Jeremiah chapter 8 We'll start reading in verse 1 At that
time saith the Lord they shall bring out the bones of the kings
of Judah and the bones of his princes and the bones of his
priests and the bones of the prophets and the bones of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their graves and they shall
spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of
heaven, whom they've loved, and whom they've served, after whom
they walked, and whom they sought, and whom they have worshipped. They shall not be gathered, nor
buried, they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth. Now,
what we read here is the Lord saying to Jeremiah to bring out
the bones of the kings, the priests of Judah, the people of Jerusalem,
and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants,
and to spread them out all before the sun, the moon, and the stars,
all the hosts of heaven, whom they've loved, whom they've walked
after, and whom they've sought. What we see here, first of all,
is, I don't know if you've ever read in the scripture, in Jewish
tradition, bringing out the bones. This was something that, the
bones were not to be disturbed. To the Jews, this was a sacred
thing. That's why they would put the bones in these ossuaries.
They weren't to be disturbed until the resurrection. They
believed once the bones were laid to rest, they were not to
be disturbed because the only disturbing was to happen to those
bones is when the Lord came back and put flesh on them, and they
rose again. So, to do this is not only offensive to the Jews,
but it's a desecration of some tradition that they established,
which is not based on scripture, but it's a tradition that they
had, and the Lord is saying, go get their bones, and you throw
them out in the field, and you put them out before the sun,
and you put them out before the moon, the stars, and the host
of heaven, whom they've sought after. and you put them out there
in verse three, and death shall be chosen rather than life. By
all the residue of them remain of this evil family, which remain
in all the places whither I've driven them, saith the Lord of
hosts. Moreover, thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord,
shall they fall and not arise? Shall he turn away and not return? So when he says, shall they fall
and not arise, the bones, are they saying, the bones that we've
thrown out in the field, shall they fall, meaning when they
die, shall they not also arise? You've trusted the sun, the moon,
the stars, the host of heaven, all these things that you worship,
now let them raise you. I'm gonna throw them out there,
let's see what happens. You may fall, but you're still gonna
be held responsible for what you've done even after you've
fallen. And so the Lord has thrown these bones out because of what
they've done. Shall he turn away and not return? It says in verse
four. That word turn away actually
reads turn back. And then in verse five, why then
is this people of Jerusalem slidding back by perpetual backsliding? That word slidding back is the
same word turn back. Turn back to what? Well, it says
in verse five, they hold fast to deceit and they refuse to
return. Refuse to return to what? Refuse
to return to God. So they've taken hold of these
things, these idolatrous actions in Jewish tradition, worshiping,
not even in Jewish tradition, in any of the traditions of the
peoples of the land that they were told not to mingle with,
They worship the sun, the moon, the stars, all these things in
heaven that the Lord's made, and they're worshiping things,
his creations. And he's saying, you've slidden
back, you've taken hold of deceit, and you've refused to return.
But you've turned to your own gods, the sun, the moon, anything
other than the God of this book. You've turned back to works.
