The Truth About Grace, Faith & Abraham — Romans 4:13-25

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, ready to go once again, and we'll come right back to Romans chapter 4, believe it or not, and we're going to drop right in where we left off in our last program. Again for those of you watching on television, I have to do this, I hate to repeat, but every week we're getting calls from new listeners who just found the program, and well it just amazes us. I mean I just can't believe what's going on, but anyway for their benefit we have to let them know periodically that we're just an informal Bible study, we're not associated with any group or any denomination, I'm just a layman, I'm a plain old cattle rancher, and I make no apology for that, I have no theological degrees, I've never had a day of Bible school, but I've had a lot of days in the Book. So this is the qualifications that I present, and all I can say is that I've spent a lot of time studying the Word and teaching it. I'm always reminded when people say, well how in the world did you get this ability? Look, when I was in service I was working in an operating room, and they were doing surgery, a kidney surgery on a fellow, and of course all of us were around that operating room, around that table, and the tubes were going in and out of this guy from every body opening you could imagine, and he was flushing those kidneys, and everybody was standing there just oohing and aahing, and he was a colonel, and he just sort of stopped in the middle of everything and said, now wait a minute folks, anybody who has done this procedure as often as I have can do the same thing. You know that's the way I have to look at my teaching experience. If you teach 5, 6, 7 nights a week for 20 years you can do what I'm doing, and that's just where it comes from. When you're in the Book that often and you've got people bombarding you with questions, if I didn't learn then there would be something drastically wrong. But anyway, that's where we've gotten our education, or from the questions primarily of our students. Now then let's go right into the text, these 28 minutes go all too fast. We're still dealing with Abraham as the epitome of a man of faith, who was justified by doing nothing, he merited nothing, he was raised and was living in abject idolatry, he had no knowledge of the One True God, and yet God saw in that man the potential to believe what he said, and so he reached down, spoke to him, and as I said in the last program I think he appeared to him in a physical form, and more than once he came down and communicated with this man, and so now Paul by inspiration again goes back to Abraham as the perfect example of what it is to be justified, made totally righteous by faith, and faith alone, plus nothing. Let's go back up to verse 13, and we'll come on down to where we left off. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, not through the promises made to Moses in the legal system, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they who are of the law be heirs, then faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect, because the law worketh wrath." Now that's hard for people to swallow, if only they knew that that's what this Book says, they wouldn't be so glib and say, I think I'll make it because I'm keeping the commandments. Hey, the commandments can only bring them to one thing, and that's the wrath of God. It's not going to bring them to heaven. Now I had a lady call the other day, Iris took the call, I didn't get to talk to her, and of course the first thing they accused me of is that now since we're under grace, then we don't have to keep the commandments, we don't have to pay attention to the law. Oh, listen, I've never said anything like that. I'm always saying that grace is not license. In fact, turn with me a minute to chapter 13, in Romans chapter 13, and if I would have been talking to her personally, I'd have probably done just that, I'd take her right over here and say, now look, nowhere do I or the Scripture teach that just because we're saved by grace, we're now free to do as we please. Those 10 commandments are still the perfect law of a holy God, there's no denying that, and so Paul makes reference to them throughout his letters, but here he has more of them than any place else. In Romans 13, beginning at verse 8, Romans 13, No man, or defraud no one, that's what the word really means, oh, don't defraud, but to love one another, for he that loveth another, now remember my description or definition of love, seeking the other person's highest good, in other words, he that seeks the other person's highest good has, past tense, what? Fulfilled the law, that's the only way you can fulfill it, Israel couldn't fulfill it, they couldn't keep it, they were constantly breaking it, but see, when love is operating, then you can't break the law, because if you really love someone, you can't talk about them behind their back, if you really love someone, you're not going to steal what is there, if you really love someone, you're not going to enter into an immoral relationship, not if you really love them, and I've tried to stress this to young people, oh, when some young fellow says, if you love me, baloney, that's not love, that's instant gratification, but true love seeks the other person's highest good, whatever that may be, alright? Now then, verse 9, so with this as the backdrop, under grace, what does it say? Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, plain enough, absolutely that becomes the guideline for a Christian life, we're not free to break the law, but it's just that we're not under the demands of the law. In fact, several years ago, I used the illustration several times, you can come back to Romans 4, I would use the illustration in my classes here in Oklahoma, of two kinds of marriages. Let's just say we have an arranged marriage of a young man and a young lady, been brought together without any love involved, no romance, no courtship, they've just been brought together by parental consent, I can visualize that in order for that couple to even get along for 24 hours, she's going to put a list of rules and regulations on her refrigerator door that lets the old boy know what she will stand for, and what she won't. You will do this, and you will not do that, you will do this, and you will not do that, so what does he do? Well he looks at it like a bull at a new gate, and he says, huh, I can do better than that, so he puts his list up right beside it, and his list says to her, you will and you will not, you will and you will not. Now what is that? That's legalism, that's law, but let the two people come together by virtue of a courtship and romance and love and marriage, do they need those lists? No, because love is going to accomplish it without having it written and demanded. Now it's the same way in the spiritual, yes under the law God had to say, thou shalt and thou shalt not, in fact I've made the point in my classes some time ago, go through the Old Testament, how much love is there? Very little, very little, I won't say there's none, but very little, because love wasn't the key, it was commandment, but as soon as you get into grace, what is it? Love, love, love, you see the difference? Back to the text, if I finished what I was going to say, I guess I did, verse 15 again, "...for where no law is, there is no transgression, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace." There's the next word we have to stop and define. Again I'm afraid most of Christendom has no comprehension of the word grace. They just don't understand the grace of God. It's His unmerited favor that here the holy, sinless, righteous, creator, sovereign, powerful, infinite God can reach down and become flesh, walk those filthy, dirty streets of Palestine and Jerusalem, heard all the foul language of that day, just like it would be today, and He walked in the midst of all that, went and suffered and died on a Roman cross, the God of creation remember, why? Because He loved mankind, that's the only reason, because He loved mankind, and yet what's mankind doing with it? Walking it underfoot, they could care less, and I'm amazed that we get as much response as we do, because most people are just totally ignorant of an eternity to come. I'm convinced. Somebody was telling me the other day, they asked somebody, what's going to happen to you after you die? Going to hell I guess. They don't know what they're saying. The next person you can say, or you can ask, and what will they say? Well, I've never thought about it, and I think that's where most of them are. They never consider that after this life ends, whether it's 10 years or 80 or 100, there's an eternity. We're going to live in eternity someplace, it's either going to be in God's presence or it's going to be out of His presence, but whatever. The Scripture says that if it's going to be of grace, then we have to keep our hands off of it. We have to let it be totally the unmerited favor of God on our behalf. That's grace. To the end, verse 16, reading on, to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to that which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who, and here we have it again, is the father of us all in what realm? In the spiritual, in the spiritual, because he was the first that walked by faith without law, without circumcision. He came out of abject idolatry and walked by faith, and that's where we have to come from. Now verse 17, 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. I think that goes back even to the work of creation, where the Scripture tells us that God created everything out of nothing, and that's God's prerogative. He can take that which is nothing, and He can make it something, and only God can do that. And of course it's the same way in the spiritual realm on our behalf. We're nothing, but God makes us something. All right, read on again. Verse 18, who, speaking of Abraham again, against hope, believed in hope. In other words, against common sense. Why? He's a hundred years old, his wife is 90, and God keeps telling him, you're going to have a son. You're going to have a nation of people come from your body, and that's against hope. But yet against hope, what did he do? He had genuine hope, and he knew that regardless of how ridiculous it may have seemed to the human intellect, to the physical understanding of reproduction, he even knew that much. Yet somehow or other, God was going to bring it to pass, and of course we know He did. Who against hope, believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations. According to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. In other words, out of Abraham, and Sarah, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Ishmael of course, we have all these nations of people that came on the earth. Now