Turn with me in your Bibles if
you would like to follow along in Hebrews chapter seven. Hebrews chapter seven. Now we have seen our Melchizedek
described very clearly, and we declared him as clear as we could
last Sunday, so I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on the meeting
of Melchizedek, who he is. I've already answered those questions.
I hope to recap just a little bit by telling you he's the Lord
Jesus Christ. We saw that so clearly, didn't we? And here
in our text, I mentioned these words and elaborated a little
bit, but the Lord's given me a message on the first three
verses here, because it says that he is the king of righteousness
and the king of peace. You can't have peace without
having righteousness before God. It's impossible. You can't have
peace without having righteousness before God. And our Melchizedek
is the king of righteousness first, and then the king of peace
second. So let's read these first three
verses. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the
most high God who met Abraham returning from the slaughter
of the kings and blessed him to whom also Abraham gave a 10th
part of all first by first being by interpretation king of righteousness
and after that also King of Salem, which is King of Peace. Without
father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning
of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God,
abideth a priest continually. Here is our Melchizedek, our
priest, the priest of the Most High God, the King of Righteousness
and the King of Peace. We mentioned last Sunday quite
a bit about the meeting that took place with Abraham, the
slaughter of the kings, how it came to be, who he was. But this
hour, I wanna look at who we are. I hope the Lord will cause
us to see who we are and who he is as the king of righteousness
and the king of peace. I would like to see what he's
accomplished as the king of righteousness and the king of peace. Do you
know you and I can't do anything to merit righteousness? You and
I can't do anything to attain righteousness in and of ourself. And that's something that is
easily spoken, and we can say, I understand that, but all false
religion is based upon trying to obtain a righteousness before
God. All false religion, without exception,
is based on trying to attain a righteousness before God, and
you and I can't attain righteousness before God. We need the king
of righteousness to bestow righteousness freely by his grace, thereby
giving us peace as well. All false religion has the belief
that they have some righteousness, some self-righteousness. Do you
remember the Pharisee? that was in the temple praying.
He said he prayed within himself, Lord, I thank thee that I'm not
as other men are. Thank thee that I'm not as other
men are. Thank thee that I tithe and that I fast. And I thank
you that I'm not like this publican. And the publican wouldn't even
lift up his head into the ceiling. He wouldn't look up, he wouldn't
lift up his eyes, but beat upon his breast and said, Lord, have
mercy on me, the sinner. He said, one of these men went
home justified. One went home justified, and
the other didn't. Which one went home justified?
The sinner. The sinner. See, the Pharisee
believed he had a righteousness because he was not like that
other man. I'm not like you, so that tells me I'm righteous.
I can examine and see that I'm not as bad as you are. I don't
sin the way that you sin. I do these good things. On the
day of judgment, brethren, when a man or a woman stands before
God and says, I've done all these wonderful things in your name,
I've cast out demons. I've done all these works, all
these, all this missionary work, all these humanitarian efforts. I've went to church ever since
I was a boy. I went to a lot of church before
the Lord saved me. Didn't you? I went to a lot of
church. I didn't come to Christ, but
I came to church. I've done all this in your name. And the Lord's
going to say, depart from me, you that work iniquity. It's
not righteousness that you have earned or merited. It's iniquity. And God hates the workers of
iniquity. He hates the workers of iniquity.
If you want to know if you believe God's gospel, ask yourself, does
your righteousness come from something that you have done?
Does your righteousness come from something you have done
or something you haven't done? Does your righteousness come
from something you have done or something you haven't done?
Somebody said, well, I believed on the Lord. Well, he did that.
You didn't do that. He enabled you to believe. What I'm asking, brethren, and
this is a simple message this morning, I'm asking this, are
you the king of your own righteousness, or is the Lord Jesus Christ king
of your righteousness? They can't be both. See, if there's
one little thing, and some men will get hung up, some women
will get hung up on just one little thing that they believe
that they hold on to, I'll do this, or I'll do that, or I've
done this, or I've done that, and that is the righteousness.
You can have the 99% gospel preached, but it's not the gospel unless
it's 100%. You can believe 99% of the way,
but no, we have to believe the Lord completely, don't we? How do we know that it can't
be both the Lord's righteousness and ours because of what we do? Well, he tells us in Isaiah chapter
42, I am the Lord, That is my name, I like that. I am the Lord,
that is my name. In my glory will I not give another.
