Turn with me, please, to the
Book of Job. While you're turning, let me express my appreciation
for the invite to come and speak to you folks. I thank the world
of your pastor. We've been without a pastor now
for about three and a half years, and I encourage you to pray for
your pastor and to thank God for him every day because Until
you're without a pastor for a long time, it's kind of like you don't
miss the water until the well runs dry. And we're trusting
that our Lord will be gracious and send us a pastor in His good
time. I want to read from Job 25 today,
Job 25. And I hope, as Gene said, that the
Lord will enable me to brag on Christ Job 25, then answered
Bildad the Shuhite and said, dominion and fear are with him.
He maketh peace in his high places. Is there any number of his armies?
And upon whom doth not his light arise? How then can a man be
justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? even the moon and it shineth
not. Yea, the stars are not pure in
his sight. How much less man that is a worm
and the son of man, which is a worm. I've entitled this message
from what we read in verse four. How then can a man be justified
with God? Now, this is a question that
has plagued the heart of men since the fall of our father
Adam in the garden. We're born with a conscience.
It tells us that we will one day answer to a God for the wrongdoings
that we've committed in this life. Romans chapter one makes
it plain that men are born knowing that there is a God. Starting
in verse 20, we read, for the invisible things of him from
the creation of the world are clearly seen. being understood
by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew
God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened,
professing themselves to be wise, They became fools. The Psalms
tell us, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now I want to address this question. How can a man be justified with
God as if everyone sitting here has never heard the gospel and
has no idea who this God is of whom I'm speaking? And I want
to ask the five W's, who, what, why, when, where, and throw in
a how as to what it takes to justify a sinner before a holy
God. First, who is this God before
whom we need to be justified? Now we're told in Genesis that
he is the one who created all things, that simply by the word
of his power, he spoke this universe and all that is in it. into being. And further, we're told in John
chapter 1 that it is Jesus Christ who did the creating. It says,
all things were made by him, and without him was not anything
made that was made. This God of whom I speak is unimaginably
holy, who we're told is of purer eyes than to even look upon sin. He is a God who does what he
wants, when he wants, why he wants, with whom he wants, and
answers to no one. We're told in Daniel that he
has his way in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? His holy will cannot be thwarted
by puny men. He's not the God of modern day
religion who loves everybody and would just be tickled to
death if he was able to save everybody. But puny men and their
strong will thwarts his purpose constantly. He's pictured by
modern religion as a God who is constantly in a state of turmoil,
just looking over the gates of heaven, wringing his hand, wishing
that someone might believe on him. That is simply not the God
of this Bible. He simply does not love everyone. Now, most modern religionists
would be appalled at that statement because you're told from the
time you're an infant, God loves you and has a plan for your life.
Not only does he not love everyone, we're told plainly in the scriptures
that there are many that are born into this world hated of
God before they ever draw their first breath. Esau is a perfect
example, but there are many more. This God is described as a God
who will by no means clear the guilty, who will hold men and
women accountable for deeds in the day of judgment. He is a God who, if he finds
the slightest trace of sin on you in the day of judgment, will
condemn you to an eternity of unimaginable woe and suffering. But thanks be to God, We rejoice
in this fact. He is a God of love. First John
tells us that God is love. The scripture tell us that God
gets no satisfaction, none whatsoever of condemning men and women to
eternal hell. But it does tell us that he delights
in mercy. There's numerous scriptures that
speak of his mercy, that speak of his abundant mercy. his great
mercy, his tender mercy, his exceeding mercy. Micah asked
a question in Micah 7.18, who is a God like unto thee? And
the answer to that, there is none. Who is a God like unto
thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever. Why? because he delighteth in
mercy. That ETH at the end of delighteth
means that it's a constant ongoing process that every minute of
every day our God gets pleasure, if you will, gets satisfaction,
to put it in human terms, it makes God happy to show mercy
to undeserving sinners. But what does it mean when we
say a sinner has to be justified. It is defined as follows, to
free from the guilt and penalty attached to sin, to demonstrate
sufficient legal reason for an action to be taken. God's law
must be satisfied before a sinner can be justified. To show or
prove to be just, right, or reasonable, and we know that our God, everything
he does is done in righteousness. To declare one innocent or guiltless,
to show satisfactory reason for something to be done. But I'll
ask the next question. Why is it necessary for us to
be justified? As I mentioned before, this God
to whom we have to do is unimaginably holy. infinitely holy. He demands perfection. In Leviticus chapter 20, God
