of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need Him who is the Lord,
our righteousness. We ask, Father, that you would
take the things that are spoken this morning and open our minds,
our ears, our eyes, and our hearts to the glories of our Savior
who entered into this world and he did obey your law, every facet
of it, whether you're talking about the moral, the civil, or
the ceremonial, he kept all your law perfectly. And then he died
under the wrath of the law of God because he died in our stead. All of the sins of your people
were made to meet on him. The Scripture says that with
his stripes we're healed. He died for us. He died for our
transgressions. The penalty of sin is death. Our Lord Jesus stepped down from
heaven and he died as our substitute to save us from our sins. We
rejoice, O God, in this glorious sacrifice, and we're so thankful
that his death availed much, for his death satisfied your
justice, and his death put away all the sins of all of your people
of all of the ages. Give us grace to believe this
Savior, find rest for our souls in Him. Bless these who have
gathered this morning and these that you have gathered before
the computer or television or whatever the means whereby they
will watch and listen to the gospel of free grace. Lord, would
you speak to us? We need to hear a a message from
our Lord. We know if the only voice that
any of us hear is the voice of a man, then we will be no better
off spiritually. But if we hear the voice, the
voice of the Spirit of God whispering the truth within us, then we
will be made better for eternity. O God, magnify your Son. Bless
us who wait before you. We ask you to do these things,
Lord, for us and do it for your glory. Do it for your honor. For Christ's sake we ask them,
amen. Well, here's the subject that
I want to deal with this morning. It is full restitution. And what we have before us, actually
it begins back in the 21st chapter, it goes to the 22nd chapter,
and then in the 23rd chapter, our God gave all of these various
statutes, and they had to do with the way we treat one another,
and if we wronged one another, If an Israelite, for instance,
if he borrowed something and he lost it or he broke it, then
he would have to make restoration of that. And so God lays out
these statutes. Now, whenever an Israelite had
done something that was amiss, Another one, say I loaned Ron
an axe and the axe broke while I was using it. I would go to
one of the judges and I would say, and he would say, well,
I loaned him my axe. It was a new axe. but he broke
it, and the judge would go to the statutes that God had laid
out, and the judge would say, well, here's what Jim has got
to do for Ron. Here's the restitution that has
to be made, and all sorts of situations are dealt with here
in the end of chapter 21, chapter 22, and in the 23rd chapter,
all of these statutes, and they're all about making
everything right. Making amends for a wrong that's
done to you, and maybe the wrong was accidental, maybe it was
intentional, could have been a theft, And you can read these
many verses at your leisure, but there are different situations
that are dealt with, and God, in each of the instances, He
has a method by which things are made right. And as we go through this message,
here's one of the things that we will notice, and we've already
noticed this in God giving the Ten Commandments, that when we
consider God's statutes, these various laws of God, they only
have to do with two things, guilt or innocence, and that's all.
There's nothing other, there's no such thing as extenuating
circumstances or this happened over which I had no control.
God's laws, all of these statutes just have to do with these two
things. Are you guilty or are you innocent? That's all. In fact, if you'll
look over, look at the 23rd chapter. Look at chapter 23. Look at verse 1. Thou shalt not raise
a false report, put not thine hand with the wicked, be an unrighteous
witness. Thou shall not follow a multitude
to do evil, neither shalt thou speak to a cause or in a cause
to decline after many to rest judgment, neither shalt thou
countenance a poor man in his cause. And here's basically what
this is saying. You don't cut those who are poor,
you don't cut them any slack. And if somebody is a person of
great means, well, you're not to be unusually difficult with
them or hard on them. When we get to the laws of God,
just like in the Ten Commandments that we've studied, God looks at the works, the attitude
of the Israelites, and if they break a law, they're guilty. a law, they're innocent. And
that's all the law of God has any concern about. And so it
is with you and me this morning. Here we sit before God today,
and God sees all of us as we are. He sees our innermost being. There's nothing hid from Him.
Hebrews chapter 4 says, all things are naked and open before the
eyes of Him with whom we have to do. So nothing can be hidden. And before the eyes of God, before
the judgment of God, we're in one of two camps this morning.
We're either innocent or we're guilty. That's the gist of it. It's a very simple thing, really.
There's no state of being in between innocence and guilt.
And before God you are either innocent, and we would use another
word also, righteous, you're righteous with God, or you're
guilty, you're wicked. There is no in-between state.
