Open your Bibles to the book
of Proverbs chapter 14. Proverbs chapter 14. If you would bear with me, I
want to just say a word about something that I believe the
Lord has just laid on my heart. listening to what Brother Tim
just said about your going through this difficult time in trying
to see by God's guidance who the man that you would have here,
he would have here to be your pastor. I thought about that when Tim
said that, about the word qualified. Who's qualified? I'm 62 years
old, and I've been doing this for about half my life, since
I was in my early 30s. The Lord taught me the gospel
under Brother Henry Mahan at 13th Street Baptist Church. Sometime
around the late 70s, And at that time, I never dreamed that I'd
be preaching. And I certainly, when I began
preaching and teaching some, I never dreamed I'd be a pastor.
And I didn't want to be a pastor. In fact, I told my mother that's
the last thing in the world I ever want to be as a pastor. I really did. But I've been doing
this for about half my life now. And you don't need me to tell
you this. I mean, you know, you had Brother
Jim for 18 and a half years. That's how long I was in Albany
before I went to 13th Street. And I went from Albany, where
we had a congregation of about 40 people, to 13th Street, where
I would stand up and preach to 300 people on Sunday morning.
That in and of itself would kill most human beings. But you think
about this thing about qualification. And I thought about that. I said,
if you were to ask me right now, having done this for 30 years,
if I'm qualified to be a pastor, I would probably say no. I'm
not sure what people have in mind when they talk about qualifications.
Now, I know in the New Testament there are qualifications set
down for a pastor. And I understand that. But I'm saying all that to say
this, and I thought about this because of this message, because
don't let what you call qualifications be your own personal preferences
and prejudices. And I understand it because I
have them too now. When you go through this process, Some people have their preference,
some have their feelings get hurt. I know how it goes. I became
pastor of 13th Street in 2003. In 2004, if you count the children,
we had 85 people leave the church. And that hurts. And I'm not sure
why they would tell you to leave. Some of them, I know this, just
the bare fact that I was missing one qualification. And that one
qualification that I was missing is I was not Henry Mahan. So that was it. Now, that's probably
not the case with everybody. And as you go through your years
in being a pastor, you're going to have your friends and you're
going to have your enemies. I mean, that's just the way it
is. And, you know, there's sides to every story. And I'm not getting
into all that, and I don't care. All I know is that I'm here to
preach Christ and to preach the truth. And I know that's your
number one concern for a pastor, that he preaches Christ, that
he leads you in the truth. And so I would just remind you
of this. In your own heart of hearts,
you go home and get in your prayer closet or wherever you go to
pray, and you do some self-examination. I do that too. And understand,
number one, God's in control. Number two, God will never leave
or forsake his people. He said that. He's not going
to leave his sheep out in the pasture without an under-shepherd.
He'll feed you. And number three, I honestly
believe, you know, when we talk about the will of God, and we
talk about that a lot, don't we? We know God has a sovereign
will. We know this. I'll tell you exactly
right now, whatever happens to this church or to the church
in Albany or to 13th Street Baptist, it's God's will, isn't it? I mean, if he decides to shut
the doors, the doors are going to be shut. We pray that that's
not the case, don't we? You know, we talk about the seven
churches in Asia. How many times do you say, I'm
going to put out the candlestick? You're a candlestick in this
community. And I hope that God keeps it open until he comes
back, until Christ comes again. But understand this, when we
talk about the will of God in Providence, we're groping in
the dark. And the reason is, is because
number one, God hasn't led us in on what he's going to do next
week in this community, in this church. We don't declare the
end from the beginning. God does. Now we can declare
the beginning from the end. I know how this day started.
I don't know how it's going to end up. But God does because
he determined it. So we're groping in the dark.
We're seeking his will. But I honestly believe in this
matter that you're going through that the will of God for the
church is expressed through the church. How God lays it on the
hearts of his people, as Brother Tim said. And I believe that
it's impendent upon every child of God not to throw a temper
tantrum if they don't get their way. And don't stomp off if they
don't get their way. Do you know there's a reason
we're called the children of God? Think about that. And so I pray for you. The brethren and all, we pray
for you as you go through this. But understand that what's best
for you can only be that which is best for this whole group.
