But ... Now!

Man will spend is a lifetime trying to come to terms with that message that whispers to his soul. How do I deal with guilt that I know is there. What I do about my sin, feel and sense when one of the sense of coming judgment. Why do I go through life feeling a sense of emptiness.

Even though I filled my life with more and more thing.

How can I be right today were beginning one of Stephen's most teaching series because it deals with the most important issue people face how can we be saved.

A clue to the answer is in the series title soul left the day or faith alone. The apostle Paul spent the early portion of the book of Romans revealing the darkness of sin and the consequences of sin, but beginning in Romans 321 and following. Paul reveals the solution to our sin problem. And it all begins with God acting on our behalf to make salvation possible. Stay with us to learn how solo for today means faith alone, and it refers to the issue of justification by faith alone, and it answers the key questions.

How can a person be right with God. How can you know for sure whether or not you are going to heaven. How do you claim all right to entrance their how can the holy justice of God be satisfied soul of the day Martin Luther wrote in the mid-1500s soul of the day is the article with and by which the church stands without which the church falls it raises up our conscience before God.

Without this article the world is ordered, yes, and dark. John Calvin added unless you understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

If you have no foundation on which salvation can be laid. Is it any wonder then that this In Romans chapter 3 where the apostle Paul explains the doctrine of Sola for day the doctrine of justification by faith alone would be considered so unbelievably important that all doctrines are married to it all find their source in its truth. One man called this paragraph that were about to begin studying the center and heart of the whole book of Romans.

Why would a pastor like Barnhouse about former generation in a MacLean a great theologian say that if they could choose to have only a few verses that they work if they were given the choice they had the pick versus that they can keep for themselves they would choose this paragraph could it be because these verses reveal the atlas of our faith. The right we had to heaven.

The satisfaction of our holy God.

The key that unlocks eternal paradise. Ladies and gentlemen, it is because this paragraph clearly explains the truth of justification by faith alone. Sola the day you say that with me Sola for day will Paul begins this paragraph with an incredible choice of words. Romans chapter 3 verse 21 begins with the words, but now that's a lot. We can stay there all morning. That's enough, but now how many parents have heard. I was planning on doing my homework, but how many husbands of heard their wives say I was really driving very carefully. But how many guys about a girl say to them what I like you a lot and I think you're really nice, but how many of her divorce.

I really like that idea but I like everything in your resume, but but is a conjunction that can make all the difference in the world can't I just gave you a number of bad difference.

What about the good ones. The doctor says to you I was afraid at first when you describe your symptoms to me that this was life-threatening but for the coach that says I didn't think there'd be room on the team for you but here's a good one. When I first met you I didn't think you are all that special. But here's another wonderful, insightful spiritual he mature one. It makes me really upset when you forget our anniversary and Valentine's Day and Mother's Day but I love you anyway I just toss that would have for you guys need some help here we been struggling for over a year without a job, but we didn't think we could ever have children and they told us we couldn't but they told us that we were to expect that loved one to live, but how about this one. My parents have always resisted the gospel but I have spent most of my life running from God, but in that a great word to loaded word, what a life changing perspective, altering hope, giving word that is in full by the way, used it often in his writings, he wrote to the Ephesian believers and he said you were separated from Christ.

Jesus Christ, having no hope and without God in the world but now in Christ Jesus you have been brought nearby the blood of Christ. Paul preached and asked chapter 13 these words and when they had carried out all that was written concerning Jesus. They took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb box. God raised him from the dead. David said many there be would say of my soul. There is no help for him in God but that old Lord artists shield about me see what comes after that little word has incredible significance. I read where the late Charles Evans Hughes, who served as the Secretary of State.

He was attending a Pan-American conference and he instructed his translator to make sure that he kept of course the translation of Spanish and Portuguese flowing and to keep up with the speaker but he then said to his interpreter. These interesting words he said listen while running translation is important.

I want to make sure that you give me every word after the speaker says, but because that's what he really intended to say. For nearly 3 entire chapters.

The apostle Paul has revealed the darkness of sin, the depth of mankind's depravity.

