In this sermon, the speaker begins by acknowledging the challenge of condensing multiple messages into one. He emphasizes the importance of being called by God into ministry and the need to act on the truth that is preached. The speaker then delves into the book of Romans, highlighting the concept of God's gracious act of sending His son to bear the iniquity of humanity. He emphasizes that the gospel is good news because it declares that this work is already done, and that unbelief is the greatest sin. The power of the gospel is emphasized, with the speaker urging listeners to truly encounter and respond to it.

Tonight I want you to turn with me to the book of the Romans. I have now reached the point that I sometimes reach, or most times reach, I think inevitably reach, in the course of a fairly long series of meetings. I get to the point where I've got four things I want to say at once, and then having preached for about 30 times or something like that, at the end to think, oh my dear, I didn't say that, I didn't preach that, and something other like that. I promise you this, if ever God makes you a minister, and remember nobody's a minister unless God makes him that, you remember Paul said this, he said, I thank God who put me into the ministry. He counted me faithful, put me into the ministry, and you know only God can do that, and unless God does do that, a man is not in the ministry. He may be in the talking business, and he may be very skillful with words, and he may have been trained in all the right doctrines, and all that. He may even be able to preach for two hours, but unless God has put him into the ministry, he's not in the ministry, and if God puts him in the ministry, he never puts him in until he's put the ministry in him. He puts the ministry into the man, then he puts the man into the ministry, and then if it be true ministry, he's never at a place where he runs dry, never. He's always fresh. He's always moving in revelation. His spirit is under compulsion. He'll die a long time before his source of inspiration dries up. If you know what I mean by die, he may be 95, and then he'll go home or something like that, but the whole thing, beloved, is that God pours and pours and pours and pours, and you know the secret of a river flowing, don't you? It's very simple. The secret of the flowing of a river is that one lot of water gets out of the way to let the next lot come. That's what happens. It goes down and the next one comes in. See, that's how the river flows, and the more it pours out, the more it pours in. It's very, very simple. So may the Lord lead us then into this great fountain of everlasting truth, and I dare say that the book of Romans would be considered by all of us as a very, very deep and profound fountain of eternal truth. Tonight I want to look into it with you on the great theme of faith. You will have been well trained to have believed that the book of Romans is Paul's great statement on justification by faith. Amen. So be it. Oh, here come our host and hostess. They're not trailing after all, and it is a great statement of justification by faith, but if we're going to be justified, we're going to know tonight what faith really is, if we're going to be justified by faith. We've got to know something about faith, not just that we should have a head filled up with knowledge of texts of scripture, but God has given us intelligences, and nobody need be bothered about whether it's highly trained or whether they're very skillful. As long as you have enough intelligence to listen and act on what you hear, you're all right. And that most of us are born that way, that even as children, if mother says, now eat up your dinner, that's right. They used to tell me if I didn't eat cabbage, I wouldn't grow strong. When I was a boy, I must have eaten a lot of cabbage because I got fairly strong at one period. And I used to hear this and eat it. Perhaps that's why I'm still going strong today. But the whole glorious truth is, beloved, is that you hear something and you've got enough intelligence for that. So all things being equal here tonight, there's no reason why every one of us shouldn't come to the great point of faith in our lives, if we've never really got there before. Now I want you to take your Bibles in your hand, because we're going to move through the whole book. I like to take a book as my text. And I want, by God's grace, to point you to scripture. And if I point you to the scripture and show you the truth, will you act on it? Well, will you, yes or no? Because if you're not going to, I'm not going to talk. I'm finished. If I show you the truth, will you act on it? Yes. I wish everybody's head of knowledge had nodded. That's what the whole thing is for. And may I assure you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and solemnly, if you will not act on what you hear, you will not have what you hear talked about. If you will act, you will have it. So don't go to sleep. The Lord wants us to be wide awake, able to cope, moving in. Blessed be his name. Now, the book of the Romans starts like this. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called, whenever you read these next two words in your bible, they're almost certainly not there in the Greek. To be, they very rarely are there in the original. Not called to be an apostle, but called an apostle. You think that up. Called an apostle. By God. And that's it. Amen. And you are what God calls you. It doesn't matter what your wife calls you, or what your husband calls you, or what the world calls you. Or perhaps, if you're not really alert and alive to truth, what you call yourself. You are what God calls you. Praise the name of the Lord. And on this account, I want to say something which, at some time or another, I suppose in the course of meetings, I would say. And that is this. There came a time in my life when I read through the New Testament for myself. I'd done it many, many times. And I noticed that Jesus Christ never called anybody a sinner. Not once. Does that amaze