Alright Romans chapter 5 beginning
at verse 1 we read this, therefore since we have been justified
through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now justified is one of those
words you rarely hear outside of a religious context. Once
in a while you'll hear someone say well he was justified to
do that. In criminal issues there is such
a thing as justifiable homicide. Homicide simply means that you
killed a human being. Justifiable means that you are
right in doing it. And so this word justified simply
means to declare someone to be right or to be righteous. It's a judicial legal declaration. It is the same thing as when
a man having been tried for a crime and in our judicial system the
jury would have deliberated and they come back with a verdict
and when they say not guilty what they have done is justified
the man. The opposite of justify is to
condemn, that is to find guilty. But we have been found not guilty
through faith. Now, some who believe as we do are so concerned to make salvation
to have nothing to do with what we do that they try to diminish
the importance of faith in this matter. They say, well it's not
really faith that justifies. We know that. We know that. But it's through faith in Christ
that we are justified. Let's not deny that. Now this
is not a faith that a natural man can have. It's not a mere
choice. It's not a mere decision. It
isn't a man from his intellect or his natural understanding
weighing the options set before him and choosing to believe Christ
as opposed to not believe Christ. Quite frankly, folks, you cannot
choose what you believe about anything. Do you realize that? You have some beliefs. You have
some beliefs about normal things. And there's nothing you can do
about what you believe. You cannot say, okay, in five
minutes, I'm going to start believing something I don't believe right
now. And count down with your clock
and then suddenly change. Can't be done. And most of all, can
this not be done in spiritual things? And the reason is that
in the natural man, he does not even have the capacity to believe. He does not have that faculty
by which we can even understand what the gospel is. That's why
our Lord says, except you're born again, you cannot perceive
the kingdom of God. You can't believe what you can't
perceive. No, this faith is a miraculous
thing. It's the gift of God. It's the expression of a spirit
that has been born again. But even though it is the gift
of God, Even though it is the natural expression of a born-again
spirit, we do not deny that in all reality we are justified
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So much so that I can
stand in a place like this or on a street corner or across
the coffee table and say to anyone, if you believe, you will be justified. if you believe the Lord Jesus
Christ you will be justified and you will have peace with
God now saying that doesn't mean they're capable of believing
but it's nonetheless true and if you have believed then you
are justified and not justified by yourself you've been justified
by God God the judge of all the earth has looked at you and said
not guilty not guilty, if you have trusted Him through His
Son. And if you are justified by God,
you have peace with Him. That doesn't mean you always
feel at peace with Him. It doesn't mean that you have
peace about all things in your minds. But it does mean that
there is no state of war between you and God. God's hostilities
have been satisfied in the blood and righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if he has given our spirits
a new birth, then on the inner man, we have been reconciled
to God. We're not mad at him, he's not
mad at us. There's peace. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that a glorious thing to
think of it? I'll confess I don't believe
it too well, but I do believe it some. I believe it enough
I can say this I've hung my soul on it I've got nowhere else to
go. I have by the grace of God and
many of you have by the grace of God committed the care of
your everlasting soul to the Lord Jesus Christ and God has
declared you not guilty and there is peace between you and God. Verse 2 says, through whom we
have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
That is, through Christ we have gained grace, excuse me, gained
access unto all that grace of God that brings about full and
complete salvation. We stand, we who believe, we
stand in the presence of God, accepted approved of, justified, through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we rejoice in the hope of
the glory of God. By faith we have entered in or
gained access unto this glorious grace of God, entered into the
experience of it, into the possession of it, Yet what we have now is
not all that we shall have in days to come That's why it says
we have a hope You see no one hopes for what
he already has Are you a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Then
you rejoice in what you have and you hope for the more that
is yet to come As much as I thankful for the
grace that I already now experience. I am not satisfied. Are you? I don't want to be what I am
right now forever. There is a warfare within me
that I don't like. I don't like, I'm glad I've got
it. Those without that warfare are just plain lost. The presence
of the warfare between flesh and spirit is proof that indeed
the Spirit of God has done a work in you. And according to the
promise, He that began a good work in you will bring it to
perfection until the day of Christ. So we don't enjoy the experience
of the warfare, but we're sure glad it's there. But while it's
there, we're hoping for the day when it's no longer there. when
we shall be with him glorified to be like the Lord Jesus Christ
the very glory of God as it were upon us we hope for greater things than
what we already have and we rejoice in this what's
to come notice this now verse 3 not only so but we also rejoice
in our sufferings Now he means by this not only
that we rejoice while we are suffering, but that we are even given grace
