So let's take the word of God and turn to Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 4 this evening, and we'll read from verse 13 in this chapter, and we'll read down to the end of chapter 4. So Romans chapter 13, and we will commence reading, just break into it here at verse 13. So let's hear the word of the Lord. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham, or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are off the law be heirs, faith is made void, and a promise made of none effect. Because the law worketh wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace. To the end, a promise might be sure to all the seed. not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, so shall I see 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 staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. 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, if we 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. Amen. And we trust the Lord will bless the reading of his word to our hearts. Let's just have another brief word of prayer, please. Father in heaven, we do count it a great privilege to have the Word of God before us, the faithful translation that thou hast committed into our care. And now we come to consider the words that lie before us in Holy Scripture. And Lord, we need thy help, both preacher and hearer alike. We confess, Lord, that of ourselves, Lord, this is a spiritual book, and your Word declares us a natural man, receive, if not the things of the Spirit. And we pray that we would be enabled by thee, Lord, that thou would enlighten our minds and our understanding. Open up our hearts to receive the truth. May the Spirit apply it to us, O God. May it not just be all intellectual knowledge, but Lord, may it touch our hearts. May we lay hold and grasp hold of the word tonight. May it impact us and change us. May it be a blessing unto thy people. And to that end, Father, I pray that thou would wash me in the precious blood. And Lord, that thou would fill me with the Holy Ghost, that I would be an instrument in thine hand for the glory and honor of thy great name. So hear prayer and carry on with us these things I asked in Jesus' name and for his sake and glory. Amen. Now, I said last Tuesday night that I wanted to look, in the coming weeks, at some of the verses in the New Testament which use the phrase, He is able or God is able. And as an introduction to that, or those verses, we thought about God's power. Last week, we considered God's power defined. His power, which is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, is that ability and strength whereby He can bring to pass whatsoever. He pleases. Power belongeth unto God, as Psalm 62 verse 11 declares. He does not have acquired power, but it is his inherently. And he is the source of all power. We also thought about God's power discussed. In prayer, we usually ask God to do something, and that is connected with his ability, and we understand that God is omnipotent, and we notice two aspects of God's power in relation to this. Firstly, we thought about his absolute power, and that's his ability to do anything that is in harmony with his perfections. We also thought about his ordinate power, and that is his power to do what he has And that was important for us to understand, as God will do nothing outside of his will. Therefore, if we are not to ask amiss, we must pray according to the will of God. And where is the will of God revealed? Well, simply it's in his word. And knowledge of the scripture will help us in prayer. Thinking of God's ordinate power, that he'll not do anything outside of his will, it also let us consider other things that God, and we say it humanly speaking, cannot do. He cannot do those things which are self-contradictory, and he cannot do those things that are inconsistent with his nature. In the last place, we thought about God's power demonstrated. And there are three areas in which His power is manifested, creation, providence, which includes preservation and governance, and then the highest expression of His power is seen in redemption. And we finished with this thought, that success in prayer does not depend on our ability to ask, but on God's ability And tonight we're going to look at some of the verses which we have read from in Romans chapter 4. In verse 21 we read of God that He was able. Now I know strictly speaking that the verb to be is in the past tense was. But I don't think that you're going to hold this against me in this series. He is able or God is able. And we're going to consider these verses tonight just towards the end of this chapter under the heading He is able or God is able. to keep His promises. God is able to keep His promises. Now the first thing I want you to bring to your attention is this, Abraham's consideration. As we think about these verses, because this is a great chapter really concerning Abraham, how he was justified by faith. And here he is set before us in Scripture. And so Abraham would be the main and principal character that is before us. in these verses that we're going to consider. So we're going to think of firstly Abraham's