Well, it's good to be back. Doesn't
seem like it was that long ago. I was with you in January, and
good to be back now. I was going to say to you, I
talked to Ms. Shelby a few days ago, and she
told me that she would be praying for us and expressed her love
for you and how that she would have loved to have been here.
But she's very thankful and said that she wanted you to know she's
praying for you. Let's turn to Psalm 32. I just want to look at the first
two verses. Blessed, happy, is he whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit There is
no God. No deceitfulness. My subject
is true happiness. True happiness. We all want to
be happy. The problem is we usually try
to seek happiness where happiness cannot be found. Happiness cannot
be found in this world. It can't be found in ourselves
and in our works. is a temporary mirage that we
call happiness. But what the Lord's talking about
here when He said blessed, He's talking about what true happiness
really is. This is true happiness. True
happiness. Every sinner that God saves has
a two-fold problem. A two-fold problem. We come into
this world guilty before God. Guilty before the law. And we're
born with a nature that's ruined in sin. A nature that's nothing
but guile, deceit. The Lord said, the heart's deceitful
above all things. That's deceitful. The heart,
the nature that's in you and me is full of guile, full of
deceit more than anything else. Two works are declared here.
Two works are declared here. The work of righteousness, which
Christ did for His people in making us not guilty and making
us righteous. And there's the work of sanctification
that Christ works in His people, giving us a new nature so that
we are without God. Both these works are Christ's.
He's made unto his people righteousness and sanctification. We sing the
water and the blood. From thy wounded side which flow,
be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. That's why the Lord said, comfort
ye my people, cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished.
She's received of the Lord's hand double for all her sin. He's made us, he's justified
us, he's made us righteous, and he's made us holy. So I want to get right into this.
Christ is both the righteousness and the sanctification of every
believer. And those will just be my two
points. Righteousness, the work of righteousness and the work
of sanctification. Verse 1, the work of righteousness
is this, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered. Happy is the man unto whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. Now every person that Christ
saves broke God's law in Adam. Now when I say that, You remember
how the Lord said Levi was in Abraham and he really and truly
paid tithes in Abraham. He was in Abraham's loins. Well,
when I talk about us breaking the law in Adam, we were really
in Adam. When God gave Adam that law,
God gave me that law. I was in that garden. God gave
me that law. And when Adam disobeyed God,
I disobeyed God in that garden. It's just that real. It's just
that real. And so, being born of Adam's
corrupt seed, I come forth with this sin nature, guilty before
the law of God, and all I do is transgress. All I am is sin. And all my best deeds are iniquity. Go to Romans 5 with me and I
want you to hold your place in Romans 5 because we're going
to come back to this place. But Romans 5.12, very familiar. I'm going to show you some familiar
scripture tonight. But I just want us to look at
it. Verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin. And so, see that word
and so? That means for this reason. Because sin entered, and death by sin,
and so for that reason, Death passed upon all men. For that, or in Adam, because
in Adam all have sinned. Really did. And he proves it
with the next verse. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. What does
that mean? Just study that a minute. God
will not impute sin until a man has been made sin by a prior
act. He won't impute sin where a man
has not been made sin. He won't do it. Well then it
says here, But sin is not imputed when there is not. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression. Even though men
didn't have a known law, and they didn't break a known law
like Adam did, yet God still imputed sin to them. And death
reigned. How could God be just to do that?
How could God be just to impute sin to a man that did not have
a known law and tell him he's guilty? It says it right in verse
12. I mean in verse 12, yeah. It says, for that in Adam all
have sinned. That's why. See, God imputed
sin to us because we really became sin in Adam. We transgressed
in Adam. That's why God imputed sin to
us. It's a fact. Now I'm going to
give you a little taste of what's to come because this is a blessed
truth too. You know in Romans 3, you get
to the end of Romans 3 and it says, do we make void the law
through faith? No. Through faith we establish
the law. Even like Abraham did, he says
in the 4th chapter, well how could Abraham establish the law
when the law wasn't given for 430 years later? How could God
impute Abraham and account righteousness to Abraham and he didn't have
a law? He couldn't commit righteousness
under the law. The same way he was able to impute
sin to me and you. Because in our head, we were
there and we did what He did. We were in Christ and we did
what Christ did. Now let me, you keep, hold your
place in Romans 5 and I'm going to go back and talk here a little
bit about this sin problem. God sent forth the Lord Jesus
because all we ever did was transgress. That's trespass against God.