to rejoice over the fact that while in the flesh we do suffer,
because we know that God uses suffering to bring about that
which is good for us. Now this is something I'm almost
afraid to preach, and the reason is I don't want God to call me
on it. I can stand here and say suffering
is good for us, that does not mean I want it. That doesn't mean I'm asking
God for it. Remember Brother Mahan making
the remark that someone at the Bible conference one time stood
up to sing a special and the name of the song was Spare Me
Not. There was supposed to be a prayer to God and this guy
was, you know, the lyric of the song is this guy saying to God,
don't spare me the troubles and don't spare, you know, as though
he's ready to take on anything for the sake of God. And when
he was done, Henry said there was almost an audible gasp in
the congregation. And sure enough, within short
order, this man was under such heavy, tremendous trial and sorrow. We don't ask for suffering. But
when it comes, we can rejoice in it, knowing this, as difficult
as it is, this suffering is working perseverance in us. And the perseverance
in us produces character, spiritual strength and virtue.
And this character in us produces even more hope, a stronger hope,
a more confident hope. And this hope, this hope does
not disappoint us. You know what the world hopes
for? It's going to disappoint them, isn't it? I saw one of these memes on Facebook
made up of four pictures. Two on the top and two on the
bottom. And the two on the top, you have this shack and you have
this mansion. And over here, the mansion goes rich, poor.
And down the bottom, it's two pictures of a hole in the ground.
Rich, poor. Don't matter how much money you
had. Indeed, your tombstone may be nicer, but I think that you
won't really be able to appreciate that fact once you're dead. The hope of the worldling will
be disappointed. The hope of the believer will
not be disappointed. We will not come to the end of
our lives and find that that which we hope for, that which
we were willing to suffer for and persevere for, we're not
going to find out that it's something less than what we expected. In
fact, in all reality, I am quite confident that we're going to
find out it's a whole lot better than we can even begin to imagine
right now. Brethren, that's what it is to
walk by faith, to walk by a hope that no matter how much you try
to expand your heart and mind to conceive what it might be,
you have to understand that it's more than that. A hope that does not disappoint
because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy
Spirit whom he has given us. This hope does not disappoint.
We will not be disappointed once we receive the fullness of that
hope, nor at any time in this life will we be deprived of that
hope, nor brought to a state of hopelessness. Why? Because
God has poured out his love into our hearts. He's not only loved
us from afar, he has invaded our hearts and made his love
known to us. And in love, he has whispered
the gospel truth into our hearts and comforted us and created
this hope and sealed us in it by the Holy Spirit. And Paul goes on then now to
show us the foundation of this. I've called this message hope
for the weak and sinful. And if you think yourselves to
be weak and sinful, I've got a really good word for you this
morning. I say I've got it, God has a really good word for you
this morning. For he has come for such as you, if you are the
weak, as he describes the weak here. If you are sinful, as the
scriptures describe sinful, then there's good news for you. It
says here in verse 6, you see at just the right time when We
were powerless. Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for
a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare
to die. But God demonstrates his own
love for us in this. While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. Now, ever since Adam sinned,
we have been shut out of the presence of the Lord. When Adam sinned, God drove him
out of the Garden of Eden. And the Garden of Eden was that
place on earth where men could meet God at that time. And interestingly
enough, when people would try to worship God, they would evidently
go to the Gate of Eden to do so. That's where Cain and Abel
went to offer their sacrifices. And it says, God had stationed
a guard there, an angelic guard, with a sword that flashed back
and forth. Why? You can come this far, but you
can't go in. You can bring your gift to the
gate, but you can't go in. For all their religion, for all
their sacrifices, they could not go back into the garden and
find sweet fellowship with God, to walk with him who in times
past had come in the cool of the evening and walk with Adam
and Eve. They could not see his face,
they could not look upon him and live, they were cast out
and cut off all because of sin. And this is only the precursor
of the everlasting condition of the laws for it is written
that in the day of judgment that those who have not believed,
who are yet in their sins, that they shall be destroyed, they
shall receive destruction from the presence of God, everlasting
destruction from the presence of God. Cast out forever. Remember that benediction that
the priest was told to give to Israel. The Lord bless you and
keep you. The Lord make his face to shine
upon you and give you peace. The Lord lift his countenance
upon you. And the very thought of that
is a blessing to the soul, that God should look on us with favor
and give us peace. Yet in our natural state, that
blessing cannot be ours. And I want you to think for a
moment what it must be to hear that sentence from God. Depart from me. I never knew
you. Never shall I bless you and keep
you. Never shall my face shine upon
you. Never shall I give you peace. Brethren, that's what sin has
caused. Every tear ever shed was shed because of what his
sin has done. And every wailing and gnashing
of teeth that goes on in the eternal condition of the wicked
shall come about because of sin. There is no other cause of it.