And so I would ask you at the very outset of this message,
what is your state before God? Now, I know that in yourself
you have no innocence. because all are guilty. You can
read in Romans the third chapter that God has given his law and
his law pronounces all of us guilty. We're guilty as charged. We have violated God's laws. We're guilty. And yet God cannot
receive the guilty. He can only receive the innocent. which begs the question, how
can I, who am guilty of all transgressions, all manner of evil, how can I,
who am guilty, be innocent and righteous in the sight of God?
Now, one of the very, very sad things of our day is that most
people, when they come to the Old Testament, they have no ability
to see the Lord Jesus and his sacrifice for sin. They have
no comprehension of what the Old Testament is all about. We
know there is a key to the Old Testament. And here is the key,
Christ Jesus, our Lord. He's the key that unlocks the
mysteries. He unlocks the secrets. He unlocks
the difficult passages of Scripture. As we go through the message
this morning and as I keep on referring to the fact of innocence
or guilt, you and I, who have sat under the gospel for many
years, we understand the way that God makes us innocent, the
way that God makes us righteous. You see, these, for the very,
very harsh, breakings of God's law. Here's the punishment, death. It's the pain, suffering, or
the penal demands of God's law. And when we look at our Lord
Jesus dying upon the cross of Calvary, and there are a multitude
of scriptures that deal with His death and with His substitutionary
sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary, we need to understand the death
of our Lord Jesus was a penal sacrifice. It was the penalty
for sin. Again, God only knows innocence
or guilt. That's it. These laws, you either
have violated them or you kept them. Now, here's the way we
become innocent or righteous. Another, even our Lord Jesus,
he came into this world in our stead. And He did keep all of
God's law. As you look at the life of our
Lord Jesus, and more than that, as God looked at the life of
our Lord Jesus, His was a perfect life. His was a life of righteous
obedience to all of God's statutes. And yet He died. What was the
reason for His death? His death was indeed a penal
death. He's bearing the penalty for
our sins. Well, why must he die? Because
all of the transgressions, all of the iniquities of God's people
were made to meet on him. Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6
says that. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
in a manner that is mysterious to us. And beyond our comprehension,
God the Father gathered all of the iniquities of all of His
people of all ages, and He heaped them on the Savior. They were
all charged to His account. And the law of God found Him
guilty. and therefore he must bear the
penalty for sin. And the penalty for sin is death. The wages of sin, Romans 6.23,
the wages of sin is death. And our Lord Jesus died. It wasn't
a pleasant death. It wasn't he just put to sleep.
There was nothing beautiful about it as far as Death goes, it wasn't
a real quiet deathbed scene. No, it was the violent wrath
of God got a hold of him. The judgment of God found him
guilty of transgressions that he never committed, but that
we committed and sins of omission and sins of commission. But all
of our diseases, our spiritual diseases, they were heaped on
the Son of God. And He must, He did bear the
full penalty of the wrath of God. But as He bears the full
penalty of the wrath of God, which meant that all of the transgressions
of His people had been taken off of them and laid on Him,
by imputation, there's another glorious facet to this imputation. The righteousness of our Lord
Jesus, his obedience up to and including his death, his righteousness
is then imputed to all of those in whose stead he died. There's
our innocence. You see, God doesn't compromise
his justice. The law of God doesn't show any
mercy. The law of God says you're either
guilty or you're innocent. And this is what the passage
teaches us this morning. Guilt or innocence. And there must be a full restitution
for guilt or there has to be a just punishment meted out. One of the things that stands
out in all of these laws is that they're exactly the same for
everybody. There's no set of laws for one
group of people and then another set of laws for another group
of people, it's the same. Doesn't matter whether you're
rich or poor or somewhere in between. God demands justice be meted
out even in these little things. The rich couldn't bribe their
way out. And the poor couldn't say, well,
I'm poor. Yeah, I stole something from
you, but that's because I didn't have any money. I'm sorry. Well,
being sorry is good, but there has to be a just recompense. There has to be full restitution. This is what the Word of God
teaches. That's what all of these statutes are about. And as you
read them later on, This is what I want you to remember. God demanded
full restitution. Not only in these offenses, but
these are just a picture of that full restitution he demanded
for all of the sinfulness of his people. And this is what
we're to take away from this passage. Now let me read you
just a few verses here. Look at the end of chapter 21. The end of chapter 21. Look at
verse 33. And if a man shall open a pit,
he digs a hole. Or if a man shall dig a pit and
not cover it, I don't know why he digs a hole, he digs a hole. Maybe he's gonna, tomorrow he's
gonna put a post in it. And so he just leaves it open.
