Welcome to Bible Believers Fellowship where we love you enough to tell you the truth. On this program we will begin our study of Romans chapter 5. This message is both a challenge and an encouragement as we face life's tribulation with the full knowledge that we are justified by the blood of Jesus Christ. Paul will show us some of the things that we have as a result of our justification. And that justification is ours by the grace of God through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So please open your King James Bible to Romans chapter 5 and study along with us. Alright, let's get into Romans chapter 5. Charlie, would you read the first verse there in Romans 5? Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that therefore word is there for a reason. That's because previous to this time, Romans has been given to us to settle the question of justification, whether or not it's by works or by grace through faith. And I don't want to go in depth into this, but I want you to possibly even make a note right here that when you read about justification in the book of Romans, it's in a legal sense, as a legal term, as you standing before God in a court. And the reason why that's important is because if you go over into James, James says you're justified by works and not by faith alone or faith only. And so a lot of people get confused and the cults and those who preach a works-based false gospel always use James as an excuse And the thing is that James is talking about justification in a practical sense as far as you being justified before men in calling yourself a Christian. So when you read justification, the term justified in James, you're reading as to whether or not you're justified in calling yourself a Christian before men. Abraham was justified before men by his works. Men can't read your heart. Now, Abraham wasn't perfect. I mean, he lied to Pharaoh, and he lied to Abimelech about who Sarah was. Remember, that wasn't right. And Abraham did some things. He and Sarah both went the wrong direction and had what we would do today would be artificial insemination, but they did it the old-fashioned way. And Hagar had a child named Ishmael, and that's been a problem ever since. So there have been problems, and Abraham's made his mistakes. But God knows his heart. So in front of God, you and I are not justified by our works or we'd probably, well, not probably, we would be in trouble. You know, it works really well if you think of it in a courtroom sense. If you go before a judge, the judge doesn't let the prosecutor just bring in anybody and everybody who wants to say something bad about you. I mean, they have to qualify the evidence they bring before you. And a cop, you know, he has to go through the proper procedure to get a warrant to search your property or, you know, you have a right to an attorney and if he coerces a confession before you're allowed to have an attorney, they throw it out. Well, before God it works that way. God stands you there in front of Him and He judges you solely by your works unless your attorney is named Jesus Christ. 1 John calls him your advocate. That's what an attorney is. And if Jesus is your attorney, He gets all the evidence against you thrown out of court. And you're justified because of the work that Jesus Christ has done. And so in front of God, that's what the book of Romans up to this point has been proving, is that you're justified before God because of what Jesus has done. For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should what? Boast. There's no boasting in heaven. When we get to heaven, we are going to say, worthy is the Lamb. Not worthy is Mike. Yes, you did it. Good job. We're all going to be one big unified shout of glory to Jesus Christ. All right, let's continue. As we settled this, that we are justified by faith, what do we have? We now have a few things he's going to tell us. Number one, we have peace. The world is all about peace, but it's a man-made peace, a man-centered peace, an earth-centered peace. But what the Bible presents is a peace made by God through God, it's a God-centered peace. We have peace with God, not with man. And we are not going to have peace on earth until man submits and subjects himself to God completely. And so that's why we know that until Jesus comes and actually rules and reigns on the earth, all this stuff about peace on earth is nonsense. Now back in Romans chapter 5, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And it continues in Romans 5, verse 2, "...by whom also we have access by faith into the grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the Lord God." So he continues now to define what we have because of what Jesus has done. We have peace. We have access by faith. And we've talked about this. Under the law, we didn't have access. And still, You know, we want folks to understand we don't knock these other religions just because we like attacking people and knocking other religions. But they are false. And the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, all these churches have priests. There's no such thing in a true Christian church. There's no such thing as a priest. We have one high priest. We don't go through a priest now. This verse says we have access to the Father by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't have to go through a man. We don't have to pay anybody money. It reigns true for the TV preachers. There's no necessity of planting a seed faith offering. And that's just bogus. That's just for suckers so that, you know, a guy can buy a jet airplane and have his Houses and his cars and travel the world and that's exactly what they do with that money. They don't use it for the glory of God and You don't have to go through a TV preacher. You don't have to go through a priest you have access by faith into this grace Wherein we stand we that word stand is Very important because it means you're you've been placed in a position. It's not something you have reached You have