Psalm 85. Lord, you have been favorable
unto your land. You have brought back the captivity
of Jacob. You have forgiven the iniquity
of your people. You have covered all their sin,
and it's either all or none. If it's not all, it may as well
be none. You have taken away all your
wrath. The Bible certainly tells us
that God is angry with the wicked every single day. But here it says, you have taken away all your
wrath, you have turned yourself from the fierceness of your anger, And if we look at Christ hanging
on Calvary's tree, we understand where this wrath and anger went
against His own Son. Turn us, O God of our salvation,
and cause us, cause your anger toward us to cease. Will you
be angry with us forever? Will you draw out your anger
to all generations? Will you not revive us again
that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your mercy, O
Lord, and grant us your salvation. I will hear what God the Lord
will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people and to
his saints. But let them not turn again to
folly. Surely His salvation, God's salvation
in Christ, is near them that fear Him, and that glory may
dwell in our land. Now listen carefully. Verse 10. Mercy and truth. are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the
earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Now here
you have four attributes of God. We have his mercy and his truth. His righteousness and His peace. And they are stated in verse
10 as if they have been separated because of some difficulty that
existed between them. In order for God to show mercy
to undeserving, hell-deserving sinners, Can that mercy be shown
to them without damaging God's truth? Can God make a statement in this
book that the soul that sins must surely die and then have
mercy on that sinner? Verse 11 states the very same
thing. Now we use different attributes.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall
look down from heaven. So how does truth, which is simply
another name for the Lord Jesus, how may it be said of him that
he springs out of the earth? He came down from heaven. Unlike
ourselves, our beginning is in this world. His is in heaven. And at a point in time, this
eternal Son becomes a man. And there on this earth, wearing
human flesh, he earns and merits For all the people that God gave
him in the covenant of redemption and grace in old eternity, he
earned for them a perfect righteousness, and went to the cross, shedding
his blood, and paid the full exact price of redemption for
every last one of his people. Now, I know religion tries to
make that blood shedding and that earning of a righteousness
For all mankind. But if it is that, for all mankind,
and all mankind aren't in heaven, and they obviously aren't, because
the Bible tells us the name of some characters that are already
in hell, then that simply makes the blood of Christ not special. It cheapens it. It says that
he died for some people and they still went to hell. If that's
the case, what's going to keep us out of hell? You follow me? This is important for us to know
and to understand. Verse 12 and 13, "'Yea, the Lord
shall give that which is good, and our land,' we might say,
and our lives, shall yield her increase, Righteousness shall
go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps. Alright, we're going to take
our actual text in just a bit from the New Testament in our
Bibles, but I put a marker there for Psalm 85. Here we go again. Oh my. Alright, John chapter
8. And I think my wife thinks that
because we're recording on this little thing, as well as on that
thing, that I can't make any remarks about anything, you know?
And I don't know if I can do that or not. So, we'll see. First thing I've got to tell
you, we're looking at verses 1 through 11. out of John chapter 8. A lot of study Bibles and alternate translations
of the Bible tell you that John chapter 8
Well, they actually say verse 53 out of chapter 7 through verse
11 in chapter 8 is not supposed to be in our Bibles. Augustine, who lived somewhere
around 400 AD, that was a fairly good while ago, he said it wasn't
a thing in the world, but people who made copies of ancient manuscripts
that held the scriptures, that they took this out of those copies
because they were afraid that what our Lord had to say about
adultery and this adulterous woman that was brought into his
presence, they thought it might encourage adultery. My Lord, there must be one billion
things already that encourages it, and to say that Christ spoke
these words and find it to be used for that cause is absolutely
absurd." So Augustine said, just let them keep on supposing. What's
in this book is in there and it's going to stay in there.
So, I want you to know that. Now I want you to know why many
people do not want it to be in here. Alright, chapter 8, verse 1. I'll include 53, because I don't
know how on earth it got divided at 53, because the two statements
belong in one single verse. And every man went unto his own
house, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. You see how connected
that is? Now when you get home, I want
you to do one other thing about the validity of this text. I
want you to read from verse 52 of John chapter 7. and jump all
the way to verse 12 of John chapter 8, and you'll find the most disjointed
sentence that could be imaginable. I'll just run through it briefly.
Let's see. No, I want to read 52. Then answered
and said unto him, they answered and said unto him, Are you also
of Galilee? Search and look, for out of Galilee
arises no prophet. Then spoke Jesus again unto them,
saying, I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." It doesn't
fit. Or if you ended at 53 and do
the same thing, it is the very same. Alright, verse 1 of chapter
8, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives, and early in the morning
He came again into the temple, And all the people came unto
him, and he sat down and taught them." Now, our Lord is not in
the temple proper. He's in one of the many courtyards
that surrounded that temple. One of the reasons we know this
is that the floor of this place, wherever the Lord was, is dirt. Because he took his finger and
wrote in the ground. In the next few verses we'll
find that. And the scribes and Pharisees, these were our Savior's
enemies from the very beginning to the end and even afterward. And they still are to this day.
