Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to the program today.
Glad you could join us. Last week I preached the first
part of this message entitled Righteous Judgment. Righteous
Judgment. Last week was part one. This'll
finish it up, part two. And I preached it from, taught
it from John chapter seven, if you'd like to follow along in
your Bibles. basically dealing with verse 24, in which the Lord
Jesus Christ himself, speaking to a group of religious people
who challenged his message, and he told them, he said, my message
is of God, and you can test that, and he said in verse 24 of John
7, judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous
judgment. And the question I was considering
was how in the world, well first of all, what is righteous judgment? And righteous judgment is judging
things, right and wrong, even saved and lost, by God's word. By God's word, not by our opinions
now, not by even our denomination or statement of faith, but by
God's word. If our statement of faith is
based on God's word and lines up with God's word, that's fine.
But it's not an opinionated thing. It's not how we see things. Judge
not according to appearance. Things may not be as they appear.
And I dealt with several issues surrounding this. For example,
people who say they don't judge, that's not true. They invoke
Matthew 7 where it says, judge not that you be not judged. What
the Lord is forbidding there is not all judgment, but self-righteous
judgment. Judgment based on a wrong ground
or comparative judgment. How do you compare to me? You
see, listen, A judgment of right and wrong, a judgment of even
saving loss has nothing to do with how you compare to me. You
know, I had a man tell me one time, he said this, he said,
you know, he said, I know I'm not perfect, but he said, I've
never done anything bad enough to go to hell. And I asked him,
I said, well, what's bad enough to go to hell? And he would talk
about people like Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer, things like that. And
what he was doing, and certainly, certainly they did deserve hell.
But he's comparing himself to the worst of the worst and coming
out smelling like a roast. The point that I was making,
and I want you, if you're following along in your Bibles, I want
you to turn back to Luke chapter 13. because I wanted to say some
more about that passage. I dealt with it last week. And
here's the point I want to make now. According to God's judgment
in his word, if we are to judge righteous judgment, here's what
we would have to say. That if God were to ever deal
with any of us based on what we have earned or what we deserve,
it would be eternal death, eternal damnation. You say, well, I don't
believe that. Well, you don't believe God's
Word and therefore you cannot judge righteously. What is righteousness? It's perfect satisfaction to
God's law and justice. And that's what he was talking
about over in Luke 13 when he was talking about those Galileans
in verse 2. Luke 13 verse two, when Pilate,
we'll just go back and read verse one. He said, there were present
at that season some that told him of the Galileans whose blood
Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. In other words, they
were killed by Pilate and the Roman soldiers as they were sacrificing. In Jesus verse two, answering
said unto them, suppose ye that those Galileans were sinners
above all the Galileans because they suffered such things. These
people were killed, they were murdered. Did they deserve to
be murdered? Do you suppose that they were
the greatest sinners in Galilee at that time? And Christ said
in verse three, I tell you nay, no, but except you repent, you
shall likewise perish. Now this repentance has to do
with right judgment. If you look at people who go
through tough times or even unto death. And you say, well, I know
they were lost or I know they were sinners because they got
what they deserved. You've just condemned yourself.
Because we all deserve nothing more than eternal damnation. That's what the Bible teaches.
That's what it means to be ruined by the fall. We fell in Adam.
We're born dead in trespasses and sins. We have no righteousness,
we can't work up a righteousness, and we don't want one God's way.
And if God were to mark iniquities, charge us with sin, who would
stand? None of us. We've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Verse four of Luke 13, he
says, of those 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew
them, think ye that they were sinners above all men? that dwelt
in Jerusalem? Were they the greatest sinners
in Jerusalem and therefore that tower hit them? I mentioned last
week about Hurricane Katrina coming through New Orleans and
killing so many people. And I heard so many preachers
who claim to be Christian, claim to be gospel preachers, talk
about that was God's judgment upon that city. As if to say,
now listen to me, Any act of disaster or anything
like it is God's judgment upon a sinful world. God is just. He does what's right. He doesn't
make mistakes. He doesn't deal unjustly with
anyone. But these preachers were saying
it in this context as if to say that they themselves did not
deserve anything like that. We deserve better. We're Christian. We go to church. We live in the
Bible Belt. We don't live in that sinful
Sodom city of New Orleans. We live here in Albany, Georgia,
the Bible Belt, the buckle on the Bible Belt. My friend, here's
what I'm saying. This is what Christ says in verse
five. I tell you nay, but except you repent, you shall likewise
perish. He's telling us this, that if God at any time were
to judge any of us, the worst of us or the best of us, based
on what we have earned or what we deserve, it would be eternal
damnation. Now that's right. Salvation,
blessedness, acceptance with God is totally by sovereign grace
and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Outside of Christ, there is no
love from God, no mercy from God, and no grace from God in
salvation. Oh Lord, please do not give me
what I deserve. I need grace. The old publican
in Luke 18, he said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And that's what this is all about.