God gave one law and said don't eat of that and the moment we
ate of it, it was like a man crossing a no trespassing sign
and saying I'm going to do it anyway. We transgressed against
God. And all we do is sin. Sin is
what we are. That's what the word, the word
is really a noun. It's what we are. And because
that's what we are, that's what we do. That's all we do. We breathe
sin. We dream sin. Everything we do
is sin. Still today, It's still true
today for you that believe. And iniquity means all our works
that we used to call righteousness is inequitable. It does not equal
God's righteousness. We fall short of the glory of
God. Now that's a pretty dismal picture. That's all we do. Well, thanks be to God, Christ
is the last Adam. He came and His people were in
Him. Those people God chose from eternity
and gave to Christ, we were in Christ's loins when He came into
this earth. We were in Him. Back in Romans
5, if you go to verse 19, or at the end of verse 13, I keep
looking at Romans 4, at the end of verse 5 it says, verse 13,
Verse 14, it says, Adam is the figure of him that was to come.
And then in Daniel verse 19 it tells us, as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one, Christ,
shall many be made righteous. He's the one who did it. Just
like Adam's transgression didn't make us and give us the possibility
of being sinners, it made us sinners. Well, Christ's righteousness
didn't give us the possibility of being made righteous. He made
us righteous. And that's why he sent him forth.
Well, how did he do it? Why did Christ come forth? It
was not simply to save us. That wasn't the only reason.
The chief reason was to manifest the righteousness of God. The
chief reason was to manifest God's glory. That was the chief
reason. And Christ came forth, and so the Hebrew writer said,
it behooved him in all points to be made like unto his brethren. That means he was a literal,
true substitute in every sense of the word. So we were flesh,
he had to be made flesh and dwell amongst us. The Gnostics would
not say Christ was made flesh because they said, If he was
made flesh, then he'd be a sinner, because all flesh is sinful.
And because of that, they said it was just as if he was made
flesh, but he wasn't really made flesh. No, he was made flesh. And we were under the law, and
had to be brought out from under that curse we broke in Adam.
And so he was made under the law. And this spotless, innocent,
perfect God-man walked this earth under the law, and was proven
to be without sin, to have no sin, to know no sin. And this
was typified in the law when they took a lamb and they had
to inspect that lamb. They had to make sure that lamb
had no, it couldn't have just a different color hair in it. It had to be, all the hair had
to match, it could have no scrape on it, it could have no blemish,
it had to be perfect to be accepted. And it pictured the perfect God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked this earth as a man with his
people in him. And then Christ went to the garden
of Gethsemane. And he presented himself to the
Father in the garden of Gethsemane. And I'm not going to argue with
folks on this because I can't. It's beyond me, but I believe
that's where it started. Because it all started in the
first garden. It started in the second garden.
And Christ sweat great drops of blood at what he was about
to do for his people. But do you think of the obedience?
And I have no doubt that the devil was trying everything he
could at that moment to get our Lord Jesus to turn from what
he was sent to do. But while Christ was sweating
these drops of blood, our Lord Jesus Christ was being perfectly
obedient to God. He came there willingly, spotless,
presenting himself to God for God to make him the sin bearer. And this is a picture in the
law when the lamb was brought to the high priest and this spotless
lamb, there it is. Now, they didn't take that spotless
lamb and kill it. Sometimes they brought it there.
Because he's manifesting righteousness. He's picturing righteousness.