you? Does that amaze you? Jesus never once called anybody a sinner. Glory be to God. You think of that. All right. If you don't believe me, don't pick up a concordance. Read through the four Gospels for yourself. You'll never find that word on his lips as a noun calling anybody a sinner. He said he came into the world to save sinners. I'm sorry, Paul said that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And he said himself, the Lord, he said that he had power on earth to forgive sins. But he never did once call anybody a sinner. A pharisee said, well, if he were a woman, she's a sinner. That's what the Pharisee said. But Jesus said, seest thou this woman? And so once you start to really read the Bible and not think the Bible is founded upon the doctrines you've been taught, and then discover perhaps that some of the doctrines you've been taught aren't founded properly in the Bible, is a very great revelation to come to every heart. All right. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name. And there you have it, right at the beginning, we're introduced to this great theme of faith. I turn over my pages. I come to the last chapter of this epistle. And in this last chapter, in the 16th chapter, we read something like this. Now, verse 25, to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began. I don't know whether you are a preacher, and if you're in this room, is this how you preach? You must preach Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery. Amen. Preach him according to the revelation of the mystery. If you haven't got the revelation of the ministry, don't preach. This mystery was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. And so we see that all the epistle is the meat in the sandwich and the two pieces of bread on either side fails. And God wants us to enter into this marvelous faith, and there's nothing to stop every one of us entering in tonight. Back to chapter one, and in verse five, where we left our reading there, among all nations, verse six, among whom ye are also the called of Jesus Christ to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints. Amen. You're not called sinners. Called saints. You are sinners when God starts calling you. He calls you saints. The fact that his call has reached you means that in his heart you're already a saint. That's a big thing for you to understand. If his call hasn't reached you, then you are a sinner still. When his call reaches you, you're already nominated a saint because you're never a saint by reason of what you do. You are a saint because God called you a saint and that's that. He calls you that. It's sheer grace, and he makes you that. He calls you the finished article and makes you what he wants. Praise the name of the Lord. And how glorious it is. It's a lovely thing when God calls us this, and he's not bending over us and saying, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, but says saint, saint. You know, God's got a marvellous way of dealing with me. It's the great way of alluring, drawing, stirring, quickening, making everything in you reach out under him. Saint, he says. Saint. First of all, you may be so dead that you don't even hear it. You think it means something else or something you've seen in a stained glass window. Saint, he says. Hallelujah. You know what he knows? He knows that if he calls us that, God, if you think this about me, that's what I'm going to be. For the whole basis of spiritual life is love. He looks with the eyes of love. He thinks the thoughts of love. Listen to me and listen to God. He thinks the very best of you. He thinks the very best of you. Nobody could think better of you than God. No one. Look, he actually gave his son for you. That's what he thought about you. That's how valuable you are to him. That's how wonderful a person you are. Oh, the divine possibilities, beloved. Glory. He encourages you into it. He draws you. He sweeps over your heart. He makes it impossible in the end for you to resist him. In the end, you think of him and think of this and think of that per contra with everything else in the world and you loathe everything else and disdain everything else. You hate it all. You flee from it all and you just go for him. That's the secret of salvation. That's how it works. It isn't just that he comes and says, sinner, sinner, sinner. He comes in his love. He calls you a saint. Amen. And you become utterly convinced then about everything else. It's no good. You can't become what God wants you to be just because you've decided that you're a sinner. Anybody, unless they're insane, knows they're a sinner. You have to be convinced that you are a sinner. See, you have to be so convinced of it that you gladly leave it. Anything, anybody, nothing shall have any power hold on you. I will remember when these things and I speak from that which God wrought in my poor life. I remember when these things got such a hold on me that I was prepared to let anything and everybody go. Poor weakling that I was. How to find power to let it go. How to find power to get rid of it. This was my problem till the day I discovered the secret of faith. And then the 16th verse of this chapter came real to me. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it's the power. Amen. It's the power. The gospel's the power. The gospel's the power. Amen. Is the gospel power to you? Or can you sit one side and sneer and think it out and say it don't work? Then it's not power to you. You've never met the gospel yet. The gospel's power, sheer, naked power. You've never heard the gospel. Not yet. You've heard the form of words. But you've never met the gospel. The gospel is the flaming word of God in the hand of the Holy Ghost. It's irresistible when it comes as it should come. Nobody can withstand it. They'll get up and run away from it or else they'll yield to it. It's power. Hallelujah. And when you discover the secret of faith, you know what faith really is. It'll all work in your life. It'll work exactly as God says. Let's read on. I'm tempted to comment almost on every word. I get like this at times. Let's go on to our theme, shall we? To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints, grace to you. Hallelujah. Why don't you start shouting? That's what it does to me. It thrills me, runs through me, courses through me like fire. Hallelujah. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. Now listen, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. Well, is it? Does everybody in Lesmahagow speak about your faith or wherever you live? Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. Hallelujah. My word. What is the thing that people say about you behind your back when you're not listening? What's the thing they talk about concerning you? You may not like to hear, but oh, if they talked about your faith, oh, praise God, if they did. There aren't many men that you call men of faith, are there? Old Smith Wigglesworth was one, if you've ever heard of his name. The apostle of faith, his own son-in-law wrote about him. The apostle of faith. This man who knew the secret of faith would, that it was discovered by all of us to such extent as this man knew it. Your faith is spoken of throughout the world. That's the first thing I thank God for. God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request if by any means now, at length, I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you, for I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end ye may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith of both of you and me. Glory be to the name of the Lord. You'll never get established if you don't exercise faith. Mutual faith with the preacher. Mutual faith with the minister. This is the thing, this is why often in meetings nothing seems to happen much, because people won't come up to have mutual faith with the minister. The preacher. Glory be to the name of the Lord. This man, he just, he just, I was going to say oozed faith, this man Paul. He lived, he knew, he discovered the secret. He knew what it was all about. I want to show you first of all, beloved, that everything concerning this great salvation, whatever aspect of it you talk about, is on the basis of mutual faith. We'll go on, shall we? And this is what we'll read in 16. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And this word believeth means a man of active faith. Praise God. And it's the power of God to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. Now we're on the glorious revelation. You must understand, beloved, that God is a faith God. He's a faith God. If you want to know how God does all his works, he does them by faith. There's a lot of stupid, I sometimes comment on these, this hymn singing that we're going for. I haven't heard it sung here, but I sometimes pick up hymn books and I read about faith giving way to sight. Have you ever sung this type of hymn? A lot of nonsense. Faith giving way to sight. As though there'd come a time when we shan't need faith anymore. I tell you, beloved, that when you're there with the Lord, you'll be living by faith so completely more than you've ever known now. God, do you know how God created the world? He did it by faith. So far as you're concerned, so far as the creation is concerned, the world you're living in, it's a faith world. This is what it means when you read such verses as this one in Acts chapter 17, where Paul was talking to the Athenians. These great Greeks, these wonderful philosophers that produced Aristotle and Plato and all these great thinkers, these shining lights in the natural world. You see, he said this, that in him, speaking of God, we live and move and have our being. Faith world you're in. You're in a faith world. A tree, a flower, the sky, the sun, the stars is a demonstration of faith. How are all these things kept in orbit? By faith. Once this thing really comes into our hearts, once we begin to see the whole truth, that all this revelation is from faith to faith. The faith of God became the faith of Paul. The faith of Paul becomes a faith of other people as they heard what he had to say. It's all from faith to faith. You see, oh, it's so wonderful to realise this about our glorious Lord Jesus. Why do you think, for instance, in the Hebrews letter, he is called the author and finisher of faith? Why do you think that we're told that we are saved by the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ believed he could redeem you with his blood. That's why he died. Jesus Christ believed he could save you and he saves you by faith. We're in a great realm of faith, beloved. Oh, hallelujah. When these things become clear to the heart, we understand so simply this whole realm of revelation into which God wishes to bring us. Faith, beloved, we are told about it. Let's turn over to the third chapter. When we get to the third chapter, this is how we read. Where, where, how shall we start? Now, verse 21 of chapter three, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. For there's no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It's excluded by what law? Words nay, but by the law of faith. There it is. Faith is a law. This is the great secret we all have to discover. That faith is law. Now, it's not the mosaic law. It's not a list of thou shalt nots or anything like that. Praise God. It's just all law. Our God's a faith God. Amen. It's so precious. And he made everything by faith. He believed that when he said, let there be light, that there would be light. And so there was light. That's right. He believed it. He believed the word that went out of his mouth. Believed it. Glory be to the name of the Lord. You'll hope you're listening because we're discovering secrets. They're very simple. We'll see them written in the scripture in a moment or two. We're going as God wants us to go. The whole law of faith. God has decided, beloved, that everything is going to be by faith because it can't be by any other means. Go with me into the fourth chapter. In chapter four, we read something like this. The promise, verse 