When Christ said there in John 7 24, judge not according to
appearance. Because man by nature has no
spiritual eyes and no spiritual discernment. The heart of natural
man, when I say natural man, that's as we are born naturally.
Jeremiah 17, the heart is deceitful, desperately wicked, who can know
it? So our only hope is to go to
God's Word which is always true. God's Word speaks the truth,
tells the truth in all of these matters. Well this righteous
judgment carries on into salvation and the gospel. And that's what
we need to understand. Now let me say this. When he
tells us to judge, when he tells his people to judge, he told
them to judge, those lost people, judge righteous judgment. In
other words, what does God's word say about this? I know what
the moral majority says, I know what the Pharisees say, I know
what man's opinion is, but what does God's word say? And that's
the issue. He's not telling us that we are
to set ourselves up as the supreme judges of all men, we're not.
God is the supreme judge. And he has committed all judgment
to the son. The scripture says that God has
commanded all men everywhere to repent, Acts 17 30, but in
Acts 17 31, he says, because he has appointed a day. in the
which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, in that he hath given assurance unto
all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Acts 17,
31. What does that mean? Well, that means two things.
Number one, it means Christ is the supreme judge of all things.
You see, Christ knows things about you and me. that we don't
know about each other. He knows things about me that
I don't even know about myself. Christ is the judge of men's
hearts. And it says he's the supreme
judge. And secondly, it means he's the supreme standard of
all judgment. You see, my salvation can never
be determined on how I compare to you or to others. My salvation
is determined on how I compare to Christ. Therefore, here's
a righteous judgment. If I hope to be saved and pass
the judgment seat of Christ based on my works or based upon my
love or even my faith, then my works and my love and my faith
must equal Christ works, Christ love, Christ faith. I must have
a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and
justice. Now, I don't have that in myself. You may think you
do, but you're wrong. I can't work it. I don't have
it. And the only way that a sinner
can be made righteous in God's sight is by the imputation That
word means to have the merits of Christ's obedience unto death
imputed, charged, accounted to you. The imputation of His righteousness. I must stand in Christ. I must
be washed in His blood. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. You see that? This is all my
hope and peace. This is all my righteousness. Christ is my righteousness. I
stand in Him. He paid my debt in full. My sins were imputed to Him,
charged to Him. My debt to the justice of God
was charged to Him. You see, I didn't, you know,
they talk about prisoners going to prison, serving their sentence,
then they come out and they say, well, I paid my debt to society.
Well, I can't say I paid my debt to God's justice. Christ paid
it for me. I stand before God dressed in
his righteousness alone. That's what the imputed righteousness
of Christ is about. Now, when it comes to righteous
judgment in this area, Here's what I have to ask myself and
ask you. When you stand before God at
judgment, what will you plead as your right and title to enter
heaven's glory? Well, remember we went over to
Matthew 7 last week. Back over in Matthew 7. This
is right after he talked about judge not that you be not judged.
He goes on, he talks about the gospel way of salvation. It's
a narrow way. It's a way that only a few find
this straight gate in the narrow way. He talked about in verse
15 of Matthew 7, beware of false prophets. You know, you have
to make a righteous judgment if you're going to beware of
false prophets. In other words, you have to judge whether or
not they're false or they're true. And I'll show you something
about that in a moment. But he goes on in verse 21. Now
look at Matthew 7 in verse 21. Now remember the question now. This involves the issues of righteous
judgment. When you stand before God at
His judgment seat, what will you plead as your right and title
to enter heaven's glory? Well, listen to these men. Christ
says in Matthew 7, 21, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth
the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Now, what is the
will of the Father that he's talking about? He's talking about
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 22, many will
say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
or preached in thy name? and in thy name have cast out
devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. Verse 23,
and then will I profess unto them, this is Christ speaking,
I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me ye that
work iniquity. Now here's righteous judgment.
What these men were pleading, is a wrong ground of salvation. And let me put it in perspective
for you. Here's what they said. They said, haven't we preached
in thy name? Now, I've been preaching the
gospel for over 30 years. I've been preaching in his name.
Just like, I don't know what these men were saying. Somebody,
you can speculate, but let me tell you something, you're not
wise to speculate on this. You better leave it on the page
and look at it as it lays on the page. I've heard people say,
well, they weren't sincere. How do you know that? It doesn't
say anything about their sincerity here. The Apostle Paul, when
he talked about the lost religious Jews, he said they were very
sincere in Romans chapter nine and 10. Sincerity, what are you
gonna plead when you get to the judgment? Your sincerity, oh
Lord, I was just as sincere as I could be. You know what you'll
hear? Depart from me, I never knew you, you that work iniquity.