And Christ came to manifest righteousness. So what had to happen? The sin
of God's people's got to be laid on him. He's got to be made sin
for his people. This one who knew no sin's got
to be made sin. Why? Because he's manifesting
that God's right. God only does what's right. God
will not impute sin where man hadn't been made sin by a prior
act. And so, The Lord laid on Him
the iniquity of us all. All His elect, all His people,
all like we like sheep have gone astray. You picture all these
sheep gone astray and they bring that one spotless lamb. We were
the sheep gone astray and here comes Christ, the spotless lamb.
And the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. That was
typified ceremonially when the high priest put his hands on
the head of the lamb and the sins of only Israel were enticed,
transferred to the lamb. Christ is the express image.
What he did was a lot more than what that was. Our Lord Jesus
Christ was manifesting God's righteousness. I don't get into these debates.
All I know is the scripture says he knew no sin. That's always
declared. He knew no sin. He's spotless.
He's holy in himself. He was not a sinner. And the
scripture also says the Lord made him sin. Now I'll leave
it to the theologians to figure that, untwist that. I don't have
to. I just believe God's word. That's
enough. That's enough. Praise the Lord.
It was just. It had to be just. And that's
what God was showing. What I do is just. It's just. So, after Christ was made sin,
do you know in the garden God didn't come to Adam and pronounce
a curse on Adam until after Adam was sinned? Well, after Christ
was made to bear our sin, That's when God numbered him with the
transgressors. He didn't even let men number
him, though they did it falsely and in a kangaroo court. He didn't
even let men number him with the transgressors in a court
of law until he was prepared to go to that cross. And then
he was numbered. God numbered him with the transgressors. That's when he imputed sin to
him. That's what that means. He made him a curse then. We
were flesh, he was made flesh. We were under the law, he was
made under the law. We were sin, he was made sin. Our sin was taken from us and
put on him. And we were under a curse and
so he was made a curse for us. Now this is where I will differ
with men because this was far more than just some legal transaction. Our Lord's going to be, He's
the high priest. He's going to have to know everything about
us and everything about our sin. When it says He was touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, it means much more than He just
looked at our infirmities and said, oh that's touching. No.
He felt everything our sin causes, yet He Himself knew no sin. There's something going on in
that cross that's so amazing of what he was enduring for his
people. Love is the fulfillment of the
law. And what's happening on that cross is loving God with
all your heart, soul, mind, and body, and loving your neighbor
as yourself. That's what's taking place on
that cross. And what does it require? Being forsaken of both. while hell rages upon you with
everything it's got. It's called the second death
if we'd had to bear it. And it's a living death. And
that's what Christ was bearing on the cross while he was alive
in those three hours of darkness. God turned his back on his darling
son and left him in darkness on that cross. We ought to go there often because
that's what we would have borne if it wasn't for our redemption.
Amen. And God is so righteous, He had
no respective persons. When sin was found on His Son,
He did not spare His own Son. Now sinner, that's going to tell
you that you can't try to go to God with anything of yours
and try to present it to God. If He didn't spare His Son, He
won't spare you and me. Amen. But let me tell you something,
that scapegoat, that scapegoat bore the sin away to a land not
inhabited in type. Christ did it for real. Christ
took our sin away from us. Took it away. And then, now we're
looking at sanctification, and I'm going to get into this just
a little bit here too. You see, it was not only necessary
that Christ bear our sin, it was necessary that while He bear
our sin, He be holy in his heart and depend entirely upon God
and never turn his face from God. Because that's what a holy
heart does. And you read the Psalms and you'll
hear him owning our sin to be his sin, but at the same time
saying, Father, I'm waiting on you. And what he said through
Isaiah, he said, he'll justify. He's going to raise me. He's
going to fulfill his end of the covenant because I fulfilled
my end of the covenant. And when he cried, it's finished.