Well, I'll finish this job tomorrow. And an ox or an ass fall in it. The owner of the pit shall make
it good and give money unto the owner of them. And the dead beast
shall be his. And if one man's ox hurt another
man's ox, that that ox dies, then they shall sell the live
ox and divide the money of it, and the dead ox also they shall
divide. Or if it be known that the ox
hath been used to push in time past, and his owner hath not
kept him in, he shall surely pay ox for ox, and the dead shall
be his own. Let's keep on reading. If a man
shall steal an ox or a sheep and kill it or sell it, he shall
restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. If a
thief be found breaking up and be smitten that he die, there
should no blood be shed for him. He's breaking into somebody's
house and the owner of the house is in there and the owner catches
him and he kills him. No blood's going to be shed for
him. That is, it was a righteous death. However, if the sun be
risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him. Four, he
should make full restitution. If he have nothing, then he shall
be sold for his death. He's going to be sold into slavery,
in other words. If the theft be certainly found
in his hand alive, whether it be ox or an ass or sheep, he
shall restore double. And on and on and on the passage
of scripture goes through here, showing that there has to be
a restoration, there has to be payback. Whoever has been wronged,
the one who wronged him has got to make it good. There can be
no leniency here. Things have got to be established
in a just way. Things have got to be settled
in a just and equitable way. Now, all of this is sort of a
foretaste of another judgment. These are just little judgments.
Each one of these is just a little judgment that has to be dealt
with. It has to be settled. Sometimes
it had to be settled by the judges. But they all speak to and direct
our attention toward another day of judgment. And that's the
last judgment. You see, God, as he said, and
I'll use the two words in verse three, full restitution for the
title of the message. God demanded that the guilty
one make full restitution. This is what his law demands. You gotta make good. If you wrong somebody, it can't
be, well, I'm sorry, I apologize. Hey, that's not good enough.
You see, those who would come to God and they do so by saying,
Lord, I'm sure sorry for all my sins. Well, being sorry is
good, but that doesn't put the guilt away. Lord, I surely apologize
and I want you to forgive me for all my sins against you.
Well, you ought to be sorry. You should ask for forgiveness.
But God cannot grant forgiveness without full restitution for
the sin. That's what I want to press home
to you today. There's got to be full restitution. And in the last day, there's
going to be a judgment. And in that judgment, and it's
set forth certainly in Matthew chapter 25, when the Lord gathers
everybody before Him, the sheep on the right hand, the goats
on the left, the only issue that will be exercised, the only issue
that matters in that day is whether you're innocent or guilty. That's it. There is no in-between
state. The law of God knows nothing
about, well, if you do the best you can do, that's good enough. No. No. You must be innocent. You must be righteous. And in
your own mind and in your own heart, even now, what you need
to be thinking about, what you need to roll over in your own
mind is this, how can I be innocent when the Word of God says I'm
guilty? I've broken God's law. I'm a
sinner. I sin outwardly, I sin inwardly. I sin in my thoughts. I sin in
my motives. I sin in my words. Anything that
isn't done, spoken, or thought for the glory of God is sin. How many times have you sinned
today? And let me tell you something, full restitution has got to be
made for all of those sins. And in that day, will you stand
innocent or will you stand guilty? Oh, may God the Spirit deal with
you in mercy right now and bring you to the realization of your
true standing before a holy God. What is my state? What is my status before God? In that day, according to Matthew
chapter 25, when there will be division of all men, to one group
the Lord would say, you're blessed, you're blessed of my Father.
