Turn back to Romans chapter 4, the title of the message, it is God that justifies the
ungodly. Now this matter of justification
is a legal term. It's something that happens with
outside of us. Sanctification happens in us.
Christ is our sanctification. We are born of God and given
a new nature which is created in righteousness and true holiness. But when I was reading this week
in my readings, I came across Romans Chapter 4 verse 5, and
this statement caught my attention like never before. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, justifieth the ungodly. How does that go together? I
don't know if you call that a paradoxical statement or Justify and ungodly. Only God can do that. I realized
that that was the one thought that hit me so strongly. Only
God can do that. That cannot happen any other
way. Only God can do it. You see, and I wrote, I think,
an article in the bulletin that an innocent man can go to court
And he can go to court and defend himself against a false accusation
and be justified when the accusation is found to be false. However,
if a guilty man goes to court, he cannot be justified. He can be forgiven. He can be pardoned. Not to get into politics, but
Biden pardoned his son, but he didn't justify him. He couldn't.
He couldn't justify him. He could pardon him, forgive
him, but you can't justify him. You see, he may be forgiven,
he may be pardoned, but he's still guilty. He's still guilty. He still did the crime, that
doesn't go away. Forgiveness and pardon do not
justify. Forgiveness and pardon do not
cleanse us or clear us from all guilt. Not guilty justifies us. And God, listen, God who is holy,
here's something we got to deal with. And this is more of a cold,
dry, dead doctrine to those who are not guilty. It's not that
way to those who are guilty. And you know it. You know it. But God, listen, God is holy
and just and He cannot look upon sin with indifference. The very
thoughts that we've had since we've come into this room, God
cannot look upon them with indifference. God has to deal with them, our
sinful thoughts. We haven't worshipped God from
the heart as we ought to, that's sinful, isn't it? We don't love
God as we ought to, that's sinful. We don't believe God as we ought
to, that's sinful. God has to deal with that. Habakkuk 113, Thou art of pure
eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. You
can't look on iniquity with indifference. Listen here in Exodus 34, Keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. You see, don't
mistake God's mercy and God's love and think that He will not deal
in judgment with sin. God's merciful, God's great.
Yes, He will deal with it. I promise you, He'll deal with
it. And here's a very real problem
we have. Every human being on this earth
has this same problem. Romans 3 23 for all have sinned
And come short of the glory of God We've come short of perfection
God's glory is his perfection and we've come short of it. I
mean way short of it In Romans 5 12 wherefore as by one man
sin entered the world and death by sin and so death passed upon
all men for that all have sinned Over in 1 John it says, if any
man say he has no sin, he's a liar. Truth's not in him. You say,
I have no sin, I'm perfect. Not in yourself you're not. Not
in yourself. I'm guilty in Adam, by representation,
I'm guilty personally. If Adam hadn't have fallen, I
would have. I believe that, I believe I would have. I'm glad I fell
in Adam. This is the wisdom of God. We fell in one man, we're
redeemed in one man. We're lost in one man, we're
saved by one man. The second Adam, the Lord from
heaven. Ecclesiastes 7.20, if there's not a just man upon earth
that doeth good and sinneth not. Not a just man. Ezekiel 18.4, behold all souls
are mine. That's why I said you're not
your own. Thirsty, I believe. As the soul of the father, so
also the soul of the son is mine, and the soul that sinneth, it
shall die. When sin is conceived, it brings
forth death. Now apart from the gospel, this question of how
God can justify the ungodly can't be answered. It cannot be answered. Actually, there cannot be any
salvation. Job said this in Job 9 too, I know it is so of a truth,
I know this is true, but how should man be just with God,
God who is just and holy and righteous? Bill Dadd said in
Job 25, verse 4, How then can man be justified with God? How
can he be clean as born of a woman? As Tommy read that portion of
scripture in Romans, did you catch how many times he talked
about justified, justified? That's the heart of the gospel. How can God be just and justify
a wretch like me? Ungodly, he calls him ungodly.
