All right, Reverend, let's go
to Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah chapter 23. Let's read our text again. Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David
a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper. and shall execute judgment and
justice in the earth. In his days, Judas shall be saved,
and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his name whereby
he shall be called the Lord our righteousness." This is the gospel,
the Lord our righteousness. He is the gospel. He is the good
news. The Lord our righteousness. Listen to what the scripture
says here in verse 6. In his days, Judah shall be saved
and Israel shall dwell safely. I want to be saved. Don't you
want to be saved? I want to dwell safely. That's
what we want. We want to dwell safely. This scripture says there is
salvation and safety and no other name but the Lord our righteousness. Now, first of all, what is righteousness
and why do we need it? What is righteousness and why
do we need it? Well, righteousness is to have
perfectly obeyed the law of God without any sin in our nature,
in our thoughts, in our words, or in our deeds. It's to have
perfectly obeyed the law of God without any sin in our nature,
in thought, in word, or in deed. Righteousness is perfect conformity
to the will of God. Perfect conformity to the will
of God. Righteousness is to omit what
God forbids and to commit what God commands. Omit what God forbids
and commit what God demands, both in perfection. The omission
and the commission, both in perfection. From conception, we have to be
holy in our mother's womb. all the way throughout all our
days. That's what it is to be righteous. Now, is there anybody
who thinks that they have accomplished righteousness by their obedience
in any way? There is none. There is no child
of Adam that has ever done so. Now, some imagine that when the
Holy Spirit has sanctified us, that we then can keep the law
in the righteousness that God demands and that that righteousness
somehow contributes to our righteousness before God. That's not so. That's not so. Even holiness
is not of us. Righteousness is not of us. No,
holiness is of us. The Lord Jesus has made unto
his people wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. These go hand in glove together. Hand in glove together. Every
truly sanctified child of God, those made holy in heart, will
confess. It's not that there's a possibility
that I've not kept God's holy law. It's not that there's a
possibility that I've not kept God's holy law. It's that there
is no possibility that I have ever kept God's holy law. If I could do that, the Lord
would not have sent his son. If you could have done that,
the Lord would not have sent his son. We must go back. We have to go all the way back
to the garden if we're going to understand why Christ had
to come. Why we need the Lord to be our
righteousness. Brother Greg just read it, by
Adam's disobedience, we lost everything. By one man's disobedience,
by one man's disobedience, sin entered the world, and death
by sin. So death passed upon all men,
for that in Adam all have sinned. We all sinned in our first father. And sin entered, and death entered,
and it passed upon us all. To show that and to prove that,
the Lord declared in the next verse that He will not impute
sin where there is no law. And He didn't give a law from
Adam all the way to Moses. 430 years from Abraham's day,
much longer from Adam's day. And yet, death reigned from Adam
to Moses. That means God imputed sin to
them. Why? Because Adam really made
us to be sinners. He made us guilty. The law had already been given,
and those that God imputed sin to and charged with being guilty
before Him, they had not sinned after the similitude of Adam.
They didn't have that one law in the garden like Adam had,
and yet God imputed sin to them, because in Adam we all really
sinned. Do you get that? You get that? That's what he's teaching there.
He's teaching us what imputation really is. It's the imputation
of what one has been made by a prior act. And imputation is
God imputing... He imputed the sin of Adam to
us because Adam really made us sinners. He made us sinners.