To the other group He will say, you're cursed. Depart from me
ye cursed in the everlasting fire. Will you in that day be
blessed or will you be cursed? Will you be innocent or will
you be guilty? And let's bring it back to this
very day. Are you right now righteous or
guilty? I'm guilty by nature. I'm righteous by grace through
the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see in the day of judgment,
let me use an Old Testament illustration. You remember that story in the
book of Daniel about Belshazzar and he was having a very great
festival, a party, and they had stolen some valuable vessels
out of the Temple of God, and so he orders somebody to go and
get those vessels and bring them back to wherever they were at,
to the castle where he was having his great party, and they'd drink
wine out of those vessels, and then all of a sudden, he saw
a hand writing on the wall. And Belshazzar, the scripture
says, his knees smoked together. He was scared to death. We have all gone to school. Some of you are still in school
and you see the teacher writing on the chalkboard or the whiteboard
or whatever it was. What would it be like? to be
gathered together and then all of a sudden on a wall, you see
the hand of a man writing something and there's no body attached
to the hand. My knees would smite together,
that's for sure. Yours would too. Daniel is the one who interpreted
the dream or the vision for him. Daniel said, let me tell you
what this means. It means you have been weighed
in the balances and you're found wanting it. You see, God's going
to put you, let's just forget about everybody else. I'm just
talking to you individually. God's going to put you on the
scales. What are the scales? It's the
scales of justice. It's the scale of the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that day, won't be any
hearing all the good things that you've done in life. There's
only one thing that's going to matter. Do you even out with
the righteousness of Jesus Christ? All of you, all of you can understand
that. Here's the righteousness of the
Son of God put on a scale, let's say a teeter-totter. And here's His righteousness
and it brings it all down because it's perfect righteousness. Does
your righteousness, is your righteousness equal to His righteousness? That's the only way you're going
to be accepted by God. If you're made the righteousness
of God, he read it in 2 Corinthians 5.21, the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus. You're not going to be put on
the scales comparing yourself to your neighbor. or to the drunkard
down at the bar, or to the prostitute, or to any other kind of filthy
or wicked lifestyle that you can imagine. No, you're not gonna
be compared to them. And you're foolish to even now
compare yourself to them. The only thing that matters is
how do you compare with the Son of God? That's the issue. And in that day, there will be
the guilty and the innocent. Those who are righteous, through
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, are wicked. That's all. To the righteous,
the Lord will say, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.
To those who don't measure up, to those who have no righteousness. You see, here's the righteousness of Christ
and just weights that teeter-totter down, the scale, and you're put
on it. It don't matter how many good
things you've done in life, it won't affect the scale at all. It won't. because you've never
done anything perfectly. You say, well, I've done a few things,
surely it'll move a little bit. No, it won't move at all. The only thing that will equal
the righteousness of the Son of God is His righteousness freely
imputed to everybody who believes Him. Isn't that something? Everybody
who believes Him. and may the righteousness of
God in Christ Jesus. Nobody is innocent in and of
themselves. Nobody is righteous in and of
themselves. We're righteous before God through
the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus. And so go back to this portion
of Scripture. These laws and statutes They
said before us that which God demanded when another person
has been wronged. Well, in this entire scheme of
things, there is one who has been wronged. God has been wronged. We've tried to rob Him. We're
thieves. Adam in the garden, when he sinned
against God, he was a thief. He was trying to steal the glory
of God. You think you can try to steal
from God and that won't catch up with you? God had said, in the day ye eat
thereof, you'll surely die. and die he did. And we all died in him when Adam
sinned. And this has got to be made,
somebody's going to have to make good on this wrong that's been
done to God. Look with me. Here's an interesting
verse of Scripture. Look at 1 Samuel chapter 2. 1 Samuel 2, and here's the words
of Eli, and Eli is the high priest, and he had some boys that were
wicked, and he didn't deal with them. 1 Samuel 2, and Eli is
here talking to his sons. Look at verse 25. Are you there? 1 Samuel 2. And verse 25, if
one man's sin against another, the judge shall judge him. That's just like I was, used
the illustration about Ron and I, if he let me borrow his ax
and I broke it. So I go to a judge and the judge
says, well, this is what's gotta happen. You gotta make good on
it, gotta make it right. So when you wrong another person
or another person wronged you, It can be settled. There will
have to be a full restitution made, but things can be made
right. That's what we learn there from
those passages of Scripture right there in the middle of Exodus,
21, 22, and into 23. Things can be made right, but if a man sins against the Lord,
Who shall entreat for him? Who's going to make that right? Who is going to make that right? Who's going to make full restitution
to God? Now let me ask you, would you
admit, and most all of you, this is old hat to you. You understand this, but I hope
it isn't old to you. I want it to be fresh to you.
