Turn with me to Galatians chapter
two. Galatians chapter two. Galatians chapter 2, let me read
one verse of scripture, verse 21. We read this in the Bible
study this morning. Galatians 2, verse 21. Paul says, I do not frustrate
the grace of God if righteousness comes by the
law. then Christ is dead in vain or
uselessly, died uselessly. The word righteousness, righteousness
is used more than 500 times in the Bible. I counted to 500 and
quit. more than 500 times this word
is used throughout the scriptures. And both in the Old Testament,
the original word for that, I didn't write it down, I don't want to
try to impress you. The original word in the Old
Testament and the word in the Greek or the New Testament means
exactly the same thing. It has the exact same meaning,
which is this. Listen carefully, please. It
means equity, equity, or we get the word equal from that, from
equity. It also means justified, justified,
being declared equal to something. And the whole of salvation hinges
upon this word, the whole of salvation. And unless we have
a proper understanding of this righteousness, what it means
to be righteous before God or God's way of acceptance, then
we are ignorant of the gospel. We are ignorant of God's word.
As I said, this word righteousness is used more than five hundred
times. we would, it would do us good
to understand the meaning of it. The Apostle Paul himself,
he spent the first ten chapters of a letter, a long letter to
the Romans, the first ten chapters in dealing with this thing of
righteousness or justification. Now, the word righteousness is
most often thought of by the people of our generation and
past generation as this, doing the best you can. Most people
believe that when you mention the word righteous, if you were
to ask the average person on the street, are you righteous,
they would take you to be meaning Are you doing the best you can?
Do you live up to man's standard of righteousness? It doesn't
mean someone doing or being the best that they can. That doesn't
mean that at all. It means equity. Every single
time it is used, it means the same thing. Equity, or being
equal to. Now, it had in parenthesis in
that Old Testament meaning. equal to, or meaning law, living
up to the law, or that is equal to the law. Whose law? Not the law of the Lamb, not
the law of man, but law of God, that perfect, holy law of God. It means justness. It means righteousness
or rightness. Trade is an error of strict rightness
in every area. Now, all religious error, and
we're going to just do a study of this thing this morning, but
we could not look into or listen to a more important message,
as I said this morning, regardless of whether or not I have any
liberty in bringing this out, or whether or not God blesses
my mouth or my thoughts in this thing. It's the most important
thing that you could hear as a sinner before God Almighty. How to be accepted by God Almighty. I'm not going to take it for
granted that everyone in here knows this. Not at all. Every
erroneous, or that is error, every erroneous, God dishonoring,
man exalting doctrine comes from a distorted view of this righteousness. what it takes to be righteous
before God. Every single error and distorted
view of doctrine or whatever comes from a wrong view or a
wrong understanding of this righteousness. Now, biblical righteousness,
as I say it, and I don't want this to be cold and dry. I'll
try to illustrate here in a moment. Biblical righteousness means
to be equitous. That is, to come up to God's
law, to be equal to God's perfect standard of excellence or perfection. Turn to Isaiah chapter 59 with
me. Isaiah chapter 59. I say this
with all my being, that there's not a more important message
to your soul than this message right here. Not a more important
message that you could ever hear. I don't care who preaches it.
This is the gospel. I want to try to explain the
gospel this morning. God's law is holy. It's perfect. It's without flaw. It's a standard of excellence
that is the standard of all standards. It's perfection. It's holy and
it's perfect. It's without spot. It's without
blemish. Most of us realize something
of that. We know something about that.
God said in one place, it must be perfect to be accepted. That is, anything that he accepts,
that he will say that's good, must be perfect according to
his standard. Not according to man's standard
of perfection, but according to his perfect standard. And he said in one place that
he hated all workers of iniquities that don't come up to this standard. Psalm 55 says, Thou hatest all
workers of inequity that do anything or don't do anything that doesn't
come up to this holy standard of perfection. Inequities. And look at this, Isaiah 59,
verse 2. He says, your, and mine, us,
our, your inequities, your iniquities have separated you, separated
between you and your God. Another word for inequities is
sins. If you didn't have any sin, you'd be equitous. Your
sins have hid his face from you. Why? God is too holy to look
upon sin. But our sins, our inequities,
coming short, has separated us from this holy God. All of us,
by nature, don't come up. The handwriting is on the wall
against every human being. You remember when old Nebuchadnezzar
was getting drunk in his house and there was a hand and it wrote
on the wall, T.K.L. T.K.L. That means you're weighed
in the balances and found wanting. That is God's perfect. We see
this. It's a symbol of justice in America. This woman that's got the blindfold
on her eyes and she's got the scales in her hand and the scales
are equal. The scales are balanced. True
justice means you weigh up. You stack up. And here's God's
holy person, His holy character, His holy law that's high and
lofty. And here we are on the scales.
