Abraham Believed God — Romans 4 & Justification by Faith

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, good to have everybody in, and again we're going to let our television audience understand that you've all come in from various areas within driving distance of Tulsa, except for a few visitors. We've got one young lady from Atlanta, and I guess she's the only one from completely out of the state. Oh yeah, yeah, we've got Monty and Helen's two grandsons, Nate over there, the youngest one, and Tim, the older one, and they're from Tempe, Arizona, Mesa. I'm always mixing those up, Mesa, just outside of Phoenix anyway, and they've been enjoying what, six, seven weeks here with your grandparents? So yeah, we're glad to have the kids with us, and I guess other than that, you've all been here before, most of you. So anyway, we like to let our television audience know also that all of our past programs, now that covers almost five years already of broadcasting, all the way from Genesis on up through the Old Testament, through the Gospels, and through the Book of Acts, and now we're in the Book of Romans, and it's all available on videotape, or on the printed page, I guess the camera's got them on the screen. And these little books are catching on now, we just had a fellow call this morning who is using them in a new prison facility, and he just ordered a whole bunch of books this morning, and as I've mentioned before, we've had missionaries call, and they're taking them back overseas, and the Lord is just using it beyond what we ever dreamed possible. I had a lady call from Minneapolis yesterday, and I was just sharing it with a studio class before we started, and she just called and said, Well, who in the world are you anyway? And I just answered right back, I'm a nobody, I'm not associated with anybody, and we just had an open door, and we took the opportunity, and we're not here to build an organization, or to find fault with others, we're just here to teach the Word, and let the chips fall where they may. And when the chips fall where they may, you'd be surprised how people's eyes get open to what the Book really says. And I do not feel it's my prerogative to attack anybody, or to point out their error, we're just simply going to teach the Word as we see it. So we've already instructed the studio audience to turn to Romans chapter 4, and we're going to begin here with verse 1, and I know this is a little bit of a review from our last program, but after I got home last month, I got to thinking that maybe I should have done something that I didn't do here, and that is that after the three chapters preceding this, Paul by inspiration, now there again, I thought of this during the night, I wake up and I think of things that I have to say, because I do not want to be misunderstood. When I speak of the writings of Paul, I am not elevating the man. Never lose sight of the fact that he was merely a human instrument that God used and spoke through as He wrote, as with all the other writers and scribblers. I've even read well known, famous men who will make a statement like this, Well you know, Luke must have been a tremendous researcher. Luke must have been a tremendous note taker. As if these men wrote on the basis of what they had been able to collect, and listen, no word of Scripture came to pass in that way. Every writer of this book wrote as he was moved by the Holy Spirit. And so when I mention the writings of Paul, I'm not talking about the man and his intellect and his tremendous ability to come out with these theological truths. I'm talking about the man that God used to put these things in print. In fact I was looking at a verse last night, and I wonder if I can find it. Here's why I always tell Iris I'm sorry, but I think it was back in II Corinthians, I may not be able to find it. But I ran across it last night, and I thought how apropos, I bet I won't be able to find it, where Paul writes that they said his speech was contemptible, and we know that his visage wasn't all that great. He was not a great handsome orator, his speech was contemptible, but they say his letters are weighty. Well you know what that meant? Just exactly what I've said. Even though the apostle Paul addressed many, many people face to face, yet what he says here on the printed page is different than what he probably said verbally, because this is the Word of God. He may have been able to preach and teach these basic things, but it still didn't have the weight and the impact that his written letters, because these have become the Word of God. And I'm quite sure that even as Paul was writing these various letters to the various churches, I have to believe that he had no idea this was one day going to become part of the written Word. But God knew better, and so always remember that all of these writers of Scripture did not write based on research or details that someone handed to them. They all wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Well maybe somebody will find those verses for me as we go on, but let's stay back in Romans 4 for a little bit, and the first thing that we see the writer do here is take us back to Abraham. Now that's Old Testament isn't it? And so maybe it behooves us to just go back and review, it's been a long time since we've done that, and let's go back and review a little bit about this great man Abraham who is referred to quite often in Paul's epistles, and he is certainly established as a great man of faith all through Scripture, and I think it behooves us to just refresh our minds a little bit. Why does Paul by inspiration refer back to Abraham when he is teaching a lesson on justification by faith, and faith alone? Now if you look at Genesis chapter 12, it says in verse 1, and we have covered this extensively in days gone by. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee, I will make of thee a great nation. I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse them that curse thee. And then here is the very epitome of this whole covenant promise, in thee, in other words through the man Abraham, in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Not just Israel, but the whole human family would benefit from the promises and the covenant that God is making with this man. Maybe I should go and put my timeline back on the board, we haven't even done that for a long time, and I usually don't even intend to draw a perfectly straight line, because time is like a river, it just sort of meanders along. But if we can in our minds eye, flash all the way back to Adam, and then we know that about halfway between Adam and the cross, 2000 years on each side, we have the appearance of this man Abram, who will later of course become Abraham. Now we know that 400 years before Abraham came on the scene, we had the flood, and then we had the tower of Babel about halfway in between that, now these are just in round figures of course. And then after 2000 years of utter failure on the part of the human race, God in so many words says, I'm going to do something totally different. Here I have given the opportunity for salvation to the whole human race. All they had to do was be prompted by conscience that they had sinned, that they had rebelled against the laws of conscience that God had placed there, and all they had to do was bring a blood sacrifice and confess their sin, and God would accept them. It was that simple. But what did they do? Oh, they rejected it totally, until finally it got so bad that God had to destroy the generations with the flood, started over in so many words with Noah and his three sons, and then within 200 years the offspring of those three sons again were in total rebellion, they were in total ignorance of God's offer of salvation, and tried to make their own way, tried to approach heaven through their own false worship, and we have the tower of Babel. Now try to put yourself, I know this is an extreme statement, but try to put yourself in God's position. Here He has offered a restoration, He has offered reconciliation if they would just do what He asked them to do, bring a blood sacrifice, and He would accept them. Of course we have that typified with Abel, and Abel was accepted because he did what God told him to do. Cain of course rejected it, rationalized it, and thought he'd go his own way. But nevertheless, after 2000 years of God dealing patiently with those early people, He finally came to the point where He said, I'm going to do something still different. I'm going to take one man in whom I can find a particle of faith who will be obedient to what I tell him, and I'm going to take that one man and I'm going to make him a whole group of promises and covenants, and out of him I'm going to bring a special race of people different than all the other nations on the planet, and I'm going to work a plan of salvation through that race of people. Now just as soon as God revealed even the embryonic part of that plan of redemption, rest assured the devil kicked into high gear. Now I've had people ask me over the years, why have the Jews suffered so much? Well that's the basic reason, because just as soon as God revealed that this special nation of people would bring about the plan of redemption, the devil turned everything loose on them. And if you'll just reflect back or read your Old Testament, you can see the evidence of how Satan has tried to thwart God's plan of redemption by destroying the people through whom the Redeemer must come. Now never lose sight of that, that if Satan could somehow disrupt the plan of God for the nation of Israel, then he would disrupt God's full plan of salvation. And so they've been under constant attack. Now of course they didn't stop Israel from producing the Messiah, so now you see Satan has yet another goal, and that is to disrupt God's prophetic program. Now just stop and think that if the nation of Israel should suddenly disappear from view, prophecy would be left hanging on a string. The book would be a lie. You see that? And so now the whole Satanic thrust against the nation of Israel is to destroy them, wipe them off the scene so that God's prophetic word cannot be fulfilled. And then all of a sudden you can see why did a Hitler turn against them? Why do the nations of the world even now constantly bombard that little nation with all of their accusations? Now on the other hand I always have to make people aware that doesn't make the Israeli government perfect. The Jew today is not perfect. He's just as much the son of Adam as any of the rest of us. Their government is just as corrupt as any other government. I get the Jerusalem Post and constantly they are rooting out corrupt individuals in their government, and that part isn't any different. But in the whole big picture we have to understand that everything that's going to happen prophetically to this planet is centered in that little nation of Israel. And so Satan is still trying to disrupt God's total program by getting rid of the nation of Israel, getting rid of the Jew. Now one of the most sinister things I think that is happening, and if it weren't that I know the Scripture