Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.79 → restored 4.68
Use the player's Original switch to compare.How Diffio restores old speech recordings
Shall we turn to the letter to the Romans, chapter four? The Epistle to the Romans, chapter four, reading from verse one. What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham were justified by work, he hath whereof to glory, not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death.
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, and here's the quotation from the thirty second Psalm, that which you've already considered, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Now, let us read farther down in this chapter at verse twenty three. Now it was not written, that is, this record was not written for his, for Abraham's sake alone, that it, that is, that his righteousness 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. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
May the Lord bless to us the reading of these words. There are a good many situations in this letter to the Romans wherein the Apostle Paul is taking a teaching situation, or shall I say, he presents himself as one who's in a teaching situation. And one of the features of a good teacher is this, to be able to anticipate every reasonable objection that will be raised in the mind of his class to the thing he's laying down. Now, just before the section which we read at the beginning of chapter four, the Apostle Paul wrote something like this. But now, a righteousness from God is, is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is through faith in Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, be justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth in his blood.
That's the idea there. Now, language like that must have fallen on a good many of Paul's hearers in such a way as to make them shake their heads and say, we just can't accept this at all. What did this man say? That there's no difference for all the sin? What nonsense, no difference. Why, here we are, we're members of the Jewish race, put ourselves in the position of many of Paul's others then. To say there's no difference between us and the Gentiles is perfectly ridiculous. God called our forefather Abraham and gave to him promises which are vested in this nation, and they're going to be fulfilled to this nation one day. Why, of course there's a difference.
We have a position before God that those other people don't have. We have national promises those people don't have. God gave us deliverance as a nation out of Egypt, and he gave us a national polity that they don't have. God gave us the mediator Moses. God gave us the law. God gave us the priesthood. God gave us the tabernacle and later the temple. God gave us all the services of the temple. It's pro- it's preposterous to say there's no difference between us and the Gentile nations round about. Now, in every word they said along those lines, they were absolutely right, but their conclusion was all wrong. And there's a whole lot of folks in Des Moines tonight that set out with a whole lot of assertions that are perfectly okay so far, but the conclusion is dead wrong.
You know, friends, the wisest thing, the best thing that any man or woman can do is to open his Bible and believe with all his heart everything that God has said there. The trouble with us is that we think we're smart enough to pitch fast balls on God, and you can't do it. We think we can steal bases on God, you can't do it. What's the matter with us anyway that we approach life like that? Well, here's what I think. My friend, God isn't asking you what you think. He's telling you what he says, and he expects you to sit down and listen. There are some situations in which I find myself where I recognize that I- I just, I'm just in no position to talk at all.
I have a son-in-law who can talk about ceramics and these things that they whirl around the, uh, the world. He may, he makes materials to put on the nose co- on the, uh, the, uh, a nose cone for these missiles to go out into space, bring them back without burning up and all that stuff. He talks a language I don't understand at all. For me to start telling him what swat about intercontinental ballistic missiles and all that would be pure nonsense. It's worse nonsense for you to start arguing with God and telling God what's what about divine things. Why can't you just sit down and listen to what God has got to say? And one of the things he says is this, there is no difference.
All that sin and come short of the glory of God. You mean to say that I'm like the man who lives the other side of the tracks, or the fellow that's in jail and so on? Listen, God says there is no difference. All that sin and come short of the glory of God. I don't believe it. A woman slammed the door of a gospel meeting one night in North Saskatchewan, long ago, we're preaching in Prince Albert. Out she went, and she went out, this is the last time I shall ever be here. Well, we never feel very happy when people go out like that, but after all, you can't help preaching the gospel. If folks get sore about it, you can't help that either, much as you regret it. But as she went out, my companion said, well, uh, what's the difficulty?
The very idea that man they're preaching tonight, there is no difference. Out she went and tied that shit, turned around for a moment. Do you mean to say there's no difference between me and the men in the provincial jail over there? To downstream of beach, to the confluence of the two Saskatchewan, to the north of South Saskatchewan River, there was a huge federal penitentiary. No difference between me and the men in the, in that penitentiary? What nonsense, what nonsense. The nonsense was in her own mind, but she didn't understand that. And there's a lot of nonsense in Iowa minds tonight, and people don't realize it. They haven't got wise to themselves yet. Listen, friends, why don't we just sit down and listen to what God has got to say and believe it all?