Anytime we read in scripture about turning back to Egypt when
the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt out into the desert. They'd cry to Moses and Aaron,
oh, that we were back in Egypt, oh, back in Egypt where we had
all this food and places to live and we weren't thirsty and walking
around in the desert. They wanted to turn back, even
though the whole time they were there, they cried to the Lord
for deliverance. But yet, once the Lord had taken them by the
hand and taken them out of Egypt, yet they want to turn back from
the Lord, go back to their masters, which turning back to Egypt means
turning back to works. So, after having been delivered
from it, this is a turning away from Christ, from light, a turning
away from life, turning back to death, to darkness, to bondage,
the bondage, this is what the bondage is of Egypt, we read
about. So they're turning back, turning
away from the free salvation, to one that must be bought again,
considering not that you have nothing to pay. But yet they
turn back, and they refuse to return. And in verse eight, this
is our, I'm sorry, in verse six, this is our text. This is what
drew me to this. If you were, Greg Elmquist preached from this
passage on verse five in our conference in Lexington. And
he read this verse, and this jumped out at me, and I have
not been able to get past this. I hearkened, this is the Lord
speaking, and I heard, but they spake not aright. No man repented
him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? And that's
gonna be our subject for today is, is no man repented of his
wickedness, saying, What have I done? And those three things
right there. So, what have I done? I could
not get past that verse. ate at me the entire time when
I read it and it still eats at me because I can stop and consider
for a minute when you consider your own personal experience,
what have I done? When the Lord looks at me, what
does he see just in me? What have I done? This is all
something that, whether you're hearing this gospel for the first
time or the 5,000th time, that we will be faced with, or even
never. Every man, woman, child will
be faced with this one day. What have I done? We'll all stand
before God, and you will be faced with, what have I done? In this
life or the next, this is something that we can't ignore, forget,
or hope that it's not brought up. After all, I'm not perfect. Let's not bring that up. I don't
wanna talk about what I've done. But yet God is. God is perfect. And he shows us how iniquity
is dealt with in verses one through four. He's saying, you did all
these things now. I'm gonna throw your bones out
in the field and you'll stand before those whom you worship,
those whom you sought. And now the graves have been
dug up and you have turned to death. And death has been chosen
rather than life. You knew and you turned back.
He's saying this sliding back or perpetual backsliding is that
they got so far and yet they kept turning back. They kept
turning back from the Lord even though they knew the truth. They
kept turning back to these things. Now, where is your deliverer?
Speak to the sun, speak to the moon, speak to the stars. Ask
them to deliver you. Shall they fall and not arise?
Are they not gonna raise you up? So you see the Lord is causing,
you can see what the Lord's doing here. He said, I've hearkened
and I heard, but they spake not aright. And so our first point
is no man. Now, there are no exceptions
to this. Everyone is a son or daughter
of Adam. So this includes everybody. There's
no exception to this rule. Scripture says all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. All have sinned. So that's
everybody. There's nobody that doesn't fit
all. So we're fallen. and we're fallen because we have
a fallen nature, because our forefather Adam and Eve sinned,
and therefore because of that, we are sinners. We're born with
a nature from a sinner, and therefore we sin, that's what we do. So
there's no man that doesn't fit this description, born in sin,
and it makes you a sinner. Exodus, it's that which God hates,
sin, and will not even look upon. So what is the penalty for sin?
Every time there's only one penalty, it's death. That's how much God
hates sin. And so God won't even look upon
you because of your sin and my sin. Exodus 33, 20 says, this
is the Lord speaking to Moses. He said, you cannot see my face
for no man shall see me and live because he is so holy And anything
other than absolute holiness is going to be sin, and therefore
he will have nothing to do with it. He said, you can't even look
at my face. I won't look upon you because of what you are.
So there's no sin that's greater than another. And to break one
commandment, you're guilty of breaking them all. So even if
I could say as a rich young ruler, all these things have I kept
from my youth up. Yet the Lord said, there's one thing that
you've not considered, sell all you have. and come and follow
me. So covetousness, I never say
that word, is something that he was not considering that he
had done and was guilty before God, because these are sins of
the heart, too, not just outward. And so even if I look at my outward
life and find that I justify myself outwardly, the law condemns
me in my heart. And so to break one commandment,
you're guilty of breaking them all. What is the penalty for
one sin? It's death. What about the penalty
for $555,000? Death. So, which one's worse? What difference does it make?
The penalty's death. And so, I always remembered as
a kid growing up, I remember when they sentenced Jeffrey Dahmer,
the cannibal guy that ate people, they sentenced him to like 19
life sentences. I was like, what's the point?
You're gonna die in prison with one. but yet they gave him 19. So the point of this is whether
you've sinned once or five million times, the sentence is death.
