Bible to the second Psalm, Psalm
2. Our subject this morning and
the title for our message, Am I Ignorant of God's Righteousness
namely, his righteousness in Christ, who needed none to be given to
him except it be given to his people by him. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit are equally righteous. There is no higher
righteousness than that. So it is important for us to
know that we must be made righteous, and that comes through the Lord
Jesus Christ, His death on the tree, His life of obedience on
the earth, full redemption in every aspect obtained for us
by our precious Lord Jesus Christ. Now, have you found Psalm 2? Let's pray before we start to
read. Lord, thank you for letting us
be present this morning in this place. Thank you for those wonderful
attributes that we heard of in the Bible class. and the wonderful
truths contained in the singing of hymns that are true to the
gospel. And now we come to your word
this morning. I beg of you to enable each one
of us, no matter how long we think we've been believers, enable
each one of us by your Spirit and grace to examine ourselves
to see if indeed and in fact we have laid hold, savingly,
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has, by his obedience and death,
made for us a perfect righteousness which he imputes to us. Lord,
let us search this out, each one of us, for ourselves. We
praise your name. We worship you. Oh, that we might truly, truly
know you. Whom to know is life eternal. Amen. Alright, in this second psalm,
I believe it's twelve verses, three verses per stanza, So it's
relatively easy to distinguish what is being said in one stanza
as opposed to the next one and the next one and the next one.
Here's the question. Why do the heathen rage and people
imagine a vain thing? Craig, you didn't turn me on.
There we go. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a
vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord. and against his anointed, saying,
Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from
us." Now, every descendant of Adam does exactly the same thing. No man left to his human nature
would choose to believe and trust and follow Christ. It just doesn't
happen that way. We're so enamored with this world
and what we are chasing as we go through it at different stages
in our lives. If we could have all our wants,
we'd have no interest in anything having to do with Christ. We
would say with these people, let us break their bands asunder,
and cast away their cords from us. Now we have a dramatic change
of speakers between verses 3 and 4. So now we come to that section
4, 5, and 6. He that sits in the heavens,
that's God who sits in the heavens, is so disturbed by what these
people have vowed to do It says that he shall laugh at such puny, feeble efforts
that we think we can make God do something that he otherwise
ain't going to do. The Lord shall have them in derision,
that's another word for laughter, then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Now, what was their objection?
The kings and the rulers and the common people. It is against God's anointed. That's His Christ. Every man by nature turns thumb
down on Christ and says, crucify Him, crucify Him. And the Lord says at the end
of verse 5, I'm sorry, verse 6. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. You say you won't have him? I
can't put him in this position? I already have. This is not something that took
place during time. This was before time ever was.
But the Lord Jesus was appointed in that wonderful covenant of
grace to be God's Christ, God's Messiah. And now the Lord Jesus
Himself speaks, beginning at verse 7 and 8 and 9, I will declare
the decree. The Lord, the Lord God Jehovah,
has said unto me, You are my Son. This day have I begotten
you." And now he says to his glorious
Son, our Savior, he says, ask of me and I'll give you the heathen,
the Gentiles, for your inheritance. and the uttermost parts of the
earth for your possession. And then the father goes on to
tell the Lord Jesus what he will accomplish in verse 9. You shall
break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel. Nothing can hinder God's purpose
in Christ. Isaiah says he can't even be
disappointed. Yet modern religion portrays
him as leaning over the balcony of heaven and crying his eyes
out because you won't let him do what he wants to do for you.