We don't weigh up. We don't stack up. We can't come
up to God's standard, TCAF. Every man, every woman, every
young person He's weighed in those balances, though. God weighs
us to see if we stack up. And he says we don't. He says
all have sinned and come short of that glory, that perfection,
that holiness. Now, there are only two ways. Stay
with me. There are only two ways that
a man or a woman or a young person can become equitous or holy or
righteous with God. Two ways, only two ways. You
say, I thought there was only one. Well, no, there are two
ways. Number one, here's the first. It's called the righteousness
of the law. The righteousness of the law
that says, now this do, do this and you'll live. If you do that,
you stack up, you do it all according to that law, you're way up. Do it all. And some people, some
people claim they do, don't they? Some people claim, well, do what,
first of all? Ten commandments? That's what
the rich young ruler came up and said, didn't he? I've done
all these things from my youth up. What lack I yet? Purely I stand to stack up, purely. Yes, the Ten Commandments, but
not just outwardly. It's got to be inward, too. Christ
came down and said, you even think about a woman, you're guilty. You're guilty. And to offend,
Terry, to offend in one point is to be guilty of them all,
isn't it? He says you offend in one area, God puts a black
mark all the way through the rest of them. He broke them all.
Because God's law can't be broken. It's got to be perfect. It's
got to be But not just in deed, but in thought, in heart, in
motive, and not just negative righteousness, not just thou
shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. No,
but the Scripture says this, thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with A-double-L, all thine heart, all thy soul, A-double-L,
all thy soul. It's getting serious now, and
it's getting difficult now, and every bit of it. So not only,
but not only the moral law of God, but every command, every
precept, down to every jot and tittle, every ordinance, every
ceremony, everything ever written by God Almighty, down to the
dotting of I's and the crossing of T's, that's jot and tittle.
That's what the word jot and tittle mean, dotting i and crossing
t. Every single point, to perfection,
to be declared holy, perfect, righteous, equitable, equal to
God, you and I must have thought, felt, lived, walked, talked absolutely
perfectly from a baby all the way to the grave in every single
point. every single time, like old Scott
said on that message. Now, if you want the law, have
at it. If you want to try to meet up
to that standard, go ahead. But turn back to Galatians chapter
3. Go ahead, he said. And this is exactly what Paul
was saying there in Galatians 1. I'm amazed. In light of that,
he says, I'm amazed that anybody would try such a thing. And he
said in Romans 10, it has to be this, that they're ignorant
of the righteousness of God. Right there? It has to be the
case, Joe. They're ignorant. And it's so
with any man who does not just simply believe in the imputed
righteousness and shed blood of Christ and him alone. Believe
the gospel. Any man who's doing anything.
or not doing anything to be accepted by God is ignorant of this righteousness. Now, I couldn't say anything
more important to you than this right here. Look at Galatians
3 verse 11. He says, In light of that, what
I just told you about, this law, this perfect law, that no man
is justified or can meet up to those standards of the law In
the sight of God, that ought to be evident. That ought to
be clear. That's evident, isn't it, if
you've got a clear view of the law of God? It's impossible,
isn't it? It's impossible. Yet, as I said,
as foolish as it may sound, some people are going about to live
up to that law, to be accepted by God. But look over at Galatians
4. Look at Galatians 4, verse 21. And Paul says, OK. This is what old Scott said.
OK, you want it? Have at it. And Paul says in
421, tell me, you that desire to be under the law, don't you
hear what it's saying? Evidently not. Evidently not. You know, it's, we can, to a
degree, we can go into the scriptures and pull out something and claim
to have met those standards. Pull out our favorite duty or
law or whatever. Go all the way back to Leviticus
and see that we're to wear this and not do that. And, you know,
we can stack up to that. Paul says, goes a lot deeper
than that. A lot deeper than that. Look
over, back over at verse 10 of chapter 3. Chapter 3, verse 10.
He says, OK, if you want under that law, as many as are of the
works of the law, Galatians 3.10, they're under the curse. Well, why is that? Why is that? Because it's written. Cursed
is everyone that continues not in all things, not just what
we think we can live up to, but all things which are written
in the book of the law. And that's when he says that
no man is justified by the law. In light of that, it ought to
be evident. But it's not, it isn't. Why?