So what does that tell me? That tells me that I can never
look down upon another man for what they're doing because I'm
just as guilty as the sinner and I'm going to get the same
punishment. Whether I've sinned once or five million times, God's
going to give me the same punishment so I can never look down on another
man for what he's done. There might be glory before men,
but there will be no glory before God in this. There's no room
for glory here. No man can see God's face and
live. We can't even approach unto him
to make intercession for my sins, to appeal to him to beg for forgiveness. The scripture says in Leviticus
21 that no man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron, the priest,
shall come nigh to the offering of the Lord. Problem is, you
and I, we're blemished. We're spotted. We can't come
before the Lord even to ask for forgiveness because he won't
hear us. We can't come near the temple. We can't come near the
sacrifice. So we're like the leper. We're like the, leprosy
is given in scripture as who the sinner is and the extent
to which the sinner is diseased. The leper had to cry unclean
unclean, and that just meant keep away. Do not get even in
a breath of me because I am so foul and diseased I will infect
you and you will die. And so that's how we are before
God. Our breath is disease. We have
to put a rag over our face and cry unclean, unclean, keep away. There's nothing that I have never
said, that I've ever said that wasn't polluted. And it's polluted
because I said it. Look, I wasn't even allowed to
be seen. If I was a leper, I was cast
out of town. They said, you're not even allowed to be here.
You get out of town and get away from everybody else because you
were a leper and now you have been exiled from the town. So
I wasn't even allowed to be seen inside the town, to come to offer
a sacrifice, to ask for forgiveness, any of these things. So you've
been banished from town, put outside, can't look or talk to
God or even come near Him. The third thing is, as a leper,
all that you touch is unclean. So you couldn't even bring a
sacrifice to offer because just by you touching it, it's unclean. The cloak that you had on was
unclean because you wore it. There's nothing wrong with that
coat, but until you put it on, then there's something wrong
with it. It's because you're the one that wore it. So this
lets you know the extent and nature of uncleanness before
God. Anything I touch or do is tainted
with sin. If there's something that I say
is good because I did it, it's not good because I'm a sinner.
And whatever I touch and whatever I'm involved with will be tainted
and polluted with the sin because of the sinner that touches it.
And so that's what the picture of leprosy in the scripture is
in terms of the sinner. So this is the state of our state
of the sinner before God. Therefore we can't offer anything
he'll accept because it's unclean. If you turn back to chapter seven,
Verses 15 and 16, this lets us know how the Lord deals with
this people. He said, I will cast you out
of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole
seed of Ephraim. Therefore, pray not thou for
this people. Pray not? Neither lift up, cry,
nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me, for
I will not hear thee. He says, don't you even pray
for them. That's how polluted they are. Don't pray for them,
don't cry for them, don't ask me to forgive them, because I'm
not gonna hear you. If left here, all hope would be lost, because
if you can't even cry and ask for help and ask for forgiveness
and the Lord say, I'm not even gonna hear you, I mean, that's
the only hope we have is that he hears us. But yet, no man
spake a rite, so he's not gonna hear that. But the Lord always
provides a way, even though it seems that there is no way. So
you see, when all hope was lost, God made a way. 1 Timothy 2.5
says, for there is one God and one mediator between God and
men, the man, Christ Jesus. So when there was no man, God
gave the man, Christ Jesus. No man spake a right. God gave
the man, Christ Jesus. His son, an intercessor. I love this, the express image
of his person. So the exact copy of who God
was in the flesh. That's who Christ Jesus is. God
in the flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, the only one whom God, the Father
Jehovah will hear. and he was sent to save his people
from their sins. So we can see here that God's
saying, don't even pray for these people, don't deal with them,
but yet he sent his son. So this should come as good news.
That's what the gospel is. The word gospel is good news.
And I'm glad, Chris, you read Isaiah 53, because that, you
know, who hath believed our report? Who hath believed the good news?