13, that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, that is by the Mosaic law, but through the righteousness of faith. Verse 16. Therefore, it is a faith that it might be by grace. Hallelujah. Now that's why it's by faith. If it wasn't by faith, it couldn't be by grace. This is such a tremendous thing. This grace of God, this absolute beneficence, this thought in his heart, this decision in his heart that whoever or whatever or whenever or however a person may be, he has decided whatever the length and depth and breadth of sin, no matter what it is, whatever the impossibilities are, he decided it didn't matter if a person was beyond the pale and wouldn't be accepted in anybody's company. It doesn't matter if they started out as a home of 10,000 demons. It didn't matter as far as God's concerned. He decided that he was going to be good and he was going to be wonderful and he was going to love men and women. He was going to work on their behalf before they dreamed of it, before they heard of it, before they were born, before their mothers were born, before their fathers had sinned. He sent his son into the world to show such marvellous love and there in time, at that point in time, God laid on him the iniquity of us all. Hallelujah. It was gracious. You didn't even have to ask him to do it. The gospel is to acquaint you with the fact that he's done it. That's it. That's why it's good news that it's done. Hallelujah. It's all over you see. You don't have to ask. You don't spend nights and days in prayer to ask God to do anything. The gospel's here to tell you it's all over, except your unbelief. That's right. So we see that unbelief is the worst sin of all. Let's go back into that chapter, chapter three, shall we? This is what it says here. Verse three, read it, read it. What if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Blessed be the name of the Lord. What if he doesn't believe? What if she doesn't believe? What if you look at her and say, she's not true. Or you look at him and say, well he's not there. What if they haven't believed? Because they haven't, that's why they're not there. Glory be to God. This is the great revelation. This is the whole thing you see that we're told here. Look, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid. Let God be true. Let these be liars. Let every man be a liar. That's written in your book. Don't you make God a liar. Let these be the liars. Especially yourself. In this matter. This is the way to deal with it. Glory. Man inherently has a heart that contradicts God. Comes up with its own thoughts. Thinks its own things. Wants to go its own way. Makes its own excuses. Looks at other people. Builds up mountains of unbelief. They say, oh but they believed. They believed two months ago. They didn't. Not if they're not through. They didn't. Let every man be a liar. Read your book. Underline that. Underline that whatever you do. Let every, let God be true. Whatever you do, let God be true. If you won't let God be true, then go to hell. There's no stopping you. Harsh talk, isn't it? It's absolutely right. There's nothing to prevent you. God's not true. If we can't rely on what God says, then let's all be devil worshippers. What if they're unbelief? What if they don't believe? God scattered them by, by a generation in the wilderness that wouldn't believe him. Wouldn't believe him. Praise God. This is the very thing we've been looking at when we've been talking about these things in this book of Joshua. Caleb believed God. Hallelujah. God there was such a spirit in every one of us. Caleb never made it any difficult about getting his possessions. He had a spirit. That's right. It was all over in about 10 minutes. Had enough to give to somebody else. That's the way with Caleb. Others were puffing and blowing and talking about chariots of iron and this, that and the other. But not Caleb. Hallelujah. The spirit that believes God. You know what God said. Well, he said Moses, but it was God speaking through Moses. He said, you know what Moses said, Joshua? He believed God. That's right. Glory be to God. I feel like throwing my Bible up in the air. This is the truth beloved. Let God be true. Who says God's a liar in the room? Let God be true. What if some didn't believe? Properly, truly in the real way to believe and stopped inwardly blaspheming God. Believe that doesn't make God's faithfulness of no effect to you. Whoever you are in this room tonight. It doesn't matter if you've been surrounded by whispers, whispering into your ear, their defeat, hinting that it's not possible for you because they're spreading their gloom and defeat. Woe be to those that do this. They think they're talking truth, but it's God that talks truth. Every other word that's different from that is a lie. When will our hearts discover this? It's what God says is true. And if I say something different than I'm a liar, I'd better repent of that immediately. God has designed it by faith. If it's not by faith, then it couldn't be grace. On any other basis but a faith basis beloved, you have something to sweat, something to do, something to bleed, something to die. You have to do something. If it wasn't sheerest faith that brings you into the realm of unparalleled grace, grace, grace, such a little word, just got five letters in it. Oh, the sermons that are being preached on it. Oh, the uttermost bounds of things, the grace of God. I could speak to you tonight of the grace of God to me. Oh, the undeserved benefits he's given me, the things he's poured upon me, the forgivenesses, never mentions a thing about it. Oh, God. Oh, praise the name of the Lord. Where should my wandering soul begin? How shall I all to heaven aspire? A slave plucked from the brink of sin, the brand plucked from the eternal fire. You know who I'm quoting? The whole glorious thing when God has moved in you, when you've come to faith, faith in God. You see, let's have a look at chapter four again. What are we going to say about Abraham, then our father? I'm the first one. Our fathers