God is not sadistic. God takes no pleasure in the
death of the one that dies. God loves to show mercy, says
the scripture. That's what he delights in. So
do not think that hell is an expression of a mean and sadistic
God. It is the expression of a just
and righteous God against our wickedness. And if a man finds
himself in hell someday, whatever hell is, if he finds himself
there, he'll have no one to blame for it but himself. He can if
he wants to spend entire eternity blaming Adam for it. Well, Adam
had a hand in it, but you can't blame someone for your troubles
if a way out was provided and you didn't take it. If a man perishes, he does so
because he was not only sinful, he was stubbornly sinful. The everlasting condition of
the lost is nothing more than the perfection of our present
alienated condition from God. And I'm talking about with natural
men. Those of you that have believed
God, you're not alienated from God. And when you die, it will
simply be the perfection of being joined in him. We're accepted
now, we'll experience that acceptance in full. We are justified now,
we'll find out all the glorious things that means in days to
come. And it'll be that way forever. But for the wicked, wickedness
shall be their portion forever. But for the sinful and powerless,
for those who understand themselves to be so, there is a great word
of grace. Verse 6, you see, at just the
right time, when we were still powerless. This word translated powerless
is sometimes translated simply weakness, sometimes translated
sick. But the meaning of the word is,
if you gather all these things together, the emphasis is someone
who is sick or broken and all the inabilities that come by
that. The blind are powerless to see. The deaf are powerless to hear. The lame are powerless to walk. Though some are sick, so sick
they're powerless to get out of bed. And some are so sick they become
powerless even to live, and they die. And such ones as that Of them
it is said, Christ died for them. Of course I'm speaking spiritually.
Every one of us in time will get sick enough that we will
become utterly powerless to stay alive. And our bodies shall stop. The stress of living will become
greater than the body is able to withstand. And this machine
called our body will disintegrate and we will go to corruption,
we'll die. But what is true of all of us
in the flesh was true of all of us in our spirits. That we
were spiritually blind and powerless to see. That we were spiritually
deaf and powerless to hear. Spiritually lame and powerless
to walk. and spiritually dying with no
power even to remain alive, dead in our trespasses and sins. More
than this, we can add this particular aspect to it, we were held captive
at the will of the devil. Now, anyone who is a child of God,
chosen by him, He was, yes, held captive at the will of Satan,
but understand it's only because God permitted it. The devil himself
can do nothing without the permission of Christ. Nonetheless, The devil
does not require nor look for our permission to hold us in
bondage. He is more powerful than us.
