Job chapter two, I mean chapter
nine, Job chapter nine. The title to this message is
very obvious. How should man be just with God? Job said, I know it's so of a
truth. I know that God does not pervert justice, as Bildad said
in chapter 8. I know that's so. I know that
he will not cast off a perfect man. I know that the hope of the hypocrite
shall perish. But Job says to Bildad, he said,
but Bildad, here's my question. How shall man, any man, any man,
whether he appears as a righteous man or just a flat out and out
ungodly man. How shall a man be just with
God? There's been a lot of questions
asked since the beginning, but none as important as this one. How should man be just with God?
The answer to this question ought to be asked by every person on
this earth. For the answer to this question
has life and death attached to it. It has life and death attached
to it, justified or condemned attached to it. Every person
shall stand before God, therefore the answer to this question is
of the greatest importance of all questions. Turn over to Revelation
20. Let me read this. Revelation chapter 20. Look in
verse 11. This is why this question is
so important. I want to know the answer to
it. In verse 11, And I saw a great
white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth
and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for
them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God,
and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which
is the book of life. and the dead were judged out
of those things which were written in the books according to their
works. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which
were in them. And they were judged every man
according to their works, and death and hell were cast into
the lake of fire. This is the second death, and
whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire. Now, how important is this question?
How important is it? How shall a man, a mortal human
being, sinful man, stand just with God? Do you care about this
question? I know this. I know every child
of God cares about this question. It's a great concern to me. The vast majority of humanity
does not care about this. It doesn't matter. Go to the
local jail. Go down to the local jail. Let
them out. Let them out. Let them go free.
Let the prisoners go free. And I assure you, they don't
care. They don't care how that happened. They don't care whether
or not the law was honored or not. They just got to go free.
That's what Satan knew when he said to God, skin for skin. He
said, skin for skin. He said, let me touch Job and
I'll show you. He'll curse you to your face. Man's interest
is in himself. But now those whom God saves,
their interest is in Him. Not just themselves, it's in
Him. I want to be saved. I want to be saved from my sins
in a just way. I don't have to be concerned
about anything coming back. And if I'm saved in a just way,
God will be glorified. And that's the chief end of man,
to glorify God. That's the chief end. Now, there's
two persons mentioned in this verse. Truly I know it so, but
how should man be just with God? Now, we have to start with God. We don't start with man. We have
to start with God because you and I will never and can never
understand who we are, what humanity is, until we understand who God
is. We only understand rightly what
we are in the light of who God is. In thy light it says we shall
see light. That's the only way to understand.
Now here's the first thing the Word of God teaches us concerning
God. God is. The Word of God does
not try to prove that He is. And standing here preaching week
after week, I do not stand here and try to prove to anyone that
God is. The very fact that you are is
living proof that God is. It's about as foolish to believe
that there is no God as it is to believe that I don't have
an existence. I'm standing here. I'm standing
here because God is. God is. And the Scriptures tell
us of the character of God. And we have to understand this,
and I am not going to even begin to scratch the surface of God's
holiness and man's sinfulness. I can't even begin to scratch
the surface of it. But the first part of God's character, and
it starts here, it starts right here. Holy. Holy. Now you and I have not known
anything but sin. We know holy by the Word of God.
We know something about it through the revelation of God in His
Word. But God is holy. It says in Psalm
99.5, Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool,
for He is holy. Isaiah, in Isaiah 6.3, And one
cried, one of the seraphims cried to another, and they said, Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory. It's the one attribute that is most celebrated in heaven,
and the one attribute most celebrated among God's children. God's love
is not the most celebrated. It's God's holiness. Because
without His holiness, His love wouldn't be any more different
than ours. we celebrate the fact that God
is holy. You know what the Scripture says?
It says, Psalm 30, I believe it is, Give thanks at the remembrance
of His holiness. Thank God He's holy. Now because
of who He is, because He's holy, He can do no wrong. You know, there's a lot of things
the Lord does I don't understand, I can't comprehend, but I know
this, He does no wrong. He can do no wrong, He's holy.