The righteous judgment that is deserving upon the whole world. The hopelessness of man to ever find God, or even care to search for him. The fact that no one is justified. No one is righteous, no one is acceptable. No one is suitable. No one is good enough. No one can ever hope to live with God forever.

In fact, he ended verses 20 and 21 with this writer.

Ultimate verdict. This portrayal of sinful mankind. Now he pictures standing silently for God no defense, no reason not excuse, just silence. And that is the picture Blatz now. Everything changes. This is the conjunction of Romans 623. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. This is the conjunction of John chapter 9 work you may remember the story of the blind man you been born blind. He lived his entire life now is and is an older man never seen in Jesus Christ came in. You may remember the story in John nine, where he healed the man by putting clay on his eyes and telling him to wash away and he could see the and was an amazing miracle that so authenticated the claim of Christ to being that Messiah because only God can restore sight in that miraculous wagon and of course this trouble the religious leaders who by now course didn't like the Lord wanted to end his ministry and so they brought this blind man and who could now see and they began to interrogate him and question him and ask him theological question. The man was befuddled. In fact, at one point, he simply answered them, why are you asking this. Do you want to believe in him to go and they mocked him. David brought this man's agent parents and to validate that he was in fact their son, who had been born blind and finally they looked at this man who could now see and they said that him, what are you think of this man who healed you. Who do you think he is trying to press him into saying that he was a sinner. That is, he was an ordinary man say that he is a sinner and he said I can't say that in fact he said in that gospel account. He said I don't know whether he's a sinner or not. But one thing I do know once I was blind but now I can see, I couldn't see I was I was blind but now I see this is the incredible revelation of justification in Romans chapter 3, the truth, by the way of our hope swings on that little conjunction. I'm so glad it's there. The truth of the gospel. Paul, in effect, says listen everything I have said about sin everything I've said about mankind. Everything I have said about the hopeless character and nature of man is true, but now after the darkness, light the darkness of sin has been portrayed, but now the deliverance of salvation is pronounced. So Paul begins to explain on the heels of that wonderful conjunction, but now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested but now apart from the law very significant words. In other words, he says the salvation that I'm not about to describe the which is the hope of mankind is apart from the law.

It's a very strong phrase or word in the original attacks to could be translated, having absolutely nothing to do with this case the law fact, the same Greek phrase occurs in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15 where we read that Jesus Christ was in all points tempted just like we are yet without there's the word yet, apart from sin, and I was Jesus Christ life had absolutely nothing to do in and of himself reflecting anything sinful. He was absolutely the opposite of sin. So this is the word here Paul is describing justification as being apart from the law, that is, it has absolutely nothing to do with the law. That's why a person who believes he is going to heaven because he's been a pretty good person is deceived on number of counts is deceived because he actually hasn't The law they can admit it. It is recognize his own depravity and so is deceived himself isn't the righteousness of man that Paul is declaring that bring salvation. It is the righteousness of God. You and I had nothing to offer God, but sin. Tomorrow we will have nothing to offer him but what sin a year from now for living will have nothing to offer him but what sin God has everything to offer us and begins by imputing to our bankrupt accounts the righteousness of God now pulled his on to say, in effect, this isn't really something new. He says the message of the gospel goes all the way back to the law and the prophets. In other words, it was manifested by the non-moss, the law, the five books of Moses, you think nowhere was the gospel manifested in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy will certainly we could go to Genesis chapter 3 where we have the first indication of a Messiah that would come would be the seed of a woman who would crush Satan, the serpent, but that serpent would bruise his heel. A reference to the suffering savior, Satan would be defeated and the Savior would suffer.

Certainly we could go to Leviticus and look at the system of offering sacrifices and see how bloodshed was required. The life of one for the sin of another, all picturing the coming Redeemer. There's one illustration. In fact, it is the illustration. The apostle Paul will use in this paragraph, and because he chooses this one will to take a closer look to take your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 22 where we discover the full account of Abraham and his faith Abraham was told by God.

He may remember this account to take his only son Isaac and go to the mountain ridge called Mariah an offer on that ridge to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering unto the Lord. Of course this was a test.

