We're indeed glad to have each of you here with us this morning. One of the coldest days that we've had in a long while. We're glad you have gotten out in it. I know it's not like anything up in the north, but still. We live down here because of that, right? But anyway, we're glad you're here. We want to remind the men that we will have a safety and security meeting this Friday night at 7. If you're interested in that and want to talk with others about what we're planning to do to help make our congregation more secure, we'd love to have you be with us at 7 o'clock on Friday. We're going to talk about what avenues we have to help us and how we might go down those roads in the right way. At this time, would you take your Bible now and turn with me to Romans 4. Verse 18 is where we'll begin. In this passage, we have two main ideas. We have a description of Abraham as the example of our faith. A description of our faith as Abraham's faith was that example. And then we have the consequences of that. They branch out indeed to not only Abraham, but then there is an inference that Paul makes and applies to the Romans as well as to us who believe. So Romans 4 beginning in verse 8 and going through verse 25. Hear the Word of God. Who against hope believed in hope that He might become the Father of many nations, according to what was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, He considered not His own body now dead when He was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not stagger at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore, it was imputed to Him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for His sake alone that it was imputed to Him, But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, we who believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification." Let's pray. Father, we do bless You for this Word. And we pray You would help us as we address it. May we draw from it great truths and springs of water in our soul to strengthen us and strengthen our faith. Lord, may there be someone here today who would for the first time see Christ as He really is in His need of Christ or Her need of Christ. and truly believe in Christ as their Lord and Savior. But for we who know You, we pray You would help us to grow in our faith and help us to be able and to be ready to give an answer to anyone who would ask concerning what and why we believe. It's in Christ's name we pray these things. Amen. First of all, we have a description of Abraham's faith, and then we have the consequence of Abraham's faith. The description is going to be in greater detail, and then we have the consequence and the inference from which we get our application today. But first of all, we want to look at how Abraham believed. In this passage, we are given many things about Abraham's faith which we can grasp and apply to our own lives. Now, in the last part of this passage, he tells us in verse 24, the reason why I'm presenting this passage as I do, He says, it's for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. So this passage is not just a description of Abraham's faith alone. But Abraham is an example to all the faithful. Abraham was not the first one in the Bible to believe in the Lord and to have that counted to him for righteousness. But Abraham is the first one in whom this faith is described. There are many that believed the Lord and many that found grace in the eyes of the Lord as Noah did. There are many before him who truly looked to God and walked with God. You remember Enoch? He lived with God and walked with Him so much so that he didn't even die. He just went home with Him. There were many who were believers and went to be with the Lord in their death. But the Bible, up until Abraham, does not describe any of their faith. It does not tell us how, that when they believed the Lord, that was counted to them for righteousness. But Abraham is given as one who had received promises from God And then having received those promises, it says, he believed the Lord, or he believed in the Lord, and God counted it to him for righteousness. And now Paul is saying, Abraham is not only written in order for us to understand what happened to Abraham. But these things about Abraham are written so that we can understand how everyone who is pronounced righteous in God's sight is justified through faith. So he is our example. Therefore, I'm going to go back now, and as we describe this faith that Abraham had, I want you to be looking at that and saying, do I have that kind of faith? Am I believing in that way? So first of all, how did Abraham believe? And the first thing it says is, who against hope? believe. And that means that not only Abraham didn't have things to help his faith, or he did not have something in the world by which he could compare his knowledge of God to, and that would help him to grow in his faith. Not only he didn't have An example put before his eyes. But in fact, the idea that he had in his mind was so against what the promise of God was. You see, Abraham was 100 years old, and God brings him this promise that He's been promising him for 25 years. Your seed shall be like the stars of the heavens, like the number of the grains of sand on the seashore." That's what your seed will be like. And Abraham is growing old. And so, as Abraham believed God, not only he didn't have anything that would show him that faith, but he had everything to show that that faith could not possibly be. It was against hope. The naturalistic scientist would say, you can't believe this, Abraham. There's