Now, that ain't stupid. And I have been exactly that
stupid, and I know you have too. We're born to believe in that
junk. You don't have to be converted for that. Verses 10, 11, and 12, the Spirit
of God is speaking. And every man and woman, and
child for that matter, ought to listen carefully to these
last three verses. Be wise now therefore, O you
kings. Be instructed, you judges of
the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and
rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,
and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put
their trust in Him. Now, I'd like for you to join
me in the book of Romans in the New Testament. Boy, after that reading, I was
tempted to just stay with Psalm 2. I'll probably flub up either
way, so it won't matter. Romans chapter 10, just taking
a few of the verses in Romans 10. the first four verses of Romans
chapter 10. Verse 1. Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God But it is not according to knowledge. What kind of zeal would you call
it? An ignorant zeal. How come we have, religiously
speaking, we have deep feelings about things, why do we have
these religious feelings? And yet, they are not true. because
we are ignorant of God's righteousness, which is covered in verse 3 wonderfully
well. They have a zeal of God, but
not according to knowledge, for they being ignorant. Now this
ignorance, gospel ignorance, covers all classes and types
of people, all colors, all degrees of wealth or lack thereof. Everything
that distinguishes us in this life is totally opposed to what
this book has to say about our salvation and our Savior. They being ignorant of God's
righteousness, this is God's intrinsic holiness, which has been His forever and
ever and ever, and will be His forever and ever to come. This
is not some temporary arrangement. This is how things have always
been and it's how they are now and they ever will be. Being
ignorant of God's righteousness causes people to spend their
time and money running after a righteousness of their own
that they're going to lay at the feet of Christ on judgment
day and beg to be entered into glory based on what they've done
for him. And down to the last human being,
on this planet right now. We'll be in the same shape as
those guys were in Matthew chapter 7 when they said, Lord, look
at what all we've done for you. And they just laid it out. And
the Lord said, depart from me, you that work iniquities. I never
knew you. You claim to know me. But you
can't know me unless I know you. And if Christ is not everything
to us, we do not know him. We cannot know him. So we go
about to establish our own righteousness, and that leads us to mean that
we have not submitted ourselves unto the righteousness of God.
Now, you have three times in that one verse the word righteousness. Each one of them has a different
meaning. The first one is the intrinsic righteousness of God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This is
summarized in all the attributes that Craig has been putting before
us for months. They all are contained in the
holy three-in-one. The second righteousness Ain't
nothing more or less than self-righteousness, which means it is not a righteousness
at all. It's pretended. People will tell you right quick,
they're not sinners. Well, what are you going to do
when you read in Romans chapter 5 that Christ died for sinners? I know what you're going to do.
You think you're saved by your own efforts. And we're going
to rush into God's presence and still be trying to get across
that point. Lord, we've done a lot of things
for you, given a lot of money, did all this, that and the other.
Tell Him what your grandfather did and your father and on and
on. And third righteousness in Romans
10 verse 3 is the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. without
which no man shall see God. Now verse 4, for Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Every believer, every true follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ receives his righteousness that he earned
and merited for us in the thirty-three years and some months he lived
on this earth in the flesh. So, we don't need to make the
point that we're born not knowing what gospel righteousness is,
not even knowing how righteous God is and how wonderful and
how saving is the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's do some turning
this morning. I wish I could memorize all these
verses, but I just can't, and it's too late for me to change
to computers, so I don't know what else I'll do. If you'll
turn to the book of Luke, The first thing, at least as
I have tried to categorize them, the first thing that we do not
know. We do not know what that righteousness
is which God requires. Let's see if we can find out
through this really nice Did I give you the chapter? Luke
chapter 10? I thought you girls could read
men's minds. You should have already known
it. I know mine can. Luke chapter 10, beginning at
verse 25. And behold, a certain lawyer."
I forget how many times the word lawyer means what it does now,
but this is not talking about a lawyer. This is talking about a person
who is so well versed in the religion of the Old Testament
that they can decide this, that, and the other when there is a
question and all this stuff. So this man who knows a great
deal about the Scriptures, and at this point in time when this
event took place in our Lord's life, there was only the Old
Testament. So he stood up and tempted Christ. He's trying to trap Him to make
Him look foolish in the eyes of people who are watching. And
he said, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? What do I do to inherit eternal
life? Do you know the gospel answer
to that question? Absolutely nothing. The worst
thing you can do is think you can do something. Salvation is
a gift from start to finish. And our precious Lord has paid
for it. with his life and his blood.