Who's gonna believe it? And how did we treat the good
news? Jesus Christ, when he came here. Well, Isaiah 53 summarizes
it. He was despised. He was rejected. We hid our faces from Him. Have
you ever been around somebody out in public that you didn't
want to see you and didn't want to make contact with? You hide
your face. You look away. You don't want
to make eye contact. That's how we dealt with God's Son when
He was on this earth. The only hope that we had. We
didn't even want to be associated with Him. We esteemed Him not. And that may be our greatest
charge. It's not to either love him or to hate him, we don't
care. It's meaningless to us. We have
no understanding of our state, and we have no understanding
of who he is, and we're utterly lost. We beat him, we spit upon
him, and we nailed him to a tree to die. This is how the Lord
of glory was treated. The only hope that this world
had, that's how we treated him. And his words from the cross,
in Psalm 142, verse four, he said, No man would know me. My refuge failed, and no man
careth for my soul. These are the feelings of the
Lord Jesus Christ. These are his feelings. So again,
I said this morning that we feel like that he doesn't have the
same feelings and disappointments and things that we do, but he
was a man. And all his friends that he loved, that he spent
all this time with, they weren't there. He was there by himself
on the cross, No man careth for my soul. They've walked and they've
forsaken him while he was there. If you'll turn with me over to
Matthew chapter 21, I'd like us to read a parable that illustrates
the story of the Lord coming here and how he was treated. Matthew 21, we'll start in verse
33. We'll just read the parable.
Here another parable. There was a certain householder
which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged
a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and led it out to husbandland,
and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruit
drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandland. that they
might receive the fruit syrup. Now, the servants in this story,
these are the preachers of the gospel. These are people who
give God's word and preach that you might bear fruit. We read
about bearing fruit unto God. If a tree doesn't bear fruit,
he's gonna dung it, and there's a point that it bears fruit because
he's expecting a fruit from that work he's put into the ground.
And so that's what these servants are. And the husbandmen took
his servants, and they beat one, and they killed another, and
they stoned another, and he sent other servants, more than the
first, and they did unto them likewise. So this is how we've,
not only we treat his son, now we're gonna treat his servants
this way. And so in verse 37, but last of all, because the
first many servants that he sent, he kept, you gotta think about
this man, he kept sending. He kept sending. One didn't come
back. One came back beat. The next one didn't come back.
Then he sent another, and he didn't come back either. Sent
another, and he didn't come back either. So, at some point it's
reported that they killed all your servants. They're beating
them. They have no respect for the master, the husbandmen do,
and they're abusing you. So lastly, what does he say?
Verse 37, he said, he sent unto them his son, saying, they will
reverence my son. It's who he's sending. He's sending
his son because his son bears his name. And so, if I send my
son, they may not respect them, even though they're sent in my
name, but this is my son. This is an extension of who I
am. So I'm gonna send my son. In verse 38, but when the husbandmen
saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and let us cease on his inheritance.
and they caught him and cast him out of the vineyard and slew
him. So this is, parable is illustrated to show how the Lord of glory,
his gospel, his servants are, people don't want to hear the
word. People don't want to, they have no respect, no understanding
of who God is. And they illustrate that by how
they treat his son. This, his gospel is who his son
is. And so in this story, you can
see that this, the fallen state, it's just a, it's a sad state
of affairs that we would treat his son that way. And in verse
40, then the Lord therefore of the vineyard cometh. So now he's
come. What will he do to those husbandmen?
What will he do to this world that has rejected his son? They
say unto him he will miserably destroy those wicked men, and
will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen which shall
render unto him the fruit in due season. Will God do to me
any less fashion for rejecting his Son and his gospel? This
is what he was sent here for and paid his life with, and for
me to reject him? and to reject his gospel and
to turn from it as something that's common, that is meaningless
to me, it's not something that I get excited about or that I
don't get too angry about or maybe I hate it. To have anything
other than his son be all and the gospel be all that I love
and that is a part of me is to do the same thing to his son
they did here. They cast him out of the vineyard
and they slew him. So God said, I've hearkened and I've heard
and there's been no man. This is the state of men. That
secondly, my second point is there's been no man that repented
him of his wickedness. What is repentance? It's not
to repent of your sins. That's not even in scripture.
So what is repentance? Repentance is change of mind.
That's all repentance means. I used to think one way and now
I don't anymore. I've changed my mind. change
your mind about all kinds of things all the time. God said
no man repented of his wickedness. Well, why not? It's because they
didn't want to. You know the reason why you like
doing things that you're not supposed to? I do. I like doing things I'm not supposed
to. That's just in my nature. It's because I've got the flesh
in me. I'm born with that desire. I'm
a rebel by nature and that's who I am. I was born that way.
