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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

The Saving Faith of Jesus Christ

Welcome again to our Sabba school at Advent Hope.

We've been doing different topics in this left front class and today's my last time to teach this class so I'm going to do a topic that I wanted to study as well.

And again I think most of you know that I'm leaving here in a couple of weeks.

We did a series on the book of Daniel and then on the book of Revelation.

We also did Romans for prayer meeting and then we went through first and second Peter most recently in this class.

What we're going to do today is actually a study out of the book of Romans on faith and believing and I'm going to try to tie in a few concepts together.

So I hope that you will enjoy going through this study from the book of Romans which is 1 of my favorite books to study.

Why don't we have a word of prayer and we will get started.

Father in heaven we thank you for the Sabbath day.

We thank you that we can study from your word and I pray that you will bless us and guide us as we study from your word today.

Okay, so the way I'm going to start is we are going to look in the book of Romans in the first 10 chapters, every time, well especially the first 8 chapters and then there's 1 verse in chapter 10, every time that we see the word believe, you will notice as we go through these chapters that the word believe is very important.

And as we go through these verses we will gain a better understanding of what it means to believe and how important it is that we do believe.

So I'm just going to go through these verses and some of these are very familiar but I think as we put them together you'll start to see a familiar theme.

The first verse is Romans chapter 1 verse 16, probably 1 of the most familiar verses of all of these.

Romans chapter 1 verse 16 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greeks.

The gospel is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes.

So in order to be saved you must believe.

So that's the first verse we see in the book of Romans about believing.

The next verse is found in Romans chapter 3 and we're going to go back and talk about this, but I'm just going to take you through the verses first.

The next verse talking about what it means to believe is found in Romans chapter 3 verse 3.

And this says, 3 for what if some did not believe?

Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

God forbid, yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged." So this verse, so what if some do not believe?

Does that make the faith of God without effect?

And we'll talk about the importance of this passage later in our study.

The next verse that talks about, that has the word believe is Romans 3, 22.

Here it says, But now 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 is no difference." So who receives the righteousness of God?

So again, Romans 1 we see if you believe it's the power of God to salvation.

Romans 3, if you believe you receive the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ.

To declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." So you believe in Jesus, God will justify you.

So now we've gone through some of these verses, now we're going to go to Romans chapter 4 verse 3, the next instance of the word believe showing up in the book of Romans.

Romans chapter 4 verse 3, And here it says, for what saith the scripture?

Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

So now here's a tangible example of someone who believed and because he believed he was counted as being righteous.

And if you're counted as being righteous, that means you have salvation.

And we're going to talk about this some more.

The very next, there are 2 verses later, we see the word believe again, Romans 4 verse 5.

Here It says, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

So a similar concept to 2 verses earlier.

And now we're going to continue on here in Romans chapter 4, verses 17 and 18.

And we see the word believe in both of these verses.

It says, As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were, who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, social thy seed be." So now we see that Abraham, we're getting an understanding of what Abraham believed.

He believed in God who quickens the dead, calls those things which be not as though they were, and against hope believed in hope." So as we're going through these verses, I hope you'll start to see the idea coming out, what does it mean to believe unto salvation?

Okay, and then the next passage that talks about believing is found in Romans 4 verses 23 through 25.

We see that Abraham received righteousness.

Now let's see what Romans 4, 23, 24, and 25 say.

Now it was not written for his sake alone that it 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." So Abraham believed, righteousness was imputed to him.

If we believe, righteousness will be imputed to us.

Specifically it says, if we believe on Him, God the Father, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.

And then the next time we see the word believe is found in Romans chapter 6 verse 8.

Romans chapter 6 verse 8 says, now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

So now we're starting to see a little bit more what does it mean to believe on God who raised Jesus from the dead.

If we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall also live with Him.

And then the last verse I'm going to show you in the book of Romans, I was mainly going to show you the word believe in the first 8 chapters, but this verse in Romans 10 verse 9 sums everything up very nicely so I'm going to show you this verse.

Romans 10 verse 9 says, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved." So as you look at the word believe in the first 10 chapters as we've just done, It's very striking the way Paul paints this word picture.

We start off that everyone who believes is the power of God unto salvation.

Everyone who believes receives the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ.

Abraham believed and he received righteousness and it was not written for his sake alone if we believe righteousness will be imputed to us.

And if we believe, if we're dead with Christ, if we believe we shall also live with him.

And then finally, if we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, we'll be saved.

So at a very basic level, we see from the book of Romans that to believe is absolutely essential.

In Romans 3 it says, so what if some do not believe, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

So even if some people don't believe, those who do believe will show God to be true and everyone else a liar.

Of course you know the verse in James though, the devils believe and tremble but they're not saved.

I mean James says you believe in 1 God, you do well, but the devils believe in trembles.

So just to believe that Jesus is God and that the Father is God, well the devils believe that also.

But they know, you know, they might lie to human beings, but they know down in their heart of hearts that God is God.

And they can say whatever they want, but they know that that's true.

They believe and they tremble at it in their quiet moments.

So just because we believe that God is God doesn't necessarily save us.

So what about believing has saving qualities?

Now as we said to believe is part of the gospel of salvation.

And In Romans chapter 3, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about verses 3 and 4 because Romans 1 we see that everyone who believes they receive salvation through the power of God.

But What is the contrast, again we've talked about this, Romans 3, 3 and 4, for what if some did not believe?

God forbid, yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged." Now, I find this to be a very fascinating passage of Scripture, which at first glance It's like, boy, I have no idea what Paul's talking about here.

God be true, every man a liar, that you might be justified in your sayings and might overcome when you're a judge.

Well, if you look at verse 3, what Paul is saying is just because some people do not believe, does that make God a liar?

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The Saving Faith of Jesus Christ

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