. Now Paul describes as David describes the blessedness, the joyful relief that is experienced when a person knows these three things. First of all, my transgressions are forgiven. Transgression means to go across the boundary, to violate the standard. And when you violated the standards of God as all of us have what a joyful relief it is to find out God will forgive you. He will forgive you. Now David knew exactly what he was talking about in Psalm 32. Psalm 32 is written as a response to God in the part of David after God had forgiven him of his awful series of sins involved with Bathsheba. In that episode in David's life, David had violated three of the ten commandments. First of all, he had coveted his neighbor's wife and desired to have her for his own. So he took her committed adultery with her in number two. Commandment number two had broken. And in order to cover his tracks and make it look like everything would be okay when he found out she was pregnant, he has her husband, Yeraya murdered. So he can legally take her as his wife. Three violations of the ten commandments. Did you know that the Mosaic Law in the system of sacrifices to cover sin made no provision for such a blatant, high-handed rebellious sinful lifestyle as David lived. Made no possibility for that to be forgiven. David should have been condemned rightly so. The Bible calls it high-handed sin, rebellious sin. David rightly should have been condemned for that. He should have been stoned to death and he knew it. And that's the reason in Psalm 51. He tries out for God's forgiveness and God in sheer grace decided to forgive David. And as a response to that, David writes Psalm 32. What a joyful relief. It is to know that your transgressions, your violations of God's standards, ten commandments, whatever it may be. Your violation of God's standards are forgiven, forgiven. And not only that, whose sins are covered. Now David was speaking as a good Old Testament saint there. Before the cross, Old Testament saints were covered. In other words, just hidden from God's view. We didn't get into it too deeply for sake of time last week. But in Romans 3, Paul talks about that. How God overlooked the sins of Old Testament saints. Why? Because he was looking forward to the death of Christ. It was not until the death of Christ that those sins were taken care of completely and put away. He was covered until the time of Christ and Christ's death. But look at what Jesus did when he died on the cross and the difference between what David's talking about. Having your sins covered and having them taken away. Look at the screen if you would. Hebrews 9 describes this so beautifully. Nor did he, Jesus Christ, nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again the way the high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood that is not his own. Then, if Christ were doing that, then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. You see, he's drawing a distinction between what Christ did and what the Old Testament high priest did. The Old Testament high priest went into the most holy place every year and offered the blood, spread the blood on the mercy seat, to cover the sins of Israel for another year. But that had to be repeated the next year and the next year and the next year over and over and over and over again through hundreds of years. The high priest did this to cover their sin so that God would overlook their sin waiting for his son to come and pay for it. But when Jesus came, notice the middle of the verse there. But now he has appeared. Jesus has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to cover sin. No, no. To do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself, in verse 28 describes it this way. So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin. You see, he doesn't come back the next year and do it over again like the high priest did. When he comes the second time, he will be coming to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. That's talking about the rapture. That's talking about Jesus coming to take us home. So you see, Jesus came and once for all when he died on the cross, he put away sin. He took away our sin. So we have even a more joyful relief than David did. David could joyfully be relieved in the fact that God covered his sin. We can say, hey, it's better than that now. He takes away our sin. So our sins forgiven. He takes it away. But here's the crowning thing of all. Here's the icing on the cake, the end of verse 8. Blessed, joyfully relieved is the man who sinned, the Lord will never count against him. Word count, same word, ligus am I. It means to put on one's account to reckon, to credit to what God is saying here is once I have taken your sin off of the record books in heaven and I've replaced it with the righteousness of Christ. I will never, never put your sin back on that account. Now that is joyful relief. That is joyful relief. Praise the Lord that when you trust Christ as your Savior, your transgression against God's law is forgiven. Your sin is taken away, removed from your account in heaven, and it will never be put back on that account because God's righteousness is now on that account in heaven. That, my friend, is how you get saved. Salvation is not through your works. Abraham, classic example. David says, I'll get my