Please turn in your Bibles back
to Psalm 37, and I want to call your attention back to verse
37, because I want to talk to you about the perfect man. The perfect man, meaning also
the perfect woman. Psalm 37 and verse 37. And it is a bit ironic, humanly
speaking, if you look and see that this is a Psalm of David. Mark the perfect man, and behold
the upright, for the end of that man is peace. The end of that man is peace. Do you ever use that little expression
that most of us use at times to excuse our sin? When we either think or say,
well, nobody's perfect. Do you think God will accept
that in our case? Not only that, but is it really
true? Is anybody perfect? Well, our verse says, mark the
perfect man. And that word there in the Hebrew
means something like observe, or regard the perfect man. And I want to speak to you this
morning as simply and as plainly as I can. And I want to state
one more time to you five things, five definite things concerning
this very subject. And I'll begin by simply stating
what ought to be the very obvious, but in our day, I am afraid it
is not. And that is, first of all, that
God, the only God that there is, and as the Bible says, the
one that you and I have to do with, That God is Himself perfect. As a matter of fact, He is described
in so many ways and so many times above the description that is
most often used of Him, that He is love. He is above that
and many more times, more often, spoken of as holy and as righteous. God is perfect. As a matter of fact, He is Himself
perfection. We only know anything about the
whole concept of perfection to the degree that we know something
about God. Let me read you just a few verses
in the Scriptures, both in the Old Testament and in the New
Testament. In Deuteronomy, Moses is led
by the Spirit to speak of him in this way. He says, "...he
is the rock, his work is perfect. For all his ways are judgment,
or just, a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right
is he." We're not talking about some gray-headed, old benevolent
gentleman sitting in heaven. We are talking about God who
is infinitely holy and perfect. He leads the prophet to write
these words in 2 Samuel. And he states it plainly. He
says, as for God, His way is perfect. Then the psalmist in Psalm 19
comes along and says, "...the law of the Lord is perfect, converting
the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the
simple." And then we have these words by the Lord Jesus Himself
in Matthew 5. when he says, "...be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
In other words, if we were to go to any other passage of Scripture
and try, as men do, to kind of dilute down the meaning of this
word perfection, We would surely find out the impossibility of
it in that one verse. He says, "...be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
And not only do we have all of these statements in Scripture
again and again that speak of the perfection and the holiness
and the justice and the righteousness of God, who is forever unchanging
and every day the same, But we have also, by what we read of
his actions and the things that he has done, a host of other
proofs in Scripture. And we see it in that very opening
book, when our father, Adam, and our mother, Eve, in that
garden paradise, when they simply took and ate of the fruit in
the garden, and so defied His perfection as God, and His right
as God to do what He would with His own, and to command His creature,
so that when they did that, He cast them out of the garden. He banished them from His presence,
and all our race, when they went out of the presence of this perfect
God, because of their imperfection, because of their sin, our whole
race was cast out with them. We see this perfection when in
that time of the flood that God, whose of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity, He looked down upon that race of people in Adam and
saw that the imaginations of every one of them was only evil
continually, and He sent the flood wherein all but eight souls
perished. in that flood in this world. We see it when a man by the name
of Uzzah, simply when the ox cart stumbled that carried the
Ark of the Covenant, and he reached out to touch and steady the Ark
of the Covenant, and the Bible says that God slew him in that
moment. Why? Because he's perfect. Because here was a sinner, here
was a vile creature who reached out to touch the very thing in
which God had said His presence would dwell, and he was smitten
with death at that very moment. It was the same with men called
Nadab and Abihu. when they stood against His commandments,
and He opened up the ground and swallowed them up and cast them
immediately into hell. Every way you look, it states,
it confirms, it demonstrates that God is perfect. And it says that this perfection
is magnified and glorified every hour of every day by those living
creatures around the throne that cry out day and night concerning
Him, Holy, Holy, Holy. He will not deal with us like
the courts of our land. He will not view us in the way
that we tend to view each other. But He will deal with us as He
is, as He says He is, and if there's one thing that in our
day we have need to be reminded of, it is this, God is perfect. He is perfectly holy, perfectly
just, and perfectly righteous, and He's not going to change,
and He hasn't changed to meet our day and our standards. He is always the same. God is Himself infinitely perfect. All right? Here's the second
thing. The second thing is this, and this really is a shocker
to most in our day. The second thing is this, God
absolutely requires and demands perfection from us. Now, that's not diminished. That's not in any way altered. God requires perfection. God commands us to be perfect,
and we must be perfect in order to be accepted by Him, and our
inability to do so doesn't make us less responsible. Hold your place and turn back
over to the book of Leviticus. All throughout the Old Testament,
and especially under the law that God gave to Moses. All throughout that economy,
there are things said and shown in type and picture that tell
us this is the way it is. Leviticus chapter 22 and verse
17. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying..." This isn't something Moses came up with. This is the
Word of the Lord. He said, "...speak unto Aaron
and to his sons..." These were those who were to be the priests
of God. "...and unto all the children
of Israel, and say unto them, whatsoever he be of the house
of Israel, or of the strangers in Israel, that will offer his
oblation for all his vows, and for all his freewill offerings,
which they will offer unto the Lord for a burnt offering." This
has to do with all the offerings. Ye shall offer at your own will
a male without blemish of the beefs, of the sheep, or of the
goats, but whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall you not offer, for
it shall not be acceptable for you." Don't you offer any animal. that is the cause of your flock,
or that has a blemish, a wound, a sore, a defect, a deformity,
don't you offer up in any of your offerings any such creatures. and whosoever offereth a sacrifice
of peace-offerings unto the Lord to accomplish his vow, or of
freewill offerings in beeves or sheep," what does it say? "...it shall be perfect to be
accepted. There shall be no blemish therein."
In every case, in every offering, in everything that was offered
up to God under that Old Testament, which shows us what God requires
in a sacrifice for sin, what He requires for an offering that
He will accept. Everything had to be perfect. And you better remember that.
God requires perfection. Everything that God accepts and
receives, it has to be perfect, it has to be holy, it has to
be without sin, it has to be without blemish. And if He will
not lower His standard, it is for one reason. If perfection,
Now, you think about this. If perfection received imperfection,
he would no longer be perfect. You say, well, it's not much. Well, if you take a gallon of
water and you take a medicine dropper and you drop one drop
of poison in it, can you say it's clear and clean and harmless
now? If perfection If God, who is
holy, were to receive or accept or take unto Himself anything
that was not holy, anything that was sinful, He would no longer
be holy, if He received anything that was not just. If he received
any work that was not right and perfect, he would at that moment
cease to be righteous himself, cease to be just himself. He would no longer be perfect. You remember what Christ said
concerning the Pharisees? He said, "...a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump." a little of their doctrine, a little of
what they trust in, which is simply nothing more than human
works and human merit, a little of that leaven, leaveneth the
whole lump. Then we say things like this,
well, I'll tell you what I believe. I believe that if you do your
best, God will accept you. You believe wrong. And that's
not my opinion. Because I am as prone by nature
as you are, and as any son of Adam is, I am as prone by nature,
number one, to want that to be the way it is, and number two,
to think that I'm doing the best I can. You see, we can't even
be honest with ourselves. I'm doing my best. You know you're
not. I'm not, if I'm honest. You see, our best is not anywhere
close to perfection. And this is what God requires,
and we're not dealing with horseshoes here where close counts. This
is it. Either perfection, or God won't
accept it. He says, "...by the deeds of
the law." That's what you and I do, even in obedience to a
command of God. "...by the deeds of law shall
no flesh be justified." No flesh? Not even papas, or not even my
little child? No flesh. Not only that, he says, not by
works of righteousness, which we have done, but by His mercy
He saves us. The writer of Hebrews says, for
the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very
image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they
offered year by year continually, can never make the comers thereunto
perfect. all that blood that was shed,
all those animals that were slain at the command of God. They never,
in any of them, ever did make perfect in God's sight, or ever
bring perfection to the conscience of any of those who offered the
sacrifices. What did they do? They showed,
first of all, what God requires. Job says, Behold, God will not
cast away a perfect man, but neither will He help the evildoers. That's just what the psalmist
says. So that's the second thing. God requires perfection before
He can accept it. All right, here's the third thing.
We are not anything close to perfect. As a matter of fact,
we are nothing but sin. Do you really believe what the
Scripture says about us? There is no need for us to believe
anything that the Scriptures tell us about anything if we
don't believe what it says about us. What does it say about us? It says that we are not perfect
in any part or any way. It says that all have sinned. Well, why is everybody sinning? Because we're all sinners. We
don't sin to become sinners. That's the whole notion, you
know, that we sin to become... No, we sin because we are sinners. I've got a little 20-month-old
granddaughter. I don't have to teach her to
do ugly. I don't have to teach her to
stomp her feet. I don't have to teach her to
say, no, she's on this week of no, everything yes to no. I didn't
have to teach her that. Why does she do it? Because she's
a sinner. Because our parents are sinners,
because their parents are sinners, like begets like. And we come
into this world, he says, speaking lies. We come estranged from
God in the womb. We come forth as those who are
by nature the children of wrath. Think about what he says in Scripture. at his best state." That's me
and you on our best days. On those days we think we've
really done the very best of persons. Man at his best state
is altogether vanity. Nothing. Nothing. Turn over to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. Here the apostle
Paul is led by the Spirit of God, simply to restate what God
has already stated in the Old Testament, when he says in Romans
chapter 3, beginning in verse 9, "...what then? Are we better
than they?" That is, Jew over Gentile, or Gentile over Jew? know in no wise, for we have
before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under
sin." Now, we're all divided in all kinds of divisions. We're
divided this country from that country, and everybody thinks
their country is better, and the region that they're from,
they think that's better than the other one, and the family
they're from, they think that's better than the other. But he
said, God's already concluded that we are all under sin. Verse 10, "...as it is written,
there is none righteous, no, not You know, it's the nature of
sin in us. It's the nature of Satan, the
deceiver, to us. To imagine ourselves on some
kind of little island here in humanity in which we are alone
on that island and everything that is said about everybody
else is true of them, but not really true of us. There is none
righteous, no, not one. There's not one person that will
ever enter into God's perfect heaven. There's never one person
who will be accepted by this perfect God in any degree and
in any way based on anything that they are or have done. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way, that is, the way of righteousness. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one." Not one? You mean? Oh, so-and-so, he's
a good man. No, not one. And I'll add this, especially
not me. Their throat is an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of asp is under their
lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is
no fear of God before their eyes." They don't reverence God. None
of us by nature fear God. Oh, he's a God-fearing... No,
he's not. Because if he did, he would flee
to Christ. We're nothing but sin. And just not only as those who
are out and out immoral, but those who are Only by the grace
of God more moral, but as Paul said, even as a believer, I know
that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. Nada. Unholy. with a carnal mind that is enmity
against God and abomination to God, so that everything we think
and do and touch of ourselves is nothing but sin. In Isaiah
1, he says, why should you be stricken anymore? you will revolt
more and more. The whole head is sick, the whole
heart faint, from the sole of the foot even unto the head there
is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores,
they've not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with
ointment from your head to your toe, inside out. Nothing but
one big putrefying sore of sin. But if none are perfect in themselves,
and if none can attain the perfection that God requires, what in the
world was Paul talking about when he wrote to the Colossians
and spoke of presenting every man before God perfect? How can he also say what he says
when he writes to the Corinthians? He says, how be it we speak wisdom
among them that are perfect? Well, somebody says, that's why
I don't believe the Bible, it contradicts itself. No, here's
the contradiction. It's in us. How could it ever
be said, now in light of just what we've read and what, if
you know anything about this book, you know it to be true,
how could it also be said of Noah and others such as this
in Genesis 6? He says, these are the generations
of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect
in his generations. Now, wait a minute. Wasn't Noah
that fellow that planted the vineyard and made the wine, and
he was found laid out in a naked, drunken stupor to his shame? And yet God has said of him that
he's perfect? Or maybe this man by the name
of Job says there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was
Job, and that man was perfect and upright. Job. And when the devil came to God
to try Job, and he's turned loose to test and to try Job, it says,
"...and the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant
Job? There is none like him in the
earth, a perfect and an upright man." How can that be? And maybe
that man by the name of Lot, you remember him, who went down
and lived in the land of Sodom. Sodom and Gomorrah, which God
destroyed with fire and brimstone, that he reigned out of heaven.
But before he did that, he took Lot out. And Peter describes
him as just Lot. Perfect Lot. Here's the fourth
thing. God. makes His people perfect
in Christ. They are not perfect in themselves,
not even close. They can do nothing to establish
that perfection or that righteousness that God requires. They are nothing
but sin. But God, in grace, according
to His own will, and purpose, and for his own glory makes his
people perfect in Christ." Now, he does not do this by process,
but by propitiation. He does not do this by law, but
by a divine act of love in Christ. Because Christ, whom the Bible
says knew no sin, who is harmless and undefiled and separate from
sinners, and who is the Lamb of God without blemish or without
spot, without sin, He has made sin for God's people. Now, God has a people. And when
you go back and you read Psalm 37, if you read Psalm 37, every
time you read about that righteous man, that just man, that good
man, they are the people of God who are such in Jesus Christ. who are made such by Jesus Christ,
who is the Lamb without spot and without blemish, and as such
is the one sacrifice for their sins." Hebrews 7, "...for the
law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope
did." You see, the law that was given only to show us on the
one hand the impossibility of our ever pleasing God or being
accepted by God based on what we do. That's what the law did. It's like that stop sign, I mean
that speed limit sign out there on the road, doesn't make you
go fast or slow, but it will tell you when you violate it. For the law made nothing perfect,
but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw
nigh unto God." Now, that book of Hebrews is a book that's been
described as the book of better things. Better covenant, better
priest, better sacrifice, better hope. Because it all has to do
with Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
10. I'm telling you, if the Lord
would be pleased to teach us what He means in this verse.
Hebrews 10 and verse 14. Now, this is talking about Christ,
and not just Christ in some kind of generic sense, you know. Everybody
believes on Jesus in our day. I ran into a preacher this week
that I hadn't seen in a long time, Of course, he had to tell me
all about himself and what he's doing and all that, and I just
listened. But he said, I preached here,
and I preached there, and I preached this place, all different denominations.
That's what he does in his retirement now. And I thought to myself,
which tells me you're not saying anything. Because if you were
saying anything, if you were making any distinctions concerning
the gospel and the God of the Bible, somebody wouldn't like
what you're saying. Oh, I'm just preaching here and
there. All right. Verse 14, four by
one offering. Do you see that? One offering. Not many offerings. One offering. What was that offering? That
was when Christ offered Himself up to God. When He made Himself
one offering for sin forever. Not what you offer Him, it's
not what's offered to you, it's what He offered to God. What
did He offer to God? Himself. His Holy Self. For by one offering. When was
that? About 2,000 years ago. For by
one offering. That means all of this is outside
of us. You see that? For by one offering,
He hath perfected. Perfected. I'm not too smart,
but I'm sure of this. You can't add anything to perfection. You just go tell your wife, You're
the perfection of beauty. But maybe a few Botox injections
or a lift or... No, not if you're perfect. For by one offering, He, that's
what He did, hath perfected. Something that Christ did outside
of us 2,000 years ago, perfected all His people. For by one offering
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Do you
know what that word means? It means those that God set apart
unto Himself. Those that He chose in that everlasting
covenant. those that Christ came into this
world, and who, when He died, they were set apart in Him, and
they died in Him to see Him. For He, by one offering, hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. I love what old Dr. Gill said. He said, Christ, by
His sacrifice, has perfected and has perfectly fulfilled the
law for them. He has perfectly expiated their
sins. He has obtained the full pardon
of all their sins and complete redemption. He has perfectly
justified them from all things and that forever. which shows
the continued virtue of Christ's sacrifice in all generations
to all the elect of God, and the fullness and duration of
their salvation. And so Christ, by His one sacrifice,
did what the law and all the sacrifices could not do." You
see, God's people are made. And their perfection comes through
a grace union, you might call it, with the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because when He hung on
that cross and stood there before God's perfect justice and laid
down His life, which was the price of our sin, when He paid
that debt, He cried out, if you remember, It is finished. And those three words, though
translated in that way, are in the Greek one word. And another
translation of that one word is perfect. He cried out, perfect,
finished. He hath by that one offering
perfected forever them that are sanctified." He had prayed in
that. High priestly prayer in John
17 concerning them. "'I in them, Father, and Thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the
world may know that Thou hast sent me and hast loved them as
Thou hast loved me.'" Hebrews describes them as the spirits
of just men made perfect. Perfection came. through Christ's
removal of their sins forever. It came through His burying them
in His own body on the tree. It came by God's making us the
very righteousness of God in Christ, by the imputation of
the divine righteousness to them because of Christ. They are accounted
as such, and that is the good news. I'm not perfect in myself. I'm not ever going to be in this
world. I've never been able to even inch toward the goal of
perfection in my life. It seems like really I'm regressing. I'm going backwards. The more
I find out about who God is, the more I find out about what
sin is, The more I find out about myself, my motives, my... It seems like I'm going the other
way. But when God sees me, He only
sees me in Christ. He only sees me as one who was
made the righteousness of God in Christ. Not by a process,
not in anything progressive, but just like that thief that
hung on the cross. Well, you better get your life
straightened out. Well, you better stop doing this,
or you better find out about this." No. Today, you will be
with me in paradise. How could a thief, in an instant,
justly condemned, even outwardly as a person living in civilization,
how could he go into God's perfect presence that day. Because His
perfection lay in another, the one hanging on that middle cross.
He was at that very moment perfecting Him forever by His one offering. Here's the last thing, the fifth
thing. All who are in Christ are perfect
in God's sight. You say, well, they'll be when
they get there. No. No. Right now, they're all perfect
in His sight. Turn over to Ezekiel chapter
16. Ezekiel 16. This is the whole of it. This
is not only a description in this chapter of men and women
as sinners. They're described here like this
infant cast out in a field. He said, you are polluted in
your own blood. But now listen in verse 8. But when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love. and I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest
mine. Then washed I thee with water,
yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and shod thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about
with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk." All of this
symbolic language of what God does for His people in Christ. And I decked thee also with ornaments,
and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. I put a jewel on thy forehead,
and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine
head. Thus wast thou decked with gold
and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk and embroidered
work. Thou didst eat fine flour and
honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful." This is
the Bride of Christ. This is the Redeemed. This is
the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is those who are
truly believers, who forsake their own imagined righteousness
and look only to Christ as their hope. Thou wast exceeding beautiful,
and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty. For it was perfect, it was perfect
through my comeliness, which I have put on thee, saith the
Lord God." The only way that sinners such as we are could
ever be perfect Beautiful in the sight of God, accepted by
God, is through that righteousness which He imputes to us in Jesus
Christ. Through His beauty, which He
puts on us. I love what the bridegroom says
to the bride in the Song of Solomon. He says, Thou art all fair, my
love, There is no spot in thee. No spot. Say, well, preacher,
I see a lot of spots and blemishes in you. God doesn't. John says,
herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in
the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. You know that He was manifested
to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin. Are we in Him? The psalmist said, Mark, the
perfect man. Behold the upright, or the righteous,
those made righteous in Christ. For the end, the future, the
goal of that man is peace. In another place he says, say
ye to the righteous, and none are ever righteous except in
Christ. Say ye to the righteous that
it shall be well with him." You see, only perfect people go to
heaven. That word perfect there in Psalm
37 also can mean complete. In Colossians 2, Paul says to
believers, "...and ye are complete in him." It must be perfect to be accepted. And so, when Paul writes to the
church at Ephesus in chapter 1, verse 6, he says that they
are by His grace, to the praise of the glory of His grace, in
which He did make us accepted in the Beloved. Throughout this
world, men and women are told what to do. They're instructed
in life, living. They're even led to believe that
by what they do, God will in some way favor that. But the
only perfection there is, which is what we don't have, which
is what God requires, He gives us in Christ. And if we don't
have Him, we're the vilest, corruptest, most unacceptable, We're now
in eternity in the sight of God. But in Him, we're perfect if
we be in Him. Cast off all other hope. That's
why Paul in Philippians, he said, I don't want to be found in having
my own righteousness, trying to establish it under some principle
of my obedience. I want to be found in Christ,
having His righteousness, His perfection. If you have His,
your end will be peace. Our Father, this day we give
You praise and thanksgiving. We give You the glory, the honor,
for Your gift of grace in the Lord Jesus. We pray that you
would bring each one from a trusting in our own righteousness, which,
as you said, are as filthy rags, that we might believe that gospel
wherein your righteousness is revealed and be enabled to trust
Christ and only Him, to plead Christ crucified as all our hope. May it be so this day in every
heart, in this place, for your glory. For we ask it in Christ's
name. Amen.