Our subject tonight is the question
of all questions. And David asked the question
in Psalm 15 verse 1. He says, Lord, who shall abide
in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? The tabernacle of Jehovah and
His holy hill represents the place where God dwells, His presence,
where He is, in His church and in heaven above. To put it simply,
the question is this, Lord, who may come into Your presence and
be accepted of You? That's the question of all questions.
Who can come into the holy God's presence and be accepted of holy
God? God is holy. He's holy. He will not receive anyone but
those who are as holy as He is, as righteous as He is. So this is a question of all
questions. who can abide with holy God? Who will He receive? And receive
them forever. Forever. Well, the Lord gives
the answer. In verse 2, I want you to note
here before I read this, that at the end of the verse, it says,
in His heart. And that ending applies to each
of these three things that we're going to see here. And these
first three things are toward God. They're toward God. He says,
He says in verse 2, He that walketh uprightly in his heart, and he
that worketh righteousness in his heart, and he that speaketh
the truth in his heart. So it means that the person who
God will receive, who can dwell with holy God, has got to be
absolutely perfect in his walk, in his works and in his speech
from a pure heart, a perfect heart. And it's got to be done
before the all-seeing eye of God, who knows all things. And
then the next four things are toward men. They're toward men. He says, this is one thing here
in verse three. These are all toward his neighbor.
He says, he that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil
to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. That word taketh up means he
doesn't even hear a reproach against his neighbor. He won't
stand to have his neighbor spoken against. Verse 4 says, "...in
whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoreth them that fear
the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt
and changeth not." That is, when he makes an oath, though it's
going to mean his own hurt, he doesn't go back on his word.
He doesn't. And he says in verse 5, he that
putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against
the innocent. He won't put out his money and
take advantage of poor folks and try to give them some money
but charge them some exorbitant interest on their money. Nor
will he take a bribe against a man who's innocent and bear
false witness against him. And the Lord says, He that doeth
these things shall never be moved. He'll abide. He'll dwell forever
with God in His holy heaven. Now I want you to see tonight
that the one that has done all of these things perfectly is
He who now sits as the King in God's holy hill of Zion. That's
God's own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. as well as all those
who are born of the Spirit of God, created anew, and brought
to put all our trust in the hands of Christ Jesus. That's who will
dwell in God's presence. First of all, we'll just look
at these first three things here that are toward God tonight,
and then we'll take up the rest another time. First of all, He
says, He that walketh uprightly in his heart shall dwell with
God." Now, uprightly means entire. It means complete. It means whole
and perfect. It means to walk in integrity
of heart. This means your nature is pure. Your heart is pure. It's holy. Without blemish, without spot,
it's totally undefiled. You're totally undefiled in the
heart, from the heart. Remember the Lord said it's from
the heart that a man is defiled. The things that come out of his
heart, these are the things that defile a man. So the Lord says
here, he walks uprightly in his heart. Now since every man is
born of Adam, we're conceived of Adam's corrupt seed. So we
come forth from the womb with a corrupt and incomplete in our
hearts. That's what we are already in
our heart when we're conceived in the womb of our mother. Therefore,
we have no integrity of heart. We have none. We're unholy by
nature. That's what we are by nature.
Unholy by nature. And so by our first birth, we
do exactly what it is our sin nature to do. What our sin nature
dictates we do, that's what we do. A person, an animal, a creature
is going to do what his nature dictates that he do. He's got
to do what his nature is. That's what governs him. and rules what he does. That's
why cows don't try to fly. They don't have a nature to try
to fly. And crows don't walk around in a pasture grazing on
grass and eating grain and hay out of hay bales because they
don't have a nature to do that. That's not what God gave them
a nature to do. This thing of walking uprightly
means that we seek our life and our heart from above, from where
God sits, from God's holy place. And because we're born with this
nature that's corrupt, we actually seek things that are in the earth.
I've told you about this illustration, but you see animals walking around
on their all fours, and they've had their heads down on the ground,
because their life's in the earth. Their food, their nourishment,
everything is in the earth, and they're seeking their life in
the earth. Well, that's a good description of us as we're born
into this world the first time. We're seeking life in the earth.
