Let me read here in verse 35,
Psalm 37. I have seen the wicked in great
power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away. and lo, he was not. Yea, I saw him, but he could
not be found. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace. But transgressors shall be destroyed
together. The end of the wicked shall be
cut off. But the salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord. He is their strength in the time
of trouble. And the Lord shall help them
and deliver them. He shall deliver them from the
wicked and save them because they trust in Him. He said, Mark, the perfect man. A perfect man has perfect righteousness. He's called a perfect man. Well, where is the place of perfect
righteousness. The prophets say from Abraham and Isaac and Moses
and Jacob, clean down to the last prophet, they say, it's
not in me. Where is this righteousness to
be found? The prophets say, It's not in
me. The apostles say, It's not in us. Where then is it to be
found? In the book of Genesis it says,
by God Himself, that all flesh hath corrupted his way. Psalm 14 and 3, it says, There
is none righteous, no, not one. And there are many other scriptures
that teach that man is far off from God, and he has no love in his heart
for God, or for a son. And it also has much to say about
righteousness. And we want to talk a little
bit here this evening where that righteousness is found. It is not in the flesh, we know
that. Well, if there is none righteous,
no, not one, Why then do the Scriptures speak so much about
righteousness if there is no righteousness in any of us? There is none righteous, no,
not one. The Lord looked down from heaven
to see if there was any that doeth good. But all wicked and
evil, every man hath gone his own way. Well, if there is none
righteous, then why does the Scripture speak so much of righteousness? If there is no such person to
be found upon the face of the earth, why does the Scripture
speak so much of righteousness? Well, when I say there is no
such person to be found on the face of the earth, I am talking
about flesh and blood, because there is. righteous people found
upon this earth. And this, to me, is a point of
great importance. And we need to settle it well
in our hearts, you and I, where this righteousness is to be found. We are poor sinners. Our hearts
are black. We are sinners in ourselves. From the bottom of the soles
of our feet to the top of our head, there is no sound of sinners,
putrefying souls and bruises, corruption. We have no righteousness of our
own. Yet the Lord Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, says, Their
righteousness is of me. The Lord shall help them and deliver them. In that thirty-ninth verse it
says, But the salvation of the righteous It said there's none righteous
upon the face of the earth, but I said there are some righteous.
Where is righteousness to be found? It's not found in you. It's not
found in your works, your deeds. It's not found in your promises.
It's not found in your desires. It says here, but the salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord. Salvation of the righteousness,
it is of the Lord. It is of me, the Lord Jesus Christ
says. And over in 2 Corinthians 5 and
chapter 21, it says we are made the righteousness of God in him. Now, I believe that when we are
taught by the Spirit of Truth. I read some of this this morning,
I think. Over here in John chapter 14, he talks about the Spirit
of Truth. And the Spirit of Truth is the
Holy Spirit of God, who is the instructor and the teacher of
truth. He says, I'll pray the Father,
And he'll give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever.
That is, when I go away, I'll not leave you alone. I'll not forsake you. You'll
not be orphans because I go away, because I'll appoint another,
an agent, one to represent me. And he may abide with you forever.
Even the Spirit of Truth, He's called the Spirit of Truth. And
the Spirit of Truth shows us the things of God and the things
of Christ. That is, He makes them known
to our souls and to our hearts. There's a lot of things that
we know from the Scriptures that We can be taught just from reading
the scriptures, and we know that God is God, and He's over all
and above all. We read that in the Bible, and
we believe that to be true. We believe that's what God is.
But there are certain truths that the Spirit of Truth teaches
you and I. And when He teaches us that our
righteousness is of Him, Now, there's a lot of folks that have
never been taught that, religious people, people who went to church
all their lives. They do not know that their righteousness
is of the Lord. Only the Spirit of truth can
teach you this. So I said this is a vital point,
an important point, and we need to settle it in my heart and
in your heart where this righteousness is to be found. is to be found
in the Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of truth will teach
us that and it will be settled. So when we are taught by the
spirit of truth instead of looking into ourselves for righteousness,
now the majority at any given time and place, religious people,
are looking into themselves for righteousness. And if they find
a little bit, that is what they trust. You see what I am saying? If they find a little bit that
appears to be good in them or about them, then by nature, by
nature, they immediately stand upon that in order to gain favor
with God. So when we are taught this, that
is, that we are made the righteousness of God in him, when we are taught
that, come to see that, and we can only see it when the Spirit
of truth teaches that, then when we see it, we will quit looking
into ourselves for righteousness and we will find out that our
righteousness is in the Lord. And then we cry out in the joy
of faith and we say, I found him who is my righteousness. Like the woman that lost the
coin, she lost that coin and she was determined to find that
coin and she searched all over the area, picked all these things
up, swept with her broom until she finally found that lost coin. And when she found it, she rejoiced. It's like the Lord, the ninety
and nine. Ninety and nine in the fold,
but there's one out in the wilderness. He's lost. And the good shepherd
said that he's mine and I'll not give up until I find my sheep
that was lost. Well, when we have found out
this truth, as the Lord teaches it to us, that our righteousness
is not in ourself, but our righteousness is of the Lord. Then in the joy
of faith, we're happy. We're happy and we begin to rejoice
and to thank God. That point, well, let me read
this over in the book of Ephesians, Galatians, Ephesians chapter
2. Let me read this to you. It says, And you hath he quickened,