Because God is not making one solitary mistake, not one iota of a mistake in anything he has to say. All of sin. Now, he's not talking about the degree of sinfulness, he's just talking about the fact of sinfulness. I sometimes preached in leper colonies, and in leper colonies you'll find some people who are in the tertiary stages of that terrible disease. They get ready to fall into the grave. There are others there, you can't see a spot on them, neither their hands, their feet, nor their, their body, not a mark on them. Why are those people there? Because they're lepers. Why are those others about ready to fall into the grave? Because they're lepers. There's no use one say, I'm not like that case over there.
Why is he there? Simply because he's a leper. It isn't a question of degree here, how far this disease has gone. It isn't a question of asking whether the disease has worked, the disease called sin has worked in one life more than it had in another. That's not the point at all. It's there. Sin is universal. For that reason, Christ died for all, no exceptions whatever. My friend, he died for you, just as much as he died for John F. Kennedy, or died for the worst man in Alcatraz penitentiary tonight. Makes no difference. All have sinned and all have come short of the glory of God. Now, that was a knockout blow to some of the people that Paul spoke to. They, they had the hardest time to come down to that.
And so, because of their attitude towards things and their, their tendency to argue matters, Paul said, now listen, listen, let me ask you a question. Uh, what did Abraham experience? Now, Abraham was the father of our race, wasn't he? Oh, yes. Was Abraham right with God? Oh, unquestionably, Abraham was right with God. All right, you tell me, how was Abraham right with God? Now, he had them right there. Everybody here tonight, I'm quite sure, will concede this, that Abraham, the man who was called the friend of God, was a man who was right with God. Good, that's a starting point.
We're all agreed on this then. Abraham was right with God. Okay, how was he right with God? Oh, he did the best he could. That got nothing to do with it. That's not what the scripture says. That's not what we read here tonight. Well, he must have been a pretty good man to be right with God. That's not what the Bible says at all. Got nothing to do with it here. Note again what it says. What says the scripture? That is, what does the Old Testament say? And way back there in the book of Genesis, in chapter fifteen, Moses told us the story of how Abraham became right with God, how he was justified by faith.
Justified simply means to be declared right with God. Abraham, sometime before, was an idolater in a land called Ur, in a city called Ur in Chaldea, way off there in the Middle East. God appeared to him, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham and called him out of the fact. He said, I'm going to bring you to another land. When he got into that land, one night he said, Abraham, I want you to look up into the heavens. Can you count the number of the stars there? No, he said, I can't. It is your posterity is going to be like that. You'll not be able to number it. What was that again? I've got no son. Eleazar, the steward of my house, is going to fall heir to all I've got.
I've got no posterity, no hope of posterity. I haven't even got a son. Abraham, your posterity will be like the sand, it'll be like the stars of the heavens. You can't count them, you'll never be able to number your posterity either. And what are we told? Now listen, this is the heart of the whole business. He believed in the world, and his faith was counted for righteousness. Now that's the long and the short. There's not another thing that... but he did the best he could. That's not in the record. He must have had a fine father. It's not in the record. He wasn't the father yet anyhow. Friends, all of that's beside the point altogether, completely beside the point. The best man in America and the worst man in America are alike going to hell unless they're saved by grace.
The only people who are in the glory are people who will sing this: Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. Let's get this straight. Abraham was right with God. Paul agreed on that, his auditors agreed on that, everybody agrees on it. Okay, how was he right with God? The Lord spoke under the heavens to him, said, Abraham, I'm going to give you a son in your advanced years, and out of your own loins will proceed a nation so great you won't be able to count them anymore, you can count the stars over your head. Now listen, he believed in the Lord. Now that's the whole argument of this chapter. Everything pivots on that, and if we don't get that, then we don't get the argument of the chapter. How was Abraham right?
He just does what Eli did, what every other believer in Christ does. And the only man who is right with God is the man who believes God. Isn't that true? Well, that's what it says at the end of the chapter. This thing was not written for Abraham's sake alone. It wasn't written merely as a record of Abraham's coming to God and all that. It was written for us also, to whom righteousness will be imputed if we believe, if we do what Abraham did, we'll come into the blessing that Abraham had. All the blessedness of a man who's right with God. How do you get there? Abraham believed in the Lord. His faith was counted for righteousness. How do we come in?