The Lord, describing unregenerate preachers and those that follow
them in Jude 10, He said, these speak evil of those things which
they know not, but what they know naturally as brute beasts. In those things they corrupt
themselves. That's how God describes us by
nature. Brute beasts. So that's not a far-fetched illustration
of us seeking things in the earth. Look at Colossians chapter 3,
and I'll show you what men seek. Men will read a text like this
and you can read their writings and tell what they're seeking.
Men will take a text like our text in Psalm 15 and tell sinners
things that these are things that you're going to have to
do now. It's all up to you. It's on your shoulder to do these
things or you can't come into God's presence. And they're seeking
things in the earth. Look here, Paul said this in
Colossians chapter 2. He said there in verse 16, he's
talking about how Christ has blotted out the handwriting of
ordinances against His people and took it out of the way and
nailed it to His cross. And he says in verse 16, let
no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect
of a holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days. This
is what they're feeding on. Touch not, taste not, handle
not. You know why? Jude said because things they
don't know about. And look at verse 17. This is
what they don't know. Which are a shadow of things
to come. All those things were a picture
of something. But the body is of Christ. They all pictured
Christ. Christ is our meat. That eating of certain meats,
that separated the Jews from the Gentiles. And you know what
it was to show us? Whenever the Lord called Peter
to go down to Cornelius' house to preach the Gospel, Cornelius
was a Gentile. Peter said, I can't go down there,
he's a Gentile. And the Lord let down all these
animals in a basket. And he said, eat, Peter, eat. And he said, I've never eaten
any of these things. And the Lord taught him what those things,
the original meaning of them were. He said, what I've sanctified,
what I've made holy, don't you call unclean. And that's what
they all pictured. I'm the one who separates the
clean from the vile. I'm the one who makes my people
holy and separates them. The holy days, they all pictured
Christ our Sabbath rest, in whom we rest. But look down at verse
20. We're dead, brethren. The believer is dead. And we
don't live in the world. We really don't. We're going
to look at this very soon in Ephesians chapter 1. We don't
live in this world. And Paul says there in verse
20, Wherefore if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments
of the world, From all these dead things, he says, why as
though living in the world are you subject to ordinances, touch
not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using
after the commandments and doctrines of men. That's where they come
from. They're the commandments and doctrines of men. God gave
some of those commandments. But the doctrines men teach using
those things are the doctrines of men. They're not what God
taught when he gave those things. Which things have indeed a show
of wisdom in will-worship, therefore a show in will-worship, in free
will-worship. That's what they're for. And
he says, and in humility, and he means there false humility,
putting on a show of false humility, and neglecting the body. you
know, neglecting, not letting your body have certain things
and not feeding the body and all that. And Paul says, but
that's not any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. In other words,
honor your flesh. Give it what you, if you need
to eat, eat. Don't be doing this because you're trying to impress
somebody with how pious and holy you are, because that's just
always a picture of something that Christ has fulfilled. So
those are the things men are feeding on, the flesh, feeding
on the earthy things. But then when Christ came, when
Christ came into this world, He wasn't conceived of Adam's
corrupt seed. And so that thing formed in the
womb of the virgin was holy. Listen to the Scripture. Luke
1.35 says, The angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow
thee. Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. The
Hebrew writer tells us, For such a high priest became us, whose
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than
the heavens. So from the womb to the tomb,
the Lord Jesus Christ walked uprightly in his heart, complete,
whole, perfect before the all-seeing eye of God the Father in the
integrity of his heart. That's how he walked this earth.
Now look over at 1 John chapter 3. Now no man can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean thing. There's no possible way that
you and I can take this corrupt nature and this corrupt defiled
heart that we have and bring a clean heart out of it. And
God doesn't do that either. God creates a new heart. He puts
something there that was not there before. And those born
a second time of His incorruptible seed now have a heart like His
heart. They do. Look at 1 John 3.8.
He that committeth sin is of the devil. For the devil sinneth
from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God
was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. For his seed
remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."
When John speaks here of he that is of the devil, and then he
speaks of he that is of God, he's speaking of one man. He's
speaking of one man. This is you, believer. It's me. This is us. In every believer,
the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the inner man, that's in the
inner man, that's been created anew of God, born of God. And
that new man cannot sin because he's born of God. But our sin
is of our old man. It's of the devil. It's of the
flesh. It's of Adam's production, is
what it is. And all it does is sin. So that's
what we have. We have these two opposing natures,
these two opposing spirits within us. We have the nature of the
old man and the nature of the new man. But it's in the new
man that we walk uprightly. So what is walking uprightly?