And not only that, but our nature is corrupt by conception because
we're born of Adam. And here's where the real issue
begins with this sin nature. We lost the image of God by that
one transgression. Adam lost it, and then we're
conceived by his seed, so we lost the image of God. We never
had it. We were conceived in sin. So
we come forth with this sin nature who hates the truth of God and
won't submit to the truth of God. So there's nothing about
us in our natural flesh that's going to be able to be accepted
by holy God, there's nothing we can do. We're already guilty
in our nature. We come forth from our mother's
womb speaking lies. We sin because we're sinners
by birth. We became guilty before the law,
but we lost that righteous nature. We were born with a sin nature,
and this is what God says. This is what he said in Noah's
day, and this is true of everybody as they're born in Adam. God
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's what my sin nature is,
and that's what your sin nature is. Every imagination of the
thoughts of the sinful heart is only evil continually. Now be sure to get this. That
sin nature is with us until we die. That sin nature is with
us until we die. And therefore, everything God's
sanctified child does We have that sin of that old nature mixed
with everything we do. With everything we do. So, we
can never look to ourselves. The scripture says there's not
a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. There's a lot of justified men
on the earth and they do good, but there's not one that sins
not. Paul said, I know that in me
that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. The will is there
now because I've been born of God. But how to perform that
which is good I find not. I can't do what God commands
in the perfection God requires. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that
I would not, it's no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me. It's not my new heart, it's not my new nature, it's
not my new will to sin, but there's sin nature in me. This is imperative
to be declared so that we don't get puffed up. How many crimes
does it take for a man to be a criminal? Just one. Just one. How many sins does
a man have to commit to be a sinner? Just one. Whosoever shall keep
the whole law and yet offend in one point, he's guilty of
all. He's guilty of all. That just
shuts our mouth, doesn't it? That just leaves us needing a
perfect obedience that we can't provide. Listen to this. Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all things which is written in the book of the law to do
them. In all things. everything written in the book
of the law. God requires a perfect fear of God in the heart with
no sin. God requires we walk in all his
ways with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength to serve the
Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, and to love
your neighbor perfectly. That's righteousness as God calls
it righteousness. Now, I may be more moral than
some. I may be more moral than some.
and you might be more moral than me, but there is none of us,
brethren. Our morality is not the righteousness
of God. We can take all our good works
and we can combine all our good works together, our very best
works and our very best obedience to God, but before God, all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. By the deeds of the law,
there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. If the righteousness
must be produced by us, then we have no hope, brethren. If
righteousness must be produced by us, or if we must just contribute
some way, there's no hope for us. God's saints have passed
from death into life, but the old Adam is still with us. And
that old Adam is a mass of iniquity. And that old Adam brings us into
captivity. And sin is mixed with all we
do. We must have the righteousness of another. Now do you understand
what righteousness is? It's perfection. It must be perfect
to be accepted of God. That's what the scripture says.
Righteousness is perfection. And why do we need it? Because
we sinned in Adam, became guilty, and our nature corrupt and we
lost everything. So we can't add anything. Now
secondly, we have to have the righteousness of another and
that one is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the son of David after the
flesh. Look at verse 5. I will raise
unto David a righteous branch. That means he's the son of David.
He came through David. And he said, but he's also God. He says his name is the Lord,
our righteousness. That's Jehovah, God, our righteousness. You see that? He's God and he's
man. Now, we don't have to bring forth
any other verses. Anybody that denies that Christ
is the God-man, that one verse right there proves them wrong.
He is the son of David after the flesh, the branch, but he
is God, the Lord, Jehovah, our righteousness. Revelation said
he's the root of David. That means he produced, he's
David's God who produced David. And he's the offspring of David
in the flesh as a man. He's the God man. Being God in
human flesh, there's nothing but certainty in these verses.
Because he's God in human flesh, holy human flesh, there's nothing
but certainty in these verses. Read it with me. Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous
branch, and a king shall reign and prosper. He said the pleasure
of the Lord shall prosper in his hand, and he shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved
and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is the name whereby
he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. Do you see those
shalls in there? There's no uncertainty here.
It's all certainty. Christ is the righteous branch. He was holy in the womb. A body
was prepared him, holy in the womb. He's the righteous branch.
And from the moment he was born until he gave up his spirit,
He obeyed God in perfect righteousness without sin. He is, the Lord
Jesus is the righteousness of God. He is the righteousness
God requires. He's the righteousness of which
he will accept his people. And he is the righteousness God's
provided, and we have to be found in him. He's the king that reigns
and prospers. He's the king that reigns and
prospers. He was king before his incarnation. He's the king who was reigning
right there in the days of Jeremiah. And he's the king that was born.
And he's the king that lived in perfection before God on this
earth. He was king when he died. He
was king when he came out of the grave. And he's king now
sitting at the right hand of God. prospered and he's reigning. He reigns and he prospers. The
good pleasure of the Lord, everything that please God is prospered
in his hand because he reigns. If you trust that Christ is king,
you can trust that he will work righteousness. He will reign
and he will prosper and he'll make his people prosper. That
takes all the weight off us, brethren. That takes all the
worry and concern off of us. Christ reigns, and He's prospering. He executed judgment and justice
in the earth. First, He did it on the cross,
but then He does it in the hearts of His people. He executes judgment
and justice in the earth. Now, let's talk about that a
little bit. On the cross, the sinless, holy, righteous one
manifests God's righteousness. That's what he came for. He came
to do something for God. He came here to do something
for God to declare his righteousness. And we also see there in what
he did on the cross, we see the love of God toward his people.