Because people are ignorant of the holy law of God and they're
ignorant of what God requires. They're ignorant of this righteousness. He said in Paul's saying, doesn't
anybody hear the law of God or righteousness of the law? Now
listen, this can best be described, this righteousness of the law.
as an active righteousness. Now listen, stay with me, stay
with me. This is called an active righteousness. That is something we do, something
we do to make ourselves holy or to make God pay attention
to us or accept us or receive us. Because we do something,
God says, oh, you've done that. Oh, then come on in. That's an
active that's something we do to make up God except that and
this active righteousness takes many forms. Many subtle form
now listen to me please. It takes many forms and men have
mixed this with the truth and they call it the gospel but it
ain't the gospel. It ain't the gospel first of
all and this is chief and foremost and people have it across the
top of their building blasphemously. have it across the top of their
buildings and insist upon it to their dying day, to their
deathbed. Men hold this up as the banner,
as the deciding point, as what determines our salvation. They
hold this up, and this is not just a subtle form, but this
is the most blasphemous form of this active righteousness
or legal righteousness that men do. will. Free will, that's the first form
that this active righteousness takes. You say, well, that's
just a, that's not doing anything. That's just deciding. Oh, you
couldn't do anything more, more condemning before God than to
say, it's me that decides this thing. Not you, God. It's me. It's my, it's not the blood of
Christ. It's my decision. Oh boy. Men insist upon this free
will and this free choice that this is the thing that determines
their destiny. Don't they? Everybody that does
not adhere to and believe and bow to this message we call sovereign
grace believes in the free will of man. everybody, and this is
the point that you will be confronted upon. This is the point that
they'll fight you on. This is the point. Free will.
And this is nothing more than law righteousness, legal righteousness. Now, if man has a free will,
a free choice in his destiny, that means it is within his power,
whether he does anything, actually physically performs any work,
Nevertheless, it's within his being, his person, his will,
his ability to do something. If he's a quadriplegic or whatever,
he can still decide. He's still got this will, you
know. He can choose God or reject God. Puts the crown on his head. He can refuse the devil or choose
God. He can believe on Jesus. He can
start living right. He can. But no, the Scriptures
speak very clearly. That's not so. That's not so,
and that's just another subtle form of work, law, self, righteousness
that gives man some power, gives him, tells him there's something
he can do in his own salvation. And it calls God a liar. This
is how serious this thing is. And I hope this tape gets out.
I hope everybody in here gets a copy of this tape and sends
it out there. Nobody or any business here this
morning. So I want some people to hear this message. Free will
is calling God a liar. It's saying, no, God, salvation
is not of the Lord. Salvation's in my will. Now,
it's one or the other, isn't it? Salvation is either of the
Lord, Scripture says He's the author and finisher of our faith. Scripture says salvation is of
the Lord, it's in His hands. But free will says, no, no, that's
not entirely the case. Because I have something to do,
I have some say in this thing, and it's not completely 100%
of the Lord, it's of Him and a little bit of me. Right? He calls God a liar. And if anybody wants to call
God a liar, go ahead. But to say that man
can do anything himself not only calls God a liar, but it calls
Jesus Christ a liar. To say that we can do anything,
I don't care if it means just Walking down an aisle or not
walking, or just accepting, sitting there talking to a soul winner,
and him saying, you're a sinner, aren't you? Yeah, I'm a sinner.
You don't want to go to hell, do you? No. You believe that
Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners? If you say so. You
accept Jesus as your personal Savior? Well, all right. You're
saved. For a man just to sit there and
acknowledge, to say, OK, I accept him. I accept him. to say that
he can do that of his own free volition and will, and put himself
into the kingdom of God by simply doing something, acknowledging
something, is to call Jesus Christ the Lord. Because Christ said,
without me, you can't do nothing. You can do nothing. Well, who's
right in this thing? Men? That's what we looked at
this morning. Do I yet seek to please men or
God? If I seek to please men or say
what men want me to say, I'm not a servant of God. I've got
to say what God says in His Word. Who is right? Scripture says,
let God be right. Let God be true. It doesn't say
let in the sense of there's something we let Him do. It's just saying
God is right. God is true and every man's a
liar. Well, somebody says, well, you
mean that there's nothing? You mean there's nothing anyone
can do to be saved? Nothing? Nothing? Nothing. Prove it. A man can receive nothing
except it be given him from above, John the Baptist said. Nothing. Nothing. Well, what about whosoever
will, may come? It doesn't say that. It does
not say that. Whosoever will, let him come.
