Good morning, everyone. It's
been a while since I've been here, and I'm thankful that we're
back. I'm thankful that your pastor
has come to be with you. And if you will turn with me
to the book of Job. There's a question that Job asked
in Job chapter 2 that we're going to try to deal with for just
a few minutes. It's a question that must be answered. It's a
question that is given to all men. How can man be just with God? How is it possible that a sinner,
such as I, can stand before God and be declared holy? What a
task, what a task. In Job chapter 2, or Job chapter
9, I'm sorry. Job chapter 9, verse 2. This
man, Job, according to chapter one, was a great man, according
to what the Lord told us of Job, and he taught us of Job. And
in one day, in one day, this man, Job, lost everything that
he had. He lost his 10 children, he lost
his herds, he lost his cattle, he lost his health, and finally,
lost his health and welfare. But the scripture says in Job
chapter two and verse three, I believe it is, and the Lord
said unto Satan, after the Lord gave Satan power, the ability
to touch Job, now Satan himself admitted, he said, I can't touch
him, you've got a hedge about him. And so it is with you and
I. Nothing comes our way except
God allows it and permits it to come. Our God's in control. The God that we hear preached
about today is wringing his hand, saying, oh, I want somebody to
do this, but not our God. Not the God of this book. Our
God says, I work in the armies of the heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth, and none can stay my hand or say unto me, what
doest thou? So that tells us, that teaches
us, and that gives us an understanding that our God is in control. And
God allowed Satan to touch Joe. And in chapter 2, he allowed
him to touch his body. He first allowed him to take
everything that he had. Every possession he had was taken
in one day. And in Job chapter 2, it says,
And the Lord said unto Satan, in verse 3, Hast thou considered,
my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a
perfect and an upright man? One that feareth God and assureth
evil, and still he holds fast his integrity, although he's
lost everything that he had, personally, and worldly things. He lost everything that he had,
yet he holds fast his integrity. He's still trusted in God. Although thou knowest me against
him. I never saw this until a few days I was studying this. It
said, the Lord told Satan that he moved him against him to destroy
him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord and
said, skin for skin, all that a man has was a gift for his
life. Put forth thy hand now and touch his bones and his flesh
and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan,
he's in your hands, but save his life. You cannot take his
life. And so Satan went forth from
the presence of the Lord and smoked Job with sore balls from
the sole of his foot to his crown of his head. In the time of Job's affliction,
In the time of Job's troubles and trials, if you read through
the remainder of this book, you'll see the things that Job went
through. His friends came and asked him, said, Job, what have
you done that God would afflict you such a way? His friends said,
we don't know you anymore. You're a stranger unto us. But
Job asked this question in Job chapter nine and verse two. I
know it is of the truth, but how should man be just with God? How is it possible that a man
such as I can be just in the eyes of the Lord? This is a question
of all questions, and in order to answer this question, we must
first understand three things. The first thing we must understand
is the holiness of God. We're not dealing with some peanut
God here. We're not dealing with some little
made-up God that man keeps in his pocket. We're dealing with
the God of the heavens and the universe, the one that said,
let there be light, and there was light, the one that rules
over all things and is holy, holy, holy, says the Lord. The second thing we must understand
before we can answer this question is the sinfulness of man. Just
how bad off are we? Just how deep in sin am I? And the third thing, what is
it? What's it mean to be justified?
I pray that the Lord would teach us. God's chief attributes, the
first question, are the first understanding we must have. We
must understand something about the holiness of God. God's chief
attribute is His holiness. All through the Scripture, we
read of Him being a just God, we read of Him being a loving
God, we read of Him being a grace and merciful God, but He's holy. He's holy. Holy, holy, holy is
what the angels or the Seraphim scribed when Isaiah saw the Lord. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty. This is the one that we must
deal with. This is the one that sits on the throne, and this
is the one that we must answer to. In order for me to be justified
with God, I must understand something about who He is. Habakkuk said
in Habakkuk chapter 2 and verse 20, but the Lord is in His holy
temple. Let all the earth keep silent
before Him. And men run about us and say,
oh, I decided to let Jesus do this. And I decided to let the
Lord have His way in my life. How foolish. How foolish they
are. And it's only by the grace of
God that you and I understand anything about this. Left to
ourselves, we would be in the same, I was in the same situation. I was in the same mess that they
are. But God, by His grace, came and began to teach me something
about the grace of God, teach me something about His holiness
and how that I must stand before Him and give an answer. Everything about Him, everything
that He does is holy, holy, holy. You read through the scriptures.