This is a matter of life and death. God's not gonna share
his glory. There's only one that's righteous. There's only one that's
good and it's the Lord Jesus Christ. There's only one who
obeyed every way the Father and did all the wishes, all the covenant,
all the promises fulfilled. Do you believe whenever, and
it matters, it doesn't change the truth whether you believe
the truth or not, but it does matter whether you believe the
truth or not. If you don't believe the truth, you're not a believer.
Do you believe when you stand before the Lord that if you tried
your best, the Lord's gonna say, well, you gave it your best effort,
I'm proud of you. No, no, be not deceived, God
is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
No, it takes, without faith, it's impossible to please God.
They that are in the flesh cannot please God. You're saying there's
nothing I can do to earn righteousness. Yes, nothing. But oh, the Lord
Jesus Christ, he's the king of righteousness. He earned it.
He merited it. And that's where our righteousness
is found, isn't it? Or we have none. You're looking to your best efforts
or do you see that your righteousness is filthy rags and you need a
substitute? Oh, I need a surety. One that
stood before the father that he's pleased with on my behalf.
One that, an advocate. I like that word advocate. We
have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
He's called the righteous, isn't he? Are you the king of your
destiny? Boy, people talk about Controlling
your destiny. I'm glad I'm not in control.
Aren't you when the Lord really reveals that to you? There's
there's peace in that if you're his it's there's peace in that
you're not in control of your destiny God is Thank you, Lord. I would derail it the first chance
I got I would I would Run my right into a ditch, you know,
you know what I'm talking about. I But, oh, you're not driving
the boat. Matter of fact, there's not even
a steering wheel on the boat. It's just floating wherever the
Lord has purposed it to float according to the waves and the
wind. Wind bloweth where it listeth. That's what he tells us. We're
in the ark, aren't we? And the ark doesn't have a steering
wheel. We're not controlling anything. God does. Have you
submitted to the king of kings? Have you surrendered to the king
of kings? The captain? The captain? Now men will say
do. The law says do, doesn't it?
The law says do. Pharisees, the modern day Pharisees,
religious will tell you do better. Do and then do better. Keep doing
until you get better. The issue is not a morality problem. The issue is, is the sin that
we are. That's the heart of the problem.
And there's only one cure for that sin. There's only one cure
and it's the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not in us
to cure ourself. These religionists are preaching,
treating the symptom. They're just treating symptoms.
That can't work. We need a cure from the sin. That cure is the blood of Christ.
We're not treating the symptoms. If you put somebody under the
law, all that you'll create is a rebel or a Pharisee. You tell
some men to do, some of them will try their best, they'll
be there every Sunday, they'll wear the clothes they're told
they're supposed to, they'll talk a certain way, they'll walk
a certain way, they'll act a certain way, and they'll believe that
it's their righteousness. Then on the other hand, you'll
have the rebels. I say, no, I will not do that. And they'll kick,
and you're not going to tell me what to do. That's the only
two things that the law can produce. That's it. I've been both in
my life. I've been a Pharisee, and I've
been a rebel. And truth be told, we're all
rebels still by nature, aren't we? Well, we're rebels. As soon
as you start telling somebody what to do, we say, you're not
gonna tell me what to do. That's just the rebel in us.
That's how it pops out, isn't it? Neither a rebel nor a Pharisee,
being either one, will bring about righteousness. No righteousness
is found in Christ. Thanks be to God, the Lord does
not say do, does he? No, he doesn't. He doesn't say
do. He doesn't say, I'm waiting on
you to do something. He doesn't say that. He's not begging men to try to
do their part. You know what the king of righteousness
and the king of peace says? It is finished. Peace be still. That's what he says. Come unto
me, all you that are labored and are heavy laden, and I'll
give you rest. I'll get, there's no work to
be done. I'll give you rest. I like, he says, take my yoke
upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart.
And you shall find rest to your soul for my yoke is easy and
my burden is light. And as I was pondering that I
might've said this year before already, but how can the yoke
be easy? Well, there's no work to be done.
The work's all finished. He's seated. So being yoked to
him, you think of two ox and they would put the young one
with the old one and the young one would have to follow the older one
who's bigger and stronger and whatever else. And he led him
a certain way. And that's the point is the Lord's
leading us, but we're not working. We're just being led by him,
kept by him. We're yoked up with him. How can it be that we have rest?