We believe in the Lord, and our faith is counted for righteousness. Now, there's a great deal of argument in this passage, which I haven't got time to develop, although it's forceful to the last degree, over and up bit by bit. There simply isn't time for that tonight, but just let me say this. There's a considerable parallel in this chapter between things characteristic of Abraham's faith and his outlook and ours too. Here was a man who was in advanced years, way on his life, he was an old man, and his wife was an elderly woman. Normally, the years of paternity on Abraham's part were long since passed.
The possibility of motherhood for Sarah was normally long since passed, and it must have sounded just at first like an incredible thing to Abraham when the Lord said this, Abraham, your prosperity will be like the stars of the heaven. Now, a chapter further on tells us this. Who against hope believed in hope, or hopefully believed that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was written social, that which was spoken social by seed. Now listen, 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 wounds.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able also to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Abraham believed God. On that account, he was right with God. Friends, you do the same thing tonight, and you can leave this chapel right with God. That's all the man did. He believed in the law, and his faith was counted for righteousness. Now, this was not written for Abraham's sake only, not just as a record of something that happened in his life.
It was written for us also. The scripture expressly says so. Now, when Abraham heard God speak, God declared himself to Abraham as a God of resurrection. You know, if the Hebrew race would pause to consider it, they owe their very existence to the God who called life out of death. Sarah's womb was dead, the Bible says so. The deadness of Sarah's womb. And out of a scene of death, God brought life in the form of a lad called Isaac, and from Isaac stemmed the whole Hebrew race. The Hebrew race owes its existence to the God of resurrection.
He speaks and calls into, or he speaks of things that be not as though they were. I'm going to raise up to you a son. Out of your son's loins will come a mighty nation. You're going to have a vast posterity. He believed in the Lord. That was it. Abraham believed in the God of resurrection. He believed that God would bring life out of the dead, and that's exactly what he did. Now, we believe in a God like that too. We believe in a God of resurrection, who delivered up Jesus, his son, to the death of the cross in our account. Righteousness will be imputed to us. It will be credited to us if we believe. Believe what? Believe who?
If we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. That's tremendous, isn't it? Simple in a way, and yet tremendously profound. Abraham believed in a God of resurrection, and everything that God spoke to him was made good to him. The God of of resurrection, the same God has spoken to us. The God who brought life out of the dead in Sarah's case, in Abraham's case, is a God who, in our case, has raised up a greater than Isaac. He was delivered up on a cross for our offenses.
He was raised again for our justification, therefore. And the whole ground of the argument here as to the blessedness of the man in Christ pivots on this, he was delivered for our offenses. That's the fundamental note of the Christian gospel. Dispense with the cross and you dispense with Christianity. It is Christ who tasted death on our account, was buried and raised again from the dead, who is the source of our salvation. He died, he rose, he lives, he pleads. There's love in all his words and deeds. There's all a guilty sinner needs forevermore in Jesus. He was delivered for our offenses.
The one, you know, I just wish I could talk to somebody privately and open my heart about things in my life of which I'm heartily ashamed. My God, I wish they didn't exist at all. Listen, friends, he was delivered for your offenses. Every last one of them. Things you bewail, things you mourn, things you're ashamed of, things you hate, things you wish weren't there, things you wish could blot out of your memory, ring down the curtains over forever, and you can't do it. He was delivered for your offenses, that every last one of them might be cancelled forever. Oh, said David, oh, the blessedness of a man to whom the Lord will not infuse sin.
Now, a lot of people say, why is this quotation from the thirty second Psalm brought in here? Well, it was brought in here for this reason, I think. A good many people in Paul's day, when he preached the kind of thing he's preaching here, would object in exactly the same way they object now. They'd object something like this. Ah, but Paul, listen. You know, God gave up the law, and in order to be right with God, we must keep the law. And quietly you would argue this. Was Abraham right with God? Oh yes. Did he keep the law to be right with God? No, I guess he didn't. He didn't? Oh no. Why not? The law wasn't given for hundreds of years afterwards. Awfully hard to keep a law that you haven't got.