So our Lord says to this man, now
he thinks that the Lord Jesus is just another man, and he could
handle most people in a debate. So he's trying to put Christ
in his place, but he doesn't know who he is. That's his biggest
mistake. He has no idea who Christ is. And our Lord answered him in
verse 26, What is written in the law, and how do you read
it? How do you interpret what is
written in the Old Testament? And the man answered and said,
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all
your mind. Now who can do that? Not me and not
you. And then if you want to add one
other impossible thing for you to do, it is love your neighbor
as much as you love yourself. And that ain't happening. But I'll tell you somebody that
loved his people more than he loved himself. Not as much as
he loved himself. More. That's our Lord Jesus Christ. That righteousness which God
requires is absolute holiness. And we cannot attain that. Secondly, God has provided a
perfect gospel righteousness in his Son. Turn, if you will,
to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And let's see what kind of righteousness
the Lord has wonderfully given us in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.21. 5.21. Here's that righteousness. For he, Jehovah, has made him, made Christ, to
be sin for us. Christ took away the sins of
all of his people of all time and all places. And the Christ that did that
did not even know what it was to sin. He knew no sin. He's lived in this world now
33 years and some months and he's never sinned. Who knew no
sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now that's gospel righteousness. And you can read this book and
run into person after person after person who knows nothing
of this truth, and yet they were religious people, very much so,
more so than anybody we know, most likely. Third thing is that
this righteousness is itself a person. You should know this
scripture. We won't turn to it. Jeremiah 23.6. speaks of Jehovah
Sidcanu. That's the Lord our righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
righteousness. Just like we read in Romans 10
chapter 4, the very same thing. And here's the fourth thing about
this matter of righteousness. The likelihood that That everybody,
apart from God's grace, there ain't no likelihood, it's a certainty,
do not know what this righteousness is, nor how it can be received. So how do you receive this righteousness? I hate to do this to you, but
I need you to go back to the Old Testament and to the book
of 1 Kings. That's way on past the book of
Psalms. 1 Kings chapter 20. Let me start at verse 23. 1 Kings 20, 23, and the servants
of the king of Syria said unto him, speaking of Israel, their
gods are gods of the hills. Because Israel had defeated them
the previous day, or at least a few days before this, and had
killed an immense number of their soldiers, and so they have put
somebody back in these places and they're ready to go again.
So the servants of the king of Syria come to him and say, their
gods are the gods of the hills. Therefore, they were stronger
than we, but let us fight against them in the plain on level ground,
and surely we shall be stronger than they. And the king bought
into it, and so they bolstered their army. And then in verse 28, While the
Syrians were preparing to come back into Israel for battle,
verse 28, and there came a man of God and spoke unto the king
of Israel, and he said, Thus says the Lord, because the Syrians
have said, The Lord his God is God of the hills, but he will
But he is not God of the valleys. Therefore will I deliver all
this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that
I am the Lord." Now, the king that he's talking to is as pagan
as pagan gets, but he's Israel's king. So they pitch their tents
for seven days, and then the battle is on in verse 30. But the rest fled to Aphek into
the city, And there a wall fell upon 27,000 of the men that were
left, and Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, fled, came into the
city, into an inner chamber, and they were hiding themselves.
And while they're in this, what they think is a safe place, his
servants come to him now with some more advice. You know, they
were way off the mark when they said that the God of Israel can
only empower his people on certain kinds of terrain. I think God
is beyond such a thing, immensely better than such a thing. If
our ability to fight has to do with geography, we've had it. So they tell him in verse 31,
Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel
are merciful kings. Let us, I pray you, put sackcloth
on our loins and ropes upon our heads or a rope around our neck
with a noose. and go out to the king of Israel,
perhaps he will save your life. So they girded sackcloth on their
loins a sign of mourning and put ropes on their heads and
came to the king of Israel and said, Your servant Ben-Hadad
says, I pray you, let me live. And the king of Israel said,
Is he still alive? He's my brother. That is weird, isn't it? But
it certainly tells you this matter of receiving righteousness. It doesn't come. You can't buy
it. You can't earn it. You can't
have it whatsoever. You can't suffer enough for it
if you suffered every day of a long life in this world. It
is that we must vow to the King of kings and Lord of lords. The second statement back in
our text in Romans 10.3, has to do with going about to establish
their own righteousness. Now, if you'll stay in the Old
Testament, I'm sure you've already left it. I should have remembered
that. In the book of 1 Samuel, to your left of where we just
were, chapter 5, has to do with the Ark of the
Covenant and the Philistine God, I believe it's the Philistines, who is called Dagon. Let me read
you a few statements here in chapter 5, 1 Samuel chapter 5. And the Philistines took the
Ark of God. Eli's sons were priests at that
time at the tabernacle, and they allowed Israel to carry that
Ark of the Covenant into battle against the Philistines, thinking
that just that box, without the God of the box, just the box,
would be all they'd need to give them a victory. Well, they failed
miserably. Thousands upon thousands of their
people were killed. So when the Philistines, verse
2, took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of
Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose
early on the morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face
to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon
and set him back in his place." I mean, you know, you've got
to help your God out, don't you? Yeah, if He's the false one,
you do. And when they arose early on
the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the
ground." I'm probably repeating, before
the ark of the Lord and the head of Dagon and both the palms of
his hands were broken off upon the threshold, only the stump
of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the priest
of Dagon nor any that came into Dagon's house They dared not
tread on this threshold unto this day, which tells us that
man is superstitious, whether he's a well-educated American
or somebody somewhere that doesn't know one letter of an alphabet.