It does not say that anywhere in the Scripture. Nowhere in
the Bible does it say that. In Revelation 22, 17, it says
this, the Spirit and the bride say, come. When the Holy Spirit says to
do something, what do men do? They do it. It says the Spirit
and the bride say, come. And it says, let him that is
a thirst come. Who's thirsty? Those that Christ,
the living well of water, comes up to and reveals their thirst
to them. Like that woman at the well.
She didn't know she was thirsty until he told her, you're thirsty,
aren't you? He said, now, I'm the well. I'm the well. Let him that is a thirst say
come, and whosoever will. Let him take of the water of
life. Freely, it don't say whosoever
will may come. It doesn't say that. That's a
perversion of the scripture. It says, let him take of the
water of life freely. And Revelation 22, 16, the verse
right before that says that this is written to the churches. He
ain't talking to everybody anyway. He's talking to the believers,
the church. If you come, you come to Christ and drink of that
fountain of water freely. It's there, free for the drinking. Oh, God's sheep. And who will
come anyway? Whosoever will, let him come.
He doesn't say that in the first place. But who will come? Who will come? I'm not just trying
to prove doctrine here. I'm trying to show that all glory
belongs to God. Who will come? What did Christ
say? No man can come, except the Father
which hath sent me draw him." Come on, Henry. You can't come,
Henry, unless he says, come. Right? You don't come. People,
he's called the King of Kings. If we live back in the old days
where there was a monarch, a sovereign monarch and a king, as there
was back then, who could just, you could look at him wrong,
he'd say, cut his head off. Go cut that man's head off. What
if I don't do it? Do it. And he could do it, right? He's king. He's the king. And
you can't just go barging into the king's presence. I got something
to say to the king. And there's two guards at the
gate that are just going to run you through or else cast you
into the dungeon or something. You can't come to the king. Buddy,
when the king says come, you'll come. You'll either come of your own,
quote, free will, persuaded, or he'll have you drug up there. Somebody said that God saves
every man against his will. I heard a fellow on the radio
this morning say the very opposite. He said God doesn't save anybody
against their will. Buddy, if he doesn't cross your will, your
evil sinful will, my evil sinful will, if he had not crossed that
will of mine as bound in corruption and sin, if he didn't stop that
will and give me a new will, his will, if I wasn't made willing
in a day of his power, I wasn't going to come. I would not have. You said you will not come unto
me that you might have life. And as me, I will not have this
old gospel until Christ said, yes, you will. I said, OK, I
will. See, it's a vast difference.
And when the King says, you're willing, aren't you, boy? Yes,
sir. Persuaded. Knowing the terror of the Lord
and my condition before this holy God and seeing Christ as
my only hope, get to Him. Made willing. Made willing. God
says everybody against their will. Against this whole, this
evil, sinful, hell-bound will. We'll all go straight to hell
if God lets us. Yes, we will. He doesn't have to elect anybody
to hell. We're not saying God elects anybody to hell. We're
going there anyway. We're headed right there. Fast
as we can go, aren't we? Fast as we can go. God has to
elect us to salvation. That's what election is unto
salvation. And God saves us against that old hell-bound will, but
with our full consent. You know what I'm talking about,
no. That he makes us willing. He gives us the will to do so.
But we don't take the glory for that. We say he did it. He gave
me the will. He stopped my ill will and gave
me a good will toward God. Good will. Christ said, no man
can come. Now, that's to call, if you say
you can, if anybody says they can't, call him a liar in it.
Jesus Christ? Oh, goodness, I don't even want
to repeat this. But I want to do it for the sake of illustration.
I just don't believe that. Now, I believe that a man can
come if he decides to do so. I just believe a man can believe
and come to God if he wants to. How mad does it make you for
somebody to call you a liar? somebody not too long ago, as
much as called me a liar. And it makes me sad because I
can't convince the person, but it makes me mad, too. And I'm
a sinful rate. I am a liar. But I wasn't lying
when I told them what I told them. I wasn't lying then. And
when you're not lying, you get incensed, don't you? What do
you think God thinks about this free will generation? I mean,
really, that's the reason, folks. It's not just for the sodomites
and the dope pushers and all that that God's got a hell prepared
for. It's just religious generations
calling him a liar. He hates it. Hates it. Iniquity. What did he say to
those people that stand before him in the judgment that say,
we cast out devils, we did wonderful works, we did prophesied. We
were religious folk. I was a preacher. What did he
say to them? You're workers of iniquity, didn't
he? You're working the worst works
of iniquity. And teaching men so, that's what
Christ said about whoever shall teach. I know it says that somewhere,
whosoever believeth. Yes, it says, Romans, whosoever
believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. Who's going to
believe? That's the question. Whosoever
will, whosoever believeth, that is, on the Lord Jesus Christ
shall be saved. I love that verse. I love it.