God doesn't love his people because Christ laid down his life. God
loved His people, therefore He sent forth His Son and Christ
laid down His life. We see the love of our Lord toward
God His Father and toward His brethren. That perfect, absolute
perfect love that we have to have that is truly the righteousness
of the law, we see that in Christ's obedience to God from the cradle
all the way to the cross. That's what we see. And He manifested
God's righteousness and he manifested his perfect love by being made
sin for us. This holy one who's proven by
the law, he's proven when he was tempted by the devil, he's
proven by men, he's proven faithful, he's proven to have no sin and
he presents himself at the Garden of Gethsemane laying down his
life to just for the unjust and willingly willingly gave himself
to be made sin, to have all the sin of God's people taken off
of them and put on him, and to bear our sin in his body on the
tree, and to be made a curse for his people, to bear the fiery
wrath of God that's required to put away the sin of his people,
take away the curse of the law that declares that curse that
says we're guilty and God can have nothing to do with us. He
had to take that away. He did that by laying down his
life. But in doing that, he manifests
God's righteousness, brethren. He manifests that God's just. He magnified God's law. God would
not even clear his son. When the sin was found on his
son, God wouldn't clear his son. And he manifests just how perfectly
righteous God is. He showed it took God coming
in human flesh to fulfill the law for us. But there's more
needed than just that our sins are put away. We got to have
a perfect obedience before God. We have to have fulfilled the
law and perfect righteousness before God. And laying down his
life, that's what he did. He brought in an everlasting
righteousness. He justified his people from all our sin from
which we could never be justified by the law of Moses. And he brought
in an everlasting perfect righteousness for us. Romans 3.21. This is what he says, Romans
3.21. He says, he declared there that
no man can be justified by the deeds of the law. He said by
the law is the knowledge of sin. That's what it's for, to give
you a knowledge of sin. That's what Greg read in our
text, I mean in his scripture reading. The law entered that
the offense might abound. The law entered so we could see
just how badly we sinned in Adam and how guilty we are. But now,
look at this, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God without
the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets. It's what the whole book's been
saying the whole time. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ. You know the difference between
faith in Christ and faith of Christ. Faith of Christ is His
faith. It's His fidelity to God, His
obedience to God. is how the righteousness of God
is manifest by the faith of Jesus Christ. And that righteousness
is unto all and upon all them that believe. This is the only
way we can be saved because there's no difference. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. We have to be justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus.
Believing Him, trusting Him alone. He made him sin for us who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God, where? In Him. We don't have it. We can't work it out. Our righteousness
is in Him. He's our righteousness. And not
only is Christ our righteousness for justification, Christ is
our righteousness who sanctified us. Go with me again to Hebrews
10. Hebrews 10 in verse 9. Then said
he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He said, the Lord Jesus
said, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He came to fulfill what
our text says. Verse 10, By the which will,
by that very will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once. Sanctified, we're separated We're
separated from God, we're consecrated to God, we're made holy, we're
made perfect, we're made pure before God by His one offering. Look here at verse 14. For by
one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. He has perfected forever them
that are sanctified. You see that? Whereof the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us. Now hold your place right there
just a minute. Through the Holy Spirit bearing witness to us,
like you hear this word preached now, and the Holy Spirit bears
witness in your heart. And what happens is Christ executes
judgment and justice in you. He did it at the cross, but when
the gospel goes forth and the Holy Spirit bears witness, he
executes judgment and justice within you. He gives you spiritual
discernment. to hear the law declare you guilty. He's given you a new Holy Spirit
in which is no guile, so that now you hear the law declare
you guilty, and you actually see that you are guilty. You
see that nothing comes from you but sin, and so you confess to
God he's just in declaring you guilty. That's what you are.