no way. You have to understand biology. You have to understand how the body works. And Abraham is old. And he is, as it were, already dead. And then his wife, Her womb has been barren for these 90 years. So it was against hope that Abraham believed. Sometimes you might hear, and you might even believe yourself, that someone would say, well, I just don't have anything to point me to faith. I just don't have anything to show me that God is true. I heard what he said, but how can I prove this? Well, not only did Abraham not have the exact thing to prove what he should be believing, he had everything that was on the opposite side. It was against hope that he believed. Do you believe like that? Do you hear the Word of God and say, you know, I don't know if I can prove this, I don't know if I can put logic behind all of the things I know and can come up with this, but I know one thing, God said it, therefore I believe it. As I was growing up, there was kind of a pretty popular saying, God said it, I believe it. That settles it. And I thought, that's good, because I was going to a Baptist University, and their slogan was, God said it, you can't believe it, it no way happens. And I was really frustrated with that, and I would come back with, no, God said it, I believe it, now that's all I'm going to deal with. But I found out later, It was settled before I ever believed it. God said it. That settled it. Then I believe it. You see, there's a different perspective on that. Now it's good if God said it, then you're going to believe it, and then that settles it. You might be settled in your own mind, in your own heart. That didn't settle anything outside of your heart. We need to be settled in that faith though. Abraham had nothing to show him that faith, and yet, he said, okay God, I believe it. I will follow it. Now, there's an interesting story in Genesis chapter 17 where God has come and Abraham is 99 and Sarah is like about 90 or 89. And God said, yes, I've been telling you, you're going to have a child. And Abraham thought about that, and the Bible says he laughed. And kind of considered that, and it was funny to him. But he believed. Now, Paul is saying that even though it says in Genesis 17 that he laughed, Yet, he believed it. That laugh was saying, I don't know how long it's going to be, but he didn't let go of what God said. Now, Sarah hears that in the tent. And she hears that they're going to have a child, and it would be through Sarah, not Hagar, who they had already tried, and God didn't accept that. But Sarah heard that, and the Bible says she laughed. And then God reprimanded her. There was something about her laugh that God reprimanded, and about Abraham's laugh that He didn't reprimand. Now, Sarah becomes a believer. She does believe God, but at that moment on that promise, she said, that can't happen. And God said, Sarah, why did you laugh? She said, oh, I didn't laugh. I didn't laugh at all. He said, no, you did laugh. And I think that settled her to think about, you know, I did question God. Number two, I shouldn't do that. But Abraham, though he considered that idea there, he did not dwell on the possibility physically of their having a son. And that's what it means here when it says in verse 19, not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body now already dead, being a hundred years old. Now that doesn't mean that he didn't even think about it. But it means, that word to consider, it means he didn't focus on the fact that you're a hundred years old. Come on! You know, getting old is kind of hard, folks. I don't know how many of you know that. I may be the oldest one in here. That doesn't make me the wisest, but getting old is hard, and many times we kind of want to deny it. And sometimes we as men get to denying those things, and we want to still be what we were like when we were 25, and we end up hurting our bodies because we just can't do those things. Abraham thought about that and said, I can't do that, but He didn't dwell on that fact that there was no way He could fulfill it. He didn't dwell on the deadness of Sarah's womb. He didn't doubt the promise of God. Verse 20, it says, And unto the promise of God, he staggered not in unbelief. He didn't waver. So here's the promise of God on the right hand. Here are the physical facts on the left hand. He didn't dwell on the things on the left hand. He dwelt on the promise of God. He didn't waver. He didn't say, well, that's what God said, but he just kept on looking at it. God said it. And God keeps on saying it. I know He's been saying it for 25 years, but God said it. I'm going to believe it. Calvin says, Doubtless, there is nothing more injurious to faith than to fasten our minds to our eyes." Did you get that? You've heard the old slogan, seeing is believing? I love Spurgeon's sermon. It's called, Believing is Seeing. Believe the Word of God and that gets you to where you can see the way things really are. Not only he didn't focus on the things of this world, but he did believe in hope. In a hope in God's words. This hope, the second hope, there are two hopes right together, beside hope, believed in hope, In the hope he believed has reference to the promise that God gave him that many nations would come from him. And it includes the particular faith in the promised seed. Not only many nations would come from him, but that one seed which is Christ. Galatians 3.16, and that seed was Christ. Hodge says, the promise of a numerous posterity therefore included the promise of Christ and His redemption. This is evident for three