The law demands death for the sin that I bear in my body right
now. The law demands death for the sin that you bear in your
body right now. How can we come to the Prince
of Peace, the King of Peace? How can we come into the presence
of the King of Righteousness? Because He, the King of Righteousness
and Peace, by Himself put away those sins. He by Himself purged
our sin. He by Himself did all the work
for His people, all the work. He made his chosen people, he
made his beloved, he made his elect the very righteousness
of God in him. He made peace for his people.
Can you think about this, the glorious thought of actually
having peace with God? actually having peace with God.
If you are in Christ, you have peace with God. That means no
wrath will ever come to you. No hate will ever come to you
from God. Nothing negative. It's all positive. You have peace with God. It doesn't
matter what you face. It's all for your good and His
glory. It's what He promised. When he
by himself purged our sin by his own blood, when he poured
out his soul in the darkness, he made peace on our behalf,
as our surety, as our substitute. When he drank the bitter dregs
of damnation, he made peace with God so that you and I would never
have to taste death. You and I would never have to
go to hell. He went to hell for his people
on the cross, endured the wrath due us. You can't have peace by what
you do before God. You don't have a righteousness,
but he does. But he does come to him. Come to Christ, the king of righteousness,
and you will have peace with God. Matter of fact, doing is what
got us in the mess that we're in to begin with, isn't it? In
the garden. In the garden, doing is what got them in the mess.
And then they said, well, we'll do more to fix it. And then they
covered up themselves with fig leaves. And that was a representation
of works. That's a representation of trying
to have self-righteousness. That's a representation of devaluing
the atonement of Christ. That's what that is. That's what
men do. And the more that we do to try to fix it, Worse and
worse we get. No, Lord, you're gonna have to
fix it. You're gonna have to fix it. He said, fear not. I've
put away your sin. You shall not die. I fixed it.
I fixed it. I've made you righteous. Not
by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to
his mercy. He made us righteous. Outside of Christ, there is no
peace with God. Outside of the ark, there is
no hope. We are born utterly sinful. We're born utterly sinful. Without
righteousness, without the ability to obtain righteousness, without
the ability to acquire righteousness by what we do, without the ability
to merit righteousness. It's not that we're this close.
It's not that we almost, we almost got it. We just got to try a
little harder. It's impossible to obtain righteousness
by what we do. It's impossible. And yet we see
so many that go about doing just that. Everybody, they, I'm reminded
of a lady they had, they were wearing hats at a service. And
they started putting feathers in the hat because I guess the
hat wasn't fancy enough. And then somebody found a bigger
feather and they put that in their hat. So somebody the next
Sunday came with another hat and put the feather in their
hat. And then the other one brought a peacock feather and that thing was huge.
And that's what men do with their righteousness. Look at me, look
at me. Does your righteousness say,
look at me? Or does your righteousness say,
look at Christ? Look to him, he's my righteousness.
That's a simple question, but oh, the answer. If the Lord gives
us the grace to say, no, look to him, don't look at me. Does
your righteousness draw attention to you or does it draw all the
attention to Christ? If it draws any attention to
you, it's not true righteousness because God's righteousness points,
looks to, clings to, and hopes in the king of righteousness. So how can a man be justified
with God or how can he that be? How can he be clean that is born
of a woman? The king of righteousness and peace is going to have to
do it. He's going to have to do it. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. He must save us. He must call
us. He must give us faith. He's going to have to do it all.