By Adam's one transgression, you were made guilty. And ever
since you came forth, everything you've ever done has just been
transgression upon transgression upon transgression. Because the
imagination of the sin nature is only evil continually. And
he makes you confess to God all your sin. That all you are is
sin. We don't know all our sin. But
He makes you confess that all you are is sin, that you need
mercy, that you need to be saved in the Lord, our righteousness. And He shows you Christ, and
He makes you own Christ to be the Lord, my righteousness, my
only righteousness. What has taken place there? He
has formed Christ in you. He's given you a new holy heart.
Christ is entered in. He's the holiness. He's the life
of our new man. And it's due to Christ being
our righteousness. Because He made us righteous,
that's why the Spirit works this in His people. It makes you holy.
Romans 8.10 says, If Christ be in you, the body is dead because
of sin. Because of your sin nature. But
the Spirit is life because of righteousness. That's why you
were given life. That's why you were given a new
holy nature, a new holy man created within you, because Christ made
all his people the righteousness of God in him. And the Holy Spirit
doesn't make us fulfill the law ourselves for righteousness,
but he turns us from ourselves, turns us from all those main
works of trying to make ourselves righteous and holy by our deeds,
and when he's really made us holy, When He makes you behold
the Lord as our righteousness, that's how your flesh is mortified.
That's how you are turned from yourself and turned from your
works, and that's how the armor of God's put on you. Through
faith in Him, that's how the robe of Christ's righteousness
is put on you from head to toe. And when the Holy Spirit writes
this doctrine in our new heart, He makes you to know we are complete
and Christ. We've been perfected forever
in Christ by his one offering. That's the law he writes on the
heart. He writes the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ
in him, crucified on the heart. And when he writes that, God
declares to you, verse 17, their sins and iniquities will I remember
no more. Now where remission of these
is, there's no more offering for sin. Now I want you to notice,
I'm trying to tell you he's our righteousness for sanctification.
He's the righteousness because he made us righteousness, that's
the reason we've been made holy. And it's by his blood. Look at
here, look here at verse 19, Hebrews 10, 19. When he bears
witness that we now have liberty, it's, look, to enter the holiest
by the blood of Jesus. You see that? We're made holy
to enter the holiest. And how was it? By the blood
of Jesus, by the Lord our righteousness, by Him making us righteous. So
He's holiness and He's righteousness. He's sanctification and redemption.
And now through the merit and mediation of the Lord our righteousness,
He's our high priest and He's mediating for us there with the
Father. And because of that now, God accepts us as His holy priesthood. and he receives, accepts our
spiritual sacrifices because they come through the Lord our
righteousness. That's what Peter said. You also
as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood
to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. You know what that means? This is how Solomon put it in
Ecclesiastes 9.7. Go thy way, eat thy bread with
joy, drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth
thy works. Isn't that good news? That's
good news. You mean, before, when you plowed,
when you were nothing but wickedness, all your plowing was just wickedness.
The plowing of the wicked is iniquity to God. It's abomination
to God. Now, God accepts all your works,
all your works. If you give a drink of cold water
in His name, He accepts it. It's done to Him. Whatever you
do in His name, He accepts it. It's done to Him. That's who
He is. This is the gospel by which we're
sanctified, brethren, turned, completely turned from looking
to ourselves, separated, out from the world, out from our
vain religion, out from everything, out from our sin, consecrated
to Christ, and this is the gospel by which he worked it in the
first hour, and it's the way he keeps us partaking of his
holiness, by keeping declaring this to us. It's the message
of the book. The Lord our righteousness. This
is how your flesh is mortified. This is how the flesh is mortified,
from the first hour to the last. Listen now, with his spotless
garments on, him being my righteousness, I am as holy as God's son. That's what the hymn writer wrote.