testimony to that too. Yes, that's the way people are saved. It's through faith. It is not through your works. The Paul is not done. There are other ways that men suggest we might be saved. Not just our works, but some people say, well, it's through religious ceremony. And so Paul is going to take that up next and say, salvation is not through religious ceremony. And guess who is going to use as an example again, Abraham. The pet example of the Jewish rabbis, Abraham is going to steal their example and say, I'll show you from the Old Testament, that Abraham was not saved by religious ceremony. And so he raises this question in verse 9, is this blessedness? In other words, is this joyful relief at knowing your sins are covered? They're taken away. They'll never be put on your account again. Is this joyful relief only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? Now, with that question, Paul addresses the ceremony of Paul's day, the religious ceremony of Paul's day. And it probably needs a little bit of explanation. You see, the surgical procedure of circumcision was that which identified God's people, the head of the household, the male head of the household, bringing his family into the mosaic covenant, it was that which was a sign and a seal of the promise God had made for those to be His people, to be separated unto God, the cutting of the flesh, symbolised the cutting away of sin from the heart. And it was to symbolise that these people were separated unto God because of their sins being forgiven. The surgical procedure by the head of the household was simply designed to be a picture, a sign, a seal of that promise that God had made them to take away the sin out of their hearts. But by the time Paul wrote the book of Romans in the first century, the Jewish people had kind of twisted that to mean that in order to be saved, in order to be right with God, you had to go through that religious ceremony. Even if you were a Gentile, even if you were not a Jew, in order to get saved, Jewish teachers said, you had to come under the Jewish umbrella and place yourself under the law, under the mosaic covenant, in order to get to heaven. And by the way, this was a religious ceremony for the Jews, not just a surgical procedure. It was a religious ceremony. When I was pastoring back in Indiana in the 1980s, Jeanne and I formed a friendship with a Jewish couple in town. He was an editor of a local newspaper and she worked for an insurance company and we got to know them through their little daughter who was born about the same time as one of our children. And we were Jeanne was keeping her in our home. And so we got to know this couple. We formed really quite a close friendship with them. It was really kind of unusual, you know, a Baptist preacher and a Jewish guy from New York City who had no friends in South Whitley in this Midwestern little town. And so we formed quite a friendship and so close that they asked us to be the God parents for their little boy when he was born. And that's a very important thing for Jewish families. In fact, the God parents have a part in this religious ceremony and I'll never forget it. When we took that little boy to the doctor's office in Fort Wayne, Indiana, there was a Jewish rabbi there. This was a religious ceremony. Yes, the doctor was there too. But the Jewish rabbi went through a whole ceremony of reading the Hebrew scriptures in Hebrew. And it was a religious ceremony. And as the God parents, we were supposed to hold that little boy as this ceremony was taking place. Now, as it happened, the rabbi in discussing with me a little before who I was found out I was a Baptist preacher and actually excluded me from the room while the ceremony was going on, which by the way endeared me more to the Jewish friend who got upset with his rabbi and ended up coming to hear me preach it at the church there in town. It was just an amazing, amazing situation. But that was a religious ceremony. That was not just a surgical procedure to that family. It was a religious ceremony. And you see, Jews had come to believe that that religious ceremony made you right with God. And if you brought your household through that religious ceremony as the male head of the household under the covenant of Abraham, under the covenant God made with him, then you were okay. You'd get the heaven. And even as a Gentile, you had to do that. It was necessary to be saved to do that. That was the ceremony in Paul's day. Now, Paul says, okay, let's take the case of Abraham. Let's find out. Did this religious ceremony have anything to do with Abraham's salvation? He's raised the question in verse 9. Now notice how he answers it. Middle of verse 9. We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. In other words, it was faith that saved him, not his works. Now look at verse 10. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised or before? It was not after, but before. Here's the argument. Paul is saying, you know what I mean. Paul is saying, you can determine whether or not a religious ceremony had anything to do with Abraham's salvation if you just follow the timeline. All you've got to do is go back and read Genesis. It's Genesis chapter 15 where he is declared righteous. Genesis 156, Abraham believed God was credited to him for righteousness. He was righteous at that point. It was not until Genesis 17 that God gave him the sign and seal of the covenant he had made with him. Circumcision. 