pertain to the flesh. What's he found? If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. Amen. If Abraham's justified by work, he has got some of the glory. Was he justified by works? Yes, he was. Really? I didn't expect to hear that. Yes, he was. You read Genesis. It says so. He was justified by his work when he offered up Isaac on that altar. And he had something to boast about. I think he's got something of glory. If Abraham came in this room tonight, you making all your big problems and big difficulties, he'd say to you, what would happen to you if you were told in the middle of the night to get up in the middle of the night when it's all dark and take your son and take the promise of God to you when it was there in the flesh, you handled it, you brought it up, you educated and then a voice spoke to you in the night and said, go and offer your son on the mountain there. And you had to go out in the dark and you couldn't talk it over with your wife and you couldn't talk to anybody. You couldn't tell Isaac. You couldn't speak because you were so overcome with it. And you got up and you went to this mountain like a lamb and you didn't even know where to go. And oftentimes you would have said, your feet wanted to run back. But he went on and on and on and on. And he put his son on an order and raised a knife over him. And he'd say, have you ever done that? Not one of you. You've got something to boast about, but of course not before God, only before men. You've never done that. Abraham was stone dead, stone dead to himself, vividly alive on the pages of scripture. You see, before God, he got nothing to boast on. He was justified by faith. Hallelujah. So I give up this. I've got to stop that. My husband here, my business there, my money, something else, what he says, what she thinks, my feelings. Go to a man called Jesus. Go to a man that hung on a cross. Go to a man that bled his heart out and ask him and stop the whining. He died to save you. And you don't believe it. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. No, you don't. You wouldn't be in that state. For salvation includes that. It's a law. It's a transmission of God's own working power, the laws of his being to you. It's the revelation from God. It's gratuitous. It's gracious. We didn't know. We couldn't claim to know. We had no right to ask God. We wouldn't know what to ask for anyway. Like a beast, ignorant in his sight. And there he laid the sin of the world on a man, that man Christ Jesus, when he's raised up men like apostles to preach the thing to you, to be power in your bowels and move you out of yourself. Well, that's what the whole thing's about. Faith is designed for one thing or chiefly one thing in this, among many anyway, in this same fourth chapter. Here is what it says. It's a faith, verse 16, that it might be by grace. Listen to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to the Jews only. That's what it means. But also to that which is of the faith of Abraham, who's the father of us all before him, whom he believed miss out the parenthesis. He's the father of us all before him. God, whom he believed even God, who quickeneth the dead and call it those things which be not as though they were who against hope believed. You just say, well, I've got hope, so I'm going to believe. Look at Abraham against hope. He believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations. According to that which was spoken. So shall thy seed be. And listen, I'm being not weak in faith. He considered not his own body now dead, which is about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of cells. He staggered, not a promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And he was fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And this is the thing that faith is designed to do by God. Know it, is to shift you off yourself utterly. All the time you're in yourself, you're not in faith. You're in your gloom. You're in your depression. You're in your distress. You're in your sin. You're in your far offness. You're in your lostness. You feel you're out there all lonely. Don't you? Alone. I suppose that's one of the causes why many people commit suicide. They feel so alone. Nobody can get near them. Nobody. Dead. Be better dead, says the devil. The liar. The liar is designed to get you off yourself deliberately. You've got to come off yourself. You've got to come off yourself. You're no good. You never have been. Come off yourself. You're trying to get yourself better. Come off yourself. You're thinking about your own feelings. Come off yourself. Your feelings are you. You're a great big lump of them and a demonstration of them. If you're five feet high, then you're five foot expression. If you're six foot high, it's worse still. The whole terrible thing, beloved, is that you've got to come off yourself and stop this. I've got this. I've done that. Something else is happening here. How about me? My this, my that. Come off yourself. Come off your circumstances. Come off it all. Come on, God. Hallelujah. He believed. He didn't consider himself his own buddy. He didn't consider Sarah her buddy. He didn't consider that. Blessed be the name of the Lord. The devil was saying it's all impossible. It's all impossible. What does that matter? Glory be to God. I believe you, God. I believe you. I believe you. That's what faith's about. It's by faith that it may be by grace. Don't I have to do anything, Lord? No. Will I give this up? No. You give anything up. Don't you give anything up. Let God take it away from you. But don't fight him. Give yourself up. You're a twister. You're a liar. You've deceived yourself. Go on. It's not God that's a liar. It's you. I'm not calling you names. I'm using the Bible. You lie to your own heart. Then where will you land up? Bless him. Bless him. Into this world. This world of desolation and rottenness built up on an ego derived from the mixture of Satan and sensuality in the garden. Into this world of death and desolation the way this where I run around