These are very, extremely religious people who hate God and who hate
God's Son and who hate any thought of salvation by grace alone.
So they bring, in this third verse, they bring unto Christ
a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in
the midst, no mention now of the man. They say unto him, Master, this
woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now Moses, in the
law, commands us that such should be stoned. But what say you? What do you have to say about
it? This they said, here's why they bring this woman before
our Lord, this they said, tempting Him that they might have to accuse
Him. But Jesus stooped down and with
His finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking
him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is without
sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and
wrote on the ground. And we're not told what he wrote
or if he wrote anything. But let's be reminded that Jesus
Christ is God Almighty. He knows these people inside
and out just like he does us. And they which heard it The people to whom our Lord made
that statement, whoever among you is without sin, let him cast
the first stone. And they which heard it in verse
9, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one,
beginning at the oldest even unto the youngest, and Jesus
was left alone and the woman standing in the middle. When
Jesus lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto
her, Woman, where are those, your accusers? Has no man condemned
you? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus
said unto her, Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. This is an amazing passage of scripture. It tells us the hatred of the scribes and Pharisees
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. But here we have a sinner brought
into the very presence of Christ. Now, suppose we were meeting
this morning, and you'd be standing up and I'd be sitting down, and
I'm trying to teach. And somebody drags somebody from
off the street in here to prefer charges against them, which turns
out to be adultery. Now, why would someone do that?
Because they have tried every way they know In the last chapter,
they had sent officers out to arrest our Lord and to bring
Him to them. And they came back empty-handed,
and their excuse was, no man speaks like this man. Nobody
has ever spoken like the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Pharisees
are all the more incensed, and so they concoct this story. that if they can bring this woman
before Christ on charges of adultery, though it's plain as day when
our Lord was put to death, Pilate said, why don't you put Him to
death? They said, it's not right, it's not lawful for us to put
Christ to death. Well, is it lawful to put this
woman to death? No. As long as the Romans were
in control, they said who died and who lived. And here's the problem in regard
to our Savior. If he says, let her go, then
they're going to want to say, well, what about God's holy law? What about the seventh commandment?
Or if he says, stone her, then what happens to the description
of Christ in the gospels that he's, as we sung of him a while
ago, he's the friend of sinners. The friend of sinners. We better
be glad he is the friend of sinners. Because there ain't nobody in
this world but sinners. Two things are generally held. I guess we could make this statement
today. It's not held in many places.
Two things are generally held in contempt. One is to not punish
the guilty, and the other is to condemn the innocent. Now, is she guilty or not guilty? Which is it? Now, I use this passage. We started Wednesday night trying
to deal with the subject of God's justice and His mercy. Now, if
you kept your place at Psalm 85, I just want to rehearse the
statement to bring it back into your memory. Psalm 85, verses 10 and 11. Mercy
and truth. are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the
earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Now when
did this happen and what caused these divine attributes to seemingly
be at odds with each other? And I underline the word seemingly. As far as where we see it is,
they must have been in conflict with each other. As far as God
is concerned, they're in perfect harmony. Mercy cannot be shown to mankind, and truth be damaged by it. Truth is equally valuable with
mercy. Therefore, God must fashion a
way to show mercy to people who do not merit it, who do not deserve
it, who have not earned it. But He must do so in a way as
to uphold His truth. The truth of God's Word is, the
soul that sins shall surely die. But if a substitute takes that
sinner's place, which is what Christ has done on Calvary, then
God's truth is as true as ever it has been and is glorious.