Now remember. They didn't take that lamb that
had the sin ceremony laid on it, they didn't take that into
the holy place. Because that would have been
a picture of sin being brought into God's presence. No, that
lamb died. And the scapegoat took the sin
away. And then a holy high priest who's spotless, he takes the
blood, and he goes into the holy place, and he sprinkles the mercy
seed seven times, and God says, that's where I'll meet you. Go
to Hebrews 9 and we hear this declared just so plainly. Hebrews
chapter 9 and look at verse 11. Now this is the part after he
had cried, it's finished. This is him as our holy, sanctified,
sanctifying high priest. Christ being come, a high priest
of good things to come by greater, more perfect tabernacle, not
made with hands, that is to say, not of this Old Testament building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood,
he entered in once into the holy place, the holiest of holies. having obtained eternal redemption
for us. He obtained a redemption. Then
He entered into the holy place with His blood. Now look down
at verse 14. It says, at the end there, I just want
to catch the end. We'll come back and look at this.
The second part, it says, who through the eternal spirit offered
himself without spot to God. After he said it's finished,
he said, Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit. And he entered
into the holiest of holies as our high priest through his shed
blood. Look down at verse 24. For Christ
has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which
are figures of the truth, but into heaven itself. Now to appear
in the presence of God for us. Verse 26 puts it all together
for us now. It says, He did suffer since the foundation
of the world, now once in the end of the world. hath he appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and as it's appointed
unto men once to die, but after this their judgment. So Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that
looked for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation. He put it away. He's done. He's
done. And our holy high priest entered
in. That's why God says, when you read our text, and it says,
happy is the man who's whose transgression is forgiven. That word forgiven means it's
gone. There's no record of it ever happening. When you read
whose sin is covered, it's not blotted out like a whiteout,
but if you scrape the whiteout away, you can still see it under
the whiteout. No, it's gone. And blessed is the man whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. If you get this right here, it'll
put a hallelujah in your heart. God does not impute something
that's not true. In fact, the Greek lexicon definition
of imputation is, imputation is the accounting of fact. And
the illustration the Greek lexicon gives is, if I have $15 in my
wallet, then I impute $15 to my wallet. I don't put the $15
in my wallet by imputing it there. I impute it because it's a fact.
God didn't impute sin to us because He was just pretending. No, we
were made sin in Adam. And that's why He imputed sin
to us. Brethren, He's not pretending our sin is gone. It's gone. He won't impute sin to you because
it's a fact that before the law of God, you don't have any sin
to impute. I don't ever let anybody say, well, you're still a sinner,
but he's just treating you as if you're not. No, sir. No, sir. Before God, before the law, our
sin is gone, and God doesn't impute it, because there's none
to impute it. Now, that's just how it is. And that's, whoo,
you know all the scriptures. They said, you'll look for the
iniquity of Israel, and it won't be any. It'll be gone. He said,
as far as the east is from the west. I put it away. My favorite
is Romans 6, though. Go there with me. I'm sure I
read this when I was here last time because I can't really preach
it without reading it. Romans 6, verse 6. Look at this
emphatic language, brethren. Knowing this, Romans 6, 6. Our old man, that sinful man,
that old nature that me and you see and we feel and we know is
what's causing us to sin every day, every hour, every second. Well before God, before the law,
our old man is crucified with Christ. He dead. He died back
there over 2,000 years ago. That the body of sin might be
destroyed. And before God, it's destroyed.
And henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that's dead
is freed from sin. The law can't say nothing to
a dead man. Now if we be dead with Christ, get to the word,
we be dead with Christ. It's a fact. We believe we'll
live with him. Knowing Christ being raised from
the dead, doth no more death, hath no more dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died unto sin once. But in that he
liveth, he liveth unto God. Now get this. Likewise, impute
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. That, you can't get more emphatic
than that. Impute yourself to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I am crucified with Christ, and I am alive now that Christ abides
in me. Now let me get to this second
part. You see why happy is the man whose transgression is forgiven? Now let me get to this second
part, and I'll go quickly here, but we can't stop there, because
it don't stop there, because that's not the end of our problem.