myself. I do this to please myself. I fornicate to please myself. I take drugs to please myself. I chase a woman or I chase a man or I overindulge in eating or I go mad in the pleasures of the world or I buy this girl there to please myself. And into this world of death there comes a word from God. Hallelujah. Amen. I can't believe. I can't believe you say. Well, you'll remain there till you do. See? And you'll blame God if you're absolutely triple died in your wickedness. You'll blame God. I was reading it the other day in Ezekiel. God said to Ezekiel, drop your word toward the south Ezekiel. Drop the word toward the south. Praise God. Came to you with fresh force. You know these things that God blesses you with in the past. They come up with fresh power don't they? And don't you ever fall into another stupid habit that people do when they're praying. I warned you about one of the two things the other day. Have you ever heard somebody stand up and pray like this? Lord we're not relying on yesterday's blessings. Yesterday's blessings won't do. When a fellow did that recently I stopped him. I said I'm relying on yesterday's blessings brother. Praise God. They're still there. I've got them. I'm relying on yesterday's blessings. So don't you stop start this. You young people if the old ones play like that you mustn't rebuke an elder but don't you do it. Wait till the elders learn better. It's the elders that give the lead on this. Lord we're not relying on yesterday's blessings. Well I am. Very much so. I'm not stuck in them but I'm growing from them. The roots are well down in them. I'm relying on those. Hallelujah. God saved me. God gave me new birth. I won't tell you how many years ago that blessing is still with me. It's getting better. I'm relying on that. I'm relying on him giving me the holy ghost glory. Stop all this stupid nonsense. Let's move into reality. We're carving on our own coffins. Burying our fellowships. Killing our churches. Words words words that aren't even true. If God didn't interpret truth better than you say it I don't know where we'd well me too I suppose I'm bad about that but there it is. Here's the glorious thing. God's moving us into the realms of reality. All the time. Faith beloved. Faith is reality. Amen. The promise it's by faith that it might be by grace that the promise should be sure to you man and woman in this room tonight. The promise is sure. Absolutely sure. If you're not all that God wants you to be tonight and that you ought to be considering the times you had heard the gospel and and beat under the power of the truth then that's your fault. Nobody's no good. Oh it was what she said. It's her attitude. You'd be surprised by some people. They're nearly cut to pieces because somebody happens to go like that. Look at them. They think it's the wrong way. You'd be surprised. They're just fit to go to hell these people. You've got a tougher skin than that if you're going to go on. You know one of the great things of going on with God is having a hide like a rhinoceros and a heart like butter. That's one of the secrets of going on with God. You. Somebody passed them without speaking to them. I reckon it's terrible in a world where people live pretty close together. Oh. And they call themselves spirit-baptised Christians. You know what I mean. It's so ridiculous. I mean God's baptised in the spirit. Don't you believe God's baptised in the spirit? He's told to live in totally immersed in the spirit. Father and Son are in the Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost is in the Father and the Son. Jesus is in the Father and in the Spirit. They're all totally immersed. That's how they live. Just one. Cuddled up. Eternal love. Marvellous. They don't have a misword. Not a wrong look. How about that? You say you're baptised in the spirit. You haven't got a clue. You think it's just power to make you sort of feel lovely for about 10 minutes. God forgive us. Faith. It's a law. It's a law. Amen. Look at chapter 5. Therefore being justified. I'm going to read it differently from perhaps the way you've got it in your book because this is the better way. Therefore being justified by faith let us have peace with God. Amen. Let's have peace with God. You know gospel preachers will interpret that as having peace with God. That there's no warfare between you and God but that's not peace with God. Peace with God means having peace like God has it. Sharing it with him. The peace they have in the God here. Harmony. Sweetness. Father says I love you Jesus. Jesus says I love you Father. Father says I'd do anything for you Son. I'd do anything for you Father. I'd like oh I love you. What can we do for them? I'll go down and die for them. Father do you want me to? It's all so lovely beloved. Let's have peace with God. With him as he enjoys it. Let's enjoy it as he does it. Like if I invite you to come have dinner with me. What do I mean by that? I mean you come and sit at my table. You eat my food and you use my plates and you use my knives and forks and you use my pepper pot and you use my lovely. Yeah what I have and as far as it's possible you enjoy my state sitting at my table. Have my hospitality. Now you're seeing it's not just simply the sort of evangelical cliche approach to it. Peace with God. It's an invitation into the Godhead. It's an invitation. Oh God you see what it's behind all this in Revelation 3.20. Now behold I stand at the door and knock if anyone hear my voice and open the door I come in and sup with him and he with me. You see what it's all about. Justified by. I'll not have these thoughts chasing themselves through my mind. Oh no I'll have peace with you. I'll not have darkness pressing me down. I'll have peace with you Lord. Hallelujah. At peace with you. Peace. Peace. He went through the agony. He went through the darkness. He wrestled in a garden. That you might not have any tortures at all. And the crown of thoughts on his head on the dread day was but an outward expression of the agonies that chased through his