It's true. It's true. Whosoever believeth,
be saved. That's true. Scripture says faith is the gift
of God. It says it's not of works, lest
any man aboast. Faith's the gift of God. That
is, faith ain't even a work. Faith ain't even something you
drummed up of yourself. You say, well, I didn't do this,
I didn't do that, but I did believe. Oh, no, you didn't. God gave
you the faith. He sent the Holy Spirit to give
you the gift of faith. You see, it's 100% of the Lord,
lest any man should boast, oh, I believed on Jesus. That's boasting
of the worst sort, boasting. Men say, well, that's fatalism.
No, no, that's salvation of the Lord, salvation of the Lord. Well, what's the point? Somebody
may say, what's the point you're trying to make? What's the point
in all this? The glory of God, that's what's the point here.
That's what's at stake here. Not prove me right, prove Calvinism
right. That's not the point here. The
point is the glory of God's at stake in this thing of salvation.
It's either all of God and all the glory belongs to Him. Every
crown will be cast at His feet. It's unto Him that loved us and
washed us from our sins in His own blood. It's unto Him that
did it all. be power and glory and wisdom and honor and strength
and all these things, it's either under him or I'd get a little
bit of the credit. And God will not share his glory
with another. Won't do it. Won't do it. That's the point there. And you
know, think about this, folks, and whoever hears this by tape, there can be no other reason
for insisting upon man's free will or that man can do something. There can be no other reason
for insisting upon that than the glory of man. I can't think
of one reason why anybody would insist that man's got a free
will except for man's glory. Right? Can you think of a reason? I can't think of another reason. Well, somebody may say this,
well, what's the use in preaching then? I'm preaching. Some people won't
believe that mess. That's why. That's the reason
to preach. Some people won't believe that
heresy. Well, you say, if they don't have the will to believe
it, then, I mean, if they saw God up to God, then who can resist
His will? That's exactly what they told
Paul. What? Who can resist His will,
see? And he said, who do you even
talk about God? Didn't he? Oh man, who are you
to reply us against God? We're maggots and worms that
he can take his name on our lips, much less to question his holy
word. We preach because God said preach. Go! Preach. That's number one, that's
the reason. Because he said so. When the
King says something, you do it. You do it. You might not understand.
I don't know why he's standing me down here. Like, what about
Ezekiel? Ezekiel prophesied those bones.
What was he preaching the bones for? Goodness gracious. Bones
can't hear anything. And that's what I say half the
time. What am I preaching for anyway? Oh, he said souls. And he said
somebody's going to hear it. How? The Spirit. The wind's going
to blow. Where it will. Going to blow
in somebody's ear. Going to whisper sweet nothings
in somebody's ear. That mystery that's been hidden.
Sweet nothings. In somebody's ear. Yeah, God's
promise. It's the way that God—and that's
reason enough, isn't it? Because God said so. But besides
that, He said that He was pleased by the foolishness of preaching
to save some people. So not only does God say, now
go preach. I don't understand. They're dead. They're dead and
trespassing. So why should I preach? Because I'm going to save somebody
through preaching. Oh, all right. Good. Now preach. You see? Boy, that's the only thing that
can keep me going. Goodness. Preaching is declaring
God's Word. Preaching is sowing the seed
of the gospel. I'm just throwing seed out there.
Throwing seed. I'm a seed sower. God must give
the increased. He must give the increased. He
must cause us to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God must take his word and do
an operation on the heart. He's got to take out the old
heart, that stony ground. You remember the parable of the
stony ground here and so forth? God has to do the same thing
with sinful men and women. He has to take that old stony,
rock-hard heart out, take it out, do an operation. This is
why we must be born from above. Born again. People use that term. They abuse it. Incredibly abuse
that term. I got born again. You don't get
born. Britney didn't get herself born. That's ridiculous. That's a laughing stock. You
don't get born the first time. Anymore you get born the second
time. You are borned. Somebody gives
birth to you. That woman back there gave birth
to Brittany against her will. She's kicking and screaming,
wanting to stay where she was at, wasn't she? But she gave
birth to her into this world. And that's exactly what God Almighty
must do to us who are dead and in the womb of sin. He has to
bring us out of that grave of sin. We're fighting and kicking
to stay in. We're happy where we're at, but
He has to give birth to us. Let's be born from above. Born
from above. And God takes that Word and operates
on the heart and takes out. He does a bypass. He takes out that old rock-hard
heart and puts in a heart of flesh. He says, I'll give you
a heart of flesh, a soft one, and I'll send the Word, the seed.