had Moses instruct the nation of Israel. And in verse 7 of
that chapter, we read where he says, sanctify yourselves, therefore,
and be ye holy. For I am the Lord your God, and
ye shall keep my statutes and do them. I am the Lord which
sanctify you. And first Peter tells us, but
as he which calleth you is holy, be ye holy. In all manner of
conversations, because it is written, be ye holy, for I am
holy. God demands perfection before
a man or woman can enter into his presence. And we just read
that God requires men and women to keep his statutes and to do
them. Yet we read in Romans 3, some
bad news when it comes to that. As it is written, there is none
righteous. No, not one. It doesn't say there's not many
righteous, it says there's absolutely none. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
and in case you didn't get it the first time, no, not one. Job knew this for a fact when
he said in Job 9.20, if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall
condemn me. If I say I am perfect, It shall
also prove me perverse." So then, if perfect holiness is required
to enter into the presence of a holy God and there's not one
human being capable of producing that holiness, I'll ask the next
question. How then does this justification
take place? This is what Bildad asked. How then can a man be justified
with God? The answer is that there must
be a substitute found to stand in the place of a guilty sinner. This is what we refer to as the
doctrine of substitution. It's a blessed doctrine. But
did you know the word substitute or substitution is not found
one single time in the King James Version? That doesn't mean that
it's not a blessed doctrine. It's stated many other ways,
but those two words are simply not used. But it's clearly demonstrated
throughout scripture. In Isaiah 53, 11, it tells us
this very thing, where we read, he shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. How? For he shall bear their
iniquities. And if he bears or carries those
iniquities, which he did, he was also required to bear the
punishment for those iniquities. As a scapegoat that we read of
in Leviticus 16 had the sins of the people of Israel laid
on his head and he carried those sins into the wilderness, so
our Savior had our iniquities laid upon him and carried those
iniquities into the wilderness of God's forgetfulness. Now God's
divinely appointed requirement for the forgiveness of sins is
the shedding of blood. Hebrews 9 tells us, and almost
all things are by the law purged with blood and without shedding
of blood is no remission. This word remission is another
word for absolution, forgiveness, pardon. or amnesty. So this verse clearly tells us
that blood must be shed before any forgiveness, before any resolution
or restitution with God takes place. And our great substitute
shed his blood for the remission of our sins, not his or ours. Turn with me to Romans 5, Romans
chapter 5. Romans chapter 5, we'll read
the first nine verses of this chapter. Therefore, here's this
word, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith
into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also. This is what Larry spoke of a
little while ago. Knowing that tribulations work
with patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope
maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when
we were yet without strength in due time, in God's good time,
Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die yet, for adventure for a good man, some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. This ninth verse tells us that
because we are justified by his blood, were saved from wrath
through him, through his finished work of reconciliation, of bringing
the lost sinner to God. And a further answer as to how
God justifies a sinner is this, that it is done by God giving
that sinner faith, the faith that enables the sinner to see
and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for all his justification,
for all his standing, before the Holy God. Paul confirms this
in several of his letters. Flip over a couple more books
to Galatians. Galatians chapter 3. Familiar text. Galatians 3, O
foolish Galatians! Who hath bewitched you that you
should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath
been evidently set forth, crucified among you. This only would I
learn of you, received ye the Spirit by works of the law or
by the hearing of faith. Are ye so foolish, having begun
in the Spirit? Are ye now made perfect in the
flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet
in vain? He therefore that ministereth
to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doth he it
by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as
Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith, the same
are the children of Abraham. And the Scriptures, For seeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations of
the earth be blessed. So then, they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. Verse 8 tells us that we're justified
through faith. Paul told the Romans, therefore,
we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of
the law, without that sinner doing anything to contribute
to his salvation. And verse 8 tells us that we're
justified through faith. In Romans 1, we read much the
same thing. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace. with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. And Hebrews 11 makes it crystal
clear how essential this faith is. It says, but without faith,
it is impossible, not just hard, it is impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that