It says in 1 John 1 verse 5, This then is the message which
we have heard of Him, and declared to you, that God is light, and
in Him is no darkness at all. No darkness, no sin at all. In 1 John 3 verse 5, "...and
you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in
Him is no sin." He's holy. Our Lord was called the Holy
One of Israel. Many times He's called the Holy
One of Israel. It's His chief attribute. And
God being holy cannot be unjust. He can't be unjust. That's why
He says He's not a respecter of persons. We are, aren't we? We are. You let my son get in
trouble, let somebody else's son get in trouble, who am I
going to favor? You know who you know. But God
doesn't do that. He has no respect for a person. What He says. He cannot be unjust. It's written in 2 Samuel 23.3,
the God of Israel said, The rock of Israel spake to me,
he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of
God." Now, if that's what He demands of us, what does He demand
of Himself? He must be just. He must be just. Abraham said this in Genesis
18.25, that be far from the to do after this manner, to slay
the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should
be as the wicked, that be far from thee, shall not the judge
of all the earth do right?" Isn't that your confidence? In any
situation, you know that the Lord will do right. You know
that the judge of the earth will do right. There's nothing on
this earth more wicked than a wicked judge. I don't think there's any office
that can be more abused and wicked than a wicked judge, taking the
law and using it illegally. Now, there are instances of God's
holiness throughout the scriptures, the flood. You know, God killed everybody
but eight people and the animals that were on the ark. God drowned
everybody. That's a fact. He burned up Sodom
and Gomorrah because of their immorality. God burned them up
as an example. He doesn't have to give us a
thousand examples. He just set forth one. If you ignore it,
you would ignore a thousand. Moses, I was listening to Henry
on a message on this and he gave three examples of God's holiness. Moses, God told him to circumcise
his son and he didn't do it because of his wife, Zipporah. She wouldn't
do it. And Moses gave in to her. He
gave in to her. And God, it says here, listen,
it says in Exodus 4 24, and it came to pass by the way in the
end that the Lord met him, met Moses and sought to kill him. You think he would have? If he
hadn't circumcised his son, you think he would have killed? God
would have killed him. God will not put up with rebellion. He
will not put up with rebellion. He was gonna kill Moses. And
you know the story, Zipporah took a sharp stone, circumcised
him and threw it down at Moses' feet and said, you're a bloody
husband. Well, she's a mean woman. But God was gonna kill Moses
for not doing what he said. Nadab and Abihu, they offered
strange fire before the Lord. God killed them. God killed those
two boys of Aaron. And you know what it says? Aaron
held his peace. Moses told Aaron, he said, this is what I spake
to you. I told you about this. God killed your two sons now.
And it says, Aaron held his peace. And then you have Uzziah. Here's
what's astounding. Uzziah was an outstanding king.
He was a king that was, if you go read about him, he was outstanding. And you know what he did? Listen
to this. 2 Chronicles 26.18, And they
withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, that is, the priest
withstood him, It appertains not to thee, Uzziah, to burn
incense unto the Lord, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron,
that are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary. Go, he said. Get out of the sanctuary.
Don't do this. Uzziah was an outstanding king. He followed the Lord. But he
did it anyway. And you know what happened? He
was struck with leprosy for the rest of his life and he died
because of that. God's holy. God's holy. When Jesus Christ was made to
be sin, he was put to death in the flesh. God's holy. He's holy. Now second person
in this is man. And man has a character. God
has a character because he's a person. If you're a person,
you have a character. We talk about the character of
God because God is a person, a very real person. And man,
you and I are very real people. We have very real personalities. Originally, man, Adam, was created
innocent. He actually was righteous. And
that's just been 6,000 years ago. That's really not that long
ago when you stop and think about it. If you stop and think, that's
not that long ago. That a man, an innocent man,
a righteous man, and this whole creation was perfect. This earth
we walk on, it was perfect. It produced fruit perfectly. He was innocent. There was no
sin. Listen, there was no sin in Adam by creation. No sin in
him. Then Adam rebelled against God. Adam rebelled. And when he did
that, he died spiritually. It says in Romans 5.12, "...Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
We're not only sinning at Him, we do it ourselves. We all sin,
don't we? From birth. David said, they
go from the womb speaking lies. It starts from birth. Man is now everything God is
not. God said, let us make man in
our image and after our likeness. And he did, he created Adam.
But now, after the fall, man is totally opposite of what God
is. God is light, man is darkness. God is holy, man is sin. He doesn't just do some sinful
things, that's what he is. That's exactly what he is. He
is sin. It's not possible, as I said,
to describe the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. I can't describe my own sinfulness.
The heart is deceitful above everything, desperately wicked.
Who can know it? You say, well, I know my heart.
No, you don't. No, you don't. Even us, who the
Lord has revealed Himself to and He's made us to know something
of sin, our heart's still deceitful. It's still that way. If it wasn't
for the grace of God, we'd flip to self-righteousness in a heartbeat.
We would. God is holy and man is sinful. He's a total opposite of God.
Total opposite. Let me read you some scriptures
of man's condition and nature. In Romans 3.12, they are all
gone out of the way, not just a few of them, all. All. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Well, I know somebody that's
good. Well, you know more than God then, don't you? Because
He said He didn't know any. There's none good. It's written
in Psalm 14, verses 2 and 3, The LORD looked down from heaven
upon the children of men to see, and this is written for our learning,
this is written for us, to see if there were any that did understand
and seek God. They are all gone aside, That's
why it says, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, or he
would have perished with the rest of them. They're all gone aside. They
are all together become filthy. Filthy, the scripture says, in
their imaginations. Every imagination is filthy. They are all going to say, filthy?