Like you all go out there and prepare your garden. You till
it up real good. And then you cast in the seed.
Nobody in his right mind would go out there and just throw some
seed on the ground and say, they're planting me a garden today. No,
you go out there and till it up and prepare it and soften
it up to receive that seed. And then you water it. And God
sends the gospel and sends his word and prayer, the saints and
so forth. And that seed finally, by the
power of God, God has sent the sunshine, doesn't it? You know,
a seed anywhere is going to grow without sunshine or water. Where
does that come from? And we were looking at that verse
in Isaiah 45 about righteousness pours down from the skies. It's
the same way. Let's look at that real fast.
I don't know if you've ever seen that. Isaiah 45. Isaiah chapter
45. Look at this verse. We'll preach
on this sometime. I'll preach on it right now.
Isaiah 45 verse 8. Isaiah 45 verse 8. You see, God
has to do this work. He must give the increase, hearing
and believing the gospel. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Verse 8, Isaiah 45 verse 8 says,
Drop down ye heavens from above and let the skies pour down righteousness. You ever seen that before? It's got to rain righteousness
just like it does rain. God's get to bring his righteousness
down from above in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that brings me to my second point. The first way you can
be, the first way you can be righteous before God is by the
law. Act it. Do something. Do, do. Boy, you
better do it. You better have done it since
you were Joseph's age until the day you die. Perfect. Not even
thought a wrong thought. Who shall stand in His holy presence?
He that hath clean hand, a pure heart, ever sworn deceitfully,
or lifted up his soul unto vanity." I told that to a fellow the other
day, and he just went, that's serious, isn't it? I don't mean
that. I don't either. And no man ever has but one,
but one, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that brings me to my second
point. You're either made righteous
by what you do, of what Jesus Christ does for you. And this
is called, like the first was called active righteousness,
this is called passive. You know what it means to be
passive? I'm very passive right now. I'm
as passive as you can get. What am I doing? Nothing. Nothing. And that's exactly What
God said. Don't do anything. And I'll impute this righteousness
to your account. If you insist on doing anything,
anything, raise your hand. Anything that's active, you're
doing something, lay down, bow down, submit to, be under subjection
to, me. And I'll pour out His righteousness
on you like water. I'll pour His righteousness down
upon you, God. I'll love you. I'll anoint you.
I'll baptize you in the righteousness of Christ, passive righteousness,
imputed by faith. We don't do anything. He does
it all. He does it all. The Scripture says, Of God are
you in Christ Jesus. God, we don't do, that verse
is very clear in it. Of God, it's God's decision,
God's election, God's decision, he decides who's in Christ and
who's not. He decides who's in his family
and who's not. What if some little brat came
up to your door and said, I decided to let you adopt me? You'd laugh at him, wouldn't
you? You might take pity on him and do it anyway, but no, he
can't decide that. It's got to be done in a court
of law, right? A court of law. This thing had
to be done in a court of law between God the Father and the
Son. in that great triune in the Spirit,
in that court of law before time again, got to be decided there
and put down on paper. Got to be sealed and delivered. Now here, here's your kid. Where?
He's yet to be born. I want to go get him. Make a
long journey and go get my child. And so that kid can't be placed
into your family even any more than we can do so in God's family. But this is called the passage
righteousness of Christ, the imputed righteousness of Christ. We can't keep the law. And I
say this time and time again. I go through this time and time
again, but I don't want to be ashamed of this, and I don't
want to feel guilty for telling us our only hope and describing
this story over and over again. I don't want to feel guilty about
this. This is the gospel. And I don't want you to grow
tired of hearing it, but this is the gospel. God, we're guilty. We can't keep God's law. We can't
keep it. We're all inequitous. We don't
weigh up. So Christ came down here as a
man, and he weighed up. He stacked up. God said, good
job. Well done, my faithful servant.