I can only sin and I enjoy sin. The scripture says there is pleasure
in sin for a season. It doesn't say that you're going
to hate doing it. You do. The new man does. The
new man hates what he is, hates the sin that he commits. The
flesh doesn't. The flesh gravitates toward it. Why else would you
keep doing it? So you see, this flesh is in us whether we like
it or not. The flesh is always here in this life. You cannot
repent. There's no man that repented.
There's no change of mind. Change of mind concerning what?
What is it that needs to be a change of mind concerning? Who God is? Knowing who God is, I've also
got to look at who I am in relation to who God is and the means by
which God saves. It's changing my mind concerning
those things. Well, who is God? God's a spirit. God is the Creator. He's all-powerful. He's all-knowing. He's holy.
That just means other. It means not like you and me.
If we're all fall into the no-man, where we're all sinners, and
if God is other than that, that means He's not like us. That
means that I can't be like Him because I'm like this group over
here. He's always other. So holy. If He's high, then we're low.
If He's truth, then we're lies. And scripture says he's light,
so therefore we're darkness. He's holy in his decrees and
in his word. Has there anything been declared
that wasn't done? Has the Lord fall short on one
of his promises? No, he hasn't. He's holy in his
person. In him is no sin. He's right. And he's right because of who
he is. Because of what he says to do, it's right. It's not right
because he says to do it. So there's a difference. It's
because of who he is, he's right and holy and true. He's holy
in his justice. He will by no means clear the
guilty. He's also holy in his love. You know, if you are loved
by God, you won't ever be anything but loved by God. There is no
being loved and then backsliding and falling out of love and then
working to get back into it. That does not exist. So, you
either loved or you're not because God doesn't change. He can't
love you one minute and then, well, I've changed my mind. God
doesn't do that. You and I are told to repent.
We're told to change our minds. So our world preaches a God that
overlooks His justice in order to love. God is love, yes He
is, but they overlook, how can He love? How can He love then?
Because God can't do it, it's unjust. How then can God be just
and love someone who is a sinner? Because we all fit that bill.
So how can God love me? Because this is really what gets
to the heart of the matter. Well, God can only love me if
I've got no sin because He hates sin. So if I have sin, then He
can't love me. So I have to have no sin in order
for God to love me. How then can God love a sinner?
We all fit that bill. It can only be that Christ died
for me and took away my sin so that I have no sin. No one for
whom Christ died is not forgiven. That's a period. There's nothing
to add to there and there's nothing to take away from If Christ died
for you, you are forgiven and therefore loved. If he died for
you, you must be forgiven. God will do so because he's holy
and just. If he wasn't just, then it would
be wrong. Christ paid for my sins by living
the life that I couldn't, without sin, but yet he died. What's
the reason, what is the reason for death? Sin. So how therefore
could Christ have died, but yet lived a life without sin? Well,
he had to have died because of sin. So, you see, my sin became
his sin. So that God killed him for it
because he was guilty. Otherwise, God would be unjust
for killing Christ if he wasn't truly guilty. If it's just this
outward pasting on of my sins that I committed and God the
Father knows Christ didn't sin, but He's gonna make him guilty
anyway because of what I did. That's not what happened. What
happened was God took my sin, the sin that I committed. The
Lord Jesus Christ never had a commission of sin, but he became truly guilty
for my sin. It's so much so that it became
his sin. That's the reason God was just
in putting him to death. It would be unjust for him to
do otherwise. After dying, he arose. What did
that signify? So, death is the penalty, is
the punishment for sin. If there's no more death and
he arose back to life, that means there's also no more sin. And
if there's no more sin, that means he's paid for it. God is
so satisfied with what the Lord Jesus Christ did with my sin,
becoming his, he paid for it by dying, And because of who
he was, he paid for my sin. And therefore, when that was
paid for, God said, it's not just for me to leave you in death,
that's already been paid for. So the only thing just to do
is to make him live. So this gives us some confidence
in knowing that if Christ lives, it's because my sin's been put
away. And that gives me confidence in knowing that I won't be punished
for it because it's already been put away. His payment meant life
was restored. How then could God charge me
with the same sin? He can't. It's been taken away. He couldn't because Christ paid
it. It's Christ that died and he wouldn't because that would
be double jeopardy. It'd be unjust. You can't punish
twice for the same sin any more than you can be charged twice
for the same debt that you have. Let's say you pay your car off.