The text tells us God is in and the child sacrifice, but this would be a test to see whether or not Abraham believed the promise of God that that covenant would come through his son course in this case is only son Isaac, and so they arrive and begin to make their way up this ridge of little hills in this ridge of mounds called Mariah. Look at verse seven Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said my father and he said here my my son and he said, behold, the fire and the wood but where is the Lamb for the burnt offering.

Abraham said. Verse eight God will provide for himself the lamb got underlined that it's very significant.

God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering my sons of the two of them walked on together.

If anything, Abraham thought that Isaac if killed, would be resurrected from the debtor. Maybe God would indeed provide the Solano, evidently a conversation ensued or of course he probably knew going all the way back to the first father and mother is Adam and Eve of the death of one and I believe it was probably the death of a lamb so he is encouraging his son that God has something in mind verse nine. They came to the place of which God had told him, and Abraham built an altar there and arrange the wood and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Remember Abraham as an old man by now.

I don't think he picked Isaac up.

I think Isaac probably climbed up there him self. I doubt Abraham would've been able to lift his 30-year-old son. By the way, you note the submission of the son of the father again another wonderful picture of the submission of Christ of the father being obedient to death, even death on an altar we call the cross Libyans to eight verse 10 Abraham stretched out his hand and he took the knife to slay his son but there's a wonderful word again.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said here I am, and he said do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him.

For now, I know that you trust God you fear him since you've not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked in the hole behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

Now here's the prophetic announcement verse 14, and Abraham called the name of that place. Yahweh gyri or Jehovah or Jehovah Gyro which is translated, the Lord will provide.

As is said to this day in the mount of the Lord.

It will be provided. Now this is future tense. He's speaking here, not us in this great God provided the Lamb, but future tense.

One of the reasons was God, and provide a lamb.

Did you notice what he provided a ram, not the Lamb but is also speaking in future tense because he is speaking prophetically and God has something wonderful in mind. The coming lamb in John chapter 1 verse 29 John the baptizer saw Jesus coming and he said to everyone lock behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In other words, here's the fulfillment of Abraham's prophecy thousands of years earlier.

He's the Lamb is come to be sacrificed for the sin of the world now want to notice something else. Specifically, prophesied that only the God would provide a lamb but look at verse 14. Again, that God would provide it.

The Lamb that is in the mounds of the Lord, that is on that very ridge. God would provide the Lamb amount. Mariah was nothing more than really a small ridge of hills get very significant ones on Mount Moriah. Solomon would later build his temple where God's glory would to send that temple. Of course, would be destroyed.

Just a stones throw from that temple would be a city built for the covenant people in sacred city called Jerusalem, where the people of God lived on and off either obediently or disobedient lead to him by the time of Jesus Christ.

That ridge of Mariah had lost that name was no longer referred to as Mariah. It had been given a slang Aramaic expression called Golgotha because of the shape.

Abraham's prophecy would come true. The very place where Isaac had been offered as a burnt offering for sin. The very place where Abraham prophesied that on this mounds. I believe one day we can find out what it is at that very location where Abraham's altar was placed where the cross was anchored on this mounds, God will provide the Lamb and it came true. So Paul says that this gospel has been prophesied.

It has been spoken of it can be seen in the very books of the anomalous, the law, but he also says it's known by the prophets. Others who prophesied like King David, who wrote in Psalm 22 of Christ's crucifixion with unbelievable precision.

Listen as he writes, I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax is melted within me a band of evildoers have surrounded me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones.

David never had his hands pierced his feet.

He speaking prophetically of Christ.

They look they stare at me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots why Paul could say the gospel is a new God's plan of redemption has been promised through the sacrifice of his son. Now in verse 22 Paul goes on to clarify and we don't have time really to get much further into this but he says even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all visibly there is the first reference of faith, you could go through that paragraph by the way, and you can circle the many times that it appears it's a keyword.

There are some other keywords that will look at to the darkness of sin has been portrayed, then you have that conjunction and the deliverance of salvation then is been pronounced and now the deliverer of sinners has been proclaimed here is hope this is what changes everything. The righteousness of God through faith in Christ.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first thing that we need to learn about sole of the day.