With his spotless garments on, I am as holy as God's son. Listen to this, I can show you
that from scripture. Go to Psalm 45 and look at verse
13. Psalm 45, 13. Our text says Christ is the king,
doesn't it? It says Christ is the king. Well, you're the king's daughter. You that have been born again
and given faith and God has robed you in Christ's righteousness,
look here, Psalm 45, 13 says, the king's daughter is all glorious
within. That's the holiness of Christ
dwelling in you. The king's daughter is all glorious
within. Her clothing, now this is outside,
is of wrought gold. This is your perfect legal standing,
your perfect righteousness before the holy law of God, Christ's
righteousness. She shall be brought unto the
king in raiment of needlework. And you know who made, who worked
all that needlework out? The Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what I'm trying to tell you. Within and without. It's by Christ
our sanctification and Christ our righteousness. See, He's
our righteousness before the law, and He's our righteousness
for holiness. Now let me speak to each of us
here that are hearing this. If anybody's hearing this, and
God has made your sin to weigh heavy on you, and you've never
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you see you don't have a
righteousness, and you see you can't produce a righteousness
of your own, you go to Him. You cry out to Him, confessing
your sin. and confessing the Lord my righteousness. Confessing he is the Lord my
right, my only righteousness, my only righteousness. Because
neither is there salvation in any other for there's none other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Paul said in Romans 10, 9, if
thou shalt confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, that he is the
Lord my righteousness. And you shall believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. For with the heart, the heart made holy by Christ our
righteousness, with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. God imputes his righteousness
to us through faith. That's without any addition of
any of our works, just faith in him and he imputes righteousness
to you. And with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. You confessing all your sin before
God and you confessing that Christ is the Lord, my righteousness.
And by him, all that believe are justified from all things
from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. That's the,
oh, that's the best news. That is the best news. And you
and me, brethren, never, every day we need to hear this. Each
one that already believes on Him, glory only in Him. Glory only in Him. And here's
what I mean by that. Concerning all your past sins,
concerning all your present sin, concerning all your future sin,
give Him the glory, rejoicing that there is now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus, because the Lord is our righteousness. No condemnation. past, present,
or future. Lord said, I'll remember your
sins no more. When you approach His throne of grace, glorify
Him by entering this holiness, the holiest, into God's presence
by this one name, the Lord, our righteousness. He's the Lord. He's the Lord. He's the Lord,
our righteousness. He's the Lord, Jesus. He's the
Lord. The Lord, our righteousness.
And when you do anything good, Anything good. God works in his
child. He prospers to bring forth good
works in his children. You'll give yourself to minister
to his people, to speak the word to his people, to provide for
his people, to do whatever he opens the door for you to do
for his people in the cause of his holy name. And when you've
done anything good for his namesake, give him all the glory saying
the only reason you did it is because the Lord is my righteousness.
He's the one that brought it to pass. He's the one that brought
it to pass. And when you sin, when you sin,
you want to give him the glory when you sin? When you sin, give
him the glory by asking mercy from the Father for the sake
of the Lord, my righteousness. Come to God the Father as confessing
your sin and asking mercy and forgiveness for the sake of the
Lord our righteousness. This is what 1 John chapter 2
says. My little children, these things
write I unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, and
it's when any man sin, when any man sin, when any believer sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for
our sin. He's the reason God will give
us mercy, because he's already put our sins away. He already
put them away. Spurgeon said this. He said,
Child of God, does yesterday's sin make you stammer? In the
teeth of all your sins, believe that he is your righteousness
still. Your good works do not improve his righteousness. Your
bad works do not sully it. This is a robe which your best
deeds cannot mend and your worst deeds cannot mar. You stand in
him, not in yourself. Whatever then your doubts and
fears may have been, do now. You poor, troubled, distressed,
distracted believer, do now say again, yes, he is the Lord our
righteousness. That's giving him the glory.
When you say, even when I've fallen, even when I've miserably
failed, He's still the Lord my righteousness. It had changed.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is God's forgiveness
for the sake of the Lord our righteousness that makes us want
to serve Him better today and tomorrow. That's right. It's
the forgiveness freely given us through the blood and righteousness
of our Lord Jesus that makes you want to try to serve Him
better today and tomorrow. His mercies are new every morning.
That means you get to start new today. and try to serve him better,
forgetting those things that are behind, because he already
put them away. It is only the fair white linen
of his righteousness, it's only the fair white linen of his righteousness
that makes us to be without spot. In those days shall Judah be
saved. Look at Jeremiah 33. Jeremiah 33, verse 15. In those days and at
that time will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto
David, and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.
In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell
safely. And this is the name wherewith
she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. As he is,
so are you. right now in this earth. If you
trust Him, you believe Him, that's your righteousness in Him, as
holy as God's own Son. That's all our hope and all our
salvation, and that's our gospel. That's our gospel. All right,
Brother Greg.