consideration. In verse 18 we read of Abraham who hoped and believed against hope. As it tells us there in verse 18, who against hope believed in hope. And that statement is called an oxymoron. And what that basically means, it's a figure of speech which uses opposites and opposite ideas to convey a thought. Have you ever heard the phrase, the silence was deafening? Well, this is the same sort of thing. Abraham had hope. when there was no hope. No human hope that is. And that's what verse 19 really sets before us. No human hope. It sets the scene, the backdrop for God's ability to keep His promises. And that was the hope that Abraham had when we say there, or when the Scripture says that he had no hope, or against hope. When there was no human hope, he still had hope in God. And verse 19, it paints the dark canvas of human impossibility, on which the radiance of God's ability shines forth. One man commented, when God intends some special blessing, some child of promise for his people, he commonly puts a sentence of death upon the blessing itself and upon all the ways that lead to it. Now it was the same with Joseph. He must be sold, enslaved, and imprisoned before he was advanced to that place where he would fulfill the promise revealed to him by God in his dreams. It was as if all those years that the promise given to him in the dreams had died. And God had to let that promise die. All the means, all the human hope of that being fulfilled had to be put to death. And so it is the same here that we find with Abraham. Verse 19, it tells us there, normal childbearing age. Matthew Henry said this, all the arguments of sense and reason and experience, which in such cases usually beget and support hope, were against him. No second causes smiled upon him, nor in the least favored his hope. There was no contribution that Abraham could make to fulfilling the promise that was given. All human capability and all human capacity was powerless in this situation, and Abraham knew that. Thirteen years before, Abraham and Sarah, they tried to order things themselves. They tried to manipulate the situation, and Ishmael was born as a result. But he was not the son of promise. Abraham was not blind to the facts, nor did he ignore the difficulties. And you know, the life of faith, it's not a life with no problems or obstacles. Abraham's circumstance is so impossible to nature. In no way weakened his faith, and we read of that at the start of the verse. Though in himself he was utterly powerless, he does not get discouraged by his own inability. 16th century Bishop Hall, who stated a fundamental fact when he said this, there is no faith where there is either means or human hope. Difficulties and apparent impossibilities, well, they are the food on which faith feeds. Faith looks to the strength of God, not to second causes or to the difficulties that may appear formidable to man. And you know how comforting that is in our day, when it appear that all hope is gone, humanly speaking. Yet like Abraham, we still have cause for hope. The Christian always has cause for hope when God is his God. Before, I asked the question, were we relying on something other than God? Was it the ballot box? Is that how we thought that our wee country would be turned around, or how righteousness would maybe be maintained in the land? Has that confidence in the arm of flesh been taken from us, the capabilities and the capacity of man? Has it been all stripped away from us? And you know, maybe that's the Lord's way of getting glory for himself. Maybe we were relying on means, some human hope. We had that in our heart. And we weren't really relying on God. Has God, like Abraham, brought us into an extremity that He might have opportunity to magnify His mercy, grace, and power? Let's make it a little more personal instead of general concerning our land. Is there something maybe that God has promised you? Maybe about a loved one. And currently it appear, you know, it appear that there's no way, humanly speaking, that that promise could be fulfilled. They're so hard, they're so indifferent. Well, hope against hope, child of God. Look not at the problems, but look at the one who has promised. Think about that. And this really struck me on Sunday evening when we think about the power of Satan, and not in the service, but really after the service, and you see individuals that are grasped by the power of Satan. But it took my mind back to last Tuesday night. All power is derived. The power in every seed. The power in every beast. The power in every human being. The power, yes, in every angel and fallen angel. A source is found in God. Therefore, no matter the power that Satan has upon an individual, upon your loved one, don't forget there is one who is all-powerful. He is all-powerful. And it might seem that the promise God gave you years ago has died. died. Well, Abraham had to wait 25 years. And it seemed to be, humanly speaking, in all means that his promise had died. You know, we had a word at the start of the year. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. You know, that's a promise. And we may wonder, you know, when, or where, or who, or how is this going to be fulfilled? Well, child of God, hope against hope. Think of the God who gave it. None of the problems that lie in the way of that promise being fulfilled. And my first heading here was in the positive. Abraham's consideration. But we look at the verse and we see that it states the negative. He considered not. How are we to understand those words? Did Abraham not think at all about the physical limitations that he and Sarah had? Well, we know that's not the case from the record in Genesis. Rather, it means that Abraham, he looked at them all quietly in the face, as though taking into account all their significance and force, but then he looked at the promise and the promisor. And after balancing the one against the other, he decided absolutely and confidently, the Word of God must stand, however great the difficulties that lay in the way. The impossibilities became as nothings to him. That's why it says he considered not. They became as nothings in the light of divine omnipotence. And implying that to our own day and generation, you know, that does not mean we bury our heads in the sand. over what is happening. We take note of it, of course we do. The significant impact of it and the ferocious force by which the tide of iniquity has come in upon us. But in the light of God and who He is and what He has promised, we are to count those things as nothings. Nothings that can prohibit God fulfilling His word. the faith that Abraham had. He considered none, not that he never thought about them, but in the light of who God is and what God has promised, they were as nothing. And that leads me on to my second point, not only Abraham's consideration, but also Abraham's confidence. Verse 20 outlines for us Abraham's confidence, his faith. Look what it says. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. It has been said that sense cracks imagination, and reason cracks sense, but faith cracks both. Sense says it will not be. Reason says it cannot be. But faith says it both can and will be, for I have a promise from the Lord." Abraham believed God. That's what verse 3 tells us. He did not stagger, as we read there in verse 20. He staggered not. Now that word stagger, In the Greek, it's a compound verb made up of two words. That's really what that means. And the main word, it means to judge. And the little word joined to the front of that main word has to do with the number two. And so together, it means, that word stagger, to judge between two things. In other words, Abraham, he didn't flip-flop back and forth, unable to make up his mind. He wasn't divided. He wasn't hesitant. He did not waver. It's a very pictorial word, and we can all visualize a man staggering down a street from one side to another. Well, Abraham was not like that. Like the psalmist in Psalm 57, verse seven, he could say, my heart is fixed. Oh my God, my heart is fixed. Matthew Henry, to quote him again, said, "'Unbelief is at the bottom of all our staggerings at God's promises.' It's not the promise that fails, but our faith that fails when we stagger." James 1, verses 5 to 8 is a well-known portion that has to do with waiting before God for what He has promised with a non-wavering faith. We don't have time to look into those verses tonight. But verse 8 says, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And Abraham was not a double-minded man. He staggered not. Now, we must say, or I must say, that this was not always the case. And here is the encouragement for us. You know, we might be caused to think, well, Abraham, he's called the father of the faithful, and he was a man who had extraordinary faith, and in a sense he did, but it was not always so. And we can relate to him, for he was simply a man like us. Turn back in the Scripture to Genesis chapter 17. Turn back to Genesis chapter 17, and I want you to note something that's very comforting to us. You think, how could we ever get to such a position of unwavering faith that we stagger not? Genesis chapter 17 and the verse 15. And we read there, And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. Here's the promise. And I will bless her and give thee a son also of her, yea, I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations, kings of people shall be of her. Listen, then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old and shall Sarah that is 90 years old bear? Then he says to God, he begins to look at means, he begins to look at human hope, and the only option that's really left on the table in verse 18, and Abraham said unto God, Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. It doesn't sound like strong faith. It doesn't. I wouldn't say that's faith that isn't wavering. That's him staggering at what he's just heard from God. He's discerning and he's judging the matters of his and Sarah's age against what God has said. Doesn't sound like a strong faith. You might ask, well then, how can Paul say that he staggered not at the promise of God? Well, you stay in Genesis chapter 17, and let's go on to verse 19. And God said, God reiterated the promise. God, who could say yes, Abraham said to God, Let thy promise be fulfilled in Ishmael. But God