They can't come back to you and say, well, you gotta pay it again.
No, it's already been paid for. That's been canceled. Just a
little story. I know Brandon and Megan have
at least heard me say this. I had a car before and would
pay for it online. I'd log in. I had an account
and would pay for it. I'd pay it down, down, down,
down. After five years, I paid it off. Paid off my car. Great.
But in the back of my mind, I thought, what if I didn't pay part of
it off? And I'm several months after
having paid it off. And they're racking on charges
because I'm not paying my bill. Maybe I didn't pay $10 of it
off and it keeps racking up so I'm going to check. So I tried
to lock back in and it just said no account. It's not that there
was a zero balance there where Christ paid me back to zero but
you can look at the history and know that you actually had minus
$30,000 for your car or whatever. It's no account. When Christ
took my sin, it's been wiped clean. There is no account that
God can look back on and say, you know, I know you were one
of the ones that Christ had died for and committed all those sins.
That's been wiped away. So there is no account. In Proverbs
17, 15, he said that he that justifieth the wicked, and he
that condemneth the just, even both are an abomination to the
Lord." So, he that justifieth the wicked, that would be unjustly
pardoning a sinner to say that he loved him, meaning that you're
pardoned even though you're still a sinner. That can't be. So that's
an abomination to the Lord. And he that condemneth the just,
it would be wrong, as I said, for the Lord to punish Christ
for something that he wasn't guilty for. So that too is an
abomination of the Lord. So how did he had to do it? He
had to make Christ guilty for my sin. It became his sin. So he took my sin and gave me
his righteousness, which is all God is pleased with and that
God accepts. Believing in him, in his life,
and his death, and what has death meant? Death for sin. And his
resurrection, and what that meant, life meaning no more sin, no
more account, it's wiped away. This is the only way that Christ
gets all the glory and salvation. And this turning back that we
read about here back in our text, this turning back, no repentance
of wickedness, this is holding on to death. This is after having
seen Christ saying, I'm going to hold on and embrace death,
and I'm not going to let it go. I'm going to go back to works.
I'm going to go back to a salvation that must be repurchased, that
Christ paid for, and repurchase it because there's something
else that must be done. God will save no man based upon
his personal obedience, based upon his personal righteousness.
God will save no man for that. God saves only all who are in
Christ Jesus, whom he died for and whom look to him. If I was
chosen, it's only because I was in Christ. And this is, and when
I'm only there because of his grace, I'm not there because
I did something to warrant being put in Christ. This happened
before I even lived. He looked at Jeremiah and said,
before you were born, I knew you in the belly. I loved you.
He knew him before he ever was, so how could he love me? Because
he was in Christ. What did he do to put himself
in there? Not one thing. What evidence do I have that
I'm chosen, that I'm one of the elect? Well, you're not gonna
find it. Because the only evidence we're given in this life is belief. That's the only ground for evidence
to know whether you are a believer, one of the chosen, one of the
elect. Because if you wait to find out whether, if you're elect
before you believe, you're never gonna find that reason. If you
believe, that's the only ground for knowing that you are one
of Christ's. Evidence only comes after belief
and after trust. Because in Christ, the new nature
believes. The new nature loves God and
does not sin. It wasn't there before. God had
to birth that in me. It's not that I had this old
heart that, you know, we were driving down here and I saw a
sign on the side of the road in front of a church that said,
get right with God. And I was like, how do you do
that? It's like, at what point are
you right? And you slip back into this state
of not being right and being right. I can't do that. That
gives me nothing but instability. This old man in flesh is always
going to be here. We're stuck with him, and he's
going to be here, and one day the Lord will put him down where
he belongs. And only the new man can rejoice in that, in seeing,
I'm guilty. And my flesh ought to be put
down. My flesh ought to deserve to die. That's what it deserved
for God. The new man can see and rejoice
and side with the Lord, and side with Christ, and saying amen
to whatever he says. This is what repentance is. You want a good example of what
repentance is? It's in verse six of our text where he says,
what have I done? This is a change of mind. This
is a sorrow, a mourning over sin, over unbelief, over my weakness,
over my inability to do anything right before God. What have I
done? All these things that I've done
before up to this point, now I've got to change my mind. God
has to give me that ability to do that, and He only does that
through this new man, this new spirit, this new heart that wasn't
there before. God had to put that in me. That
sure makes it easy to trust in Christ, doesn't it? When we have
to see that all I've got in terms of what I bring is sin and unbelief
and inability and never doing the same thing twice, right?