Look, friends, the law had absolutely nothing to do with Abraham's salvation, and the laws got nothing to do with your salvation either. By grace do you save, through faith, not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast. Works of law got nothing to do with the faith. Now, some of those who listen to Paul's statement, so that's all very well, Paul, but it's perfectly true that Abraham was saved hundreds of years before the law was given. Therefore, the law has nothing to do with his salvation. But then, years later, that law was given, and between then and on down to the present day, men have all been saved by the law which was dispensed by Moses.
Oh no, says Paul, that isn't true either. You got it all wrong. You know, as people who only read their Bible, it would save us from a lot of ridiculous mistakes, wouldn't it? It surely would. So Paul takes up the scripture now and says, listen, you believe what's written by David in the Psalms, don't you? Oh, sure, we believe what was written there. Of course we do. Well, all right, let me remind you of something. Here's what David has to say about this. And mark you, David lived hundreds of years after the law was given. Abraham before it was given, and he was right with God because he believed God. David was saved long after the law was given, but he was saved.
Not only was he not saved by works of the law, he was saved in spite of the fact he breached the law. And some of the wailing that's done in David's penitential psalm arise out of a dreamed heart. His penitential such as the fifty first, is a dreadful experience, terrible experience, and yet, in some respects, a good one, for Professor Solove used to say that aside from the gift of life in Christ, the greatest gift God can give to a man is the gift of the conviction of sin, and David sure had it. I wish somebody would get the gift of the conviction of sin here tonight and not leave the place until he's got the gift of life in Christ.
Trouble too often today, we shrug sin off our shoulders if we possibly can. Shrug it off, try and get away from it, escape it if we possibly can. Of course, we never actually do escape it, but if there is an escape, uh, a mechanism of any kind that we can employ, we'll employ it. All I see is people say the law was given, and since it was given, the men have to keep the law in order to be saved. Oh no, says Paul, you're wrong again. You're wrong about Abraham, now you're wrong about David. Anybody who argues that a man has to keep the law to be saved is talking sheer nonsense, utter and complete nonsense. Here's this man, David.
Did David keep the law? I guess he didn't, Paul. What did he do with the law? He breached it. Did he breach it badly? Yes, he did. How badly did he break it? He was guilty of the twin sins of adultery and of complicity in murder. In fact, he directed it. Day and night, thy hand is heavy upon me, and bones are waxed over my roaring all day long. My God, my God, I've got the, I've got the sin, I've got the blood of a fellow man on my hands, and I've got the sin of adultery in my conscience. Purge me with hiccups, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Oh, the holiness of a man to whom God will not infute sin. Isn't that a marvelous thing? Here is a man up to the neck in his sins, crying out to God out of the anguish of a conscience that's agitated beyond words. All this roaring all the day long, and suddenly this man rises up. Oh, the blessedness of a man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Very good, says Paul. Here's Abraham, right with God, without the deeds of the law. Here is David. He breaches that law, and yet he rises up with the law accusing him, and he looks on to the coming cross of Christ. He said, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Oh, the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Now, these things, my friends, are recorded for our prophet too. Now, when God is dealing with men, he can only do one or other of two things with them. God keeps books, and the name of everybody here tonight is either on the credit side or the debit side of the ledgers of God. Now, the man who's on the credit side has righteousness credited to him. He only credits one or the other of two things, and the man who's not right with God has his own sins laid to his credit or to his demerit. He's on the debit side. Everybody here tonight either stands before God, righteous in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, declared right with God, or he's on the debit side, and he's living in sin.
And my friend, if you're not careful, you'll die in your sins. And Jesus said, if you die in your sins, where I am, thither you cannot come. Where do you stand? Brother, I'm glad that I'm right with God. Oh, the blessedness of a man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now, God imputed righteousness to Abraham. He declared him right with God, and this is written for our instruction also. To whom righteousness will be imputed if we do what Abraham did. What did he do? He believed God. What are we to do? We're to believe God. What are the results? The same as in Abraham's case. He was right by faith, and we can be right with true faith too. If we believe.
There's the simplicity of it. There's the whole story drawn to a fine point. If we believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. Not all the blood of bulls and Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace nor wash away one stain. But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, takes all our sins away, a sacrifice of richer blood and nobler name than they. Oh, the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Friends, my sins are gone.