I approve of you. He stacked up. A man approved. A man? Yes, a man. Not me, not
you, not any other man, but one man. God took this perfection, this
equity that Christ lived up to, and took him off that scale,
and put that robe, that life, how'd he do it? I don't know,
it's God, it's a mystery. If I could explain that, it'd
be God. We can't explain it. People ask for explanation. We
don't know. I don't know how he imputed it. He did it. He
did it. He took this robe off. This is
an explanation. He took this life off of Christ
somehow. Spiritually speaking, God's the
Spirit, He can do it. He took it off and wrapped it
around all His people. Every one of His people, not
every single man, woman, boy or girl, or else they'd all be
saved, wouldn't they? But there's a hell, there's people
in hell because they're inequitous. They're unrighteous. But God's
people, there's no condemnation to them that are in this robe
of Christ's righteousness. And He took it off and wrapped
it on us and He put us on a scale that stood there. And God, someday
we're going to stand before God Almighty On that scale, you're
going to say, get on the scale. And we're going to get on the
scale. And I have a feeling somebody will have their foot on the back
of it. And we're going to run out. You
measure up. You're righteous. Come on in. Enter into this. Blessedness
is prepared for you from the fount. Why? Because of what Christ
did. What he did. And then he took,
on the other hand, God's justice had to be satisfied. Soul that
sinneth must surely die. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sin. See, our sins have to be paid
for. God's holy. He can't let sin slip by without
punishment. That's called His justice. He
said He'll by no means clear the guilty. It's got to be paid
for. Paid for. Not only does His righteousness
have to be lived up to, but His justice has to be paid for. And
God said, you sin, I've got to punish that sin. Oh, don't do
it in me. So He did it in Christ. He put
those sins on Christ. So there they are. killed his
son, slit his throat like a lamb, poured that blood out. God saw
the blood, smelled the sacrifice, sweet savor, sin paid. Now, who
is he that can do it? My sins are gone. And that's
called passive. What'd I do? What'd you do? What'd we do in this thing? I
wasn't talking about us at all. Anything that we did. I wasn't
asking you to do anything, was I? I wasn't asking you to accept
Jesus. Now, if I did this, at the end
of the service now, I said, OK, now, if you would like to accept
Jesus as your personal Savior, if you'd like to rededicate your
own weight on His passage, I'm not asking you to do anything.
We're asking God, you see. This is where they got this thing
all backwards, don't they? They got the horse shoving the
cart. This thing's all backwards. We
need to ask God to do something. Not beg men. Now, if you accept
it. No, no, that ain't it. It ain't
in our hands. It's in God's hands. See, I don't
know who he did that for. That's the reason I'm asking.
Would you do it for so-and-so? I can't tell old so-and-so that
God did it for him. I don't know. I don't know that. He may be
a reprobate or a rebel out of hell and headed there and doesn't
care or nothing. God's got to do it for him. And
I can't in all good conscience from God's Word say that God
loves you and Christ died for you now if you accept him as
your person. No, I can't say that. I can tell
a man the wrath of God abides upon him. God's anger with the
wicked every day. Christ is your only hope. Believe
him. I can tell. But I can't make him believe.
But I can ask God to make him believe, and God can make him
believe. He can do that. Now, all of this,
all of this gives God all the glory. It gives God all the glory. And you know, Rick and I were
talking about this, and I'll quit. This puts God in his rightful
place and puts man in his rightful place. Listen to it. Why did God do it this way? You
know, why does God ordain prayer and preaching and hearing the
gospel? Why didn't he just say, OK, Trace,
I'm saving you. And Steve, you're saving me. Charles, I'm going to save you. have to preach to him or any
prayer involved or the word of God involved. Why can't you just
say, OK, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to take the blood
of Christ and apply it. You're safe. And they don't have to go here.
This is a primitive. This is this is I'm going to say this
is a primitive Baptist doctrine that you don't have to hear the
gospel to be saved. That's hard shellism. hyper-Calvinism
that says you don't have to hear the gospel to be saved, and God
just doesn't save anybody. And if you save, you save. You
know, if God elects you, you elect it. And you don't have
to hear the gospel, you don't have to believe, you don't have to
repent, you don't have to do anything. That's hyper-Calvinism.
Why did he do it that way? Why does he ordain these things?
Why does the Scripture talk about the sovereignty of God in such
a way, but yet turn right around and talk about the responsibility
of man? Hard to understand, isn't it? Do you understand it? I don't
understand it. I'm going to try to explain it
here a little bit. But this may be a reason. This makes us accountable. See, otherwise, that's exactly
what the Romans were saying to Paul. Well, who can resist his
will? I can do it. There ain't nothing I can do. I'm just going
to send my way on through life. Oh, man. God forbid. what Paul said. He didn't go
on to explain it. He just said, God forbid that
you should do such a thing. But sin, or the sovereignty of
God, makes God accountable for himself. It gives him all the
glory for everything he does. And man's responsibility makes
us accountable. Not for salvation. Not for accepting
Jesus. but for sin. See, this way God
can charge us with our sin. And this is the erroneous doctrine
they're bringing about Calvinism and so forth, isn't it? Well,
that makes God the author of sin. Sin reprobates some man
to hell, and that means he made a man to damn him. God made the
man sinful. No, no, that's not what we're
teaching here. Man is responsible. He takes
full credit for His sin, not his salvation, but his sin. We're all accountable. And that
way God can punish me for my sins unless he does it in Christ
for me. And see, so that man is responsible
for his sin and God is responsible for his salvation, for the man's
salvation. But make no mistake about it.