I can't. I can't do anything. So that
makes it easy for me to look to Christ. What a relief. What a burden off my back that
I don't, you know, get right with God. How do you do that?
At what point are you satisfied and say, I've done enough? I
would trust Christ's righteousness and know that it's everything
God accepts. Why would I add anything to it?
I can't keep one commandment one time. I want to trust in
Christ. This is why the gospel is good
news to those who hear it. To those who don't hear it, it's
meaningless. It's just words, but it's good news to somebody
who knows, I've got nothing to pay. I've got nothing I can do.
You mean you're telling me everything's done and all I have to do is
believe in Christ? Well, yeah, everything's done.
There's nothing more that God is gonna require than to be in
Christ and to look to his son. That's good news to somebody
who has nothing to pay and nothing to provide. If you're the person
logging in trying to pay your account off with something you
have to pay, that's not good news. Because that means that
what you're doing is meaningless. But that person keep having to
work and work and work and work. But what Christ does, He eliminates
it altogether. The account's been cleared and
I'm standing in Him and how He is. All the sin that I committed,
He's taken it away. Gone. It's not there any longer. There's no trace of it, and the
scripture says that there will one day be no remembrance of
sins. I believe that that is the one thing I'm tormented most
in this life. Not the commission of. During
the act, I'm not tormented in the same way I am remembering
what I've done. What have I done? The things
that I can look back on, the willful sins that I've committed,
and how many sins have I not committed that weren't willful?
The remembrance is what torments me, and that's what we know that
hell will be, is there is a remembrance of sin. That's why the man that
was in hell, when he looked up to Father Abraham, deliver me
from this flame, go back and tell my brothers. He remembered
all those things that he'd done, because it wasn't put away. That's
why he was there. But Christ has not only put away
my sin, but put away the remembrance of it. So much so, therefore,
it doesn't even exist in Christ. It was consumed in God's wrath
upon his son, and his life is evidence that the fire has been
extinguished. There's nothing more to burn.
So therefore, it's gone. If you'll turn with me over to
Job 33, I'd like to, when we ask the question, what have I
done with regard to looking at the subject of repentance, a
change of mind, I don't believe you'll find a better definition
in Scripture and in Job 33 of what repentance is. In Job 33,
verse 27, He, which is God, looked upon
men, and if any say, I have sinned and perverted that which was
right, and it profited me not. If you read what that says, that
says three things. First is I've sinned. It says
I'm guilty, and it's all my fault. I can't look at anybody else
and say, well, because they did that or that situation was circumstantial
and therefore I had to sin. No, it says I've sinned, nothing
else, and it's all my fault. I've perverted that which was
right, and that means that I've never done anything that's right.
Whatever right is, I've perverted it because I'm the one that did
it. Whatever right is, I'm a sinner and therefore I can't do what's
right. I perverted that which was right and it profited me
not. This is what repentance is. It's
saying all that I've done, it's been worthless. It profited me
not. There is no good that has come
from anything that I've done. I have changed my mind and I
throw it away because I've sinned, I've perverted that which was
right and it profited me not. It's of no good and no use to
me. Can you understand that that's
what repentance is? That that's what changing your
mind is? Saying that everything that I thought before, that doesn't
mean anything. I'm gonna look to Christ. Paul
said, what things were gained to me? The things that I did
before that I felt like profited me? Those I've counted for loss
for Christ's sake. He's saying those things are
rubbish to me now. He said they're meaningless.