he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Now let
me be as clear as I can be here. Simply having faith does not
save a man or a woman. I can have faith that when I
get in my car, it's going to take me where I want to go. Or
I can have faith that when I sit down in a chair at my dining
room table, that it'll hold me up. Simply having faith doesn't
cut it. People like to say, just got
to have faith. Keep the faith. Most of them
don't even know what that means, but it's just something they
say. But the scriptures make it clear
that it is not our faith, it is the object of our faith, the
Lord Jesus Christ himself, who by faith in his name is the one
who saves us and who justifies us by his finished work and the
imputation of that work on our behalf. It's like a man who's
sinking in quicksand. He needs someone to save him
from death. And one appears and throws him
a rope and pulls him to safety. Now clearly it was not the rope
that saved the man, but rather the one who tossed him the rope
and pulled him to safety. So it is with our faith. Faith is the rope that God uses
to draw us to Christ. It's not faith that saves us,
it's the object of that faith. And remember this, the scriptures
make it plain that faith is the gift of God, given to some and
withheld from others. And people can say that that's
not right, but if God does it, it's right. It is His holy will
and His holy right to do so. So it brings us to the next question. Who accomplishes this justification
of which we're speaking? Is it the needy sinner? We've
already read in Romans that there's none righteous. Romans 8.33 gives
us the answer to that question where we read, Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Five simple words, it
is God that justifieth. Could it be any plainer? It is
God that justifies. It's God that justifies as much
as He can, but you must do the rest. There's no caveats there,
there's no asterisk, there's no footnote. It is God that justifies. Now when it says it's God that
justifies, it's speaking of all three persons of the Holy Trinity.
The Father chose a people in eternity, what we call eternity
past, and the Son came to earth to die for those chosen people.
And in time, the Spirit comes to those people, gives them life,
and grants them faith to believe on Christ. This entire process
is described by Paul in the first chapter of his letter to the
Ephesians. Turn there with me. You can quote
this, I'm sure, by heart. But let's look at it. Ephesians
chapter 1. Chapter 1, this describes for us the entire gambit of salvation. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the
faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According if
he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the
praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted
in the Beloved, in whom, in Christ, in whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom
and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will,
according to his good pleasure, which he has purposed in himself,
that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven
and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance, an unspeakable, unimaginable inheritance. Those of us who were the children
of wrath have now become children of God. That in the dispensation of fullness
of time, He might gather together all things in one in Christ,
which are in heaven and in earth, which are on earth, even in Him,
in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after
the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise
of His glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom He also trusted
after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed
with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of
His glory." Verse 5 tells us that God chose us, that He predestinated
us to be His children, that He did it because He felt like it.
It was according to the good pleasure of His will. And it
tells us that redemption came at the cost of blood, the precious
blood of Christ. Peter tells us that, that we're
not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but
with the precious blood of Christ, that blood which was acquired
for us, the forgiveness of sins. And it was done, according to
these verses we read, because God is rich in grace and mercy.
So we come to the next question. When does justification take
place? Now the more proper question
would be when did justification take place? This is something
that was accomplished long, long ago. We cannot comprehend eternity
past. It doesn't even make sense, but
we have to put it in some sort of language that we can understand.
When men and women talk about eternal life, you can ask most
people, what does it mean to have eternal life? And they'll
say, well, that's life that never ends. You're only half right. For something to be deemed eternal,
it has to have no beginning and no end. And if we're told that
we have eternal life, there's only one way that that would
make sense, that we were alive in Christ from eternity. We didn't just start having eternal
life and from the time we were born, now we're going to have
it. We were in Christ in eternity past. Now one meaning of the word that
we read here in Ephesians, before the foundation of the world,
one meaning of that word is establishment. Before this world was ever established,
before mankind was ever created, Our justification was set. It was sure. It was as sure as
the throne of God. So if our justification took
place before the foundation of the world, it should be crystal
clear that the sinner has nothing to do with that justification.