verse 19, and being not weak in faith. You know, even ourselves, we're living in a fast paced culture, and it's awful easy to lose faith. Things begin to overwhelm us, and it is so easy for any of us to suddenly think, well where is God? I just can't sense His presence. Why are these things falling in on me? Where is He? I imagine people ask that every day. Calamity strikes, accidents strike, and the first thing the human mind says, well where is God? And it's so easy then for faith to just literally get crushed under the circumstances. But always come back to this man Abraham here, I think that his whole promises that God made began back in Ur when he was probably about 50 years old. And he didn't leave Haran until he was 75. He didn't get down and even receive Ishmael until he was near 80. And then when he's finally 100 and Sarah's now 90, now God performs, and the promises become fulfilled. But see he had almost 50 years. Now I know time didn't go as fast for them as it does for us, but he had 50 years to just sort of sweat the promises, and nothing happened. And you know I look at the circumstances, and I can't blame the old boy a bit for listening to Sarah and have a child by a slave girl, can you? After all God wasn't doing anything. But you see this is where we come from so often, but God you're not doing anything. But hey we just got to sit back and say, hey this is the way God works. His wheels grind slowly, but surely. And so finally after 50 years of promises, here comes the child. Unbelievable, yeah from the human element, but you see it becomes a New Testament illustration. Oh I sometimes think all these things happened on purpose so that we could have it in our New Testament. All right verse 19, and being not weak in faith he considered not his own body, now dead when he was about a hundred years old, see he had to be 99 at the time of her conception because you see he's a hundred when he's born, and so when he was about a hundred years old neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, she's 90 remember, and he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Now how many times, I know some of you, many times we've gone back and we've looked at Israel when they stood at the gates of the promised land at Kadesh Barnea. They've just come from Sinai, they now have the tabernacle, they have the priesthood, everything is in place, and God has promised, I'll drive out the Canaanites, I'll use hornets, I'll use whatever needs to be done so that they'll leave everything for you, all their gardens, their vineyards, their orchards, their farms, their houses, everything is going to be ready for you, I'll drive them out, you walk in and take it. And poor old Israel stood there, and what was their problem? Unbelief. They couldn't believe what God said, and so their first step of unbelief was, well, Moses send in spies, if the spies come back and tell us we can do it, then we'll go in. That wasn't God's idea, God never instructed those 12 spies, he finally condescended and he says, yes, go ahead. But you see, they were gone 40 days, and then they came back with that horrible report, oh, we can't take it, they're like giants, we're as grasshoppers, and they moaned and they groaned all that night, that was another Tisha B'Av, remember, the 9th of August, Israel's great day of mourning, what was their problem? Unbelief. Unbelief. And now, let me show, so you see it in the Scripture, don't take my word for it. Come back with me to Hebrews, we've done this before, even on the program, I know we have. Hebrews chapter 3, Hebrews chapter 3, and we won't take time to read a lot of these verses. But let's just jump in at verse 16, for sake of time, Hebrews 3 verse 16, in a field that the apostle Paul wrote, the book of Hebrews, and he says, For some, when they had heard, did provoke, albeit not all, that came out of Egypt by Moses, but with whom was he grieved 40 years? Was it not with them who had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? Now, what do I usually do about this time? I say, hey, just back up a few weeks, and around Mount Sinai, and Moses had been up in the mountain for 30, 40 days, and they said, oh, we don't know what's become of him. And so they go to Aaron, and what do they ask for? An idol. And Aaron goes along with it, comes up with the craziest story you've ever heard. He said, all of a sudden he threw this gold in the fire, and out came the golden calf. That's what it says, ridiculous to the extreme, but nevertheless, not only did they make the golden calf, but what was their behavior around it? Abject immorality, as was always part and parcel of idolatry. Here they were in their stark nakedness, abject immorality, and of course God judged them for it, a few thousand died because of it. But nevertheless, when they get up here to Kadesh Barnea, and the land is in front of them, it wasn't the unbelief that they practiced around that old golden calf that brought in the wrath of God. Oh, that was easy for him to forgive, but it was their unbelief that they could not take the land that God said they could, and that was his controversy. That was it. It wasn't anything else but the fact that they couldn't take him at his word. Now it's just going to be the same way with millions of people that'll come before the great white throne, good people, good people, but what was their sin? Unbelief. Unbelief. They could not believe what God said