The first thing we need to learn about salvation, justification by faith alone is that it isn't something you provide for God. It is something God is provided for you.

We have broken the law. We are without excuse.

We cannot do enough good things to somehow counterbalance the scale and hope that God will see all the bad things and say well you know what to do a few more good things in your life. Succumb on in. We are condemned and we would be silence. Should we be standing before a holy God in the day, but Paul says, but now there is hope for the hopeless, the depraved, the sinful the inexcusable the indefensible.

But now there is hope for the hopeless. There is now. Pardon the sinful, but now there is grace for the guilty Paul answers. It is by faith in Jesus Christ, the one who came to seek out and to save sinners.

The one who came to forgive. With our text here but I want to tell you story by way of illustration of a mother who illustrated the forgiving heart that mirrored in a small fraction of the way in her own life. The inexcusable indefensible sin of her daughter. It's it's a true story I read about a few years ago and it happened in Brazil in a little house in the village with a dirt floor of the house had a dirt floor in the red tile roof lived a mother name Maria and her daughter Christina Maria's husband Christina's father had died when Christina was just an infant. Maria had done her best to raise her daughter as best she could provide.

She provided the meager life by cleaning homes in her little town is Christina grew up, became an attractive young teenage girl. She had a streak of independence in her and she would often talk to her mother about, you know, let's leave this place. Let's go to the city was moved to Rio de Janeiro, there are opportunities there. There is work therein. Mother would always react with a mixture of horror and fear, she would tell Christina those streets are cruel. She knew full well what Christina would end up doing. If she moved there and tried to make a living there because she would be able to provide make a living. That's why the morning that Maria found her daughter's pallet empty. It broke her heart because she knew not only where her daughter was headed, but she knew more than likely what her daughter would become in order to survive. Christina had no skills for earning money. Her mother knew that when pride met hunger. There was no telling what a human would do to survive and so she immediately gathered up her clothing and all the money that she had and she got on that little Boston headed toward the big city and the sooner she got there she went to a little drugstore that had one of those little photo booths ended and she went into the Photo Booth and begin a deposit.

Recorders and she took as many pictures of herself and she could do it all the money was gone that she could spare. She took those pictures and she wrote on the back of each one of them the same message and then throughout the city. She went. She went to hotels. She with the back alleys. She went to street corners where prostitutes gathered and she would tape her picture to some mirror in the lobby of a hotel or on the wall near a corner or on a bulletin board in a public place, hoping that her daughter would see her picture she did that for weeks until her money ran out.

She boarded that rickety old bus and headed back to her little village weaving all the way there a few months after that Christina was descending the steps of a hotel. Her face filled with sadness or innocence gone. She was walking down the steps and she looked across the lobby and she thought she spotted a familiar face and she quickly went across the lobby and she got closer. Her heart began to beat even faster and she reached it, and sure enough it was the picture of her mother. She stood in that hotel lobby breathless, her eyes filling with tears as she saw the picture of her mother. Eventually she happened to turn the photograph over and when she did she read the note written by her mother read wherever you are, whatever you have done whatever you have become. I will forgive. Please, she that's the message of Sola for day reduced to its simplest terms, Jesus Christ said, no matter what you've done. No matter what you've become.

Forgive justification occurs when a person places their faith in the words of the Savior and in the person of the Savior and discovers the wonderful meaning the joy behind those, but now wow what an lesson you're listening to wisdom for the heart with Steve and Davey Stevens entitled this lesson simply but now this was lesson one in a series from Romans called Sola vide if you know anyone who is confused about salvation. Who doesn't understand salvation by faith alone or who is curious about the Christian faith. Please encourage them to tune in their six lessons in this series so will be in it all next week between now and then we'd enjoy hearing from you and learning how God uses these daily Bible messages to encourage and challenge you to send a card or letter to Stephen if you address it to wisdom for the hearts.

PO Box 37297, Raleigh, NC 27627 I'm Scott Wiley.

I hope you have a great weekend and that you will be right back with us on Monday for more wisdom for the hearts