He justifies the ungodly. Has God justified you? You ungodly, because that's the
only ones he justifies. I can tell you a few ways that
we are not justified. The Lord made this plain in his
word. In Romans 3 20, therefore by
the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight. in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin, not the justification of it, not the putting away of
it, by the knowledge of it. Galatians 3.10 For as many as
are of the works of the law are of the curse of the law, for
it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them. You know
the scripture says to offend in one point of the law is to
be guilty of the whole law. That law that says, Thou shalt
not steal, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery,
DEFEND THAT LAW, YOU'RE GUILTY OF ALL THAT! Boy, that's far-reaching! That's why the Lord said, to
think upon a woman, to lust after a woman in your heart is to commit
adultery! To lust after her is to commit
adultery! To hate your brother without a cause is to be guilty
of murder! You're guilty of the WHOLE LAW!
You're guilty of the WHOLE LAW! We cannot be justified by the
law. We cannot be justified by ourselves
claiming innocence. Every criminal that goes to court,
what do they claim? Not guilty. You know the hardest thing to
get in court in this world is the truth. The hardest thing
to get into a court of law is the truth. But in the court of
heaven, it's nothing but the truth. There's no lie there. There's no lie. John said, we
can claim to have no sin, we can say we have no sin, but you're
lying. I mean, just the fact you're
saying that, you're lying. That's sin. Job said this, Job 9.20, if I
justify myself, if I say I'm innocent, if I claim innocent,
my own mouth shall condemn me. Just listen to him talk long
enough and they'll condemn themselves. If I say I'm perfect, I have
no sin, it shall prove me perverse. I'll prove what I'm saying wrong
to be wrong. Now this matter, and listen,
this too, we can't be justified by this, this service, ceremonial,
like the Jews had, they had so many ceremonies, not one of those
ceremonies justified them, not one. We're given the first example
right back in the book of Genesis, when Cain brought the fruit of
the ground, the work of his hands, he brought it before God and
God rejected it. God rejected it. You see, listen, to be justified
is to be free from all guilt and blame. It's to be faultless
and without blame. And this is the work of our Lord. We've learned in the scripture
that only God can justify. He's the one we've sinned against.
You know, when David sinned with Bathsheba, he had her husband
murdered, Uriah. He committed adultery with Bathsheba. And he didn't say in Psalm 51,
when he prayed, he didn't say, I have sinned against Uriah. HE SAID I HAVE SINNED AGAINST
THEE AND THEE ONLY HAVE I SINNED AND DONE THIS EVIL IN THY SIGHT
SIN IS ULTIMATELY AND ONLY AGAINST GOD AND HE'S THE ONLY ONE THAT
CAN JUSTIFY US FROM OUR SINS HE'S THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SET
US FREE OF ALL GUILT ALL GUILT Who shall lay anything, in Romans
8.33, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God that justifieth, it's God who justifies them. Isaiah
43.25, I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine
own sake, and will not remember thy sins. I'm the one who blots
them out. They're not on the books. My
sins, your sins, all the sins of all God's elect are not on
the books. They are a holy people, a holy
nation. There is a holy nation on this
earth. It's God's people. Now on this earth, while they're
on this earth, they sin. We're full of sin. We still have
that old nature, but in Christ, we're holy. In Christ, we're
justified. Romans 3 26 who declared I say
at this time his righteousness That he might be just and the
justifier of him which believes in Jesus It's his righteousness. We stand in his righteousness
His righteousness is imputed to us. It's laid to our account
It's imparted in the new birth. But here we're talking about
it's talking about legal legally. It's laid to our account And this is the work of our Lord,
putting away our sins. In Jude 1.24, And now unto him
that is able to keep you from falling, listen, and to present
you faultless, faultless, before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy. Colossians 1.22, In the body
of his flesh through death to present you holy. This is how
you stand before God. This is it right here. PRESENT
YOU HOLY, UNBLAMEABLE, UNREPROVABLE IN HIS SIGHT! Now brethren, when
you really get a hold of that, this is when you start to have
assurance. It's what God has done for you in Christ. And here's how He does this.