Somebody, who do you think you are? Just a poor sinner who's been redeemed by the blood of Christ. David said it. We can say it. Our position is the same with David as David. I acknowledge my sin unto God. He's taken away the transgression of my sin. He's cleansed me from all this iniquity. I'm right with God. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Herein is a man who's rejoicing in what God has done in his soul. Now, there are three things said about that blessed love that move out from the argument of this chapter. Here they are. Therefore, being declared right by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
How did it come? First, we have peace procured. In what way? He made peace by the blood of his cross. There is peace procured. Next, we have preach, teach, uh, peace preached. Uh, the Apostle Peter said, we are come preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. That's what Mr. Little has been preaching to you tonight, been preaching peace. That's what I want to preach to you tonight. I want to, I want to preach peace. How? Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Peace. Peace is a precious sound. Tell it the world around. Christ has made peace.
Our souls are brought to God through his redeeming blood and crowned with every good. There's the blessed life, my friends. Christ has made peace. Being justified by faith with peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Note, please, peace is procured through the blood of his cross. Preachers are pre- preaching peace all over America, throughout the world tonight. Now, what you want is not only peace procured, it has been procured. Peace preached, it is being preached. What you want is peace as a matter of personal possession. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you got that? Bonner sang, Yonder is my peace, the grave of all my woes. I know the Son of God has come. I know he died and rose. I know he liveth now at God's right hand above. I know the throne on which he sits. I know his truth and love. Friends, it's a marvelous thing to have peace with God. That's the first feature of the blessed life. But then it goes on. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. The grace wherein we stand. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place?
He with his clean hands. Ah, but naturally we don't have clean hands. And a pure heart, but that's just the trouble with us. It's an impure heart that needs to be cleansed. It can only be cleansed by the blood of Christ. And the man who is in Christ Jesus is a man whose sins are put away and who stands before God, not in worth of his own, but cleansed by the blood of Christ, and he can lift up holy hands and stand before his God in righteousness, not his own. He's right, and he's a standing before God. It's a wonderful thing to stand before God. How do we get that place? He went into the place of no standing. I'm thinking deep mire, there's no standing to give his people an eternal standing before the face of God.
After the past, we've got peace with God, respecting our sins, they're gone. After the present, we are standing before God, and we stand in his full favor. That's the idea. The full sunshine of the love of God radiating down there, shining down upon his people. All the favor of God for all the people of God. There it is, shining on us without let or without him. The old Scottish woman stood at the door of her little hut in the glen, and as she opened the door and looked up, there was the sun just shining in its radiance, as here in the morning today. She looked around the glen, and there wasn't a soul to be seen.
She said, if I hail sun, I'll to myself. Sure. Every man who's in Christ Jesus has all the grace of God and all the love of Christ and all the communion of the Holy Ghost, all you can drink in, my friend, all to yourself. It's all there for everybody. You know, you can't divide up divine things any more than you divide up a mother's heart. When the mother makes pie for dessert, there are half a dozen kiddies in the family, well, the pie just gets sliced that many more times. The bigger the family, the smaller the cup. But when the mother is putting those children to bed at night after a while, she doesn't slice up her affection. She gives a piece to Jenny and a piece to Jimmy and a piece to everyone.
Each child gets the whole thing. Isn't that right? All the love of God is for all the people of God. You can't divide up these things. I'm glad of that, aren't you? It's like bathing in the ocean. You get all, all the ocean to yourself. Well, it doesn't matter. Let everybody else come and do it. It doesn't make any difference to you. There's still plenty of ocean left. Friends, there's an ocean tide of God's love. Here's a blessed thing for all God's people. We stand in the full favor of God, the sunshine of his love is on us. As we quoted last night, the source of all my singing is high in heaven above. The sun that shines upon me is Jesus and his love.
After the past, peace. The guilty past is gone. After the present, a standing in his full favor. And what of tomorrow? I go on my way rejoicing, though weary the wilderness roams. I go on my way rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. And you can go from this place tonight, justified from all things through faith in Christ, and go on your way, rejoicing from now and onwards, in sure and certain prospects of the glory of God. Will you come? Only trust him. Only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you.
He will save you now. That's the door to the blessed life.