It means we live by the faith of Christ. Look at Galatians
3. Galatians 3. It means we live... We're going
to come back to 1 John, so you might want to hold your place
there. Alright, Galatians 3. Walking uprightly means that
we live by the faithfulness of Christ. Christ lives in us. It
means we're led of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God.
And we no longer frustrate the grace of God. We don't frustrate
His grace by turning again to the law. We don't do that. Peter
turned back to the law. See those men that were looking
at those earthy things, trying to feed on earth, touch not,
taste not, handle not. Peter turned back at one point.
A believer. Do you think a believer will
do that? Yeah, we'll do that. We're sinners still in our flesh.
And that old flesh, he's a Pharisee. He wants to come to God by his
works, by what he's done, and rob God of the glory that belongs
to Christ Jesus alone. But look at this now, Peter turned
back to the law, and this is what Paul said to them, Galatians
3.14, But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according
to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter, I'm sorry, Galatians
2.14, Galatians 2.14. When I saw that they walked not
uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter
before them all, If thou being a Jew livest after the manner
of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the
Gentiles to live as do the Jews? You know what he did? Peter was
sitting there eating him a big old slab of ribs, which the Jews
weren't supposed to eat. And when he looked up and saw
James and his Jewish brethren coming, Peter got up and went
over and sat at another table. That's all he did, because he
didn't want to be seen eating pork with the Gentiles. And Paul
said, by doing that, you're compelling these Gentiles to live like the
Jews. You're telling them that this
is okay as long as the Jews aren't around, but when the Jews come
around, you really ought to not be eating these things. And Paul
said this to him, verse 15, he said, and Paul called that walking
not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. That's what
we're talking about. How does a man walk uprightly?
Paul said that's not walking uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel. Now look at verse 15. He says, we who are Jews
by nature, I've never noticed this before, But I do believe
Paul is saying this, that whether Jew or Gentile, he's saying all
believers are Jews by the new nature created within us. And
he says, because Christ has entered, we become partakers of the divine
nature. He says, and not sinners of the
Gentiles. We're not unregenerate sinners
anymore. So here's what we all know as
believers. Look at verse 16. Knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus
Christ, that we might be justified by the work of Christ, by the
faithfulness of Christ, and not by the works of the law. For
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified, but If,
while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also
are found sinners, as what Peter just did, is therefore Christ
the minister of sin? God forbid! For if I build again
the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
You see, this sin like that, that's of my old man. That's
not walking uprightly. He just wants to build again
that which is destroyed, and bring the law back in again,
and bring works back in again. But Paul says this, verse 19,
He's speaking of two different I's here. For I, through the
law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live. My old man's crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live. Where? In the new man. Yet not
I, look at this, but Christ liveth in me. That's what John said.
His seed is in us. It remains in us. Christ liveth
in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, because if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead and vain. Would you stand up before a host
of people? You've got somebody you've You
respect, you honor their believers, and you give honor to where honor
is due, and you want them to thank the best of you, what have
you. Would you stand up in front of them and yell out to the top
of your lungs and say, Christ died in vain? Would you? I don't
think any of you here that believe the Lord would do that. But you
know what we do if we turn again to the law and we try to bring
the law back in just by doing something like what Peter did?
You know what we do? we're screaming, Christ died
in vain. That's what we're doing. That's
Paul says, I don't frustrate the grace of God. Because if
righteousness come by the law, if I have to turn to the law
to walk up rightly, Christ died in vain, he died in vain. So
this is what it means. Christ joined his divine nature
with our human nature. And He finished the work that
God gave Him to do as the representative of His people, so that through
the blood and righteousness of Christ, His people can be made
partakers of His divine nature within, in that new creation.