If it stopped there, we got this sin nature and we'd never be
sitting here happy about these things. You are happy about them
because this second work has been done in you. And this had
to be done, and this is Christ's work too, it's the work of sanctification. It includes regeneration, but
it's the work of making a new holy man in his people. that looks out of ourselves to
see that he's our holiness. That's the ironic thing about
sanctification. If a man's looking at himself,
calling himself sanctified and doing things to make himself
more sanctified, he ain't been sanctified. Because when you're
sanctified, truly made holy within, all you see about yourself is
sinfulness. And you look out of yourself
to Christ, and you say, there's my holiness, sitting at God's
right hand. That's a man that's been sanctified. So it says, verse 2, and what
a blessed conjunction. Not only is his sins forgiven,
and in whose spirit there is no guile. No deceit. There's a new man in his people.
How did this happen? We were only guile. We were only
deceitful. And that's why we, in our flesh,
we were making sanctification out to be a co-effort between
us and God. And men are still doing that
today. That's what a defiled, deceitful, guile-filled nature
does. He tries to take the glory that
belongs to Christ. Paul said, is Christ the minister
of sin? Remember when Peter ate at that
table? And Paul, if you read, he said,
is Christ the minister of sin? Does he minister something sinful? Does he work something sinful
in us? Paul said, but if I build again the things I destroyed,
and what he's saying is, if I build back up the law that I claim
I've been saved from, I'm the one making myself a transgressor.
Christ didn't work that. Christ doesn't send a man back
to what he's already delivered him from. Self sanctification is God. This
thing of progressive holiness is God. It's deceit. It's a man deceiving himself. He's not being honest with God
about his sin and about what he really is. That's all he can
do though. We sing grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse
within. So under the Old Covenant, every
priest had to be washed. In Exodus 29.4, Aaron and his
sons, you shall bring to the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation and shall wash them with water. And some blood was
sprinkled on them and oil was sprinkled on them. They were
sanctified by that and made holy priests so they could approach
God. And that picture is what I'm talking about here. Titus
3.5. Let's go there. I've just got a few scriptures
I want to show you. Titus 3.5. Very familiar, but
I want to point out something. I hope you've seen it and I hope
you rejoice in it. Titus 3.5. Not by works of righteousness
we've done. But according to His mercy, He
saved us by the washing of regeneration. That washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost. He made us entirely new and He
continues to renew the new man day by day. And He says, which
is shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that
being justified, that means having already been justified by His
grace, we should be made heirs. We had to be regenerated because
He justified us. And this was done through His
blood. So the Spirit of God now, go back to Hebrews 9. The Spirit
of God, I just love this. You're hearing this gospel preached,
you're sitting there, maybe you've never believed, you're looking
at your works partly, you're looking at Christ's works, but
you don't believe Him. You think you've got to do something
to make yourself holy. And as you're hearing this gospel
preached, the Spirit of God comes. That's the oil in the old picture. And He applies the blood. He
makes that blood real. He makes that blood to have a
saving efficacy in you so that something goes on in you. What
happens? Verse 13, if the blood of bulls
and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifyeth
to the purifying of the flesh. He said, if that's sanctified
ceremonially, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God. He purges
your conscience. We were talking about this just
last night. Who was I talking about this with? I was talking
about when I, yeah with Norm and us, we were talking about,
I remember when the Lord first did this work and I would read
those little commentaries of Henry's and I'd read the verse
and then I'd read what Henry wrote and then I'd look the scriptures
up. And I could see it. I've been reading them scriptures
all my life, but now I could see what it said, and believe
what it said, and how my heart was just bubbling over. What
had happened? The Spirit of God took the blood
of Christ and purged my conscience. He made me able to see. He regenerated
me, made me new. He convinced me of sin, that
I didn't believe on Christ. He convinced me of righteousness
because Christ had gone to the Father. I realized He is my righteousness. He convinced me of judgment because
the prince of this world is cast out. He showed me judgment was
settled at Calvary. It's done. Now this is all part
of a man being sanctified. Now what happens when a man is
really sanctified? What makes vainly religious folks? keep bringing themselves back
under the law, and working and working and working, saying that
they're making themselves holy, but they never quite have done
enough. They always got to go back and
do some more, and keep working and keep working, because their
conscience keeps bothering them, and they know, I may not have
done enough, I got to keep doing. When will a man stop doing that? Look in Hebrews 10, verse 1,
he says, The law had a shadow of good things, not the very
image of the things. They could never, with those
sacrifices which they offered year by year, continually make
the comers therein too perfect. But look what would have happened
if they did. For then would they not have ceased to be offered?