concerning the work of the cross. And I'll grant you, it is hard from the human element to comprehend that the Creator God took on flesh and was crucified, and that by that act of death and suffering and then being raised from the dead, God can pass salvation out to the whole human race. It's hard to comprehend. I explained pardon several weeks ago. I maintain that every human being that has ever lived has already been pardoned by virtue of the work of the cross. Their pardon is accomplished. The only reason they're not going to receive it is because they will not appropriate it by faith. And you see, that's what's going to make their eternal doom so horrible. For jillions of years they're going to regret, I rejected my pardon. And this is what we have to understand, and this is where it becomes our responsibility. Hey, let people know, you don't have to go to that awful place. You don't have to be separated from God. Your pardon is already done. Believe it. Believe it. All right, read on. Hebrews chapter 3, verse 18. And whom did he swear that they should not enter his rest, but to them who were immoral? No, but to them who believed not. And you see, this is the problem, the hang-ups that people have today. Oh, if I can clean up my act, if I can just change my ways, yeah, then I'll become a Christian. That's not the way you do it. You do it when you are yet ungodly. And we'll come to that when we get to Romans chapter 5. All right, well, let's go back to chapter 4 again for a few moments. Time is just about gone. Verse 20. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And now verse 21. And being fully persuaded, there was not an ounce of doubt in Abraham's mind that God was still going to do what he said he was going to do. And so being fully persuaded of what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore, it, his believing, his believing plus nothing was imputed. Now I mentioned that several weeks ago. That's a bookkeeping term in the Greek. It was just like putting it on the account. And so his believing literally was placed to his account on the ledgers of heaven. And he's now a righteous man. Verse 23. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him. Oh, it's not going to stop with Abraham. But now it leaps almost 4,000 years to your time and mine. And here we are almost 4,000 years after the fact, and it's still appropriate. But for us also to whom it shall be imputed, we can get that same put to the account that Abraham got. And what are the qualifications? Read on. If we what? Believe. Oh, listen. How many groups have put everything else in there but that? If we do this, and if we do that, and if we can do this. That's not what it says. Oh, we can have that same imputation to our account if we believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. There's your gospel again. That Christ died, was buried, and rose from the dead. Alright, verse 25. We'll finish the chapter anyway. Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Oh, if He had not been raised from the dead, then the Apostle Paul couldn't write about justification. Then the plan of redemption would never have been complete. But He did. And He arose victorious over sin. He arose victorious over the devil, and the old flesh, and the world around us. And we take it by faith. Oh, I'm just thinking of another verse that sounds quite a bit like it. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Turn with me a moment until the program has run its course. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, the last verse, verse 21. And again, oh, if only people could get a grasp on what this is saying. For He, that is God, He hath made Him, the Christ, He hath made Him to be sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Now what does that mean? Oh, we know that Christ was God. We know that He was sinless. We know that He never committed a single sin, not even in the thought processes. And so what has He done with that? He has imputed it to our account. And now God looks on you, and He looks on me, and He doesn't see Les Feldick. He doesn't see any of you by name. He sees Christ. Because everything that Christ was and is has now been placed on you. How? By faith. By faith. Then of course, it doesn't stop there. Of course we're going to get busy. Of course we're going to be a testimony. Of course we're going to have a concern for lost people. There's nothing that thrills me more than to have a new convert just suddenly be overwhelmed with the lost condition of their family, or their loved ones, or their neighbors, or their people that they're working with. And they get consumed with it. These people are lost. Well, that's as it should be. That's the way God intended. That's why He's left us here. That we can constantly remind lost people, that listen, it isn't what you do. It isn't what you think you can become. It's what you do in the area of faith. Do you believe it? Have you appropriated it? Have you genuinely considered who Jesus was? I had a gentleman several years ago, that was his first question. He came into my kitchen, and I just said, Well, where are you coming from? And that was his first question. Who in the world is Jesus Christ? And it was legitimate. He didn't know. But oh, listen. When the Spirit begins to reveal to our understanding who He is, then we know He's the God of glory who died for us. 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.