Will you admit, will you confess you have wronged God, you have
sinned against God? Would you admit that in your
own heart? Well, this is the God who demands
full restitution. What can you do about that wrong? That's the question. You see, if a man sins against
the Lord, who shall entreat for him? Who's going to step in and
say, I'll make it right for him? Can you do that? And it is utterly amazing that
many people think they can do something about their sin. They can stop it. They can do penance for it. Somehow they can pay God what
He demands for the violation of His law. Here's the issue,
though. You can't make amends. You can't
make things right. There's only one who can make
amends for sinners with a righteous and holy God. And that one has
got to be, first of all, equal with God Himself. And then He's
got to be one likened to us. Who can that be but the Son of
God? Who can that be but Christ Jesus our Lord? These laws of restitution were
given, yes, to provide the means whereby one who has been wronged
would be made, things would be recompensed to him. But there's
a bigger picture, and this is what most people don't see. There's another subject really
being dealt with here, and it's the subject of how can man be
just with God? That's what this is all about.
That's what all the Old Testament is about. How can I be innocent
before God? I know how I can make things
right with you. If I wronged Joe, I know how
I can make things right with him. But the question is, since I
have wronged God, is there anything I can do to make things right
with God? And the Word of God says there
isn't anything that I can do. There's only one who made full
restitution to God's broken law, the sinners, and that's the Lord
Jesus, our Savior. David said in Psalm 51 and verse
4, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil
in thy sight. We have indeed robbed God. You know, the Lord asks in the
book of Malachi, and he asks somewhat with, even though God isn't shocked,
isn't amazed, but he asks as though this is a daring thing.
God says, will a man rob God? Will a man rob God? And I tell you, all of us are
robbers of God. We have robbed Him of the worship
that He demands and He deserves. We have robbed Him of the obedience
that God is worthy of. And we've robbed Him of the faith that we ought to render
to Him, that we ought to have in Him. We haven't believed Him
like we should. We have robbed God. Men have
robbed God. Women have robbed God of the
glory of creation by boasting of evolution. Men and women have robbed God
of the glory of providence by attributing things to either
good luck or bad luck. And they've robbed God of the
glory of salvation by promoting man's free will over God's sovereign
will. We have robbed God of the glory
that is due Him. Now who's going to make it right?
That's the question. Who's going to make full restitution? And what I want you to see is
for you to do it is an impossibility. It's really quite simple. But it's something that the natural
man will never see apart from the grace of God. Only our Lord
Jesus could make full restitution to God. Only He could make things
right. Only one death would satisfy
God. Only one death would compensate
God for all the wrongs done against Him. You see that, don't you? And this is the Savior in whom
we must find rest and peace. So how could the death of one
man, how could that death make restitution, full restitution
to God for all the sins of all of his people of all of the ages?
Because of who that one is. Because of the one that died
is God and man. He's the man Christ Jesus. only one death could compensate
God for all the wrongs done against Him. And here's the situation. In
that day when you and I stand before God, it will be then even
as it is now. Those only are accepted by God
who are righteous. and everybody else, people that we would consider
to be good people. You know a lot of, as we would
define, good, not as God would define it, but you know a lot
of people who are good people. They're just nice people. They're
sweet, they're kind, they'd do anything in the world for you. but they have no righteousness
equal to the righteousness that God demands. What's going to happen to them? Here's the interesting thing.
They're going to perish, but God's law will never receive
full restitution. because they won't ever pay for
their sins. You see, fires of hell never say it's
enough. God says He has no delight in
the death of the wicked. What does that mean? He has no
satisfaction. Want to know why hell is forever? Because even an eternity in hell,
beyond our comprehension I know, but even an eternity in hell
can never make full restitution to the offended holiness and
justice of God. Only one death, only one death
ever satisfied God. Only one death made full restitution
to the offended law of God, that's the death of the Son of God. And we know that He made full
restitution because though He died, He was raised again, and
He ascended back to heaven. And there He is seated at the
right hand of the majesty on high, having made full restitution
full payment to God for our sins. Jesus paid it all, all the debt
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
but he made full restitution. He washed it white as snow. What a blessed gospel. What a
glorious Savior. May you find rest for your soul
in the Son of God. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for the gift of your only begotten Son, that by his obedience unto
death, he settled the issues. He did make full restitution
to you, to your justice, to your holiness, for all of the criminal
acts that we have committed against you. All that we would ever commit,
Jesus paid it in full. We rejoice in such a glorious
Savior. We thank you there's mercy with
the Lord. But mercy didn't put our sins
away. The blood of Jesus Christ did.
And therefore, we bless him who loved us and who gave himself
for us, making full restitution to your offended justice and
making us in the process the very righteousness of God in
him. Bless these words to the good
of your people. For Jesus' sake, amen.