All the scriptures declare His holy angels, His holy spirit,
His holy presence was manifested in the holies of holies. Everything
about Him is holy, holy, holy, just and true. You remember what
was wrote on the priest's mitre? The high priest went in to offer
a sacrifice once a year into the holies of holies. And on
his miter, on his breastplate was wrote, holiness unto the
Lord. Holiness unto the Lord. How can
that be with you and I? No wonder Job asked the question,
how can man be just before God? How can man be holy in the very
sight of God? The scripture declares without
holiness, no man shall see God. God is holy. How holy is He? How holy is this
God? God is so holy that even His
mercy and His grace must be kept within His holiness. He shows
unto us holy mercy, holy grace, just grace, just mercy. So all
declare God is holy. Brother Henry said this, I read what he wrote here, he
said, how holy is God? He said, so holy. that a fallen
Adam must be separated from his presence. Once Adam walked and
talked with God in the cool of the day as friend with friend.
Can you imagine that? Walking with God in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ as friend with friend. But now, because
of this thing of sin, Adam must be separated. God being holy
cannot look upon sin and allow it to remain. Where sin is, it
must be punished. Where sin is, God's holiness
must be satisfied. So holy that Moses could not
look upon his face and live. So holy that Uzzah, you remember,
they were bringing the ark back from the captivity. And they
had it on a cart, which was not according to the way that God
prescribed. And this man, Uzzah, saw the
oxen stumble, and the cart began to shake on the cart, or the
ark began to shake on the cart. And Uzzah, good intentions, reached
out to steady the ark, and God smote him dead. He did that which
was not lawful in the sight of God. He touched something that
he was not permitted to touch, And God killed him. That's how
holy God is. So holy that the seraphims covered
their faces and covered their feet and cried, holy, holy, holy
is the Lord of hosts. So holy that Isaiah, upon discovering
the holiness of God, he cried out, I'm cut off. I'm cut off. I am a man of unclean lips. And
I dwell among a people with unclean lips. So holy. that he forsook his beloved son. I don't understand this, but
the scripture says that the Lord cried out, my God, my God, why
has thou forsaken me? So holy that he forsook his son,
bearing my sins upon the cross. One word to describe his holiness. There's one word to describe
God is holy. One word that describes man is
sinful. Never before was there anything
more opposite than the holiness of God and the sinfulness of
man. You say, well, the East is from
the West. No, if you go far enough East,
you will eventually start going West because you're going in
a circle. But this thing of a holiness
of God is so holy, And the sinfulness of man is so sinful, they cannot,
they cannot dwell together. We look back to the garden. Man
was not created sinful. The scripture says that God created
man in his own likeness, never his own image. And he walked
and talked with him as friend with friend. But when Adam sinned,
When this thing of sin entered into the world, it separated. It separated. God must separate
himself from sin. He cannot allow sin to remain.
Paul said, wherefore by one man sin had entered into the world,
and death by sin. So death passed upon all men,
for all have sinned. And that's our state. That's
our state before a holy God. We stand before God as sinners. Sinners. And the result of Adam's
fall? Adam's sin. And all who were
born in Adam died in Adam. He said, well, Adam lived 900
and some years after that. He did, in the flesh. But he
died to the things of God. He lost the holiness that he
had with God. He lost the favor that he had
with God because of this thing of sin. David said, behold, I
was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
The wicked, you and I, were estranged from the womb. We go about as
soon as we are born, speaking lies. He said, well, not me.
I, no, no. He's talking to me, too. He's
talking to every man living upon the earth, male or female. They
all sin and come short of the glory of God. And men around
us say, oh, I can change my ways. I can change, and I've decided
to do this, and I've decided to give my life to the Lord.