Before him, we are powerless. People like to paint up a devil
with horns and a tail and a pitchfork. Why? He's manageable. Now you think of it. Such a devil
as that, we can resist him. We can have a devil on our shoulder
and one shoulder, an angel on the other shoulder, and we'll
have the ability and the power to choose between the two. And
the whole time the devil sees those images, he laughs because
he knows the truth. He knows the truth about us,
that we are weak, that we are powerless, that we cannot withstand
him, that he is too clever, he'll deceive us, he's too powerful,
he will bring us to our knees if God lets him. He requires God's permission,
but he doesn't require ours. And at that very point, at the
very depth of our utter inability to extract ourselves from the
captivity to Satan, or even to call upon the name of the Lord
for his salvation, so powerless were we. Right at that point, Christ died
for us. He did not wait for some indication
that we wanted him to die for us. He did not wait for some
glimmer of knowledge to rise up in our minds that we even
realized that he must die for us. He did not wait for some
sign of struggle between us and Satan as we tried to extract
ourselves from his clutches and yet were simply not up to the
task. That did not move him to die
for us. Rather, when we were utterly
powerless, completely subdued, wholly given over to sin and
unbelief and Satan. Right there he came and died
for us. Now why does Paul make this point?
Because virtually every form of religion, I don't even have
to use the word virtually, Every form of religion other than the
gospel of God's free and sovereign grace calls on you, calls on
me, calls on sinners to exercise some kind of power. To do something
they have the ability to do. But Jesus Christ did not come
and die for those who had some ability. He came and died for
those who had no ability. I love that story where the Lord
comes to the pool of Bethesda. There's all kinds of people around
it because there was a belief among them at that time that
once in a while an angel would come down from heaven and stir
the waters and the first one in would be healed. And there
was a man laying there on a mat and he just laid there. And the
Lord came up and said to him, do you want to be healed? Sure, but me wanting to doesn't
make any difference. Because when the waters are troubled,
I can't move. And there's nobody here to move
me. And before I can get to the water, look at all these others
around here. Somebody else couldn't get in first. Oh what blessedness here the
Lord had found one of these powerless people and it's the powerless
he came for. This man said I cannot and the
Savior said but I can and the Lord did not pick him up and
put him in the water the next time the angel stirred the water
the Lord didn't need an angel he didn't need the pool of Bethesda.
He had within himself power to heal this man he said okay take
up your mat and walk Let's get on out of here. You're helpless.
You don't belong among all these people that can do something. And the man took up his mat and
he walked out of there, leaving it to others to wait for angels
and make a race for the pool. When we were helpless, when we
were powerless, Christ died for who? The ungodly. Anybody here ungodly? You know the Bible calls Job
a righteous and godly man. Not Job, Lot. Calls Lot a rather
despicable character but the Bible calls him a righteous and
godly man but I'll tell you one person that would never call
Lot that and that's Lot. There's not a believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ who would look at himself and say, now there's
a godly man. Jesus Christ came and died for
the ungodly. Are you ungodly? Then Christ died for you. So
while you don't, you're one of those people that doesn't believe
Christ died for everybody. That's right. He died for the
ungodly. And good luck trying to find
one of those. Just ask him. You go into any church, are you
ungodly? Well, now, I've done some wrong things, but I wouldn't
go so far as to call myself ungodly. Okay, Christ didn't die for you.
I got nothing to say to you. Go to the next guy. Well, no,
I'm not among the ungodly. Well, Christ didn't die for you.
And then you come upon one that the grace of God has touched.