13 to 14 years after he was justified. So how did he get justified? Did he have anything to do with the religious ceremony? Paul says no. He was justified 13 to 14 years before God ever instituted that ceremony. So he's made his point from the scriptures that religious ceremony has nothing to do with Abraham's salvation. And now he's going to talk about what that means for us. In verse 11, the Jew would ask, well, what was the purpose then of circumcision? Verse 11, Paul says, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal, a seal, a picture of the righteousness that he had by faith when he was still uncircumcised. So then he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised. In other words, it's not necessary as a Gentile to come under the mosaic covenant. It's not necessary to have the religious ceremony to get saved. Abraham shows you didn't have to have that to be saved and he's the father of all who believed. He says in order that righteousness might be credited to them. Verse 12, and he's the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but also who walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. Now Paul's point is this, it was not a religious ceremony which saved Abraham. He was saved by faith so he becomes, by way of example, the father of all who trust God for salvation. Whether they are Jew or Gentile doesn't matter. Whether they have religious ceremonies or not, that doesn't matter. What matters is you have to go all the way back to the kind of faith Abraham had and trust the promise of God. The promise that God made Abraham was to look up at the stars. You're descended to be more numerous than those. I know there's no evidence that you even have any children. You're going to have any children but I promise you and Abraham believed the promise of God. The promise that God makes you is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You will have eternal life. That's God's promise to you. You believe that promise and righteousness is credited to your count. Doesn't make any difference what religious ceremonies you had. Now we kind of lose the punch of this because we don't relate to the Jewish religious ceremony as a religious ceremony anymore. So let's bring it down to where we live. What about the ceremonies of our day? We've seen the ceremony of Paul's day. What about the religious ceremonies of our day? What should we kind of read into this text so it makes sense to us? Well there are still religious ceremonies that people go through today that they believe will get them to heaven. For some it may be their baptism. For others it may be the fact that their parents have always gone to church. I've been in church since I was a little kid. For some it may be that they joined the church. For others it may be that they take communion or they've received the mass. Whatever religious ceremony you're placing your confidence in or faith in to get you to heaven, what Paul is saying is that's not going to get you there. That's not going to save you. Now it's very easy for us to see that about other religions and not to see it about ourselves. Take Muslims for instance. Muslims believe in the five pillars. These are the five things you need to do to make sure you're going to get to heaven. You need to pray five times a day. You need to give to the poor. Almsgiving is what it's called. You should visit Mecca at some point in your life. You need to observe fasting during the month of Ramadan. And then you need to be if you're a Sunni Muslim, you need to be involved and support jihad, the war against infidels. If you're a Shiite Muslim you believe that will happen in the future when the 12th Imam or 12th religious teacher will come and lead that holy crusade against all infidels and the whole world will be converted to Islam. But those are the five pillars of the Muslim faith. And Muslims believe they will get to heaven if they keep those five pillars. That's a works system. You do these five things and you'll get to heaven. Buddhists like Tiger Woods for instance. Buddhists believe in the eightfold path to enlightenment. And they believe that if you follow this eightfold path of practicing right views, right desires, right speech, right conduct, right mode of living, right effort, right awareness and right meditation. You follow that eightfold path. You will be enlightened and you will find yourself in the afterlife. That's a system of works things you do. I want you to know that is no different than a Baptist or Presbyterian or Methodist saying I can get baptized. I can do better. I can live a better life. I can join the church. I can take the mass. I can take communion. And I'll get to heaven. Now this may offend you. If it does, you need to come to an understanding of what it means to not be saved by your works. A Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Catholic who tries those ways to get to heaven is doing the same thing a Muslim is doing and doing the same thing a Buddhist is doing. Maybe different ceremonies. But you're trying to get to heaven by your religious ceremonies and Paul saying no way that won't get you there. You will never get to heaven by your baptism or your church membership