And you keep that in mind. I just thought I would throw
that in. I know this, when we talk about qualifications, be
careful that it's not human qualifications. Because I know if we go by human
qualifications, we'd never listen to a sermon by Abraham, Moses,
or David, or Solomon. You might say, well, those are
Old Testament guys. They don't count. Well, I believe they do.
I believe they count. But I still don't feel like I'm
qualified. I mean that. Down south, they'd
say, well, you're just putting on the dog. No, I'm not just
putting on the dog. I really mean that. But I know
this. I know this. When I'm weak, that's
when I'm the strongest because that's when I'm depending on
Christ more. So I thought I would just throw that out there. You
take it for what it's worth, but think about that and pray
about that. And I know that the Lord will
lead you in the right way because you're his people. And he loves
his people and he cares for his people. You're on his heart. That's the way it is, isn't it?
That's our comfort, isn't it? So we'll think that way. All
right. Let me just give you just a little background. This is
the Proverbs, as you know. Sometimes you'll read the Proverbs
and they'll be just like they're just stringed along various sayings,
you know, with no connection. But there is a connection. This
particular passage is what God the Holy Spirit, inspired Solomon
to write. These are some of Solomon's proverbs. And in this section of scripture,
what he's doing, it's like a list of proverbs contrasting wisdom
and foolishness. Wisdom and foolishness. And one thing that you need to
understand about these proverbs is that these are written to
the nation Israel under the Old Covenant. Solomon being king
of Israel. As you know, God used Solomon
to write some of these proverbs, most of them, and then he used
him to write the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon in Ecclesiastes, you
remember, he didn't call himself the king, he called himself the
preacher. The word Ecclesiastes means congregation. That's what
it means. So it's the preacher to the congregation.
So what Solomon was doing, he was acting as the pastor of the
people. That's what he was doing. And
of course in Ecclesiastes, he shows them that life on this
earth, the basic theme of Ecclesiastes is that life on this earth means
absolutely nothing, it's fruitless, it's vanity, apart from the glory
of God in Jesus Christ. Everything under the sun. Vanity
of vanities, he says. And what he's shown us is that
there's no reason, there's no purpose, there's no goal for
this life without Christ. Many of these proverbs written
by Solomon really state the same thing. And the one I want to
focus your attention on is verse 34. And I've entitled the message,
Righteousness Exalts a Nation. Righteousness Exalts a Nation.
And this is what he says, righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is
a reproach to any people. Sin is a reproach to people.
Now what spawned this message, just to let you know, was several
weeks ago, as you well know, our Supreme Court took it upon
itself to try to play the supreme being and enacted a law that
changed as they say change the laws of marriage and made it
legal for homosexuals to marry and of course that's wrong I
mean there's no question in our minds as Christians as true believers
that we stand against that because it is a it's a travesty it's
an abomination Marriage was ordained by God from the beginning. One
man, one woman. That's what it is. Husband and
wife. Not two men, not two women. Not three men, three women. Not
anything like that. One man, one woman. And God ordained
marriage to be a picture of Christ and His church. That's what Ephesians
5 is about. Husbands love your wives as Christ
loved the church. Wives, submit yourselves to your
own husbands as unto the Lord. Remember Paul at the end of that,
he said, I'm speaking of the church. Christ is the bridegroom. The church is his bride. He was
betrothed to his church before the foundation of the world.
The scripture says we were given to him, betrothed to him. And He took upon Himself as the
surety, like a husband does his wife, to have all the responsibility
of her well-being and her care. Meaning that all of our salvation
was conditioned on Him, put upon Him, His shoulders. That's what
it means in Isaiah 9 there when it says, the government is upon
his shoulder. That means the government of
the church, the government of the covenant of grace was placed
squarely on the shoulders of Christ, not yours and not mine.
If they placed on our shoulders, it'd be a failure, but they put
on him. And when he came into the world,
God in human flesh and walked this earth, what was he doing?
He was fulfilling all the requirements and conditions and stipulations.
He was fulfilling all righteousness for His bride. He redeemed us
from our sins. And we are married to Christ.
And in time, God the Holy Spirit, in the power of His sovereign
work, raises us from the dead and brings us to Christ by faith. And we are married to another.