Are you ungodly? Oh my, yes. I'm ungodly. I can't imagine that God would
have anything to do with me. I don't have power to pray. I
don't have power to understand. I don't have power to do good. I'm powerless. Oh my, good news for you, if
that's you. For those powerless ungodly people,
there is this message. Christ died for you. He who has all power, died for
those who have none. He who is God in human flesh
died for the ungodly. But let's go on now. Verse 8,
but God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we
were still sinners Christ died for us. And so we have The objects
of Christ's death defined by powerless, ungodly, and sinful. Do you realize that God never
gives a virtuous name to the objects of his grace? Unless he is speaking of them
according to what his grace shall make them. He did not seek out
the godly, he did not seek out the powerful, he did not seek
out the righteous. He says it's not the righteous
I've come to call repentance, but sinners. When he was there
in Bethany, it was not to the living that he said come forth
from the grave, but to dead Lazarus. And when he came as a sacrifice,
he came as a sacrifice in behalf of sinners. Now, just what is
a sinner? Well, it's not just someone who has
sinned. It's not just someone who has done more sins than they've
done good things. According to the scriptures,
as the Bible defines what we are, a sinner is someone who's
never done anything other than sin. Now we can find sinners of the
other sort. Nearly every religious person
will confess to having some sins. The fellow running for President
on the Republican side. He's been reported as saying
something that virtually everyone believes. He's just brash enough
to say it. He says, I really don't think
I need much forgiveness from God. Now you and I go, huh, at
that. We can't imagine somebody thinking
that. And we may be even moved not to vote for him on account
of that. Some are. But brethren, that's exactly
the opinion of everyone who has not trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. How do I know? If they've not
trusted Him, if they have not fallen down before Him as a sinner
and called out for His mercy, it's because they think they're
pretty good after all, they just need a little help. You see, you can't tell all the
time what a person believes by what he says. You have to watch
what he does. Mr. Trump was just, I don't even
want to use the word gutsy. Let's just say foolish, that's
all right. Foolish enough to say out loud what nearly everybody
thinks in their heart. Jesus Christ came to die for
sinners and he didn't die for anybody else. He came for those,
just like up there when he says they're powerless, to those without
power. When he speaks of sinners, he
means those without righteousness. You hear that? Without righteousness,
none. Is that you? Can you plead guilty to that
crime? If you were brought before the
judge of all the earth and the books were open and you were
charged with a life full of sin and nothing else, what would
your plea be? If your plea would be to drop
your head and say, I must plead guilty for there is no righteousness
in me. If that is honestly how your
heart feels, then Christ died for you. Because he came to die
for sinners. Now you say, can you say that
indiscriminately? Because there's people out there
that think badly of themselves. I'll tell you a secret. Anybody
who has not from the heart called upon the name of the Lord for
salvation, I don't care what excuse they make for it, it's
because they think there's something good in them or they at least
hope that someday there shall be something good in them. Even
if all the good that they hope to find in them is a realization
of how bad they are. There are people who make a righteousness
out of knowing how bad they are. And all that proves is, is they're
not completely unrighteous in their own sight. For they have
this to bring before God, I don't believe there's any righteousness
in me. I know I'm a sinner. Well friend, if that's your attitude,
you aren't a sinner. You're just a righteous person
with a whole lot of sins charged to his account. What's a sinner? He's got nothing. He has nothing
and he doesn't have any hope that he could ever have anything.
And I know this of every sinner, everyone whom God has made to
be a sinner in his own sight. Every one of them calls upon
the name of the Lord for salvation. Sometimes the gospel is preached
and someone begins to weep and it seems as though there's some
spiritual wrestling going on. And someone will say, I think
God's working with him. Well, you don't know. There's
only one way to know if it's God that's working with him. Eventually he'll break. He will
utterly crumble into nothingness in his own sight. And from his
heart, he will cry out that God save him by his sheer mercy and
grace, because he's got nothing to offer. But that crying, that
struggling, that's not repentance. You say, what do you mean? Repentance
is when the fight stops. That's repentance. When the struggling
is going on, the man is still struggling with God over whether
or not he needs God's salvation. God sometimes will draw that
out. He can do it. He can do it in
an instant. He can do it over a long time.
That's his business. He deals with each of his people
his own way. But so long as there's a fight
going on, so long as there's a struggle, you can be sure that
there is yet within that person the belief that he has some power,
the belief that he has some righteousness. And we have that story of Jacob
wrestling with the man, and the man was none other than God.
And God and Jacob wrestled all night long. And finally, Job,
I don't know why I keep saying Job for everybody in the Old
Testament. Jacob thinks he has God in a hold. He gets him down.