doesn't take into account human impossibilities. Is there anything too hard for the Lord is what he rhetorically asks of Abraham in the next chapter. And Abraham at this point, he had a struggle of faith here. He was struggling in his faith. He was laying up sense and reason against what God had said. And he had to deal with the options and the opinions and the thoughts that were running around in his heart. And he had to land on one side or the other. Was he going to believe God? Or was he going to let the circumstances dictate what he would believe? When he landed, he landed firmly on the side of confidence in God. And how do we know that? Well, verses 23 to 27, because there we have the obedience of faith, where Abraham performed the command of circumcision. He rested on the promise of God, and it was revealed by his actions. But he had to come through that struggle. And then Paul said, he staggered not at the promise of God. James puts the struggle of faith this way, James chapter 1. He says, knowing this, that the trine of your faith that worketh patience, but let patience have our perfect word. Bringing you into maturity, bringing you into that place where you stop wavering, where you stop staggering, where you stop being double-minded. And that's what God does. God puts us into the test. The promise has to die. All human means and hope has to almost disappear. When that happens, it says, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect, mature, and entire, wanting nothing. When faith comes through a period of being tried and tested, it's then you stop staggering. And faith will be tested. Peter tells us that in his epistle, the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. God's promise to Abraham was beyond all human reason and experience, but Abraham believed. And this should be our example. with regard to the promises of God. And it was because of this encounter with God and the promise given, and also the promise fulfilled, that Abraham's faith was strengthened. It was a faith that was able to pass the sterner test in future days when God called him to sacrifice Isaac, the son of promise. Read in verse 20. but was strong in faith. Faith grows when it is exercised, when it's stretched beyond reliance on human means and reason. I'm sure we would all love the faith of a man like George Mueller, but how many of us would love the testing of an empty breakfast table and bear cupboards? We want that faith. He was able to pray and the funds came in or the cart broke down outside the door. And we want such strong faith, but how much or how many of us are willing to go through that test of an empty breakfast table or bare cupboards? It wasn't until his faith was stretched beyond human means and reliance that it grew stronger when he seen that God was able to keep his promise and supply all his needs. At the end of verse 20, we read that Abraham, by a strong faith, it gave glory to God. And I believe that this was through his obedience. He demonstrated his belief in God and subservience to God by what he did. And you know, that wasn't something that was easy. and involved pain, circumcision. Abraham's actions, they stand in stark contrast to the actions and attitudes of unregenerate men that Paul described in Romans chapter one, who, when they knew God, glorified him not as God. Faith glorifies God. And Abraham's faith said to those around him, As he went on and circumcised his household, and Ishmael, and himself, the rest of them all. You know, that gave glory to God and says, this God who's spoken to me, who's promised to me, He's trustworthy. He's worthy. He's worthy to be trusted. You know, that's precisely the significance of the statement in 1 John chapter 5 into verse 10. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar. When by their unbelief men make God a liar, they do not glorify Him. He's a God of truth who cannot lie. Let's glorify Him by our faith. That's what the three Hebrew boys did when they were cast into the fiery furnace. Though sense and reason would dictate otherwise, by faith they declared, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us. from the burning, fiery furnace. And he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King. So we have thought about Abraham's consideration and Abraham's confidence. Finally this evening, Abraham's certainty. Verse 21, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Verses 19 to 21 are one complete sentence, and they really, they build on each other, and the emphasis grows. The emphasis grows here. Abraham, he really had the conviction. He was certain. He was fully convinced. No hope in human resources, but complete hope in God. His heart and mind were filled with a vision of God and who He was. And that's why our waverings and staggerings are fixed on knowledge of who God is. Abraham didn't know how God was going to fulfill his word, but that was incidental. He knew God, and he had certainty that God was able to do what he had promised. Look back at verse 17. What did Abraham believe? Well, he believed. He believed in a God who could give life to the dead. and who could call all things which are not as