now been placed into a position and the only way you can be removed is if the one who put you there removed you and he's already said you're there and it's permanent. You're there. You stand there. We are now seated, Ephesians says, in the heavenly places. Seated with Christ Jesus in the heavenly places. And that's our standing. We now stand before God and we are justified. We have peace. We have access to this grace. And we stand and then it says and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. A mark of a good Christian is you want to bring glory to God, not to me, not to us. We want people to pay attention to the Lord. And when you draw people to this book, that's what you're doing. You want people to pay attention to God, well, there you go. Don't listen to Thus Saith Greg. Go to your Bible. You know, what we put on the Internet, for the most part, is simply what we're doing now, verse by verse, teaching through the Bible. It's not a lot of smoke and mirrors, not a lot of games, not a lot of entertainment. It's a simple, straightforward teaching from the Bible. Why? Because that's what we want. We want people to be drawn to God's Word. Not to us, and not to think we're something, but to think God's Word is something. Serenity, read 3 and 4 for us. In the illness though, but we who are in tribulations also, knowing the tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And that verse, again, contradicts many of our friends and family who are into this whole positive thinking or word faith, positive confession, because he says we glory in tribulations, whereas today's version of Christianity says we should rebuke it in the name of Jesus. Oh yeah. What are you, backslidden? The funny thing about everyone teaches that. They teach that if you just have the right attitude, build your faith, and all this, you'll be healthy and wealthy. All of them get sick and die. There's a 100% failure rate among the teachers of that. Yeah, Amy Simple McPherson. Oral's on his last leg. So is Paul Crouch. Lester Sumrall. Yeah, he's gone, you know. Kenneth Hagin. Boy, he used to say, you don't have to die. Well then why'd you die for, Kent? That used to confuse me how on one of the stations, it may have been CVO back when they had teachers, they had Kenneth Hagen and J. Verner McGee back to back. You talk about night and day. And I'd listen to both those guys when I was first saved. And I was like, these guys totally contradict each other. Then I went to the ward and I said, well, Brother McGee's got it right. Well, we are supposed to glory in tribulations, not rebuke them in the name of Jesus. And God has a plan for tribulations because it does work patients. And patients experience, experience hope. And that's certainly a truth. I mean, as you live and you do become more patient, I've got a long way to go, but I'm more patient than I was in 1989 when I got saved. Way more patient. That's James. And I love this that he throws in a word I haven't seen elsewhere, and that's experience. There is something to be said with experiencing these things, making you better able to deal with those others that you come across in your life who have issues. And you just think about it. If God puts you in a little cocoon and never lets you suffer tribulation, and then you get out and there are people going through things and they come to you, you're totally clueless. I have no idea what it means to have car troubles. God has always blessed me with a perfect automobile. And oh, I don't know what it means to ever have to feed my kids ramen noodles because we've always eaten out. You know, if God treated you like that, which is what this false brand of Christianity does preach and teach, you'd be useless. And I want to be so heavenly minded that I'm earthly good. And that is, you know, this word faith stuff, will insult you by saying you're so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. And because you don't lust after the bigger house and car and the Rolex watch and the $4,000 suits and all that, then you're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good. No, they've got it totally wrong. They're no earthly good to God because they're so flesh and carnally minded that they can't be used of God to preach what needs to be preached to people. And that's why you know these people and they never talk about Jesus Christ in the gospel. They talk about how God will bless you. You come to Jesus and He'll bless you. That's not the gospel. Oh yeah, He's blessed me, but not the way they're defining it. And it had to come after I dealt with the big issue and that's the sin that separates me from God. And through faith in the gospel, I'm justified. I now stand and have these blessings. And that's Paul's message here. Well, I've told Cheryl, Stephanie, Colette in an instant message to her. I tell, you know, anybody who's gone through this that has lost their dad. I don't know. I don't know what you went through, Mike. I can imagine. And I know it hurt because I love my dad. But I haven't been in those shoes. But you can look at Stephanie, and I actually, you know, shared what I know some of what you had said. I said, you know, Mike lost his dad, and his dad had been sick, but, you know, he kind of went fast. You know, he didn't, we thought he'd be around a while. And it was still a shock. And I don't think you get over that even if it's not a total sudden thing. You still, once it's final, it's a shock. So I even had to use Mike and his example. you know, I had to borrow, you know, because I haven't experienced that. I think that's why as Christians, we all share those experiences. Yeah. Exactly. And they act like in this new movement, you know, don't talk negatively about anything because, oh my goodness, that shows that you're kind of like, they make you think you're weak. You're one step away from claiming it. Yeah, or you're weak because you've gone through something like that. You know, Angel, there are people that you could talk to, I