or your good life. You'll never get to heaven that way. You'll never be forgiven of your sin through the mass. You'll never get to heaven through communion. Any more than you would get to heaven through the eightfold path or the five pillars. It's all a works system of trying to get to heaven on your own through religious ceremonies and Paul says Abraham, the classical Testament example that you are not saved by religious ceremony. But he's not done yet because there's some people who will say, okay, okay, my works, okay, religious ceremony, okay, granted. But if I keep the law, when I get there that way and so Paul is going to nail the door shut by saying, okay, Abraham's an example of this too, you are not saved by keeping the law. Look at what he says in verses 13 through 16. Look at his statement about Abraham and the law in verse 13. It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through righteousness that comes by faith. Again, using Abraham as an example and taking now Abraham and the law rather than Abraham and religious ceremony or works, he says, was it the law that saved Abraham? No, it was not. And again, all you got to do is do the math. Abraham was justified by faith. The law didn't even come for another 430 years. There was no law of Moses in Abraham's lifetime. No way he could have been saved by the law. It didn't exist. The law of Moses didn't. So he couldn't have been saved by keeping the 10 commandments. There were no 10 commandments yet. He couldn't have been saved by keeping the mosaic law. There was no mosaic law yet. So he was not saved by law. Abraham and the law. Abraham wasn't saved that way. Well, what about faith and the law? Paul draws this sharp distinction in verse 14. For if those who live by law are heirs. In other words, if you can get saved by keeping the law, faith has no value and the promise is worthless. Remember, Abraham was saved by faith in the promise God made him and faith in the God who made the promise. God promised him Abraham believed it was counter to him for righteousness. God makes promise to you. Jesus died for your sins on the cross. If you trust that for your salvation, the death of Christ, you will have eternal life. You trust God's promise and righteousness is credited to your account. But if you can keep the law and get yourself to heaven, then all that faith is useless and the promise is worthless. It's much like if I were to make you a promise. If you, I will give you a million dollars if you jump the Empire State Building, not all of them, jump over the Empire State Building. Now, can you do that? No. You can't do that. No one can do that. So my promise is worthless, isn't it? Absolutely, the worthless because you can't jump the Empire State Building. If you could get saved by the law, which by the way, no one can do, if that's what the promise is based on, faith is worthless, the promise is worthless, you can't be saved. But that's not the purpose of the law. And Paul draws this principle of salvation and the law in verses 15 and 16, where he says, here's the reason why all this doesn't work, verse 15, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression. Now, we've seen this already in chapter 3, but Paul reinforces this. It was never the purpose of the law to save anybody, not even in the Old Testament. It is always the purpose of the law to show us that we violate God's commands, where there is no law, there's no transgression, to transgress means to violate the standard. And the law is what shows you you violated the standard. The law then, because we violate the standard, as Paul says, the law brings wrath. The law condemns us. The law judges us. The law shows us we are incapable of keeping God's requirements. When you drive down Route 460, what's the speed limit on Route 460? No wonder you get so many tickets. It's 55, right? If you drive down 460, and you're going 55 miles an hour, right on the nose, the policeman is not going to pull you over and say, you know, you are doing such a wonderful job. Congratulations, you're keeping the speed limit. I have a reward for you. Here it is. Have you ever had that happen? I don't think so. But if you go 65, then you're reliable to see those infamous blue lights, and they will pull you over and condemn you and judge you and exercise the penalty of the law because you violated the standard. The law is there not to reward you, but to condemn you, to show you that you're wrong. That's why it's there. And that's why God's law was given. We all do 65, 70, 75. Some of us do 125. We violate God's standards. None of us keep his standards completely. And so God's law pulls us over and says, you're guilty. You broke the standard. You broke the limit. You have violated. You've transgressed. That's the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law is not to say, you know, you've really done a good job. You kept eight of the 10 Commandments. I'm so proud of you. I think I'll let you into heaven. That's not the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law is to show us God's wrath, God's penalty, God's judgment, because we've all violated it. And so Paul summarizes it this way in verse 16. I love the way he says this. Therefore, the promise comes by fate so that it may be by grace. In other words, the only way you can be saved is