It is by and through the Lord Jesus Christ Says in Isaiah 53
11, He shall see the travail of his soul shall be satisfied
by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. How's he going to do that? Is
he just going to declare us righteous? Is God going to just say you're
righteous? For he shall bear their iniquities. Every minute sin that you have
Actually, we just are sin. It's not just we have some sins,
we do some things wrong, and we are a mass, I'm telling you
the truth, we are a mass of corruption. And Jesus Christ bore that in
His body on the tree. That's what the Scriptures tell
us. In 1 Peter 2.24, "...who his own self bare our sins in
his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should
live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed." We are legally justified, and
we are healed by His stripes. We experience that healing when
we are born of God. Who is He that condemneth? Romans
8 verse 34. It is Christ that died. Who is
He that condemned? Christ died for them. Yea, rather
that's risen again, who's even at God's right hand, who also
makes intercession for us. Who can condemn? It's Christ
that died. He died. You can say, well, you
did that. You're guilty. I know I did it.
But Jesus Christ died for what I've done and the things I don't
even know about. Think of the sins. You can't
even think of the sins you don't know about. You don't know about them, but
He does. He does. And He died for them. that's
how thorough the cross is if you don't have a real understanding
of justification you don't understand the gospel and you sure don't
understand what went on at Calvary that's why there's such a mess
going on out there in religion because they don't understand
who died and what happened when he died they don't understand
that legal transaction that happened at Calvary they don't understand
it If God Almighty punished Jesus Christ for my sins, He cannot
legally punish me. That's the good news of the Gospel. Romans 3.24, "...being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus."
We're justified through His redemptive work. He lived for us, he kept
the law perfectly, and he died under the penalty of law that
was against me. The sentence of death was pronounced
upon me. And Jesus Christ took that sentence
to himself. Took my sins, every one of them,
every last one of them. I said this before, I said it
in a conference not long ago. Jesus Christ, I will not commit
one sin more than Jesus Christ died for. I will not sin one
sin less than Jesus Christ died for. I will sin every sin Jesus
Christ died for. Every one of them. Because He
didn't die for sins I didn't commit. That's grace, brethren,
that's grace. And that same grace will teach
us to deny ungodliness. We can walk by that grace. We are justified freely by His
grace. Freely, He justified us in Christ
through the redemption that's in Christ. Only God can justify
an ungodly sinner. And the only way he can do it
is for God himself, the judge of all the earth, to come into
this world and take the penalty to himself. That's what happened. The judge of all the earth stepped
down from the throne, so to speak, came into this world, took upon
him flesh, and took my penalty. He took the penalty of all his
children and died under the penalty of law. He died the death that
was our death, cursed. Cursed is everyone that hangs
on a tree. Awake, O sword, Zechariah 13,
7. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
against the man that's my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Might
the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. And I will turn
mine hand upon the little ones. Awake, O Sword of Justice, and
smite the Shepherd. There's my Shepherd hanging on
the cross. The Lord's my Shepherd. Capital L-O-R-D. Jehovah's my
Shepherd. And there is Jehovah hanging
on the cross, putting away my sins. But you know, this hit me this
morning. We are just, listen, God is the
only one who can justify us. He justified us, and when I say
us, I'm talking about all His elect, all the ones He'll save,
a multitude of sinners, no man can number, who would not be
saved if He didn't. When God thought upon our justification,
we were justified in eternity. The obstacle was taken care of.
David, Nathan said, Thou shalt not die, the Lord has put away
your sin. Christ the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
But I came across this scripture this morning in Isaiah 14, 24. The Lord of hosts has sworn,
saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass. And
as I have purposed, so shall it stand. God can't have a thought
and it not happen. It never hit me like this this
morning. When I was thinking about this
thing of justification, God cannot have a thought and then not take
action. Now you and I have a lot of thoughts,
and it's a good thing they don't come into action. It really is. But God, if He has a thought,
when there's a thought, it's done. That's it. And when He
thought upon our justification, we were justified in Christ. We're justified before creation. We are justified when Christ
hung on the cross. We're justified when the Holy
Spirit comes and grants us faith and repentance to receive the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is our justification. Now, let me close with the blessings
or the blessings of justification. And this is where I feed a lot
more now than ever before. I feed here. I feed on what God
has done for us in Christ. Justification to me, like election,
is a glorious doctrine. We can't be saved without it.