has guaranteed this nation will never fade off the scene, I would have to begin to wonder. Because again I read just the other day in the Jerusalem Post that 52% of all Jewish marriages are now mixed marriages, they're marrying Gentiles. Now you just stop and think, now I have to take you back to Matthew, I'm sorry, see I start chasing rabbits don't I? I have to take you back to Matthew, and that would be in Matthew 24, and I'm still talking about the man Abraham, and in Matthew 24 the Lord Jesus made a graphic statement, and that's in verse 32, where Jesus is speaking, and He says, "...now learn a parable of the fig tree. When this branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh." In other words it's a prophetic picture. So likewise when you see all these things, know that it, that is the return of Christ, is near, it's even at the door. Verse 34, "...verily I say unto you, this generation," now that does not mean a generation in time, like 40, 50, or 60 years. The Greek word is geneo, and it means the race, the breed of the nation of Israel. The breed of Israel, the race, the nation, "...shall not pass," it's not going to disappear, what's the next word, "...until all things be fulfilled." Now that's a promise from the Creator Himself, if it weren't for that, I think we'd have reason to think that yes, the nation of Israel will yet disappear. All the nations of the Middle East are against them, the world is turning against them, they are intermarrying at an alarming rate, and how long would it take for them to lose their identity if they keep intermarrying at the rate of over 52%. It wouldn't take long. So again this is just another sign that we are so close to the end, because in spite of everything that's going against this little nation of Israel, yet we know that they're not going to disappear until everything is fulfilled. So again, coming back to Genesis chapter 12, God has promised this man a nation of people that would bring about the Redeemer, and the King, and the nation, and their geographical area, and through it all God's purposes would be fulfilled. Now whenever we teach about Abraham, I always like to point out that all the things concerning Abraham and his earthly people, the nation of Israel, are always earthly, aren't they? There is nothing heavenly connected with the nation of Israel, it's all earthly. Then when we get to the New Testament, and we come down to the Body of Christ, or the Church, there everything is heavenly. We have no earthly promises, it's all heavenly. And so we have these two anti-climatic principles, that with the nation of Israel everything is earthly, but on the other hand when He sets Israel aside, and He calls out a heavenly people, it's all with heavenly promises. Never lose sight of that, that everything concerning the nation of Israel is earthly, everything concerning the Body of Christ, or you and I as Grace Age believers, is heavenly. This is why Paul by inspiration uses Abraham as an example of faith, and as an example it is still appropriate for you and I as New Testament believers, even though Abraham is part of the Old Testament program. Now we have no problem with Abraham being the father of the Jewish people, we know that that just came about genetically through Isaac, and Jacob, and the twelve sons, and so on and so forth. But we get a curve thrown at us, well how are we as believers now, the Church Age, connected to Abraham, to the place where the Scripture says you are children of Abraham? Well I hope I can show it. Now after the Abrahamic covenant then, in chapter 12, where He promises them a nation of people, and a geographical area of land, and one day they're going to have a government. Now if you'll turn with me to chapter 13, Genesis 13, where God enlarges on this covenant promise of chapter 12, and He says in verse 16, Genesis 13, verse 16, and He says, And I will make thy seed, or your offspring, as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust, the particles of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. In other words, there would be a great offspring of Abraham through the line of Isaac and Jacob, or in the nation of Israel. Now you want to remember, we're dealing now of over 4,000 years of time, even though they've been a small nation, yet there's tremendous numbers of people have come out of this covenant promise. But now as you turn to chapter 15, God does something totally different, He gives this man a promise that ties him to us, and that's in verse 5, Genesis 15, and now verse 5. And He brought him forth, in other words, I think that the Lord dealt with Abraham on a face to face, eyeball to eyeball basis. I think this is where God came down and took on human form, and we know He did at the calling out of Ur, because the word in the Greek in Acts chapter 7 is optomai, which deals with the sight, and Stephen rehearsed that the Lord appeared, optomai, to the man Abram, and of course the word has also appeared back in the Hebrew. And so I'm sure that God dealt with a man on a face to face basis more than once, and of course it's evident in Genesis 18. So here again, I think the Lord is there in human form, standing with Abraham on those mountains of central Israel, and they're looking out all four directions, and now look what He says. Verse 5 of Genesis 15, and He brought him forth abroad and said, "...look now toward heaven, and count the stars, not the dust, not the particles of the earth, but the heavenly bodies. Count the stars, if thou be able to number them." And He said, "...so shall I seed be." Now