And God says, let me go. Jacob says, I won't. And so God
just reaches up and grabs Jacob. I suppose physically it was in
one of those pressure points that puts you in sheer agony
and robs you of all strength you have. And he said, let me
go. And here's what Jacob said. He
said, I won't let you go till you bless me. Now, how does that fit into here? Jacob had no power to defeat
God. God struggled with him all night,
but he was toying with him. God could have brought that fight
to the end anytime he wanted. And when he does bring it to
an end, he cripples Jacob. It says Jacob never walked the
same again. It hurt him. And it broke him. And when he cried out for blessing,
What he was saying is, I am so worthless that I'm utterly nothing
without your blessing. I've got nothing to gain by letting
go, unless and until you bless me. And God blessed him. And he says,
your name was Jacob, scoundrel, cheat, ne'er do well. Now your
name is Israel. For you have prevailed with men
and now you've prevailed with God. How did he prevail with
God? Did he defeat God? No. You don't prevail with God
in a wrestling match. You prevail with God when out
of the desperation of your soul you call for his mercy. That's
the only thing that prevails with God. Another illustration of that
with blind Bartimaeus, and I've related it to you so many times,
oh, but don't bore you with it, but I love that story, because
I can see it. I can feel it. Poor old Bartimaeus,
the blind man, there by the side of the road, eking out an existence
by begging. He can't see. He's got no hope
of ever being able to see. But he hears that Jesus is coming
by, and he's heard that Jesus has healed the blind. And he
begins crying out. And he does not say, Jesus, thou
son of David, you realize that I was brought up in a covenant
household and I went to synagogue and I was circumcised on the
eighth day like a Jewish man supposed to be. And I've studied
your word as much as I can and I'm faithful to go to synagogue. And Lord, I spent so long suffering.
Don't you think it's about time that I got something good in
this life? Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Can you imagine
how many people were crying out to the Lord Jesus at that time,
calling out for this, that, and the other? And it says, when
the Lord heard that, he stopped. The God who made the heavens
and the earth stopped at the sound of one word, mercy. Mercy. Who cries out for mercy? The powerless. Who cries out for mercy? The
ungodly. Who cries out for mercy? Sinners. Nobody else does. Nobody else
really thinks they need it. I cannot judge the hearts of
those who live in our area. I certainly hope that there are
many who for all the error they may hold to nonetheless believe
the Lord Jesus Christ. But I do believe this, that there
is only one reason, essential reason, that people do not believe
the gospel and will not hear it, will not stand to listen
to it, And that's because in their own estimation they are
not powerless, godless, and sinners. Sinners love to hear about Christ. Now let me wrap this up. It says
Christ died for us. What difference does that make? Why is it so good and so wonderful
that Christ died for the powerless, the ungodly, and the sinful? Verse nine, since we've now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's
wrath through him? For if when we were God's enemies,
we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much
more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through this
life? In other words, The death of
Christ accomplished something that the powerless, the ungodly,
and the sinful could never do. It reconciled powerless, godless
sinners to God. For when he died, he did not
simply die. He died bearing their sins. He
died the just for the unjust, the righteous one in place of
the unrighteous. And with his power and the power
of his righteousness, he not only satisfied all the demands
that God had against sinners, he broke the power of that one
who held us captive at his will. For how does Satan hold men captive?
The biggest chain, the strongest chain by which Satan holds captive
his people is the chain of self-righteousness. It's the chain that says I can
do something that will move God to save me. It's that chain that I can do
better. It's the chain of law And that very same chain holds
us in fear and in bondage as we struggle to make ourselves
powerful, godly, and righteous. In Jesus Christ, the powerful,
godly, righteous one died in our place and Satan no longer has anything
to work with. He can't bring up our sins to
scare us into trying to be good. The chain of law has been broken
and we're free. And we don't have to live in
fear of death because while death will take away these bodies,
that's as far as it can go. It cannot touch our spirit. And
indeed, even death in time will be required to give up our bodies. And God shall make them new again
in Christ. For whom is this done? Let me
repeat it. For the powerless, for the ungodly, and for sinners,
and for nobody else. I hope there's plenty here that
fit that category. I hope there's plenty here that
could say, preacher, you were singing my song this morning.
You were preaching to me if you weren't preaching to anybody
else. For that's me. And I believe Christ died for
me. And even though I am nothing but sin in myself, I have been
declared righteous by the righteous judge. Well, God be honored in
his message, Eric.