I've decided to walk an aisle. How foolish, how foolish. But
that's what religion is based upon, the foolishness of man. Man in his fallen state is incapable. You're not capable of even one
good thought, not one good thought. Jeremiah said, can the Ethiopian
change his skin? Or the leopard his pot? Then
you may also do good which is custom to do an evil. That's
just our nature. Our nature is against God. Our
nature is a sinful nature. And the holiness of God and the
sinfulness of man cannot come together as they are. So then, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. So the question arises, how sinful
is man? How sinful is man? This is what
God said. Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart is only evil continually. Every thought that we have. Oh,
and I have good thoughts. No, you don't. Because you're
in his flesh. We have, when we're able to study
God's Word, when we're able to meditate upon God's Word, God
by His grace enlightens us to a point, but not in His flesh. We are still sinful, wretched,
vile creatures. I don't care if you're the greatest
preacher in the world, you're still a sinner in yourself, and
sin must be dealt with. The scriptures declare that they
have all together become filthy. There's none good. There's none
righteous. And the scriptures paint this
picture of the fallen man. They're dead, having no hope,
and without God in the world. Isaiah said, from the sole of
the foot, even to the head, there's no soundness in it, but wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores, they've not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Man at his best state
is altogether vanity. Altogether vanity. Men may attempt
to justify themselves by who they are and what they do. But
Job said, if I justify myself, my own mouth condemns me. If
I say that I have no sin, I lie, and I make God a liar. But in
God's sight, every mouth must be stopped, and all the world
become guilty before God. Paul concluded, by the deeds
of the law and the works of the flesh shall no flesh be justified
before God. There's never been anything more
sinful than the human heart. And men around us say, well,
I know my heart. I know that I know you don't. No, you don't. You don't know
how sinful you are. I don't know how sinful I am. Left to myself, outside of the
restraining power and arm of God, I would do anything. Anything. Men say, well, I wouldn't do
this and I wouldn't do that. There was a man in our congregation
years ago in the Free Will Baptist Organization, and he made a statement
that stuck with me for now 40 years, I guess. He said, if I'd
have been there when Christ was crucified, I would have stopped
it. Oh, how foolish. They sat down. The whole religious
realm of that day sat down and looked upon a man hanging on
the cross to see what he would do. They sat down there to watch
him die. No one lifted a finger to help
him. Why? Because this was the purpose
and the plan of God from all eternity. But sinful man, sinful
man laid hold of Christ. They took him. and they crucified
him. And lesser ourselves, we would
have done the same thing. What does it mean to be justified
before God? It means to be eternally pardoned
from all sin. Can you imagine? Can you imagine
that? It means to be acquitted and
vindicated from all charges before the holy justice of God. It means
to be made and regarded righteous in the very sight of God. No
wonder Job said, how can man be just with God? See it knowing
something about what it means to be justified before God. To
be justified is to be without sin, without guilt, having no
blame. Now that's a realm that you and
I can enter into. We can imagine it, we can think
on it, but we cannot grasp it because we are nothing but sin. And to imagine being without
sin is beyond our imagination. Brother Henry came to Dingus
years and years ago, and he made this statement. He was preaching
on being justified. And he said, it said, just as
if I had never sinned. To be justified before God, you
must be holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight. To
be justified is to have a perfect peace with God. These things
are not in our realm to understand, but oh, by the grace of God,
He gives us a glimpse of them. He gives us an understanding
within the heart that I know that I am His. I know that I
am redeemed by the blood of Christ. I know that Christ has took my
place. I know that He shed His blood
for me, and I know that He has redeemed me from the curse of
the law. This is what it is to be justified.
To be justified is to have perfect peace with God. To be justified
is to be free from the curse of the law and free from all
its charges. I have no charge against me,
standing and justified before God. Standing before God, robed
in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am as holy as
God's dear Son." He said, well, that's blasphemy. That's according
to the scriptures. As He is, so are we in this world. As He is holy, so am I. In myself,
no, but in Christ. This relationship that we have
with Christ is so pure and so perfect that we can stand before
God and hear Him say, well done, well done. To be justified is
to have eternal life and glory. To be justified is to be totally
reconciled to God, to be at peace, at one with God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Therefore, knowing the holiness
of God and the sinfulness of man, the inability of man, and
what it means to be justified, how is it that the question still
rings over and over, how can man be just before God? Turn
with me to Romans chapter 3. Paul describes it. Paul lays
this out thoroughly. Romans 3, we'll start in verse
21. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. The righteousness we have is not God's personal,
that we don't become God. Now don't misunderstand this.
We don't become the son of God. We're sons of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We are adopted into the family
of God. We're made partakers of God.