Why? Because that the worshipers once
purged, once they had their conscience purged, they would have had no
more conscience of sins. And that's what makes us a sinner. Stop working for acceptance with
God. When he purges your conscience,
you realize he got the job done. I don't have to keep trying.
And that's the blessedness. That's the happiness. My sin
really is covered. My transgression really is forgiven. My righteousness is not iniquity
anymore, I have a righteousness that fulfills the law entirely
and it's Christ Jesus my Lord and he's my holiness too. I love
how, look down here at Hebrews 10 verse 9 Lo, he said, I come
to do thy will, O God. Take away that first covenant
to establish the second covenant of grace. By the will, by that
will, by the which will, we're sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Verse 14, for but one
offering, he perfected forever them that are sanctified. And
the Holy Ghost bears witness of this to us, just like he promised. He said, this is a covenant I'll
make. After those days, I'll put my laws in their hearts and
in their minds with thy right. He doesn't write the 10 commandments
on our heart. We have that on our heart. We know it's wrong, we know it's
wrong. What laws does he write on your heart? He writes the
law of faith and the law of love and the law of righteousness
and the law of sanctification. He writes the word of the gospel
on your heart and you hear the gospel for the first time and
believe God. And then look, It tells you in your conscience,
there's sins and iniquities I remember no more. If there's somebody
sitting here, a believer, and you... Because this happens to
us. We start thinking about our sins
and we start getting troubled. And we start being worried about
our sins. That's our flesh doing that to
us. Let me tell you something. If you're His and He's done this
work for you, God does not remember your sins anymore. So you forget
them. Just forget them. I'm not saying
make light of sin and go out and sin, and you won't do that
if he's working his work and you're not. You'll be constrained
by the love of Christ. But when you sin, and you're
going to, just remember, you have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for us.
He's the seat of mercy where God will meet you right there.
Go to Him. Go confess your sin to Him. He's
faithful and just to forgive you and to purge you of all unrighteousness. So he says here now, therefore
brethren, having this boldness to enter the holiest by the blood
of Jesus, by a new and living way that he consecrated for us
through the veil, that is to say his flesh, having this high
priest over the house of God, now watch, draw near with a true
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. He could
have just as easily said, enter in the full assurance of faith,
having fully been sanctified. Because that's what he's talking
about. Whenever the Lord looked up and he saw Nathaniel, he said,
Behold, an Israelite indeed. He was saying, Behold, there's
a true Jew in who is no God. You know what he was saying?
He was saying, He's a Jew which is one inwardly. Circumcisions
out of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise
is not of men, but of God. That word praise, go home and
look this up. I had to look this up. You know
what the... Romans 2, 29, when it says, whose praise is not
of men, that word praise is approval. Christ was standing there looking
at Nathanael, approving of him. Saying, there's an Israelite
indeed, In that new nature I've put in him, there's no guile,
there's no deceitfulness, whatever. And I approve of it. It says,
whose approval's not of men. I don't care if men approve.
Well, I don't want them to disapprove, but I'm not trying to please
men. But I want God's approval. And
he says, you got it. That's why the man's happy who
does not have any guile. You mean there's a new nature
in us that has no sin? Absolutely not. Because God created
it. Christ created it. And that's
not all, brethren. When He gets finished, we're
going to have a body glorified that won't have any sin in it
either. And that day, we're going to be perfectly righteous and
perfectly holy. And we're going to be perfectly
happy. That's true happiness. That's
true happiness. I pray God will bless that.