He's going to have to do it all. More than one reason to if he
leaves it up to ourself, we know we'll mess it up. If it's up
to us to get salvation, people say get saved. I'm sure you've
heard that terminology, I got saved. If it's up to us to get
saved, or if it's up to us to keep ourselves after we're saved,
we're in trouble. It's not possible. No, we're
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. He does
the keeping. So he does the saving, he does
the calling, he does the keeping. He does it all. He does it all. And something important to mention
is believing in, believing in Jesus Christ is not the same
as believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as all your hope, all
of your righteousness before God. The demons believe and tremble. Somebody said, well, I believe
that Jesus is the son of God. Well, the demons believe that
too. They know who he is. We're gonna be turning to Mark
chapter five in just a minute, look at the demoniac. And they
literally acknowledged him as the son of God. You come to torment
us before our time. Demons know who he is. Knowing
who he is is not believing on him. That takes faith. The Lord
has to give faith to believe him for your righteousness and
for my righteousness. Lord, give me that faith. Give
me that faith that I may believe. Everyone is born possessed by
either the Lord Jesus Christ or by Satan. It's that simple. If you don't belong to God, you
belong to the devil. If you don't belong to God, you belong to
the devil. And who maketh thee to differ? The scripture says
you've been bought with a price. The price was blood. The Lord
Jesus Christ spilled his blood. He purchased his bride. He purchased
his bride. He possesses her. I am my beloved
and he is mine. But so often people take that
information, talking about demon possession, and they think that
that looks something like you would see in a movie with all
kinds of odd, and Hollywood's made it look terrible. And there is instances that we
have even in the scripture about certain things that happen, but
demonic influence, brethren, there's nothing more demonic
than a man standing up in a pulpit and telling you that Jesus loves
everybody. That's demonic speaking. That's demonic influence, that's
what that is. There's nothing more demonic
than somebody telling you that Jesus tried his very best, you
have to do your part. That's demonic, that's satanic.
But yet they have the name Jesus in it and people can't see that.
The devil's the angel of light, he's not the angel of darkness.
He's the angel of light, he doesn't come in looking like a suspect. No, he looks beautiful to the
flesh, the flesh sees him. Oh, we need the righteousness
of Christ to have peace with God. Otherwise, if we're left
to ourself, we'll be possessed. We'll be out of our mind. We'll
be thinking that I've got a little bit of righteousness in and of
myself. You want to know if somebody's
demonically influenced, ask their confession of Christ. What's
your confession to Christ? They tell you that, if they say
I got saved or all the, you know, the lingo, then they don't know
who God is. And the only hope that we have,
now, I'm not up here saying that we've arrived at something. I'm
simply saying it's by grace we are what we are. The Lord's the
one that snatched us. He chose us. He called us out
of darkness into his light. He possessed us. He did all that. It's not something we did. So
we can't look at others and say, okay, well, The hope is that
the Lord would call them out of darkness into his light. But
he says this, they are wicked. Isaiah 57, 21, there is no peace,
saith my God, to the wicked. There's no peace to those who
believe they have a righteousness. No peace whatsoever. These believe the lie because
they're possessed, not of the Lord, but of the devil. So how
do I know if I'm possessed by the Lord or not? How do I know
if I'm possessed? Well, turn with me to Mark chapter
five. It's funny, you tell someone
in religion that they're either possessed by the devil or they're
possessed by the Lord, and they'll say, no, I'm not. But if I tell
you, those that believe on the Lord for all their salvation,
if I tell you that you're possessed by the Lord, you say, truth,
Lord, possess me. Make me yours, own me. Now let's
read Mark 5, 1 through 5 here. And they came over into the other
side of the sea, unto the country of the Gadarenes. And when he
was come out of the ship, immediately there met him a man out of the
tombs with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the
tombs and no man could bind him, no, not with chains. Because
that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and
the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken
in pieces, neither could any man tame him. And always, day
and night, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the
tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. Now that cutting
is symbolic for the flesh, for penance, or for a righteousness. Do you remember whenever Elijah
and the 400 prophets of Baal were on Mount Carmel? And Elijah
said, call upon the name of your God, and I'll call upon the name
of my God, and he that answers by fire, he's God. He's God,
and they did. So the prophets of Baal went
first, and it says that hours had passed by, and the more that
nothing happened, Elijah started making fun of them, cry aloud,
or maybe he's on a journey, maybe he's doing this or sleeping,
you know, and what did they do? They began to cut themselves.
Well, maybe we haven't done enough, to get our God's attention. Maybe
we need to do this, and that's a picture of cutting away the
flesh. It's a picture of taste not, touch not, handle not. That's
what that's a picture of. Works by the law in order to
please God. That's what that's a picture
of. But we know the Lord answered Elijah by fire, didn't he? Proved
who he was. Didn't have to prove it, but
he proved who he was. And here he's gonna, Lord's gonna
prove who he is to this demoniac. Now, The chains here, and this
is important, the chains and fetters, they recommend the promises
that men make to God. They represent the promises that
men make to God. I'm going to stop doing this,
and I'm gonna start doing that. I'm gonna read my Bible more.
I'm gonna pray more. But as part of righteousness.