what's He talking about? Well He's talking about a spiritual relationship of people, and just like I've got it on the board, now Abraham is not only getting the view of the earthly promises that's going to come through the nation of Israel, but he's actually getting a view of a heavenly people that will also be part and parcel of his promises. Now remember the last part of chapter 12, verse 3 or 4, go back to it again, verse 3, the very last part of that covenant promise is that in thee, that is in Abraham, shall all families of the earth be blessed. Not just the Jew, but all the families of the earth would be blessed. Now then let's come back to Romans 4. Now I want you to keep what we've just seen back here in Genesis, I want you to keep that in your mind for even the next 2 or 3 programs, because we're going to be looking at chapter 4, which is constantly referring back to Abraham in detail. I'm not going to rush through this, because I think these are things that very few believers are really aware of. They just don't comprehend it, and hopefully we can open some eyes. So now then, Abraham, the great man of faith, as pertaining to the flesh, what has he found? And again verse 2, for if Abraham were justified by works, then he could glory. Now don't lose that, if it's conditional. If Abraham could have merited favor with God by his works, then what would he have naturally done? He would have gotten puffed up and would have gotten proud. And he would have been able to tell his people around him, look what I have done to inherit eternal life. But see, he couldn't, because he did not work. He did nothing but believe. Then verse 3, for what saith the Scripture, Abraham believed God. See how simple that is? That's all he did, he believed God. He didn't repent, he didn't get baptized, he didn't join something, he didn't grovel in the dirt, he just simply believed God. That's simple, that's what the book says. You know I had a listener call the other day, and he said, Oh I love that when you say that. This is what the book says, it isn't what I say, it isn't what some denomination says, or some seminary president says, this is what the book says. That Abraham believed God, and his believing was accounted unto him as righteousness. Now Abraham wasn't any better morally or any other way than anyone else. It wasn't that he was such a holy man, he was very ordinary. We saw that in later chapters, he had his failures like anyone else. But yet this whole premise of faith, without which we put it on the board a couple weeks ago, it's impossible to please God. And by that faith then, he so pleased God, that God called him a righteous man. It's that simple. Now what's the lesson? Hey, that's where we are. That's exactly where we are, that when we believe what God has said, and we actually stand on it by faith, then God does the same for us. He declares us righteous. He declares us justified from all things. Now then, verse 4, and that's 99% of Christendom isn't it? Oh, they've got to do something. They can't just rest on what God has said, they've got to do something. It's human nature, I've got to do this, or I've got to do that. We were in Colorado last week and had a great day, all day seminar, but a few days before we had a chance to at least try some trout fishing. The Colorado Chamber of Commerce won't like this, but we fished diligently for two or three days, and the first time in all our trips to Colorado we literally got skunked. We didn't even get a nibble. But something compensated for it. There was a gentleman just down a little ways from us, and we had been just tossing comments back and forth for a little while. And finally we got close enough together, and we introduced ourselves, and he looked at me again and he says, "...You're the guy on television." I said, "...Yeah, I guess so." Well anyway, he was pastor of a small church there in the Denver area, and he says, "...You know, I appreciate your teaching, because you get so down to earth and the truth of it all, and people are missing it." He said, "...I had a lady come to me in my ministry the other day, and she had been in two other organizations previously. She had been baptized and joined three churches of his denomination, and then she came and wanted to join my church, and when I asked her if she had ever had a salvation experience, had she ever believed the gospel, she looked at me with a blank look, and she said, "...I don't know what you're talking about." I said, "...Well, what about all these other places you joined?" He said, "...None of them ever asked me." Well you see this is exactly where the church is in trouble. They are not pinpointing these people to the fact that there has to be a personal salvation, and they're not getting it. And so when he led her through the plan of salvation, she was just gloriously saved, and he said, "...She went away a happy woman, but in the meantime she's been looking, and looking, and looking." Well here again, it's not what we do, it's not who we join up with, it's what do we do with the gospel. Now verse 4, "...Now to him that worketh," in other words the person that says, "...Well I've done this, and I'm going to do that." To that person who works, the reward can never be reckoned of grace, because now they've earned it. But listen, we'll never put God in debt for a dime. He will never find himself in debt to any human being. And so the whole admonition is, we have to come God's way, and that way is by God's grace, through faith, plus nothing. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.