He doesn't add anything to it, and he certainly can't take anything
away from it. Our justification does not take
place, as modern day religion likes to say, when we came to
the Lord, or when we found the Lord, or when we gave our heart
to Jesus, or when we walked on an aisle. Those two verses in
Romans make it clear, while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. For if we, for if when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son,
much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Both of these verses make it
crystal clear that our justification, our reconciliation was secured
long before we were ever born. Now, basically, there are two
religions in this world, only two. Sometimes when I'm curious
about things, my wife makes fun of me sometimes, I'll ask Siri. So one day I said, hey Siri,
how many religions are there in the world? You'll be astonished
at this answer, because I was. Siri replied to me, there are
more than 10,000 distinct religions in this world. 10,000. And yet
they can all be condensed into two categories. works religion,
where man is required to do something to contribute to his salvation,
or salvation by grace, what we call grace religion. God bestowing
mercy upon sinners. Ours, what we believe, falls
into the second category. And if you believe that all things
necessary for your salvation are already done, They're already
accomplished and it's not necessary for us to do anything. But some
would protest. Well, you have to believe. I've
had people tell me that. Well, I have to believe. Yeah,
you're right. You have to believe. But that's
like saying that a newborn baby has to decide whether or not
to breathe. That baby breathes because it
has life. It comes naturally. That breathing
that that newborn infant does is involuntary. And so it is
with faith. When the Spirit comes to us in
faith, we cannot help but to believe we're made alive in Christ. And as that newborn babe breathes
involuntarily, I would venture to say that our belief is involuntary. We cannot help but believe any
more than we can help but breathe. Now we come to our last question.
Where? Did justification take place?
And of course, in the mind and purpose of God, it took place
long ago when the untold ages of eternity passed. Our justification
was not something God just was sitting around one day and thought,
this would be a good idea if I come up with some way for these
people to be justified. Because in the mind and purpose
of God, This entire, what we call, plan of salvation, I hate
to even use that term because it's abused by modern day religion,
but everything necessary for our justification for our salvation
was in place. And because of our limited capacity
to think of things in time, I confuse myself. It's kind of like watching
a movie about time travel. I can't grasp it. It's beyond
our thinking to understand how God thinks of everything in the
present tense. There's no past with God, there's
no future with God. He thinks of everything in the
present tense. But there is a place in time where the event which secured
our justification took place. And the answer to where the event
that secured our justification took place is Jerusalem, Israel, on a hill called Golgotha. John 19, 17 says, and he, bearing
his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull,
which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified
him, and two others with him, on either side one, and Jesus
in the midst. There is Christ hung on that
Roman tree, our justification, our redemption, our reconciliation,
the forgiveness of our sins was accomplished, it was finalized.
When our Lord declared those words, it is finished. So there you have it, folks,
the what, when, why, who, and how of justification. It was accomplished by the triune
God in eternity past because it seemed good in his sight. And it was finalized, if you
will, at Calvary when Christ died on that tree. And since
we have assurance that all that is needed for our justification
is long since done, We can lie down in the bosom of our Savior
as He commanded us. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We can snuggle
up as a child snuggles in the lap of a parent. We can snuggle
up to Christ and rest in Him. There's no more work to do. Our
Savior is seated in glorious ease and majesty. ruling all
things by the word of his power. He tells us in Matthew, all power
is given unto me in heaven and earth. He's setting in perfect
ease, ruling all things in this world. So the answer to this
question, which Bildad asked, how then can a man be justified
with God? You've heard the answer to. Now,
if you have not yet cast yourself at the feet of Christ, and sought
forgiveness and mercy, I would implore you to do so today, if
you're able. You're helpless to do anything
for yourself. The scriptures make that clear.
We've already read that it is God that does the justifying.
But our Lord promised, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise
cast out. So if you are able, Cast yourself
on the mercy of God. And if you're able from your
heart to do that, it is a sign that God has begun a good work
in your heart. Thank you for your attention.
Lord bless you.