trusting the promise of God so that God can exercise his grace and freely give you salvation. I love what he says next. And maybe guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring. Not only for those who are of the law, but also those who are of the faith of Abraham. He's the father of us all. He's the father of everyone who trusts God's promise for salvation. But I love the way he says that, because the law does not save you, the promise comes by fate. You trust Christ for your salvation. God showers graciously and freely his gift of salvation on you and it comes with a guarantee. The guarantee is that your sins will never be placed on the record book again. That's a pretty good guarantee. Praise the Lord for salvation by grace through faith. It is not through keeping the law. In 1818, Philip Simulvice was born into a world, especially at that time on the continent of Europe where one out of six women died in childbirth or after giving birth to children, one out of six. And he began to see that the reason for that had to do with the procedure that doctors followed in their normal routines of their day. It was called childbed fever. But he began to recognize that a doctor's daily routines in that day would begin in the morgue, dissecting, examining, trying to figure out the cause of death of people. And then they would move from there typically to the maternity ward where mothers had just given birth to children or were in the process of giving birth to children. And they would make that move from the morgue to the floors without ever washing their hands. And he began to see he was the first man in history to associate those examinations of mothers with the fact that they just come from decomposing material. His own practice was to wash his hands with a solution of chlorine. And after a number of years delivering 8,537 babies, he only lost 184 mothers. And there were other reasons for that, of course, but only one out of 50, which was way off the charts compared to one out of six that was typical in that day. And so he spent his entire career vigorously arguing with his colleagues, lecturing, debating. And I'll quote, this is what he always was famous for saying. He called it by the proper medical name, but the childhood fever name of that day. He said, this is caused by decomposed material conveyed to the wound or to a wound. I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proved all I have said, but while we talk, talk, talk, gentlemen, women are dying. I am not asking anything, world's shaking. I am asking you only to wash for God's sake, wash your hands. And nobody would listen to him. His colleagues laughed at him after all. Doctors and midwives had been for centuries delivering babies without washing their hands. Why should they listen to a Hungarian doctor who thought he had the clue to this childbed fever? And it was so passionate with him. And he was beating his head against a brick wall for so long that at age 47, Philip Similwice died insane with his washbasins cast aside and the death rattle of a thousand mothers in his ears. It drove him insane that nobody would listen to him. Now what Paul is doing this morning, my friend. And what I want to do this morning is this. I want to beg with you, I want to plead with you. Please understand this. We are all contaminated by sin. But we can all be washed clean by the blood of Christ. So I am simply asking you, I am urging you, I am pleading with you. Please be washed clean in the blood of Christ. For God's sake, for Christ's sake, for your own sake, please be washed in the blood of Christ. We are all contaminated with sin. We are all going to die of that disease. Unless you are washed clean in the blood of Christ, your works will not save you and get you to heaven. Your religious ceremony will not save you and get you to heaven. Keeping the law will not save you and get you to heaven. Only being washed in the blood of Christ will save you and get you to heaven. It is by faith and faith alone in the promise that God makes that Jesus shed His blood for you and His blood will cleanse you from sin. Just trust His death for you to save you. Lay down your own efforts, your own religious ceremonies, your own trying to keep the law and come to Christ. Trust Him as your Savior. I plead with you. If you have never done that, please do that today. Would you bow with me in prayer. Father, thank you for showing us through Paul and his letter to the Romans. What it means to be saved. That it really is through trusting Christ. It is not through what we do. Our own works, our religious ceremonies, or keeping the law. Thank you that you have given us the promise that if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be saved. Lord, I pray that if there is anyone here this morning who would be honest with themselves and say, you know, I am really trying to turn my own pad of butter and get out of this mess by myself. I really am trying to save myself, trying to get the heaven by my good works or by the fact that I have been baptized or a church member trying to keep the law. Oh, Father, buy your Spirit, convict them, help them to see that they will never see heaven that way. I pray that today they would come to the Savior to be cleansed and washed in His blood. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.