I've changed my mind. Go back up to verse 22 of that
Job 33. You can read kind of the whole
encounter here. He says, Yea, his soul draweth
near unto the grave. And that's us right now. We're
living a day at a time. And it may be the Lord causes
one of us to die today. We don't know. Each of us have
a finite number of days, the Lord's determined. His soul draweth
near unto the grave and his life to the destroyers. If there be
a messenger with him. Messenger, who's the messenger?
Messenger's the gospel. Messenger's the good news. an
interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto the man his uprightness."
His uprightness? Man's uprightness? Who can show
man his uprightness? Only God can show that. And in
showing man his uprightness, that'll show you you have no
uprightness, that you're fallen. He is gracious unto him and saying,
deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. That word ransom actually means
atonement. It's the same word, it means
atonement. That which appeases God at onement makes me one with
God again because of Christ. Christ is our atonement. And
speaking of the man who's been found a ransom, his flesh shall
be fresher than a child's. And he shall return, because
before it was leprous and spotted and stained and vile and polluted. But now he said, I'm gonna make
it fresh like a new baby. He shall return to the days of
his youth and he shall pray unto his God and he will be favorable
unto him. And he shall see his face with
joy. And get this next part. For he
will render unto man, whose righteousness? His righteousness. It's not man's
righteousness, that's the Lord Jesus Christ's righteousness.
If he's made an atonement with God by being the sacrifice for
sin, dying for my sin, becoming his, he's now saying he will
render man, under man, his righteousness. That's the Lord's righteousness,
that which I don't possess, I could never earn, but yet he gave it
to him. And he looketh upon men, and
if any have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it
profited me not. He will deliver his soul from going down into
the pit, and his life shall see the light. So that you can see
the beauty in this, how the Lord has shown us, I mean, what a
picture of repentance. One day we'll all be faced with
the fruits of our labor. Some will be faced with the fruits
of our labor unto death. But some will be faced with the
fruits of our labor. What have I done unto life? If
I'm in the person of Christ and I ask the question, what have
I done? It's, I'm beloved of the Father. The Father can look at me and
love me for Christ's sake. What have I done? Never sinned. I have no sin. I'm incapable
of sin because I'm in Christ. I have His nature. What have
I done? I'm clean. I'm no longer spotted. I'm no longer filthy. I'm no
longer blemished. I'm washed. I'm changed. In Romans chapter 8, it talks
about being made conformable to the image of his son. That
means being made just like him. So when the father sees me, he
sees Christ. He doesn't see me, he sees Christ.
I've changed my mind and I repent. I wear his robe of righteousness.
I cast off my filthy rags. Remember of the lion Bartimatus,
whenever the Lord was passing by him, he said to him, He kept
saying, Son of David, have mercy on me. That Son of David, have
mercy upon me. As soon as they said, Rise, be of good cheer,
the Master calleth thee. What's the first thing he did?
He threw off his coat, cast off his coat. I can love to imagine
his reaction. He didn't even think about that
coat that kept him warm, what he had. He just threw it off,
threw it on the ground, didn't look back at it. And that's what
I'm wearing, the robe of Christ's righteousness. Whatever I had
before, my works, who cares? Throw it down, it's worthless.
Why would you hang on to your filthy rags when you could wear
the white robe of Christ? The perfect robe of Christ, that's
what this is about. I have a perfect faith, I have
no doubts. Is there anywhere else you'd
rather be than be in Christ? What have I done? I want to be
in Christ. Is there something constraining you to do something
that you don't want to do, that's not natural unto you? No, that's
what this is, this new nature in Christ is. No, I'm doing what
I wanna do, and there's no place I'd rather be than in Christ.
This is what is evidence of the new man, Christ in you. So all
my confidence, all my hope, all my salvation is in the person
of Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. So I ask, may the God
grant each of us the grace to believe in His Son and to repent
in our hearts and say, what have I done?