If you wanna read your Bible and pray more, I would encourage
you to do so. But don't do it as part of your
righteousness. Not as part of your righteousness. Do it because
you know who is your righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ. People
say, well, I'm gonna stop doing this and I'm gonna start doing
that. Don't do it as your righteousness. That's what this chain, we can't
keep the promises necessary unto God in order to obtain righteousness. We just keep breaking the chains,
keep breaking the chains. This man, metaphorically, he
started out as a Catholic and then he became a Mormon and now
he's the Baptist pastor. You know, that's what's happened
here. He broke these chains. They got other chains. And it's
all just about him becoming more and more in religion. That's
what the picture here is. That's what religion does is
it binds you more and more. It never sets you free. There's
no peace. There's no peace. He has his own righteousness
by the law, he thinks. And notice where he is. He's
in tombs. He's in a cemetery. There's no
life in false church. There's no life in a false church.
The Lord will not save someone that is not preaching, unless
the man is preaching the gospel, 100% gospel. Scripture is very
clear on this. How shall they believe in whom
they've not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall he preach except he be sent? Brethren, if you have a loved
one that doesn't go to a church that preaches the gospel, they're
not believers. They're not believers. They have
to hear the gospel and the Lord will not leave a sheep. He will
not leave a sheep in the tombs. He'll call them out. He'll call
them out, bring them to a gospel church. A believer cannot live
off the husks of false religion whenever they have tasted of
the blood The bread of the Lord Jesus Christ, his body and blood.
We have to have that. That's life-giving sustenance. God's people are not content
to sit under the lie. So let's read verse six at the
reaction this man has when he saw Jesus. Verse six, but when
he saw Jesus so far off he ran, and what'd he do? He worshiped
him. He worshiped him. This is what
happens when Christ is revealed. This is what happens when Christ
is revealed. He comes to where we are, dead, among the tombs,
having no hope of, how could that man have ever gotten to
Christ? He couldn't have. It was out of his mind. But he
says, live unto us. He gives faith unto his people. And we worship him. Let's read
on, verse seven. And cried with a loud voice and
said, what have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the
most high God? I adjure thee by God that thou
torment me not. For he said unto him, come out
of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, what is thy
name? And he answered saying, my name is Legion, for we are
many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away
out of the country. Now there was there nigh into
the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils
besought him saying, send us into the swine that we may enter
into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them
leave. And the unclean spirit went out and entered into the
swine. And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea.
There were about 2,000 and were choked in the sea. And they that
fed the swine fled and told in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what
it was, what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus
and see him that was possessed with the devil and had the legion
seating and clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid.
And they that saw it told them how it befell him that was possessed
with the devil and also concerning the swine. Here's what they do.
And they began to pray him to depart out of their coats, out
of their coats. Now, either we are goats or we
are sheep. There's no in between. Either
we are the swine, which represents the unclean animals or the Lord
himself has made us clean by the blood of the lamb. I want
us to notice the state of our brother here. They found him
seated. He's resting. They found him
clothed. He was covered. And they found
him in his right mind. That clothing is the righteousness
of Christ for his people. And because of that righteousness
that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to him, he is seated. He's at
peace. Peace with God. You can't have peace without
righteousness. The Lord robed him in his righteousness. That's
what he does for every one of his elect sinners. He gives them
peace with God. We're seated, we're not working.
And we're in our right mind. He gives us repentance and faith
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how he, that's
what he does for his people. This is what our king of righteousness
and peace does for his people at the purpose appointed time. First thing that's gonna happen
when he does that, first thing that happened for us is the Lord
started dividing us from our family and our friends. We parted
ways. Lord said, I came to set at variance.
Came to set at variance, that means sever in two. Father and
mother, sister and brother, for the gospel's sake. It's gonna
happen. If you believe this gospel, eventually you're gonna have
to part ways with somebody because somebody's gonna hate you for
it. And Lord said, it's not you that they hate, Marvel not that
they hate you, the world hates you. They hated me before it
hated you. Hated me before it hated you. We know why they hate us, because
they're possessed by Satan. They're not in their right mind.
But the Lord's people, but the Lord's people, because of the
King of righteousness and peace, we're clothed, we're seated,
and we're in our right mind. Give us Christ, our righteousness,
the King of righteousness. the king of peace. He's the only
way to have peace with God. He's the only way to have righteousness
before God. Let's pray. Father calls us to be needy towards
you. Thank you for being our king
and for all that you've done in Christ's name. Amen. Let's take a break.