things. Number one, because Paul had been speaking of this promise in which believing Jews and Gentiles were alike interested. Two, because Paul asserts and argues that the seed promised to Abraham and to which the promise was made was Jesus Christ, Galatians 3.16. And then thirdly, so Abraham himself understood it according to the declaration of our Savior in John 8.56. When he says, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, And he saw it and was glad. So he believed in hope, that hope was in reference to many nations that would come through him and his seed, and if that one seed would be the Messiah. So, number one, how did he believe it was beside hope? Number two, how did he believe? He believed in the hope in God's Word. And number three, how did he believe? He believed in such a way as to become the father of many nations. Now, here we're dealing with the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of men. Because God sovereignly has promised that He would make Him a Father of many nations. But it says here that He believed for the purpose of becoming a Father of many nations. So the sovereignty of God where He promises He will, and the responsibility of Abraham, came together in Abraham believing what God had said, and therefore, he was becoming that father of many nations that God was promising. He did not realize what time frame that would be. But, if we go back to the verse we see, He was not weak in faith, didn't consider His own body now dead when He was about a hundred years old. Verse 20, He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but He was strong in faith, giving glory to God. So that He might be a Father of many nations in verse 18. Therefore, this promise is coming to pass in his life. Hodge writes concerning this idea, most recent commentators assume that the unto, unto becoming a father of many nations, with the infinitive here, as it commonly does, expresses design or intent. Not however, the design of Abraham, but of God. He believed not in order to bring to pass this idea of a purpose for him to become that, but the purpose was from God and he believed in order to bring him to that point and become that. He believed in order that, agreeably to the purpose of God, he might become that father of many nations. Fourthly, he was not weak. He didn't waver. He didn't doubt. He wasn't unsure. But he was strengthened in his faith. The weakness is pitted against the word strengthened, was made strong in his faith. Now here is where I want to bring a little bit of a word of caution, because usually when we think of faith and our faith in God, we begin to think about how strong is my faith. And we hear people preaching on faith. There's a whole movement called the Word of Faith movement that takes people's words and makes them to become some word of God. As in, I believe God for ABC, whatever that is. And if you believe strong enough in that, God will bring it to pass. Well, that is debunked by the whole Scriptures. We're not given the freedom to just come up with an idea on what we would really believe or like God to do in our life and then say, if I would just continue to believe this, if I would believe it hard enough or strong enough, God would do it for me. And if it doesn't come to pass, then I'm not believing strong enough. But there is an object to that faith. We have encountered that not too long ago with someone who said, well, you know, if it's in your heart, and you believe it in your heart, And we tried to point to them and say, wait, what is it in your heart that you're going to believe? Well, it's just something in your heart. Well, where does it come from? Is it God's Word? No, it's just in your heart. Kierkegaard wrote a book. The purity of heart is to will one thing. And if you can get to where you just totally focus on one thing, and willed it strongly enough, God would bring it to pass, and that is purity of heart. Let me tell you, according to that definition, Satan is very pure. He is one mind, and that is against God. And Kierkegaard meant exactly those kind of things. Now, he didn't bring Satan in and discuss the idea about Satan, but his idea was, don't worry about the actual object of your faith, you need to worry about the subject, you and your faith. And if you will it strongly enough, and you yourself put your whole life into that, it will bring you through. And God will give it to you. Well that again, There is kind of a mixed up Greek word for that, and it's baloney. Therefore, Paul says, righteousness was imputed to Abraham through this kind of faith. Now I want to go back and look at this. What kind of faith? Well, he was not weak. He was strengthened. He didn't waver. He stayed on the path. He gave glory to God. But I want to look at this passage in verse 21 that really calls attention to what Paul is wanting us to see. And being fully persuaded that what he, God, had promised, he was able also to perform. You see, it's not what you have dreamed up. It's not what you have believed. It's what God has promised. that is most important there. Has God promised He will perform? Do you believe? That's a different question. Are you strong in faith? The point is, come back to what are you believing? If it's not the Word of God, it's not worth believing. You don't want to believe that strongly. And in that way, you give glory to God. Abraham didn't go around with a flag held up in the air saying, I am a strong believer. Worlds need to pass away and get out of my way. I am a believer. I'm strong in faith. I don't stagger. I don't wave. No, Abraham