And we leave everybody else. We leave all else. And that's
what marriage is all about. It's a picture of Christ in the
church. It's for the glory of God. It's for the health and
the good of the human race. But man, like he does everything
else, man by nature, and this is us by nature now. I'm not
just pointing fingers here. We corrupt everything we touch. Don't we? There are times that God puts
sort of a damper on it and suppresses it to a point, but there are
times when He removes His restraining hand and it just runs amok, and
that's what we feel like today, don't we? That that's happening. That God's just removing His
restraining hand. But here's the thing about, you
know, true Christians, true believers now, are not the only ones who
are appalled at this new law. And this is why I looked at this
passage here, because when all that happened, there were a lot
of false preachers who quoted this verse. Righteousness exalts
a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Well, that's true. But I had some questions. And
I want to ask these questions as we look at the passage like
it. Is it true righteousness exalts a nation? That's right.
Sin is a reproach to any nation, any people. That's right. But
here's question number one. And I would ask this Not of the
homosexuals. They don't know what righteousness
is. But I would ask this of anybody who stands against them. Number
one, what is righteousness? What exactly is righteousness?
Now we know what man says righteousness is. Man says righteousness is
morality. Well, Shouldn't we be moral people? Is that an argument with anybody
here today? Why? And especially true believers,
sinners saved by grace, what should we be? Well, we ought
to be the most moral people on earth, shouldn't we? We ought
to be the most sincere, the most dedicated, the most moral, the
most responsible. We all ought to be examples of
good behavior. Now, if anybody argues against
that, they don't know the scriptures. They just don't know God. There's
no such thing in the Bible as salvation by grace that gives
license to any person to live like the devil. That's not in
the Bible. I know what people say. You know,
I was listening to some lady preacher, a false prophetess,
Talk about that. She said the reason she didn't
believe once saved, always saved because it gives people a license
to sin. And the thing about it is, what
does the Bible say about the salvation of God's people in
Christ? It says once we're saved, we
are eternally saved. That can't be changed. The scripture
says that. Now, does that give us a license
to go out and just do anything we desire to do to fulfill our
sinful desires and our sinful goals? No, that doesn't give
us license. Do true believers sometimes do things like that?
Sadly, yes. Well, what is that supposed to
do for us? Well, that changes our whole theology now. Oh no. Solomon King Solomon, he said,
righteousness exalts a nation. Do you know that he allowed his
wives to set up idols in Jerusalem? Was that a good thing? No. So man says righteousness is
morality, but man's standard of righteousness, here's what
we have to understand in the scripture. We have to, how do
we look at this thing of righteousness? Man's standard of righteousness
is way lower than God's standard. Isn't it? When he says righteousness exalts
a nation, what standard is he going by? Well, he's speaking
this to the nation Israel under the old covenant. And what did
the old covenant teach about righteousness? You can read it, for example,
in several passages of scripture, but I think about Galatians 3.10. When he says, he says, cursed
is the one who continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. You know what that statement
involves? That means keeping the law without sin. One of the best verses in scripture
that teaches us what righteousness is according to God's standard
is Acts 1731. Where Paul speaking to the Athenian
philosophers on Mars Hill, he makes this statement, he said,
God has commanded all men everywhere to repent. And that repentance involves
a change of mind, a change of heart. We won't do that by nature,
that's the work of God the Holy Spirit, isn't it? But how are we to view that repentance?
It's in light of what righteousness truly is in God's sight because
verse 31, that's Acts 17 30, God has commanded all men everywhere
to repent. In verse 31 he says, because
God has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. in that
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead. There's the standard. Now who
is that man God ordained? Who is that one whom God appointed
to be the standard of righteousness? Who's the one that God raised
from? That's Jesus Christ, the righteous. What is righteousness? If you
want to see the measure of it, the standard of it, the height
of it, the perfection of it, the glory of it, look at Christ! Isn't that right? People say, well, righteousness
is to love your neighbor as yourself. Is that something we ought to
do? Yes, sir. Should we do our best to love
our neighbors as ourselves? Yes. Do we do that? Not always. But who did love his neighbor
as himself? Jesus Christ. Perfectly. In other words, if my love for
you, and I can honestly say without embarrassment that I do love
you, but my love for you is not my righteousness. If I said my love for you is
righteousness, it'd have to equal Christ's love for you. Are you
getting what I'm saying there? Obedience. I want to be an obedient child
of God. Am I always? No. But if I would
claim that my obedience is my righteousness, it'd have to equal
Christ. It'd have to come up to his standard. If it doesn't,
like I said in the Sunday school class, it's iniquity. You remember
those who said, Lord, haven't we prophesied in your name? Haven't
we preached? Haven't we done many one? He
said, it's iniquity. It doesn't measure up. It doesn't
balance out to righteousness. That's what he said. You've missed
the mark. What does the Bible say? In Romans 3.10, there's none
righteous, no, not one. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. You see, this puts it in perspective
what righteousness is, what sin is. I missed the mark. At my best, I missed the mark. So that's righteousness. You know, there were times in
the nation Israel's history that they sought righteousness. But
how did they do it? You can read about it in Romans
9 and verse 31. They sought it by their works.
And what did Paul write there? They didn't make it. They fell
short. There were times in their history
when they refused to seek righteousness, when they just went off the wall
with every idolatry, immorality. Sin is a reproach to a nation.
Well, let me get on. Here's the second question. Where
is righteousness to be found? Well, I've already answered it. It's only in Jesus Christ. If
you want to find righteousness, and let me tell you something
now, you must have it. We must have righteousness in
order to be saved, in order to go to glory. Where are we going
to find it? It's not in our works. It's not
in ourselves. Even as safe sinners, it's not
in ourselves. Somebody who says that it is,
I'd ask them this question. Pick the best prayer that you've
ever prayed. When you stand before God at
judgment, will you plead that as your righteousness before
God? Now, if they know anything about grace, they'd have to say
no. Why not? Because it falls short. Righteousness
can only be found in Christ. Now think about it in this way.
Now we as believers, we ought to publicly, vehemently oppose
any act of state or government, the Supreme Court, the White
House, whoever it is, that goes against the word of God. There's
no question about that. And we've talked about marriage.
Marriage is ordained by God for the happiness and the procreation
of the human race. Even the natural order of things
tells you that homosexuality is an abomination. They call
it love, but it's fruitless love. What if everybody was a homosexual?
That'd be the end of the human race. You see, homosexuality does not
fulfill the love that God ordained. in the family. Unfruitful love
is what it is. And as I said, marriage was ordained
by God to typify Christ in the church. But there's three things
that we have to keep in mind as we stand against that, and
we should stand against it. Number one, as we oppose sin
in any realm, let us not do it self-righteously. as if we too
are not sinners who deserve nothing from God but condemnation and
eternal death. Yes, I'm opposed to that ruling,
but here's the thing, I'm a sinner now. If God ever gave me what
I've earned or what I deserve, it would be eternal damnation.
I'm talking about right now, folks. Here's the second thing
we need to keep in mind. We cannot stand with false religion
in this matter so as to indicate or imply that anything we do
by way of obedience or abstinence makes us righteous before God.
Our righteousness is Christ. As sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. And here's the third thing. Our
mandate from Christ is to preach and witness and live by the gospel.
I want to tell people who Jesus Christ is and what he did for
his people. I want to tell people that righteousness
can only be found by God's grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everything else is an abomination to God. And as heinous and as
abominable as homosexuality is, it's against God, it's against
nature. The greatest sin, do you know the greatest sin that
any person can commit is to approach God for salvation based on anything
but his grace in Christ Jesus? That's right. Here's the third
thing. In the history of the world,
among all the nations of the world now in the history of the
world, has there ever been a righteous nation? And the answer is no. If we measure righteousness by
God's standard, What about Israel under the Old Covenant? No. You
know why the Old Covenant was given to them? To show them that
they weren't righteous. To show them their sin and their
need of God's grace in the promised Messiah. Read it in Romans 5
and Galatians 3. Why was the law given, he asked?
Because of the transgression. Moreover, the law entered that
sin might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. That's why the law was given
to them. The law was never intended to be a way that Israel could
earn or merit God's blessings or salvation by their works.
In fact, it was given to show them the impossibility of that
and to be a schoolmaster to turn them to Christ. Well, what about the good old
USA? One nation under God. Were we
ever a righteous nation? Well, we could argue about morality.
Were we more moral? Maybe the 50s was the, I think
that's probably the decade that most people go back to. Father
knows best, you know, that kind of thing. But my friend, this nation has
never been a righteous nation according to God's standard. Things may have been better.
in earlier times. Wasn't this country founded on
Christianity? No, it wasn't. Most of the founding
fathers were deists. They believed that God created
the world, wound it up like a clock, then walked off and left it.
They didn't believe in an interpersonal God. They admired the Bible as
a book. They admired some things about
Christianity, but most of them did not believe that Jesus Christ
was God in human flesh who redeemed his people from sins. If we measure righteousness by
God's standard, we could talk about the dictates of natural
conscience. But again, understand, man's standard always falls short.
There's no salvation within man. By the righteousness of man,
that won't help us. We need the righteousness of
God in the gospel, the revelation of the righteousness of God,
Romans 1, 16 and 17. Where are we gonna find that? It's in Christ. It's in Christ. And it's in him alone. Well,
what's the lesson to be learned out of this? Well, it's what
the Lord said several times throughout the scripture, but it's kind
of summarized in Psalm 39. Man at his best state is altogether
vanity. You take the best man that ever
lived, I'm talking about a mere human being. Did he measure up? Did he earn
or achieve righteousness by God's standard? And the answer's no. That's why we need Christ. That's why he had to come and
save his people from their sins. Man at his best state, he's altogether vanity. Well,
here's the next question. Is there any righteous nation
at all? And the answer is yes. What is
that righteous nation? It's the holy people of God,
sinners saved by grace, who stand before God in Christ Jesus. It's His church who are righteous
in Him, not in themselves. We who are in Christ, we are
the only righteous nation, made so not by our works, not by our
morality, not by our abstinences, but by the grace of God, washed
clean. in the blood of Jesus Christ. Isn't that it? Robed in His righteousness imputed
to us. And we have no other plea. I'm
not saved because I'm better than anybody else. Because I'm
not. When it comes to achieving righteousness.
I love John chapter 3 and John chapter 4. as they're put together. Here in John chapter 3, Christ
talks to Nicodemus, a moral, dedicated, sincere Pharisee. Religious man. And what does
he tell him? Basically, he tells him salvation
is by grace based on the death of Christ. You must be born again.
You're no closer to heaven than anybody else. And then in chapter
4, he confronts an adulterous, immoral, infamously immoral woman
at the well. And what does he tell her? Basically
the same thing. Salvation is by grace through
Jesus Christ. You see, Nicodemus was no closer
to salvation by his works than the woman at the well was by
her immorality. It's all of grace. So where is this righteous nation?
It's the spiritual Israel of God. We are the circumcision
which worship God in spirit and rejoice or glory in Christ Jesus
and have no confidence in the flesh. And we say with the apostle
Paul that I may know him, Christ, and be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of
God, which is by faith. And then lastly, well, what about
persecution? There's talk now that, you know,
somebody asked me this a couple weeks ago. They said, well, what
if a homosexual couple came in to me and said, we want you to
perform our wedding? And I said no. and then they
sued me or whatever, or if the government would come down with
some ruling saying that I'd have to do that, which I don't really
think that'll happen, but if it does, okay, if it did, what
would I do? Well, let me put it to you this
way. If the government persecutes us over our stand against homosexuality
or against anything that's sinful in God's word, what are we to
do? We defy the government. That's what we do. Somebody asked me, he said, well,
what if they put you in jail? And I said, well, I'll have three
hots and a cot, because I'll be right there. Maybe somebody
will be kind enough to bail me out. My enemies won't. They won't
bail me out. Maybe I'll have a few friends who will. I don't
know. But that's what I'll do. I will not do that. I will not perform a marriage
between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. That's against It's
against God's word. It's against my beliefs, my conscience.
I won't do it. So we defy it. That's what it
is. Nero of Rome made it against
the law to be a Christian. What did the early Christians
do? They defied him. Some went to their death. If
the government passes a law or if the Supreme Court makes a
ruling that denies our right to preach the gospel, what are
we to do? Well, as Peter told the Sanhedrin,
we're to obey God rather than men. But I want you to understand
something. If you look at the Bible, we won't go to these scriptures,
I'm running out of time. Who were the greatest persecutors
of the church in the New Testament? It was the unbelieving religionist,
wasn't it? So don't despair over these things.
Yes, righteousness exalts a nation. And my soul, we who are in Christ,
how have we been exalted? And here's the thing about it,
we've been exalted to heights that we can't even imagine, and
it had absolutely nothing to do with our works. but everything
to do with Christ Jesus crucified and risen from the dead. May
the Lord bless you.