So now, even though sin's mixed with all that we do, because
we're still in this flesh, we walk uprightly knowing our old
man really is dead, he's crucified with Christ, and we really do
live now because Christ abides within us, and so we live by
the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for
us. That's walking uprightly. A man
walks uprightly when he walks straight to Christ and never
walks away. He just stays there all the time
on him. All right, secondly, let's go
back now to our text. Secondly, it says in our text,
who is going to abide with God in glory in His holy hill? He
that worketh righteousness in his heart. Now, to work righteousness
is to do that which is right according to God's holy law. to do that which is right according
to God's holy law. Now when Adam, our first representative,
sinned, he broke the law of God. And when he broke the law of
God, he died, and as we saw in Romans 5, his death passed upon
all men. And it said, for that all have
sinned. And it's for that reason that
all have sinned. Now it could be said we died
in Adam because there's no possibility, no remote possibility that we're
not going to sin. Because the death that passed
upon us was his corrupt nature. That nature we just talked about.
So that we come forth with a sin nature. Look over at Ezekiel
18. Ezekiel 18. But some accused
God of being unjust. because he charged the children
with their father's transgression. They said, that's unjust to charge
us with Adam's sin. And they used this proverb. They
said, the fathers have sinned and the children's teeth are
set on edge. That meant the father sinned
and we got charged with it. We're getting charged with it.
So in Ezekiel 18, God said they would not use that proverb anymore. He'd give them something now
to where they couldn't use that proverb anymore. And then God
said this in verse 19. Ezekiel 18, 19. Yet say ye, why? Why won't we use this proverb
anymore? Does not the son bear the iniquity
of the father? This is what God's saying. This
is what you're saying. You're saying, why won't we use
this proverb anymore? Does not the son bear the iniquity
of the father? So God assures every man that
He will deal justly with every man. Now listen to what He said.
When the Son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath
kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. God said, alright, you want to
stand on your own? That's all you have to do. And He says then
in verse 20, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The soul that sinneth,
it shall die. The Son shall not bear the iniquity
of the Father. Neither shall the Father bear
the iniquity of the Son. The righteousness of the righteous
shall be upon Him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon Him.
But, he even goes further, look at this, but if the wicked will
turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all
my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall
surely live, he shall not die, God said. And all his transgressions
that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him. In His righteousness that He
hath done, He shall live. He said, Have I any pleasure
at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God, and
not that he should return from his ways and live? But you see,
with God telling us that, with God saying, Here it is, do it. If you do all my statutes, you
do all my law, you do that which is lawful and right, you'll live.
And even going further, even if you turn from your sins and
do all my statutes and all that's lawful and right, you'll live. And I won't remember any of your
sins anymore. You know what the problem is? The problem is because
we have that corrupt seed in us, that corrupt nature, we're
only going to do what our sin nature will allow us to do. Number
one, we cannot stop ourselves from transgressing the law of
God. We can't do it. Number two, we cannot make ourselves
turn from our sins. Cannot do it. And number three,
we cannot make ourselves do the righteousness of God's law. We
can't. We cannot. We cannot. So if God said, here, I'll receive
you, just do those things. Don't matter. We can't do it.
We just can't do it. We can't and we won't because
our sin nature won't allow us to. So sinner, God's not unjustly
charging you. He's not unjustly charging you.
God justly charges you with your own transgression which you yourself
have committed and no one else is to blame. He said, The soul
that sinneth, it shall surely die. It shall surely die. So
we got nobody else to blame. We got nobody else to blame.
But grace superabounds. Where sin abounds, grace superabounds. It abounds more and more and
more. Christ came forth and because He walked uprightly, because
He was perfect in His heart, He did exactly what His nature
was to do. He did only that which was righteous
according to God's holy law. He did everything right and just
in perfection now. In perfection according to God's
holy law. God sent His Son to fulfill the
law. Remember when Christ said that?
I didn't come to destroy the law, I came to fulfill it. I
came to fulfill it. And Christ sent Him, He was made
under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that
we might receive the adoption of children. He did that. Christ came forth and He did
exactly what God the Father sent Him to do. He had to be the perfect
spotless lamb, perfectly righteous, proven righteous under that law
before He could even go and redeem us from our sins and put away
our sins. And He did that. He walked. Remember the lamb
in the Old Testament had to be put up and proven spotless? He
did that. 33 years He walked. And then
entered into His public ministry, never sinned, was tempted of
Satan. All those things. And He never sinned once. He
never broke the law of God at all. And then he went to that
garden and he was made sin. He was made sin for his people
and he went to the cross. And God justly charged him with
the sin of his people. And he bore them. And so he put
them away and justified his people completely. So every child born
of the Holy Spirit does what God has given him a nature to
do. And it's better than what God
said he would do under the law. It's better than that. It's better
than that. We had to sin to become transgressors. This grace is better than that.