walked around humbly seeking what God would have him to do. I'm not saying he never sinned, but Abraham focused on what God's Word had been given to him, and he believed it. And therefore, because he was fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was able to perform, therefore there is this consequence to Abraham's faith. Righteousness was imputed to Abraham through this kind of faith. I want you to notice I chose very carefully that word through. It's not because of Abraham's faith that he was justified. It was through his faith. Yes, I know it says, and therefore, in verse 22, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. But here it's not basing the ground of his justification on his own faith. It's talking about being fully persuaded what God had promised he was able. So the focus of his faith was on Christ. It was on God. And therefore, because of that, it was imputed to him for righteousness. So his righteousness came through the faith that God had given him to believe what God had promised. Now, there is an inference for those who follow Abraham in that kind of faith. You see, this was not written for Abraham's sake alone. That's what he says in verse 23. Don't be thinking that this is just about Abraham. But it was for us also. Now, Paul is writing in the first century, and he's talking about himself, other believers, and those in the church at Rome. And then he defines who us is. the ones to whom it shall be imputed, those who believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." There's an inference. He's saying Abraham believed, he believed in this way, and God counted it to him for righteousness. This was written for us. Who it will be imputed to us if we truly believe. on the One that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." Now, I want to go deeper into this idea about the object of faith. You see, there is a repetition of that object here. Not only is it the Word of God, not only is it the promise But in verse 24, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. The specific promise about the seed of Abraham that would fulfill the promise of God. And then he describes how he did it. He was delivered for our offenses. He was raised again for our justification. So it's very strongly rooted in the object of our faith. Are you believing, is this kind of faith yours? Are you believing not in yourself or in your own faith or in what you can do to please God, but are you believing in the One that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead? Are you believing that Jesus was delivered for our offenses? He was delivered because of our sins. And He was raised in order to justify us. Robert Haldane says concerning Abraham as our example, quote, This history of the way in which Abraham received righteousness is not recorded for his sake alone or applicable to himself only, but is equally applicable to all believers." The apostle here guards us against supposing that this method of justification was peculiar to Abraham, and yet teaches that it is the pattern of the justification of all who shall ever find acceptance with God. Anyone, he goes on to say, The first recorded testimony respecting the justification of any sinner is that of Abraham. Others have been justified as we said, but it was reserved for him to possess the high privilege and distinction of being thus the first man singled out and constituted the progenitor of the Messiah. In Him, all the nations were to be blessed, and consequently, He was to be the Father of all believers, who are all the children of Christ. Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's day. He saw it and was very glad. You see, Abraham was justified just like we are. or flip that, we are justified just like Abraham was. Through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, it was a strong faith. Yes, he didn't have anything to strengthen the faith outside of God's Word itself. But he didn't stagger. He didn't turn around and say, well, I just can't find anything else that helps assure me of this. He believed Christ and was justified. Now, I want to go back and look at the ground or cause of our justification through this passage. And I want us to see in verse 18, the thing Abraham believed was that which was spoken. A promise. Verse 20, he didn't stagger at what? The promise of God. Verse 20, He gave glory to God that God was the One justifying Him. Verse 21, He was fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able to perform. Verse 23, these things were written not for His sake only. All of this about a promise of God was written in the Scriptures. It's a solid object of faith which we believe. Verse 24, if we believe on Him who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead. Verse 25, the Lord was delivered for our transgressions, raised again for our justification. Many say, as I said, just believe it in your heart and that's all it takes to be saved. When asked, what must we believe in our heart? They answer, well, what is in your heart? And in Romans 10, it says, if you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you'll be saved. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Let me emphasize this object of our faith. Don't be trying to multiply the strength of your faith by obeying God or doing this or doing that. Simply look at His Word, hear the truth of God, hear the promises of God that say, look unto Him and be saved, all ye ends of the earth. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ And you shall be saved. Trust only in Him. Let's pray.