There's none that doeth good, no, not one. It says in Genesis
6, 5, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, every
thought, every thought, was only evil continually and
no break. No break in it. Just one thought
after another, just evil. That's human nature. And I haven't
even began to describe human nature. That's us by nature. Now here's
the problem. God, who is holy and just, must
punish sin. He's got to punish sin and be
God and be just. And man is sin. He is sin. All men and women by nature are
sin. And this is what we have to deal
with. Who I am, what I am, is not what I do. I'm telling you, As you come to really understand
and grow up and mature in the gospel, you understand it's a
whole lot more about what I am than what I do. I do what I do
because of what I am. God judging me because I am sin. That's such a mystery to me,
but that's what it is. I am sin. I am sin. I am responsible to God because
He created me. It says, and God said, let us
make man our image and our likeness. We did not evolve. We didn't
evolve. You all know that. You know that. We owe our existence to God. It's where we get our responsibility.
He is the potter. We are the clay. He says this in Ecclesiastes
chapter 12. Let us hear the conclusion of
the whole matter. Fear God, keep His commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every
work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good
or whether it be evil. Now, to answer the question,
how shall man be just? One of the prophets said this,
one of the prophets said, who can stand, who can stand before
God? Who can stand before the great,
he called him the great and terrible God. That's what he called him,
the great and terrible God. I believe his name said that.
Who can stand? And of course, to stand, you
gotta be just. You gotta be as just as God is.
God said it has to be perfect to be accepted. Well, thank God
there is an answer. Thank God there is an answer.
You're not gonna find it in the secular world, in the secular
education, you're gonna find it in the word of God. How shall man be just with God?
Well, first of all, it starts with grace. In Romans 3, 24,
being justified, standing before God just, cleared of all charges.
You know, you think about all the, think about the things,
of course, you know, we only remember the big things. Think
about the big things you did that you shouldn't have done.
How you gonna be clear of that? How you gonna be clear of that? Here's how. First of all, it
starts like this, being justified freely by His grace through,
here's the means, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. You and I have zero, zero to do with justification. That
is completely 100% on God's part, as well as the rest of salvation.
Justification is impossible with men. An unjust man cannot make
himself just. You see, to be justified, you've
got to be what? You've got to be just. You have
to be just to be justified. You have to be clear there's
no charge. There's no charges against you. They're off the
books. There's nothing written there against you. That's justified. But in order to be justified,
you've got to be just. And it starts with the grace of God.
It doesn't start with me straightening up. You need to straighten up fly
right. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. No, it starts
by grace, by the grace of God. And then we're justified, it
says, through faith. Romans 5.28 and also in Acts
13. Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, without
doing anything. Listen to Acts 13. Be it known unto you therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins, this man Jesus Christ, is preached
unto you the forgiveness And when we talk about forgiveness,
we're talking about all of them. We're not talking about just
the big ones. Because with God, all sin is big. Because at the
very root of it is unbelief. That through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are
justified, cleared of all charges, from all things from which you
could not be justified by the law of Moses. It's not, listen, it's not the
act of faith that justifies us. It's the object of faith that
justifies us. We're looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith. It's the object of faith that
justifies us. It's Christ. It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then we're justified by His
blood. You see how all this is connected
to Him? In Romans 5, 9, "...much more than being now justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." We're
justified by His blood. His blood answers for my sins. All my sins, sins that I don't
know of. I mean, I can't comprehend. I
sin constantly. You know, if you live a long
life, that's a lot of sin. I sin constantly. He put all of that
away. His blood answers to every sin
that I have right down to my thought. Right down to a thought. He's put it away. It's gone. We're justified by His blood. And then we're justified in His
name. And such were some of you in 1 Corinthians 6.11. And such
were some of you But you're washed, but you're sanctified, but you're
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, you're justified
in His name. Everyone whom God saves, that
whole host of heaven, that whole, it says, innumerable company
of saints, innumerable company, every last one of them, are justified
in the name of Jesus Christ, that man seated at God's right
hand. Isn't that good news? That's
good news. I'm justified on the merits of
another. My sins are put away by the blood
and sacrifice of another. who came into this world and
took upon him my flesh, he took upon him my nature, except he
knew no sin, and died in my place. And the law says, justified,
justified. It says in Isaiah 45, 25, listen,
in the Lord, and that's capital L-O-R-D, Jehovah, The self-existing
one. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. In the Lord shall all
the seed of Israel be justified. Stand before God just. In Him. In Him. It's not me and Him. It's in Him. I'm going to close with this.
I'm going to read you how we are justified. And it's so clear,
it's so simple, Isaiah 53. I'm going to read it, and this
is how a man can stand just before God, man and woman. In Isaiah
53, and I'm going to close with this. who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed, that is Christ.
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root
out of dry ground, he hath no form of comeliness. And when
we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire
him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from
prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied,
and by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many,
for he shall bear their iniquities. There it is. Therefore will I
divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the
spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto
death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. He bared the
sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Right
there it is. Right there it is. There's how man can be justified
with God. It's so simple. Right there.
So plain. So clear. It's so clear. All right.