You know what we do? You know what our nature is to
do when He gives us a new nature? Our nature is to do nothing. Nothing. You can't do that unless
He gives you a new nature. Instead, we confess our sins
to God. And we believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ is all our righteousness. He is our total, complete righteousness. And therefore, God justly imputes
the righteousness of Christ to us. It's a just charge because
God has made us the righteousness of God through the obedience
and blood of Christ. Within, we're created in the
righteousness and holiness of Christ, the holiness of truth.
And by Christ's obedience, we've obeyed the law and we're justified
from all sin. So sinner, look over at Romans
10. Romans 10. So sinners, stop trying to work
for righteousness. Stop trying to do something to
obtain this righteousness. This is the righteousness of
faith. Listen, Romans 10, 9. That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. You see how much
easier grace is? Grace gives you everything. Grace
gives it. God gives us the heart. He gives
us the faith. He gives us the repentance. He
gives us the light. He shows us where Christ is.
He says this is the way. He draws us to Him. He practically
draws out of us the confession of our sins and confession that
we trust Christ for all our salvation. And then He charges us with the
righteousness of God. And when we've done that, when
He's brought us there, we've been made the righteousness of
God in Christ. He will receive us. He will receive
us. Alright, here's the third thing.
Back in our text, He said, And he that speaketh truth in his
heart shall dwell with God. Now again, this is speaking truth
toward God. This is speaking truth toward
God. We're just dealing with God right here in all three of
these things. Now because we're born with that
deceitful heart, you know what we come forth doing? Speaking
lies. That's what we come forth doing.
We speak lies about ourselves and we speak lies about God.
Psalm 58 verse 3 says, The wicked are estranged from the womb.
They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. And Paul
called it, when he was writing to Timothy in the fourth chapter
of 1 Timothy, he called it, speaking lies in hypocrisy. Natural men,
people that aren't religious, they like to call religious folks
hypocrites. And truthfully, most all religious
folks are hypocrites. Most all are. But all men outside
of Christ are hypocrites. They're all liars. Because they
all are pretending through a show that they don't need God. That
they have not the sin that God says they have. And therefore,
they don't need Christ. And it's just all a big old lie
of hypocrisy. That's all it is. Men are living
a lie of hypocrisy. I love that line in And is it
a few good men, whenever the lawyers, Tom Cruise is talking
to Jack Nicholson, you know, and he's the general and, and
he says, all we want to know is the truth. And he says, you
can't handle the truth. Well, that's true of a natural
man, he can't handle the truth. He just can't handle it. But
Christ is the truth. That's why I can't handle it.
Christ is the truth. He's the Word of God. He spoke
and He now speaks the truth of God. When He walked this earth,
John 7, 16, Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine is not
mine. but it's His that sent me." And he said in verse 18,
"...he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory." The man
who is speaking by himself, of himself, his own words that he
comes up with, that man is seeking his own glory. He says, "...but
he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true."
And he says, and there's no unrighteousness in him. He is true, and there
is no unrighteousness in him. Christ is true, and there is
no unrighteousness in him. And so he spoke the truth. He
said, except you repent, you shall all perish in your sins.
That's what he told them. He said, this is the work of
God, that you believe on Him whom He hath sent. That's the
work of God. Believe on Him whom He hath sent. And he spoke personally. He spoke
the truth personally to men. They come up to him and they
were saying, would you just say something plain to us and tell
us plainly and we'd believe if you'd just tell us plainly. And
he said, you can't hear what I'm saying. He said, you can't
understand what I'm saying because my word's not in you. My word's
not in you. And he said in John 8, 44, Ye
are of your father the devil, the lusts of your father you
will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and a bold not
in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh
a lie, he speaketh of his own. He doesn't speak that which somebody
sent him to speak. He speaks of his own, by himself,
of himself, of his own making, of what he came up with. And
he said, for he's a liar and he's the father of it. He's the
father of it. And because I tell you the truth,
you believe me not. Because I tell you the truth.
The truth. Ain't that something? A man will
take, he'll take a liar and he'll heed his words. A man can just
act like he's speaking some deep, mysterious thing and if he's
got a few degrees behind his name and he comes from a prestigious
college or something like that, he can get on television or in
a paper or somewhere and just speak a few deep, mysterious
sounding things and people are just You reckon that's true? We ought to look into that. That
is something, what he said. But a man comes just plain unadorned
and speaks the truth of God and what God says. And he says, I
don't believe a word of that. I don't believe any of that.
You know why? Because he speaks the truth. And this is the truth.
This is the reason men don't like to hear the gospel. The
truth is all natural men are unrighteous liars. That's what
they are. And men don't want to hear that.
And the truth is Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the
life. And no man wants to hear that.
But when Christ the truth enters, when Christ the truth enters,
when the Word of God enters, and when He begins to speak truth
into that inward man, that newly created heart, that's when a
man will listen. And that's when a man will start
speaking the truth. He'll start speaking the truth with God then.
And what he'll say is, he'll confess the truth that all he
is, is sin. He'll say that his walk is sin,
his works have been sin, and up until now that he's confessing
to God, his speech has been sin. All he is is sin. And then he'll
confess the truth to God that Christ is the Son of God, that
He's all his hope, all his righteousness, all his sanctification, and all
his acceptance with God. He'll speak the truth. Look at
1 John 1.8. 1 John 1.8. Give me one second. I don't think I'm in the right
spot. Where is it? Where is it? If
we say that we have no sin, where is it? You see that? Where? Where?
Is it? It helps if I get in the right
chapter. 1 John 1.8. Alright. If we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That doesn't mean just the fact
that we're lying. That means the truth is not dwelling
in us. That's why we're not speaking
the truth. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Remember Christ said, and that
man who speaks the truth, there's no unrighteousness in him. He
says here, he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Verse 10,
if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word
is not in us. But the flip side of that is,
is if we speak the truth, confessing our sin, confessing we have to
have Christ, then the truth is in us and His Word is in us. That means Christ is abiding
in us. That's why we speak the truth. He gets all the glory
for every bit of this. He gets the glory for creating
that new heart. He gives the glory for making
us righteous, and He gives the glory for causing us to speak
the truth, because He is the truth. Chapter 2, verse 1 says,
My little children, these things write unto you that you sin not,
and if, the word is really when, any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the
propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for
the sins of His elect throughout the whole world. So sinner, Christ
is the Word. Is the Word in you? Is the truth
in you? If it is, then you'll stop playing
the hypocrite and lying, and you'll start speaking the truth
to God. You'll tell God you're a sinner. And you'll tell God
that's all you are. And you'll tell God that even
the righteousness I've done, that I thought was righteousness,
is sin. Everything I am, everything I
do, everything I think, everything I say is sin. and you'll plead
for his mercy and beg his mercy and take sides with God and say,
if I don't have your mercy and if I don't have the righteousness
you've provided by your son, I'll perish in my sin. I've got
to have your righteousness. That's when a man is true. And
honest men are saved men. Honest men will dwell with God
in glory in heaven because he's made them honest. He's made them
honest. Now look back at Ephesians 4 real quick and we'll close
with this. That's why Paul said in Ephesians
4, and look at verse 24, he says, speaking of those that
are renewed in the spirit of your mind, he says, and that
you put on the new man. which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness, or as the margin reads, holiness
of truth, of truth. Wherefore, putting away lying,
speak ever man truth with his neighbor, for one remembers one
of another. That gives a whole new meaning
to what that truth is. That don't mean just telling
that your cat got over into, or your dog got over into his
flower bed. That means saying, This is the truth. We're liars
by nature. There's no good in us. But Christ
is righteousness. He's the righteousness of His
people. He's speaking the truth in righteousness
and in love. So you see, believer, this is
how we're made. This is how we're made to walk
uprightly. by Christ who came and walked uprightly and gave
us a new heart through the Spirit of God. This is how we're made
to work righteousness, by Christ who fulfilled the law and redeemed
us from the curse of the law, and by the Spirit of God giving
us a new heart to lay hold of Him, the righteousness of Christ
is imputed to His people. And then thirdly, we're made
to speak the truth when Christ the Word, Christ the truth is
formed in our heart and we cease speaking the lies of our flesh
and start speaking the truth of Him. Amen.