Everybody the Lord saves was saved this way, and every one
of them will acknowledge this, without exception. I'm sorry,
there's just no other way. You say that's dogmatic. No,
it's the Bible. It's the Bible. Yeah, it is dogmatic.
But nobody is saved any other way than the way I've been describing.
Nobody. And every single one of them
that are saved will acknowledge this. Every one of them, without
exception, will acknowledge who saves them. How do you... We'll use the modern technology.
terminology. How'd you get saved? Well, I
joined, I went down, walked down the alley. That ain't, he wasn't
saved. How'd you get saved? And we'll
use their term. Well, I said to Jesus, that man
ain't saved. How'd you get saved? I didn't
get saved. God saved me. It was done to
me. Now, if I had got good hopes
of that man Anybody that's saved, they know who did it. Come on
now, the term means that, doesn't it? Saved? It doesn't mean you
swam to shore. Saved? It means somebody went
and got you. Saved? Everybody that's saved says,
he saved me. He chose me. He loved me. And
the only reason I love him is because he first loved me. He
died for me. He justified me. He washed me.
He was faithful. I wasn't faithful. He was faithful.
And he now prays. Not because I'm praying through.
Because he's praying through. Because I've got an intercessor
or a mediator. Right? Is that the way it was
with you, Terry Kinsley? Huh? Yeah, it was. Joe? Rebecca? Yeah. Sure it was. Stan? That's the way it was with
you. That's the way it was with me.
Rick? Wendy? Yeah, I was. Every one of God's
people say the same thing. If I were to call your name,
I hope you could say the same thing. Yeah, he did it all. Because
you know that's how we're going to be singing in glory from now
on. Unto him, unto him, unto him, unto him. Not unto me. I'll give me a little crown.
Just a little one. You know, I just want a little.
No, unto him. Unto him. from our sins in His own blood.
The old brother, Danny Blair, was preaching a message the other
day, and I've made this statement over and over again, but it really
hit me, listening to it on tape. It just really hit me. A very
simple statement. But he said, men got this thing
all wrong. He said, we are creatures. We're not the Creator. We're
creatures. Now, what does that mean? Well, if I was a potter and I
had me a glob of mud, I could do anything I wanted to with
that. I could make anything I wanted to with it. That's the very illustration
that God used in Jeremiah. Go down to the potter's house,
he says, and learn this thing. I could make me a... I could
do it if I wanted to. I'm the Creator. I'm the potter.
Clay. Clay has no say. It's clay. It's dead. Unless I choose to
make something good of that thing, it'll just remain dead clay.
I can make whatever I want to with it. I can make a vessel
under honor, to hold a knife pretty flawless, or a vessel
under dishonor. I spit time. Yeah, I can. I'm the Creator. Does that make
sense to you? They ain't got this thing all
wrong, don't they, Joe? For some reason, they think they're little
gods. No! No! No! We're creatures! We're in His hands. That's what
I'm trying to show this generation, and every other God called man,
I believe. I'm trying to show this generation, you got it all
wrong. We're in God's hands. And we better start asking God
to do something. And these peanut, two-bit preachers
that are running around asking men to do something, they're deceiving the hearts
and souls of men. Aren't they, Rick? Yes, they
are. I can't tolerate them for a minute. I'm not going to give
place to them for an hour, Paul said. Not an hour. I think he
meant by that, I'm not going to turn the TV on and watch them
for an hour. There's only one way to be safe.
Passively. Having righteousness imputed
to you here. Be safe. Or do it yourself. Ain't nobody does it themselves.
Only Christ worked out that. That's as clear as I can make
it. I just can't make it any clearer. Might not have had all
the liberty I'd like to have, or the attention I would like
to have, or the crowd I'd like to have. Take that tape and give
it to somebody. Use as much compassion as you
could, which is hard for me to do, but I think that's the gospel
about as clearly as anybody can make it. Take that tape and pass
it out. Maybe somebody, maybe God will
use it. Maybe somebody in here heard it for the first time.
I don't know. I hope so. I hope I heard it. To Him be
all the glory. you