can't. You know, because people can develop this, oh, poor me attitude. You know, I had a horrible childhood. I went through so much. You know, I had so many issues. And I'm like, you know what? I had a great childhood. I mean, my parents were top of the line, man. But I know people who have gone through that. And you need to talk to them. And, you know, here's his email address. You know, talk to him. Because he went through it. He's not feeling sorry for himself. He's turned to Jesus Christ and now He's a new creature. He's got new blessings including hope. He's got things that you're giving up on. So, you know, we've talked about this. Not only have they had a bum deal up to this point, but they're rejecting a chance to have it all clean and a totally bright eternal future. And that's the saddest thing about it. I look forward to many opportunities to being able to do that. That's one thing about being a pastor is that, number one, can't be the all-in-all. I can't answer every question. I haven't experienced everything. I don't know everything. But that's the beauty of a fellowship. I can say, you know what? You need to talk to Sister Cheryl. You know, someone comes to me, a young lady comes up to me and says, you know, I'm pregnant. Well, I tell you what, I'm going to get a hold of Cheryl and we'll get together and we'll talk. You know, or someone in his or your position. You know, Jenny's gone through things that no one else in this room has. And if you have animals, call Charlie. Okay. Alright, everybody, give Charlie the floor here. He's going to read now in verse 5. In hope make us not ashing, Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Amen. And that's what is the strange thing about this. benefit from all this blessing that God has for us. And then it gives us it makes us not ashamed. It gives us the courage and the strength because we look at people now differently. We look at them. And I said this before, we pity them. They shouldn't be throwing a little pity party for themselves. But when I look at somebody who's not a believer and they're miserable and they're bitter and they're, you know, sour and they come at you and I don't need that, you know that. I feel pity for them because I know, number one, they're lost. Number two, they're losing. They're losing all of this blessing. They're losing this life that they can have in the Lord. And we have this hope that makes not ashamed. But again, it's all God-centered. It turns you back to God because of the love of God. It's the love of God that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. This is not something I recommend you brag about because it's not something to boast about, but it's a fact. The reason you love people isn't because you're such a wonderful, loving person. You have been given divine love. By your relationship with Jesus Christ, you are infused with His Spirit. You know, there's coming a day when we're going to go through a physical, complete metamorphosis. That's the actual word used in 1 Corinthians 15. Metamorphosis. But spiritually, we have already been infused with His Spirit. We are now indwelt by His Spirit. That then gives us the love, and then that causes us to love others. And it's all God-centered. Glory to God, because God's the one who gave us that love. And if you look at the latest Oprah thing, you know, and Oprah's got this preacher on her show, and he says, being gay is a gift from God. And then there's a post on World Net Daily where he, in his church the following Sunday, tells the folks what happened on Oprah. And when he tells the folks there in his church, being gay is a gift from God, and they're just applauding and giddy and everything. You know what? That man doesn't love anybody in that church. Because that's our motto here. We love you enough to tell you the truth. That man is lying to all those people because he's self-centered and he just wants to feel good and he wants to feel like he's important and he wants the benefits that come with that position. So he's lying to everybody in his church and making them think that they're okay. And that man is as wicked as Hitler ever was because he's damning souls to hell with this lovey-dovey message that doesn't come from God's love. How do they get around the Scriptures, though, that talk about holy faith? Well, we have to stop and step back and realize they don't believe the Bible is infallible to begin with. And so they say, they'll even say this, we choose to use the Bible as a tool. That explains it. This isn't a tool for me to use. This is God's complete revelation for me to submit to. It's like medication. These guys are telling you, to ignore the instructions and take it as you please. Well, if your pharmacist gives you medication because you pull your back and you decide, you know what, I'm going to, instead of having to take this like every six hours, I'll go ahead and take the whole thing now and I'll be good for a week. You're dead. Well, that's the way it works with God. You either do it God's way or it's lethal. And it's not God killing you or destroying you. It's you destroying yourself by refusing to do things God's way. And that's what this preacher's doing. He's killing his entire congregation. We look at this and it frustrates us and everything, but you know, God has given us a love for Him and for His Word and for lost souls. And we take it in. And there's nothing we can do about that guy and his church. There's nothing we can do about Oprah. But what we can do is make sure that in our sphere of influence, we get the truth out and we stand firm. I want Tori, if you would, to read verse 6, and that's where we'll close for now. And that, again, takes us back to where we started singing today. I am just a sinner saved by grace. I am not a good person that God chose to save because I'm such a good person. And you can't forget where it is you came from. We've been emphasizing that in our study of Exodus. Don't forget where you came from. It's not to linger on it, but by remembering our condition. When Christ came and saved us, then we can then act in a way toward lost sinners that, number one, isn't judgmental and condemning. It is simply, hey, I'm no different from you, but you must come to God on His terms. And the only difference between you and I right now at this moment is I've come to God on His terms. I can't make it up on my own. And you think, well, God's just this softy up in the sky, no matter, you know, as long as you're trying. You come your own way." That's not what Jesus said. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. He also said that the way is narrow. But He also said that wide is the gate that leads to destruction. So the open-minded progressive types who always cried, you know, be more open-minded. Well, that's the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ said as far as salvation and spiritual truth is concerned. And Jesus didn't say, well, you've got your way, and you've got your way, and this guy has his way, and as long as you're trying. And what God says, first of all, is you have to put yourself where you ought to be. You're a sinner. Christ died for you, but when He did, He died for an ungodly sinner. He didn't die for something that was so special. that he had to save you. What this guy with Oprah, where he starts in his whole thing is that when God created man, he looked out and said, you're all good. Yeah, that's how he... Well, the Bible doesn't say that's how it happened. The Bible says he created Adam and Eve and said they were good, but then they sinned and they're no longer good and they're kicked out of the garden and their offspring since then, the Bible says, which created in the image of Adam. It changes. And he never said that's good after that. But what he's doing, he's taking advantage of the ignorance of the people he's preaching to. Because they don't know the Bible, they don't have enough sense to know that what he's saying is poison. And that's why we have to be brilliant. We have to study to show ourselves approved. And individually, show thyself approved unto God. You said something about being open-minded. And a lot of Christians today, they're so open-minded, their brains fall out. Yeah. Limbaugh, years ago, used to talk about it as being a mine full of mush. And he says, these kids go into these schools and they just pop open their head and they're a mine full of mush. And their liberal, progressive teachers have just been pouring this stuff in over the years. And then they come out of school and they just have to be, you know, kind of re-educated, you know, Showing the truth. Well, that's what happens when you're open minded. You should be teachable. Yes. But you'd better have a filter and you'd better filter what's coming in. And your filter is right here. And as you. That's what they act 1711. And they checked everything that Paul taught by the word of God, they filtered it. And only what matched the word of God did they allow to come through. And that's the way it works with the gospel. You have to listen to what's being taught and you have to compare it to this book. And it sounds good on a fleshly, carnal level. Well, you're sincere. Well, wait a minute. What about your sin? Well, I'm doing the best I can. Well, how's that going to take care of your sin? You're going to walk up in front of God and expect your measly amount of good works to even pay the price for one sin? Your sin is a violation against an infinite God, number one. And number two, that infinite God came and actually died for that sin. We're just talking about one, one sin. So all the works you could ever do could not pay for even the first sin you ever committed. And then even if you could, you still have another problem, and that is your nature. Your nature is against God. You're an enemy of God by nature. And without being born again, you're going in front of God with a condemned nature. What are you going to do about your nature? Works can't take care of that. Only by faith in the death of Jesus Christ, His shed blood, His burial and His resurrection. Can you face God with any assurance? And in that case, we have all assurance that we are saved. And that's the only message that saves souls. So now we have to be prepared, number one, to explain that. I'm not asking anybody to say it, but right now you need to ask yourself, can I explain that to people? Can I explain that to a lost person? And if I can, then we also have to ask, am I willing? even if it means that I'm going to be an outcast. People are going to think I'm dogmatic and narrow-minded. I heard Bob Burney on the radio this week say, you know, a lot of you people think I'm beating a dead horse, but the horse ain't dead yet. And well, we're living in an age where it's just going to get worse and worse. It's going to be necessary for us to encourage, challenge, and pray for each other that we will be willing to suffer persecution, and be mocked, be branded, shunned, lose friends, regardless of what it might cost in order to stand true and preach that word, preach that gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of freedom, but it's freedom from error, not freedom to continue in error. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a reputation of all false religious systems of works for salvation, and every message preached by any man must be measured against that gospel message. We encourage you to grow in your knowledge of God's Word by reading the King James Bible daily. And you can supplement by listening to the many messages available in MP3 format completely free of charge by visiting our website at kjvbiblebelievers.com. You can download these messages from Romans along with hundreds of others. We ask that you pray for this ministry. and that you tell others who hunger for God's Word about that website kjvbiblebelievers.com. This program was brought to you by Bible Believers Fellowship, P.O. Box 662, Worthington, Ohio 43085. Thank you for listening.