But so is His mercy. And the same is true with the
other two in verse 11 when it comes to truth and righteousness. This wonderful gospel that is
from old eternity to the eternity to come. Revelation calls it
the everlasting gospel. Therefore, it has always been
and it will always be. And the gospel is the only means
by which these attributes as well as all of God's other attributes
can be honored and magnified and glorified and His law be
lifted up. His law is truth. It certainly
is the truth. How about turning now, if you
will, to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. I'm slower than you. Here we
are. Verse 19 and verse 20. Romans 3.19, Now we know that
what thing soever the law says, it says to them who are under
the law. All human beings are under the
law, whether we know it or like it or not. that every mouth may be scoffed,
and all the world may become guilty before God. There's our
problem. We do not like to say we're guilty,
but we are. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, by the keeping of the Ten Commandments, or any way you
want to put it, Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall
no flesh be justified." In John 7, 19, the Lord said to a group
of Pharisees, emphatically, you do not keep the law. You claim to. People even say
you do, but the Son of God says you don't keep it. Not a one
of them, by the way. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight." Well, why did
he give the law if he knew we couldn't keep it? Here it is. Here's the answer to that. For
by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law is designed to reveal
to us our sin. teaching us that we need mercy
and grace. We need Christ Jesus, the Lord. We're sinners in our first Father
Adam. We inherited his fallen nature. We're sinners in our natural
nature, the nature of ourselves as human beings. And we are also
sinners by practice. We've been practicing, however
old we are, that's how long we've been practicing. Practicing to
be sinners. Therefore, justice is the sinner's
worst enemy. Divine justice. Here's the second
major point, and I have only one more to go after this. Well,
I've got a little conclusion down here too, but the second
main point is that divine justice, I tried to make this point Wednesday
and I'm trying again this morning, divine justice is no longer the
sinner's enemy. Now how does that happen? You remember the verses that
we sang out of the book of Psalms? In Psalm 130, I'll just read
them to you. If you don't wish to turn, it
will be fine. Psalm 130, verses 3 and 4, If
thou, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But
there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Forgiveness with God in Christ. Oh, what wonderful news indeed. Are you still in Romans chapter
3? Well, let's go to chapter 5 and pick up one verse of Scripture. Romans 5, 17. Now, in this transferring
of our guilt and our sin upon Christ, and God in mercy and
grace transferring to those sinners who are brought to Christ to
believe, to rest, to trust, three things take place. First of all,
there must be imputation. God must indeed and in fact impute
his people's sins to his Son, and he must thereby impute Christ's
righteousness to his people. And when this is done, The hands
of justice are free. This does nothing negatively
to the justice of God. Another word that must be used
to talk about these things is substitution. Christ is our substitute. He stood in our room, place,
and stead. God punished Him. instead of
punishing his people. And the third one is satisfaction. All right, here in verse 17.
If by one man's offense, now who is that? You know, I'm waiting for an
answer. Adam. By one man's offense, Adam. Death reigned by one. Did you know until Adam sinned,
this whole globe had never seen death? Not man, not beast, not
anything. If by one man's offense, death
reigned by one, Now, in understanding what we're talking about, here's
what that means. If God could charge Adam with our sin, if
Adam had not fallen, the race would not have fallen. There
would be no such thing as sin. Alright, watch it now. Death
reigned by warning. Therefore, we are guilty how?
by imputation, by substitution, and by representation. Adam is
our representative. Therefore, what he did, we are
said to do because we are his offspring. But look at this. That ain't near as bad as it
sounds. Because here's the other half of it, and it's wonderful
news. Verse 17, Romans 5, much more They which receive abundance
of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus
Christ." Now here's why that's important. If God condemns us
on the basis of a federal head and substitute, then His justice
can be satisfied if He saves us the very same method by a
representative and a substitute. Do you see what I'm saying? God has to be right in everything
He does. He can't take shortcuts. He must
satisfy His law in order to magnify His grace, and it's all done
in Christ and in the gospel. Alright, here's my third point.
2 Corinthians. Chapter 5, and you've heard this
verse, I know, a thousand times. 2 Corinthians 5, it's the last
verse. Well, if I'd get out of 1 Corinthians,
I might find it too. Let's see. Verse 21, last verse in 2 Corinthians
5, for he, God, has made him, that's Christ, The words to be are not in the
original, it's in italics, so the King James translators honestly
tell us that they've added these two words. So we're going to
leave them out. There are times when it helps
in the reading of a statement, there are times when it isn't.
For He has made Him, God has made Christ, sin for us. Christ who knew no sin. Why? that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Christ. Righteousness then is what kind
of righteousness? Imputed. Imputed. And in the new birth
may even be said to be imparted. Because we have a nature now
that we didn't have before we met the Lord Jesus. Or should
I say before he met us. Now, here's my conclusion. I've got four words down here,
and that's not enough, so I'm just going to try to explain
what I'm trying to say. There are two kinds of adultery.
One is literal, and the other is spiritual. One concerns a man or a woman
and another man or a woman, but one concerns ourselves and Christ. When we trust anything or anyone
other than the Lord Jesus, we are committing, whether we know
it or not, we are committing spiritual adultery. And even
those of us who are believers, we cannot believe, because it
isn't true, that we can go one hour without sinning. I might
just bring it down to a minute and it would probably still be
true. But the point is this, spiritual adultery, is generally well concealed. You know, we can still talk the
language, but it may not be true. We might be telling what others
have told us. What I'm trying to say is that
spiritual adultery is far more prevalent, especially in our
day. in the state and condition of
the world of professing Christianity, people worship almost anything
except God in Christ. And this is spiritual adultery. And any time we lose sight of
Christ and we look to ourselves or to someone else, or try to
put the blame here, there, or wherever, we're in the same boat.
It is spiritual adultery. Now, which one is most prevalent?
Obviously, the latter. All right, I'm going to make that it.