But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and
he destroyed them and smote them with hemorrhoids, even Ashdod
and the coast thereof. And when these men saw that it
was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide
with us, for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our God."
Well, why not trade Dagon in? Huh? Oh, that's unthinkable. That's my mom and daddy's God. My grandfather and my grandmother's
God. So they gathered the lords of
the Philistines in verse 8 and arrived at what they would do.
They took that Ark of the Covenant back to Israel and left it out
in the middle of nowhere. But the God of the Bible, the
Christ of the Bible, is one that we are to approach different
from any other object, thing, person, whatever that people
invent makes no difference. This self-will that is so evident
in what we have just read is going about This is a direct
quote now from Romans 10.3, going about to establish their own
righteousness. Going to establish their own
righteousness. That's what self-will is. It cannot rise to any higher
level. It's at the bottom of the ladder. And yet, how many years did I
waste in that religion? All right, the third thing. Not
only does this statement in Romans 10-3 speak of an ignorance of
God's righteousness and of self-will going about to establish their
own righteousness, But the third thing is that it is just plain
rebellion against God. We refuse to hear anything different
from what I already believe. We dare not look at our religion
too carefully. We might find it disappears right
before your eyes. You remember in the second psalm
it says, they had not submitted themselves unto God's Christ. Not submitted themselves unto
God's Christ. That's a strange word. Not committed. Not committed. It's infinitely more than all
the true believers of Christ in this world at any given time. No telling how many there are
who will not submit. Secondly, it is a searching word. The reason I am not saved is
why? Because I will not submit. I
won't bow to Christ. I won't take him as my all. I'll
let him help me if he wants to, but he can't have the whole thing. It is also a suggestive word. that we will not own that God
is king. We dispute his sovereignty and
his righteousness to be our judge. And yet, that is the standard
to which we must address ourselves on that awful day of judgment. But it is also an encouraging
word All I have to do is submit? Are you telling me, preacher,
that I can be saved simply by submitting? Absolutely. And you won't be saved very long
before you'll find out you didn't do the submitting. It was the
gift of God. Unknown by us, until better taught. Let me ask you to turn to one
other Scripture. Oh yeah, I've got an hour to go,
man. What are you talking about? 1 Kings chapter 20. Now, was this the chapter I was
in earlier? Yeah. All right, what I'd like
to, if I can narrow down the verses, just this one illustration. Verse
32. So they girded sackcloth on their
loins. This is chapter 20, verse 32. So they girded sackcloth on their
loins and put ropes on their heads. I take that to mean a
noose and just go put the other end of the rope in the king of
Israel's hand. And came to the king of Israel
and said, Your servant Ben-Hadad says, I pray you, let me live. Let me live. Now that, aside
from the fact that both of these kings were rotten to the core,
has nothing to do with the fact that that is a wonderful illustration
of coming to Christ. You can't come to Him halfway.
You can't let Him have charge of part of your life. You can't
say, Lord, I'll let you determine things in the religious realm
and I'll take care of everything else. No. He's altogether King. Everything we do should have
to do with Him, no matter what our occupation or whatever occupies
our time. Oh, how amazing it is. It's a wonder anybody's saved. But I'm sure of one thing. When
this whole world is no longer here, every person that God gave to
Christ in that wonderful covenant of grace in old eternity, is
going to be there in glory, and Christ will be able to say, I
have not lost a single one of my sheep, my people. But if salvation were up to us,
wouldn't anybody be there? Nobody. Alright, thank you.