quickened, regenerated us, when we were dead in trespasses and
in sins. This is how we were. We walked
according to the course of this world and according to the prince
of the power of the air and the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation. in times past, in the lust of
the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind. And
we are by nature, we are by nature the children of wrath. That is
the way we were. But God, in the spirit of truth,
taught us something. We have seen what this verse
says. But God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
are you saved. So you see, when we are made
to understand our righteousness that God demands is in Him, the
Lord Jesus Christ, when we are made to see it by the Spirit
of truth, that even when we were dead in trespasses and in sins,
God loved us, he says. But God, who is rich in mercy
for the great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, when we find this out, when the Spirit of truth
teaches us that, we'll quit looking at ourselves. We'll quit being
conceited. before God by offering Him that
which is tainted and polluted and corrupted with sin. Oh, it's
in the Lord that I have righteousness. That's what that text I read
to you in Psalm 37 was. Was it 37? Read it to me, Pat. "...that
the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord." He's their strength
when we find that out. Then we have a vital union. It's a living union with our
Lord who is our righteousness by faith, even The faith is given
to us to see this truth, to know this truth. The Lord is our righteousness
by faith. So being perfectly righteous
in the Lord Jesus Christ, then the result of that is that we
have righteous hope, we have righteous fears, we have righteous
desires. and we have a righteous walk,
and we have righteous expectations, for we know beyond a shadow of
a doubt that our righteousness is of the Lord, and our salvation
is of the Lord. The Spirit of truth, whom the
Lord said, I leave with you the Spirit of truth, He will teach
you all things concerning me. Now, the Spirit of Truth does
not leave us to the unrighteous notions of salvation on any condition
of our own works or our own duties or our own performances in part
or in whole. But He gives us the full truth
of our salvation which is of him. Now, if you run across somebody
who says they believe in the Lord Jesus and trust in the Lord
Jesus, but I think I've got to do this and I think I've got
to do that, then the Spirit of Truth has not sent the light
of the gospel into his soul. The Spirit of Truth will never
leave us a condition that we must perform in order to gain
favor with God. But he'll teach us most thoroughly
that our righteousness, that which God requires, is in this
person, that blind man, a man called Jesus. That's where it's
at. He shows us the spirit of truth,
the matchless glory of our Lord's one everlasting righteousness
that fadeth not away. And it puts us out at once, both
out of conceit with our own filthy, corrupt works and any dependence
upon these filthy, corrupt works, any dependence upon them, and
brings us to zero in on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is our salvation. But the
salvation of the righteousness, it is of the Lord. He is their
strength in the time My soul, say with me, increase our faith
in this righteousness. So we are not left alone to live
in sin, to walk in sin, yet sin is in us. We have a sinful nature. It will
always be there. until this man dies. He doesn't leave us to live in
sin and walk in sin and enjoy sin, but we have sin in us. Therefore, we have troubles.
We have troubles. You have any trouble? I have
troubles, and I have afflictions. Many are the afflictions of the
righteous, the Bible says, many, all kinds of afflictions. Are we in trouble about the number
of our enemies? We have many. Are we in trouble
about the greatness of our sins and our corruption and the weakness
of our graces? strength by temptation, which
is so weak? Do we have problems for the want
of comfort, the want of joy in the Lord? Do we have trouble
wanting peace and joy from the Lord? We all do. You have trouble. I have trouble. You have afflictions and I have
afflictions. We have sickness in our families. We have heartaches
in our families. That's trouble. But those are
righteous troubles. That's righteous trouble. That's
what that is. Righteous troubles. The Lord,
the righteous Lord, it says, is our strength. And he supports
us under these righteous troubles that we have. He has power to
remove them if it so pleases Him. He neither wants strength
of love or ability of power to do so. He can save us from them
if it pleases Him. And He can deliver us out of
all of our troubles. Over here in Psalm 54. Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54. Let me read something to you
here, and I'll quit. You'll remember, though, what
I said. I said that when the Spirit of
truth comes to our heart in God's salvation... I'm not offering
anything here tonight. I'm not making any offers, or
I'm not giving no invitations. I'm just telling you where this
righteousness that God requires is to be had. It is in Christ. I read to you there in that 37th
Psalm that the righteousness is of me, the Lord Jesus Christ,
of God. Now listen to this. We have troubles,
righteous troubles. Verse 13, All thy children shall
be taught of the Lord. and great shall be the peace
of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be
established. Thou shalt be far from oppression,
for thou shalt not fear, and from terror, for it shall not
come near thee. Behold, they shall surely gather
together, but not for me, Whosoever shall gather together against
me shall fall for his sake. Behold, I have created the smith
that bloweth the coals in the fire, that bringeth forth an
instrument for his work. I have created the waster to
destroy. Now listen to this. No weapon
that is formed against thee shall prosper. And every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the
heritage of the saints. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord. What does that last verse say? And their righteousness is of
me. Where is this righteousness to
be found? In God, in His Christ. And when the Spirit of truth
teaches us this truth will be settled in our mind and settled
in our heart that the righteousness that God requires is to be found
in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, and nowhere else. And when we
see that and when that's settled in our hearts, we'll quit looking. round about us, or in us, or
anything pertaining to us, in order to find that righteousness.
But it will cause us to rejoice and cry out, praise the Lord,
my righteousness is in Him. Well, I hope that's a help to
you.