But we don't become God ourselves. That's not what I'm talking about.
But we have this righteousness that the Lord Jesus Christ provided
for us, worked out for us, and gave us, wrapped us in it as
he does a garment. We are wrapped in his righteousness. And we stand there. And this
is how God sees you and I right now. Although we're still in
this flesh, although we're sinful from the top of our head to the
sole of our feet, there's nothing but sin and corruption within
me, but in Christ, oh, in Christ, I can stand there perfect before
God, perfect, perfect. I've got a scripture I'll get
to here in just a minute. Paul said in Romans chapter 10,
he said, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
Israel is that they might be saved. This is his people according
to the flesh, the Jewish nation. He says, for I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God. Oh, a zeal, they're on fire for
God. They're knocking on doors and
they're having this meeting and that meeting. They have a zeal
of God, but not according to knowledge. They have no understanding
who they are, and they have no understanding of who God is.
And being ignorant of God's righteousness, they're going about to establish
their own righteousness. And that's what the majority
of religion is doing today. They're building their self up
so that God will accept them. They're establishing a righteousness
before God that they can stand upon and say, look what I've
done, and look who I am. I've never done this, and I've
never done that, so God's gonna accept me. Depart from me, you
that work iniquity, I never knew you. But they being ignorant
of the righteousness of God, they're going about to establish
their own righteousness, and they have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ.
They're going the wrong way. They have us ill, but they're
going the wrong direction. Lord, that God would be pleased
to teach us. Look unto me, all ye ends of
the earth, and be ye saved. Look unto me, for I am God, and
besides me there's none else. The righteousness of God signifies
both the law and the precepts of the law. God, in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ, satisfied His law perfectly. He dotted
every I and crossed every T. Everything that God commanded
to be done back in the Old Testament in sacrifices and types and shadows,
Christ came. In the fullness of time, Christ
came to do the will of Him that sent me. And Christ obeyed the
law of God perfectly. And His obedience was given unto
me, given unto me to the point that what he did, I did, because
of the relationship that he had with me. Look at verse 22. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that
believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. This righteousness that you and
I have, This holiness that you and I have is given unto us,
imputed unto us, and charged unto us to the point that it's
ours. It's mine. I have it. It's mine. And this righteousness is accomplished
only by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ and God sending
His Spirit into us, creating this new man, this new creature
that dwells within us. This thing of Righteousness,
holiness, and peace. This new spirit, this new nature,
this new heart that God creates within us. Then he works within
us and gives us faith to look to Christ and says, there he
is, there he is. My hope, my foundation, my all
is in him and him alone. This is the righteousness that
we have in him. Knowing something about this
righteousness, we can answer this question. How can man be
just before God? Only in Christ. Only standing
in the robes and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is the only way that you and I can be righteous before God.
Verse 24 and 25, Paul said, "...being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sin that are
passed through the forbearance of God. Those who believe, those
who look to Christ, are made righteous in Christ, and we are
made free, free from the law, O happy condition. Jesus has
bled, and there is remission. then they're fully justified.
They're fully justified. If you look to Christ by faith,
if you lay hold of Christ by faith, you can stand before God
wholly justified. Looking unto the obedience of
the Lord Jesus Christ, all saints, Old Testament saints, which look
to pictures and types and shadows, New Testament saints that look
to the person, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ are made one. We're free. Free from the law. To declare, I say at this time,
His righteousness. That He might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. God is so holy that
He cannot just push sin under the rug. He cannot just wink
at sin. Sin must be punished. And that's
exactly what happened on the cross. Sin was punished in my
room and in my stead. And Christ came forth, raised
from the dead, to honor and magnify the law and the prophets of God.
And everything that he did, he did for me. Every drop of blood
that he shed was on my behalf. Every stripe that he had was
because of my sin. And when he cried out, it's finished.
He bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Dear friend, this
is the very heart of the gospel. This is the very glory of God,
for it's manifested and magnified in the very attributes of God.
How holy is God? So holy that he killed his own
son. But how just is God and how holy
is God? So holy that when he saw the
perfection of his son, he said, I'm well pleased. I'm well pleased. And me standing in him and him
standing in me, I can say the same thing. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his own mercy, he saves us
and gives unto us a heart to know God, gives unto us the faith
to look to God. And we look and we say, there
he is, my all in all. if in him and him alone.