If God doesn't justify you, you can't be saved. If he doesn't
clear you of all charges, the books are clear. The blank, as
far as any charge. Here's the blessing. To be justified
is to have peace with God. In Romans 5.1, therefore being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. That is being justified by, listen, it's not the act
of faith that justifies us. It's the object. It's not the
act. See, faith doesn't add to his
righteousness. it's the OBJECT OF FAITH. Being
justified by faith, we have peace with God THROUGH, see here's
the OBJECT, he puts the OBJECT, he didn't leave, if he'd have
said, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with
God, he didn't leave it there because it's the OBJECT, CHRIST,
that we are justified, that we have peace, peace with God THROUGH
our Lord Jesus Christ. EZEKIEL This is another one that
came across this morning. Let me turn over to Ezekiel 16.
I think you need to read this one. What'd I say? Ezekiel 16. Let me see the verse I want to start. Let's see here. Let me start in verse 59, For
thus saith the Lord God, I will even deal with thee as thou hast
done, which hast despised the oath and broken the covenant.
Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with thee in the
days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting
covenant. Then thou shalt remember thy
ways, and be ashamed when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine
elder, and thy younger, and I will give them unto thee for daughters,
but not by thy covenant, by my covenant, and I will establish
my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord,
that thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open
thy mouth any more because of thy shame." Now listen to that,
isn't this beautiful? When I'm pacified, when I am propitiated, When I'm satisfied. When I'm
pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the
Lord God. God is pacified. It has the meaning of reconciled.
I'm pacified toward you. I'm reconciled toward you. You
have no sin. I have put it away. I have blotted
out your transgressions. I just saw that this morning.
Bless me, I had to put it in my notes. And then it's to be
free from the curse of the law. I tell you, has God done away
with His law? No. No. The law of God is still in effect. To everyone, listen, to everyone
who's not in Christ is under the law. Curses everyone who
does not continue in the things written in the book of the law
to do that. 99% of this world couldn't even quote
the Ten Commandments. They couldn't. But they're still
under that law, that moral law. They are under, and that moral
law will stand against them. And it'll stand against them
spiritually, it'll reach to the heart. Now, us in Christ, we're not
under the law, we're under grace. People talk about hanging the
Ten Commandments up. You know that's a death sentence.
Is that your death sentence? God's Law is your death sentence.
Don't hang it up over my head. Hang Christ up over me, who KEPT
the Law. And the Law, God says, is fulfilled
in us who believe. God's Law is fulfilled in us,
in Christ. That's how united we are to Jesus
Christ. What He did, we did. He's the head, we're the body. I'm standing here with a head
and a body. But you look at one person, and what I do, the head and the
body does. I have fulfilled the law in Christ. That's good news,
brethren. Christ, it says, has redeemed
us from the curse of the law, Galatians 3.13, being made a
curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. And then we've been reconciled.
Been reconciled to God. In Romans 5.10, for if when we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. We've
been reconciled to God. How can an enemy be reconciled
to God? All the charges put away. They're
all gone. Gone. 2 Corinthians 5.18 And all things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given us the ministry of reconciliation. Be ye reconciled
to God. And last of all, one of the blessings
of being justified is eternal life. Everyone here this morning that's
saved, you have eternal life. You're not going to have it,
you have it. It's the life of God in you.
You are a new creation. You're a new creature in Christ
Jesus. Romans 521, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. We have eternal life. If we could get a hold of that,
we wouldn't be so concerned about dying, would we? This is just what we're going
through right now, just part of the journey home. You know,
I'd like to live, and I've been thinking about this, I'd like
to live longer so I can preach Christ and Him crucified. Because
when this is over, it's over. When I'm taken off the battlefield,
I'm off the battlefield and I'll never be able to again. But this
is the only time you and I have the opportunity to stand in the
heat of the battle for the glory of Jesus Christ. That's the reason
to stay. Aren't you glad God has justified
you? It is God that justifies the
ungodly. All right.