though they were. And that's the reason why he never lost hope. He believed those two things about God, that God could create something that didn't exist and that God could revive something that had existed and ceased to exist. God could raise the dead and He could create out of nothing. And Abraham believed in the God of creation and the God of resurrection. You know, the worst case scenario that you could possibly imagine would be that something didn't exist that God promised you. Or that something had gone out of existence that God promised you. And those are really the two great obstacles. But you know, if you believe in a God who can bring into existence what doesn't exist and revive what used to exist, Well, then you don't have a problem. You don't have a problem. And God is able to do the lesser. If that's the greater, if that's the greater thing, if he has promised you something that doesn't exist, and yet he can create out of nothing. And He can bring again into existence that which has gone out of existence, because really that's what we have there in verse 17, the power of God, the ability of God. And that's what Abraham and who Abraham was trusting in, a God who could do that. It matters not how great the promise when God is a promiser. We have nothing to do with the difficulties that lie in the way of the promise being accomplished. Abraham's certainty, his full persuasion was built on the omnipotence of God. He was able also to perform. As I close, the Bible is full of God's promises. So the truth of this passage can be applied to every one of those precious promises. He was able, and we can still today say He is able, for He changes not. Abraham's faith was not merely in what had been promised, but his faith was in the God who had promised, and what encouragement that is for us to pray and to plead the promises of God, for He's able to keep those promises. That's what we have thought about. He is able to keep what He has promised. I've been thinking about this, and I wondered, are we a generation of Christians who appropriate the promises of God and make them their own, and plead the promises? Hold on to them till they are fulfilled. I wonder have we lost that? Have we lost that? As I said, Abraham had to wait 25 years for the promise to be fulfilled. He had a struggle of faith to go through, and his promise had died, as it were. All human reliance, means, and hope had to be brought to a place A place where trust could not and would not be placed in those things. It was then, it was then God by His power brought to pass what He had promised. And tonight, brethren, sisters, in prayer, let's stand on the promises. Let's not just sit in the premises, because often that happens. Let's plead the promises of God. Look away to Him. Consider not the era that we're going through. That doesn't mean you put your blinkers on, you stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. But in the light of God, consider them not, because He is able also to perform. May the Lord bless His Word to our hearts tonight for His own namesake. We'll have a word of prayer. And that will give an opportunity after that time of prayer for those who are watching online. We thank you for being with us tonight. We trust the word has blessed you. For those in sermon audio on Facebook, after I close in prayer, the broadcast will close. But for those who may be tuning in on Zoom and still able to use that facility, you can continue on the time of prayer. Of course, those here in the building, we can wait on before the Lord and get before his throne of heavenly grace. Let's have a word of prayer. and just even before I make some announcements, please. Loving God and gracious Father, we bow before Thee and we thank Thee that Thou art one who is able to keep Your promise. We thank Thee, Lord, that this book is filled with them. And Lord, we rejoice in the giving of them. And we thank Thee, Lord, that You cannot lie. But Lord, we rejoice that Thou hast the ability to bring to pass those things which often to us would seem impossible. And Lord, we lift our eyes up to Thee. Lord, we pray that You will, Lord, even in the testing of our faith and the days in which we live and all that we see around us, and we often wonder how and why and when and if and could and would, but Lord, bring us through that. Make us men and women that waver not. Lord, help us to come down with confidence upon the side of our God, and reveal unto us more and more who thou art, and we thank thee, Lord, as helps us to grow in faith. Lord, we rejoice, rejoice in this word, and it gives us a revelation of who thou art. So Lord, we pray that thou would bless us even as we wait on in thy presence and give us the spirit of prayer and help us, oh God, not to, as it were, just clock off time tonight, to sit here, but help us to lay hold upon God and plead thy promises, Lord. Bring them to our mind, bring them to our heart. We ask of thee, fill our mouths with holy arguments. And we pray, Lord, that we would pray in the Spirit. So abide with us and wait on with us now, we ask of Thee. I pray these things in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen.