Which turn back to Genesis 18
while you're turning there. Gabe Stoniker is going to preach
for us tonight. He's preaching in Danville this
morning and I've asked him to come by and preach to us this
evening. Looking forward to that. I've entitled this message. The righteous and the wicked. the righteous and the wicked. Look in verse 20 of Genesis chapter
18. And the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and
Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very
grievous, I will go down now and see whether
they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is coming
to me. And if not, I will know.' And
the men turned their faces from them and went toward Sodom, but
Abraham stood yet before the Lord." Now look back in Genesis
13. This is when we're first introduced
to Sodom. Verse 12 of Genesis 13, and Abram
dwelled in the land of Canaan and Lot dwelled in the cities
of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom. We're going to read a lot about
Lot in the next several chapters. And I love the way God the Holy
Spirit has selected this man to teach us his gospel. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom,
but the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners exceedingly before
the Lord. Now, even today, Sodom is associated
with extreme sexual immorality. That's what we think of when
we think of Sodom. And before we get on our high
horse with regard to these people, the Lord said to the people of
Capernaum, the people who rejected Him, it will be more tolerable
for Sodom on the Day of Judgment. been for you. That's something
to think about. These horrible people in Sodom
will have it better on Judgment Day than those people who fail
to believe the gospel. So important. Now, in Genesis 18, The Lord had appeared to Abraham
and told him of the birth of Isaac at the first part of the
chapter, and then beginning in verse 16 of Genesis 18, and the
men rose up from thence and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went
with them to bring them on the way. And the Lord said, Shall
I hide from Abram that thing which I do? He was intending
on destroying Sodom. And he said, Am I going to keep
that back from Abraham? seeing that Abraham shall surely become
a great mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall
be blessed in him, for I know him, that he will command his
children and his household after him, and they shall keep the
way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may
bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Now,
remember, this is not his physical children he's talking about.
It's his spiritual children. If you would talk about his physical
children, they could not be described like this, to keep the way of
the Lord and to do justice and judgment, but all of his spiritual
children do. Now let's go on reading. Verse
20, this is the Lord speaking to Abraham. And the Lord said,
because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, And because
their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they've
done all together according to the cry of it, which is coming
to me. And if not, I'll know. And the
men, these two angels, turned their faces from thence and went
toward Sodom. But Abraham stood before the
Lord. Now this is when the Lord is
going to tell Abraham that he's going to destroy Sodom. Now there's
somebody that lived in Sodom that Abraham loved dearly. That
was Lot. And the Lord didn't say anything
about sparing Lot. He just spoke of destroying Sodom. And this is when Abraham enters
this dialogue with the Lord that is so unusual and so amazing. But let's read together, verse
23. And Abraham drew near, and said, will thou also destroy
the righteous with the wicked? Are you going to treat them the
same? Peradventure, there be 50 righteous within the city.
Will thou also destroy and not spare the place for the 50 righteous
that are therein? That be far from thee to do after
this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked. and that the
righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee shall not
the judge of the earth do right. Now, every one of us and everybody
outside of us knows this when they're born or when they have
enough understanding to think about it, God is the judge of
the earth. And he is going to reward the
righteous and punish the wicked. And that is known intuitively
by everyone born into this world. They know God is the just judge
of the earth and that he will reward the righteous. and he
will punish the wicked. Now, Abraham at this time appears
to be negotiating with God. We know God doesn't negotiate
with sinners, but that's still the way it appears when he starts
saying, what if there's 50? What if there's 40? What if there's
30? What if there's 20? What if there is 10? Now, God's
answer When he says, what if there's 50 righteous, verse 26,
and the Lord said, if I find in Sodom 50 righteous within
the city, then I'll spare all the place for their sakes. Now it's estimated, I've read
everything I can on it to find out some idea of how big that
place was. And it's estimated that in Sodom and the cities
and that plain, there were probably around 500,000 people. Lexington's what, 340, 350, so
it was larger than Lexington. But he said, if I can find 50
righteous people in that city, I will spare it. Verse 27, and Abraham answered
and said, behold, Now I've taken upon me to speak unto the Lord,
which am but dust and ashes. That's how Abraham saw himself
in God's presence. What's more worthless than dust
and ashes? Can't sell it, can you? It's
worthless. And that's how Abraham viewed
himself before the living God. And he said, behold, I've now
taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.
And then he goes on with what seems to be negotiating. Peradventure,
there shall lack five of the 50 righteous. Will thou also
destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, if I find
there 45, I'll not destroy it. And he spake unto him again and
said, peradventure, there shall be 40 found there. And he said,
I'll not do it for 40's sake. And he said unto him, oh, let
not the Lord be angry, and I'll speak. Peradventure, there shall
be 30 found there. And he said, I'll not do it if
I find 30 there. And he said, behold, now I've taken upon me
to speak unto the Lord, per venture there shall be 20 found there. And he said, I'll not destroy
it for 20 sake. Now remember, he wants a lot
to be delivered. That's his chief motive in this.
Maybe he is just being merciful toward the whole city, I hope
he is, or in his attitude, wanting them to be spared. But his chief
concern was Lot, and he thought, if I can just get it whittled
down more to where surely there'll be this much, so let's go and
read him. And he said, oh, let not the
Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but once. Peradventure 10
shall be found there. And he said, I'll not destroy
it for Tim's sake. And I would think that Abraham thought, surely,
lot's delivered. You know that there has to be
at least 10 righteous men in that city. Now, I was thinking
of that population, 500,000, 10 people, that'd be like if
we could find seven righteous people in Lexington. Seven righteous
people. God says, I'll spare Lexington
if I can find seven righteous people. That gives us some idea
of the ratio at this time. I mean, I was in the world. If
you took the population of the planet, seven or eight billion,
it'd be somewhere around 160,000 people according to that ratio. And I know you can't make that
fast, but he said with regard to this place of 500,000 people. If I can find 10 righteous people,
I will spare it. Now look back in verse 25. Abraham
says, verse 25, that be far from thee to do after this manner,
to slay the righteous with the wicked, that the righteous should
be as the wicked, that be far from thee. Shall not the judge
of all the earth do right? Now, let me say this. It's not
like God has a law over him that he has to live up to. He's God. Whatever he does is right. And he does not do it because
it's right. It's right because he does it. He is the God of glory. Now we read of the judge of the
earth. That's who he is. He's the judge
of all the earth. He's your judge. He's my judge. And then we read of two classes
of people, the righteous and the wicked. Now let's talk about
the judge of the earth first. The judge of the earth shall
do right. I'm so thankful for that. Whatever
he does is right. He is the judge of all the earth
and he is the God of absolute impartial justice. That's who God is. He's not like
me and you. He's not a respecter of persons.
We treat people, we shouldn't, but we do. We're respecters of
persons. The way somebody is, we're gonna give people different
standards of judgment and so on, and it's corrupt because
of us, but God's not like that. God is no respecter of persons. He judges everyone by the exact
same perfect standard, His holy law. law. And understand this,
he doesn't grade on the curve. I'm brought before that perfect
holy law and that's what I'm judged according. I love the
10 commandments, don't you? I shall have no other God before
me. What crime it is to put something before God. And then the commandment
against idolatry, false images of God, bringing them down to
our standards. And then the commandment regarding
to taking his name in vain. His name is so holy that to take
his name in vain without using the proper reverence is a crime
punishable by eternal death. That's how holy he is. I think
of the commandment of the Sabbath. I'm always amused when you go
down the road and you see the Ten Commandments written up on
the highway, and one of them is, you know, remember the Sabbath
and keep it holy. And I thought, does anybody understand
what that means? If you break the Sabbath, you
are to be stoned. You are to be stoned. And the Sabbath lets
us know that that's a ceremonial law within the moral law that
tells us that you can't separate the whole law of God. It's all
there judging us. And then the commandment regarding
honoring your mother and father, respecting authority. Thou shalt
not kill men's bodies, men's characters. Thou shalt not commit
adultery. All sexual sin is forbidden.
Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not lie. You'll tell
the truth. Thou shalt not steal. You're
not to take from others what doesn't belong to you. You're
not to take to yourself what doesn't belong to you in any
way. That's a lot more than shoplifting. Thou shalt not covet. You'll
be perfectly content with God. Be perfectly content with Christ. Thou shalt not covet. Everybody
is judged by that holy law. And James 2.10 says that if we
break one commandment one time, we break all the commandments
all the time. You know, I love the fact that
the Lord tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And the second is like unto it,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. That's a summary
of the whole law. And you know what that lets me
know? that nonstop I am continually guilty of breaking the greatest
commandment, nonstop. That is the God of glory shall
not the judge of all the earth do right. Now it's almost, I
don't know if humorous is the right word to use, but to think
of a sinful man sitting in judgment on God. It's amazing, isn't it? I've been guilty of it. You've
been guilty of it. Why'd God do that? How could
He let that happen? If God is holy, if God is just,
how can this take place? How can that take place? As if
we can stand in judgment of the living God, and I don't agree
with that. I think Paul put it so succinctly
in Romans 9 when he said, Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will
have mercy, whom he will he hardens? Thou wilt say unto me, Paul anticipated
man's objection, Thou wilt say unto me, Why did he yet find
fault? If he hardens whom he will, and
if he has mercy on whom he will, how can he hold me responsible?
How can he find fault with me? That's unjust. That's wrong.
Who has resisted his will? I love Paul's answer, nay, but
old man, who are you to reply against God? God is the judge
of all the earth and me and you do not have any business trying
to sit in judgment on him. Justice is one of his glorious
attributes. I love who God is, don't you? He's eternal. He never had a
beginning. He's all powerful. He doesn't
lack the power to do anything. His glorious will determines
to do. He's absolutely sovereign. He's
immutable. He can't change. He's independent. He has no needs. He's absolutely
impartially just. Justice and judgment are the
habitation of thy throne. Isn't that glorious? Just judge. You know, criminals
don't fear an unjust judge, do they? They can be bought. You can buy your way out of it.
You got enough money, you can figure out a way to get out of
it. I'll tell you who criminals fear, an absolutely impartially
just judge. And Abraham says, shall not the
judge. of all the earth do right. Yes, he shall. He's God. Now, we also read of two manner
of people in verse 25, Genesis 18, verse 25. Abraham says, that'd
be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous
with the wicked, that the righteous should be as the wicked. That
be far from thee, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Now, here we have the two types
of people that God judges. And understand this, there are
only two types of people in this world. There's no intermediate
group. There's no in between. Here's
the two groups. the righteous, and the wicked. And when God looks at me right
now, and when God looks at you right now, and he's looking.
Don't think he's not. He's looking. You can't go anywhere
where he's not. He's omniscient. He knows all
things. He's omnipresent. He's everywhere
at once. He's always looking. The Lord
looked down from heaven. He's always looking down from
heaven. And the Lord sees me as either righteous or wicked. Righteous means when God sees
me, he sees someone who has kept his holy law perfectly. And that's what righteousness
is. You ask a man what he thinks
righteousness is, he'll come up with all kinds of things.
He'll usually figure out something he doesn't do, and that's what
makes me righteous. I'm not like this, I'm not like
that, but that's not righteousness. Righteousness is perfection before
God's holy law. If you're righteous, that means
you have no sin. what's wicked, anything contrary
to that. Righteous and wicked. There was righteous Abel and
wicked Cain. It is that simple. There are
saints and there are sinners. There are the saved and there
is the lost. There are Jacob's, there are
Esau's, the righteous and the wicked. Now, maybe you've already
heard this, but perhaps you've never heard this before, but
listen to this statement real carefully. I make this fairly
frequently. I like this statement. All of the wicked believe themselves
to be righteous, or at least have the potential to be righteous. All, without any exceptions to
this rule, all of the righteous believe themselves to be wicked,
and they do not have the potential in and of themselves to be anything
else. The great example of this is
the Pharisee and the publican. Remember, it's always two. The
Pharisee, the wicked, believed himself to be righteous. God,
I thank thee that I'm not as other men are. You see, his standard
was not God's standard. He could look at somebody else
and say, well, at least I'm not like that. I'm certainly not like
this publican. And then we have this publican,
this self-professed wicked man, God be merciful to me, the sinner,
the worst man to ever live, the guiltiest man to ever live, someone
who is nothing but sin. And you know what the Lord said
with regard to that man? I say to you, that man went down
to his house justified without guilt without
sin. Now I'm interested in this, aren't
you? How is it that somebody like
that publican, you know, my, uh, while I'm talking
about this, I have a, you know, it seems like that's all you
preach on. I guess it is. And you know what? I don't apologize
for it. This is the gospel. How can a
sinful man be just and holy before the holy law of God? How can
that publican be righteous before God? How can a sinner be righteous
How can the guilty be not guilty? How can God say to Noah when
Noah was a wicked man in and of himself? Read his history. How could God, the holy God,
the just God, the God that is of two pure eyes to behold iniquity,
the altogether righteous one, how could God say to Noah, thee
have I seen? as righteous before me. This is not something that can
be understood, but it is something that must be believed. First
of all, any sinner that's righteous is righteous. of their eternal
union with Jesus Christ. Has Christ always been righteous
before the Father? Well when He was made sin He
wasn't. I don't understand that. But
when He was made sin He wasn't. But that perfect righteousness
that He's always been is given to the believer. And the believer
is righteous because of their eternal union with Jesus Christ. Thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness. Every believer is eternally united
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody says, explain what all
that means. There's no way I could do that. I just believe it. I
know the Lord gave us the example of the vine and the branches.
The same stem that goes through the vine goes through the branches,
and there's no connecting point. Every believer is eternally united
to Jesus Christ. Now how that is, I don't know.
It's so mysterious, it's so glorious. But the Lord said, the two shall
be one flesh, not closely united, but one. This is a great mystery,
but I speak concerning Christ and the church. How can I be
righteous? Because Jesus Christ is righteous
and I'm united to him eternally. That's what we confess in baptism,
union with Christ. Now, How can a sinner be righteous? Well, by union. And a sinner
can be righteous because God imputes righteousness to that
sinner. God can do that. I can't do it.
If you're guilty, I can't say, well, I'm gonna impute righteousness.
You can't do it. God can. Turn with me to Romans chapter
four. Verse six, even as David also
describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works. Saying, blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. And the only hope that me and
you have is this, everything you think about yourself, sinful,
you don't have a millionth of it. And that's not an exaggeration. Somebody once came up to me,
I remember, and they knew I was a preacher, so they wanted to
talk to me about some of the problems. They said, I feel bad about myself,
some of the things I've done. And I said, it's a whole lot
worse than you think. A whole lot worse. And anything
you think about yourself, it's worse. You believe that? It's worse. You haven't hit the
tip of the iceberg. Here's your hope. While everything
you think about yourself is true, God does not impute it to you. He took the righteousness of
His Son because His Son took your sin. He was made sin. And all the horror of that is
when he was cut off by God on Calvary's tree, he was made sin
that you might be made the very righteousness of God in him. God took the righteousness of
his son and gave it to you. And he did not impute your sin
to you. Aren't you thankful for that?
I don't wanna, I remember one time, Christians are people who
don't wanna take personal responsibility. Amen. Amen. I want the Lord to
take my place. But here's the glory of the gospel. I'm not just somebody not taking
responsibility for my sin. I'm somebody who doesn't have
any sin to be responsible for. I have the righteousness of Jesus
Christ as my personal righteousness before God. That's how there's
such a thing as a righteous person. Righteous by union, righteous
by God not charging you with your sin and giving you the very
righteousness of his son. How can a sinner be righteous?
We read in Romans 5, 17 of the gift of righteousness. If you have righteousness, you
know why you have it? God gave it to you. It's not something you performed.
It's not something you achieved. God gave it to you. Oh, the gift, the free gift of
righteousness. I love what the Lord said to
that woman. If you knew the gift of God and who it was that saith
to you, give me to drink, you would have asked. And he would
have given. Now I know this, if he gives
me the gift of his righteousness, I'm going to be asking for it.
Oh Lord, give me this gift of righteousness. The scripture says, every believer
is born again, doesn't it? Born from above, except a man
be born again. He cannot enter the kingdom of
heaven. Born of the Spirit. Now let me
ask you a question. Can the Spirit give birth to
anything short of perfect righteousness? No. If you're born of the Spirit,
you're given a righteous nature. You're given a holy nature, a
nature that does not commit sin. Now, once again, this is something
that can only be grasped by faith. God said it though, didn't he?
He that is born of God doth not commit sin. Well, I believe that. That which is born of God doth
not commit sin. Righteous by Nature, and then
you're in Romans chapter four, look in verse five. But to him
that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. You work not, you see works won't
work for you. If salvation is dependent upon
your works, it's over for you. You work not, but you believe
on him that justifies the ungodly. You really believe that what
Christ did actually justified everybody he died for. And they're
described as ungodly. Who'd Christ died for? The ungodly.
The ungodly. To him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness. That's the evidence that you're
righteous. You look to him only that justifies
the ungodly. Now I'd like to close by looking
at a passage in Isaiah chapter three. Isaiah the third chapter. Verse eight, for Jerusalem is ruined and Judah
is fallen because their tongue and their doings are against
the Lord to provoke the eyes of his glory. The show of their
countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their
sin as Sodom. They hide it not. Woe unto their
soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Now, verses
10 and 11, this is what I want to close by thinking of. God says to Isaiah, say ye to
the righteous, It shall be well with him, for
they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked. It shall be ill with him, for
the reward of his hand shall be given him. Now, let's think
of the simplicity of this statement. Say to the righteous, It'll be well for you. With regard to your sin, you
don't have any. You don't have any sin to be
condemned for. Christ put it away. You stand before God right
now, however you feel, you stand before God right now without
guilt. with regard to everything in
God's providence, it's gonna be well for you. Doesn't matter
what you're going through, it's well for you. You see Romans
8, 28 says all things. Now everything's included under
that. You can't leave out anything. All things work together for
good. to them that love God, to them
who are thee called according to his purpose. That's gonna
go well for you because you don't have any sin, you're righteous.
It's gonna go well for you in providence because everything
is working together for your good. Doesn't matter what it
is, it's all good. It's all good. And it's gonna
go well for you on judgment. You're gonna hear Christ himself
say to you, well done. Thou good and faithful servant,
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. And look at this last phrase
in verse 10. They shall eat the fruit of their
doings. This tells us the reality of justification. All my doings
are good. All the stuff that I think about,
I think I'd never, I wish I'd never done that. I wish I'd never
thought that. I wish I'd never said that. That's all gone. That's all gone. I'm eating the fruit of my doings,
a perfect life of perfect obedience before God. That's what justification
is. You're gonna eat the fruit of
your doings, and it's all good. Say ye to the righteous, it will
be well with them. It's all good. But he says, woe
unto the wicked. And if God says woe, woe unto the wicked. The opposite
is true with regard to everybody outside of Christ. You're still
in your sins. They're still with you. You can't
put them away. And everything is working together
for your destruction. No matter how good it may seem,
your life, oh, things are great. Well, you'll just be fighting
for the day of slaughter. All things are working for your
destruction. Nothing's good. Everything you
do is going to add to your condemnation. Your good works, your bad works,
all they do is add to your woe. And it will be ill for you on
the day of judgment. You're going to hear those awful
words, depart from me. Ye that work iniquity, I never
knew you. Now this is the judge of all
the earth. He shall do right. And there
are two kinds of people in this world. And I'm in one of these
two groups, the righteous and the wicked. Say to the righteous,
it's all good. Say to the wicked, there's nothing
good for you. The door of mercy, the door of
righteousness, is wide open for anyone who needs it. If somebody says, well, I'm wicked,
it's over for me. Listen, if you're wicked, the
door of mercy is wide open for you, and God's gonna save you. As a matter of fact, if you really
believe you're nothing but wickedness, God's already saved you. He's
made you to see that you're nothing and Christ is everything. So
don't anybody listen to this and say, well, that means there's
no hope for me. There's hope for anybody who's wicked, and
there's not hope for anybody who thinks they're righteous.
No hope at all. The only thing that'll keep you
from Christ is not your wickedness, it's your righteousness. That's
it. May God enable each one of us
to believe on Christ for righteousness. Let's pray together. Lord, we confess that you are the judge
of the earth. And we know that whatever you
do is right because you do it. And we bow before who you are. And Lord, we ask in Christ's
name that we might have the righteousness of your son, being eternally
united to him, where you impute his righteousness to us Lord, we ask that we might be
made righteous by your gift, giving it to us. Lord, give us
your free gift. We ask that we might be born
of your spirit, made righteous. We ask that we might be enabled
by your grace to work not. but to believe on him that justifies
the ungodly. Oh, that we might be righteous
before you through thy glorious gospel. Lord, don't leave us
to ourselves, don't leave us to our own understanding, don't
leave us to our sinful thoughts, our sinful everything about us,
but may we be found in Christ. Bless this message for Christ's
sake, in his name we pray, amen.