mind. The tortures of a soul wanting to be made sin and yet could possibly be. He got over all the impossibilities. Jesus Christ has done the impossible. He's got over the impossibilities. You haven't got it. You talk about impossibilities. He took them all. How could God be made sin? How could God my Savior die? How could he do it? The last impossibility has all been met. You talk about impossibilities. I can't go through. Look at her. She hasn't made the grave and all this defeat lying talk. Say put it in the lie. You are having to live with a lie. The truth is Jesus Christ. He's the truth. Will you believe that? Or will you believe the states you consciously think about yourself to be the truth? They're not. The truth is Jesus. It shouts that you're on the pages of the Bible. But who's believing it? Who's believing it? Are you? Glory be to God. Oh this book's in for me. Oh it's quite early here. We're here to live the life of faith. The just shall live by faith. It's so wonderful to live by faith, beloved. Shall we turn on a bit? I come to Romans chapter 10. My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. They being ignorant of Christ, of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness. That's what you do every time. When you say but I prayed and nothing happened. Now you're establishing your righteousness. You're better than God. You wanted it but he didn't. He wouldn't do it. That's what you're saying. Establishing your own righteousness. Well of course you deserve to go to hell. You deserve to live in misery for the rest of your days and eternity. If you talk like that that's defamation of God's character. What do you expect? How do you expect to exist under these conditions? People go about to establish their own righteousness. You see if you haven't been doing that. Think back over the last 48 hours and see if you haven't done that. Establishing your own righteousness. Let God be true. Every man a liar. Father I'm willing to confess I'm willing to confess that if I'm not what you say I am I'm a liar. If I'm not living there then Lord that's my fault. I confess it before thee and every man and woman. You'll never never get anywhere with God if you don't come on this basis. Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus? I can't believe. I can't do this. I don't do this. It doesn't work with me. He didn't make you like that. The devil did and you helped him by your attitude and you've played into his hands. Jesus Christ comes. He's the word. He's everything and if you don't if you go that way you don't submit yourself to the righteousness of God. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Moses described as the righteousness which is of the law that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is the faith speaks on this wise. See where it comes first of all. Your heart. What are you saying in your heart right now? What are you saying in your heart? Say not in thy heart. I'll tell you what you're saying in your heart. What I can see on your face. Because heart law determines attitudes before it comes to conscious words. I'm sure. See I know what you're saying in your heart. Your heart's your master. That's what you're saying in your heart. It's written on your face. Inescapable. You're saying I don't believe it. Don't believe it. See those that believe it. I haven't said anything. Listen. Don't say in thine heart. Who shall ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down from above. Or who shall descend into the deep? It is to be up Christ's head and dead. What saith it? Word is nigh thee. It's in thy mouth. In thine heart. That's the word of faith which we preach. The word of faith we preach isn't in the Bible. It's in your heart and in your mouth. The Bible says it is. It's in your heart. It's in your mouth. Hallelujah. Now listen. You'll never be able to accuse God. He's already put it in your heart, in your mouth. Your heart always speaks the thing you believe. Always. Your mouth may say something entirely different. But your heart speaks its true state. Glory be to God. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. With the heart man believeth under righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto self-salvation. Hallelujah. It's all so simple. When God puts his word into us, he puts it in two places at once. In the heart and in the mouth. Always. If you don't confess it with your mouth, it isn't in your heart. He puts it in two places at once. This is the way he works. He's a master. Praise God. And then it goes on to say in verse 17. And this is the reason why nobody in this room can say it's not for them. Listen. Faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the word of God. Amen. Faith comes by hearing. I won't listen. You know, you can refuse to listen in other ways than putting your fingers in your ears. It's not true. It doesn't work. Not for me. It hasn't worked for her either. Do you hear the devil talking? But I want to say it's worked for me. If you must look at other people, look at the right ones. Will you? Look at the right ones. If you must look at other people, I advise you not to. Look to Jesus. Do you know there's something wonderful about God. There's something wonderful about everything he does. The father of the faithful is Abraham. And the thing that we're always pointed to is the occasion when God got him out in the night and said, look up there Abraham. God didn't say, look down there. Look up. Always. That's it. That's the direction. Up. Praise God. Look at the stars. Hey, and beyond the star, beyond the furthest, brightest shining star, there's one who sits there. If he doesn't attract you. If you can't believe him. If you can't believe that he can do it. Out into the wilderness and away. But faith comes by hearing. And hearing comes by the word of God. God's intention is to put his faith right in your heart. Gets you right up and acting. Moving into him. Hallelujah. Anybody here tonight saying, oh, that's what I want. That's what I want Lord. Praise God. Faith. I'm going into chapter 12 and I think we're going to finish tonight here. And in the 12th chapter, it says this. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. Oh, I want to stop and drop on the knee. Why is this? Lord, be merciful to me like this. You know, I'm all ready to go. My spirit's poised. I don't know what yours is. What's the matter with you? Lord, I, see, soon as I read, by the mercies of God, I want you to drop down and say, oh God, you've been like this to me. Me. Glory, present your bodies, a living sacrifice in that marvellous, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say unto you, through the grace given unto me, to every man that's among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. Now, faith is to be the law of your mind. You're to think faith. This is the trouble. People go into to think, they don't think faith. They don't think faith thoughts. They don't do it. Dismal. Dejected. Oh, I've got another day to go through. People are defeated before they get out of bed in the morning. They think, they think unbelief. They think they'll rot into their very soul. You've got to think faith. So I know what I'll do. I'll get a lot of texts of scripture, put them all up right on my bedroom walls. As soon as you do that, you'll look at the wrong one. You don't want to worry about it. You've got to think faith. And you've got to think faith, not by copying something on a bit of paper, but by inspiration from within. You're a living being. The Bible was never meant to be a prop. Hallelujah. What would you do if you were a heathen and they hadn't put the Bible into your language yet? What would you do? No hope for you, according to your way of behavior and thinking. Some people, they treat the text of scripture like some people have cigarettes, have them by the table in the morning. Grab the scripture before they can do anything. That's how you're going to get something like that. But the Bible, must read that Bible. They think the devil are What would you do if you were a naked savage then and didn't know your alphabet either? What would you do? You've got to think faith. Present yourself to the Lord to think faith, Lord. I've come to think faith. Hallelujah. A man that thinks faith. In the tenth chapter, you've got to talk faith out of your mouth. You've got to confess with your mouth what you believe in your heart. This is the word of faith. Now there's the thought of faith and the law of faith. Come on you students, start putting them together. These things. God will show you these after because you know that that's a law. Thought and word are a law. You can't separate them if you really think it. Christ says as a man think to his heart, that's what he is, because that's what he believes, what he really thinks there. And they're the same. Thought, faith, word, they're all the same. Did you know that? So the Lord moves us right through. You say well, well, well. You see it's all, you see, you might say well it's all right for you. You perhaps should talk about having presented your body about 45 years ago. I don't know how old you think I am. And you're in what's your full-time service. Well it's all right for you. I've got to do this and I've got to do that. But do you agree that you have to present your body for full-time? Do you? All right. Read down the chapter. It says this. Verse 11. Not slothful in business. So these people are still in business. So they've presented their body then. Still in business. If you'd only read the bible we'd see how ridiculous we are. Laugh at yourself. Still in business. Not slothful in business. Present your body then get up and be at work in the morning and do it under God. Not slothful in business. Oh I don't know if I have a job to get up in the morning. Well we've all been through that somewhat. Not slothful in business. Father and in spirit in your bitterness serving the Lord. Hallelujah. This is a faith life isn't it? This is the just living by faith. He's come off himself now. Come off all these airy fairy ideas of what the presentation of the body is and and I don't know what. And he's living right down here on the earth where other people are sinning. Where other people are falling. Where other people are going down. He's there. He's living by faith. Praise God. And this gospel beloved is being preached among all nations for the obedience of faith. See. Do you know what God's expecting you to do tonight? Obey him. If God spoke to a star tonight that has no feelings, no mind, no ability to love, no ability to appreciate, no ability to cooperate voluntarily as from free will. And he said that star be thou removed and go down there and shine there. It will obey him. An inanimate object. And you what will you do? If he said to that tree there beautiful as it is be plucked up by the roots passed into the depths of the sea. It would obey him. What will you do? Deny him. Defy him. What will you do? Come up with the old excuses. Sorry the Bible's so full I've got to go on again. This time we're in the first chapter. Verse eight. I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. Verse 11. I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end you may be established. That is that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now God is longing to impart something to you. Longing to impart something to you. Are you ready? God's wanting to give something to you. He's imparted his word. Now he wants to impart a gift. It's quite free. It's all free. It's a gift. Gratuitously he has spoken to you tonight. You couldn't have forced him to. He's loved to do it. He's all grace. He's shown you the truth that he's had inscribed in the word. You could have found it yourself. It's there. It all works by law. Nothing haphazard. It's communication. It's as sure as God himself that imparts you. Lord Paul says it's mutual faith. Do you believe? Do you believe what I believe? Do you believe as I believe? Hallelujah. Now let's do business with God. We're on the realm where faith is operative.