But here, I'm putting this in perspective. I've preached in
his name for over 30 years, but what I'm telling you is this,
and this is righteous judgment. My preaching in his name is not
my ground of salvation. My preaching in His name is not
my righteousness. My preaching in His name does
not cleanse me from my sins. My preaching in His name does
not give me right and title to enter heaven. You see, the only
thing that will make me accepted with God, the only thing that
will be a proper ground of salvation. The only thing that will wash
away my sins and make me righteous before God, the only thing that
will give me right and title to enter heaven's glory is Christ
Jesus and Him crucified and risen from the dead. His blood, His
righteousness alone. Now I thank God that He's enabled
me by His grace and power to preach in His name. But still,
that's not my righteousness. Christ is. I have nothing to
plead before God but my Savior as the Lord my righteousness.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame. But a holy lean on Jesus'
name, on Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is
sinking sand. You see, it's not my decision,
it's not my will, it's not my faith, it's not my preaching,
it's Christ and Him alone. And that's where you need to
examine yourself. I need to examine myself in righteous
judgment, you see. That's the issue. One of the
things that the Lord said to these self-righteous religionists
who challenged Him in John 7 is this. He said, what I'm telling
you is the Word of God. Check it out. Test it with the
scriptures. Over in 1 John 4, and as I said,
now I wanna, as much as I can, I wanna emphasize this. You know,
people say, well, I don't judge. You do judge. Anybody that has
a mind, who is a thinking person, makes judgments all the time,
religiously and otherwise. That doesn't mean, as I said
before, that we're the supreme judge of all things. I'm not
a supreme judge of anything. Christ is. And it doesn't mean
that we always know the hearts of people. We can't look into
the hearts of men. Somebody comes along and they
tell me they're a Christian. First thing I want to know is,
well, what does that mean to you? What do you believe? If
someone would come to you, for example, I've heard there's a
popular preacher on TV, has a large congregation. He says, well,
I just don't make judgment. He's lying. He does make judgments. And you'll hear people say, well,
we don't judge by doctrine. Well, all right, let's put it
to the test. A person comes to you and says,
now look, I don't believe in Jesus Christ as salvation. I'm
an atheist. Now, if they would say that to
you, what would your judgment be? Well, that's a lost person,
isn't it? They haven't found the Lord.
Now, if you say otherwise, You're not judging righteous judgment.
You say, well, I don't want to be mean and unkind. Righteous
judgment, let me tell you something. To an unbeliever, it sounds mean
and unkind, but it's the most loving thing we can do. Tell
the truth. It's like going to a doctor and you've got some
dreaded disease and he finds that dreaded disease and he knows
there's a cure, but he doesn't tell you about that dreaded disease
because he doesn't want to hurt your feelings. He doesn't want
to make you sad. He don't want a pure judgment.
No, you'd call that man a quack. You see, tell me the truth. And
my friend, if a person is lost in their sins, what are God's
people to do? We're to show them the way. That's
what evangelism about. You know that the moment that
I preach the gospel, I'm judging righteous judgment. If I preach
the true gospel, Tell sinners how God can be both a just God
and a Savior. How a sinner can be made right
with God. How does that happen? It's not
by some easy one, two, three step, easy believism, pray this
prayer, repeat after me, no. It's by coming to and running
to and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord, our
righteousness. The gospel is the declaration
of God's righteousness. But now listen to this. This
is 1 John chapter four. Listen to what he says in verse
one. He says, beloved, believe not every spirit. Now the spirit
here refers to people, men who are coming along and saying they're
preaching by the spirit of God. Believe not every spirit. Don't
believe everything you hear. But try the spirits, whether
they are of God. Test them, that's what that word
try means. Test the spirits, put them to the test. Now right
away, when you put these spirits, these preachers, these witnesses
to the test, you've got to ask yourself this question. Am I
judging according to the appearance or am I judging righteous judgment?
You look at a preacher and he's got a big following. Thousands of people follow him.
Oh, he must be telling the truth or he wouldn't have that many.
That's judging according to the appearance. He's got a lot of
books out and he's real popular. Everybody's reading it. That's
judging according to the appearance. Test the preacher. And he says,
because many false prophets are gone out into the world. And
then verse two, listen to this. He says, 1 John 4, hereby know
ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every
spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of antichrist,
where you've heard that it should come, and even now already is
it in the world. Now he says, here's righteous
judgment. Every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ is come in the fleshes of God. Now that certainly means
that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh without sin. The doctrine
of his deity, the doctrine of his humanity. But it also includes
the doctrine of his finished work of redemption. What did
Jesus Christ accomplish for the redemption of his people? Did
He make them savable upon their meeting certain conditions? Or
did He actually secure the salvation of all for whom He died? That
Christ who made men savable upon their meeting certain conditions
is a false Christ, my friend. That's righteous judgment. That
One who secured the salvation of all for whom He died, that's
the true Christ. That's the doctrine of Christ
over in 2 John in verse nine. I preached on this a while back.
He says, whosoever transgresses and abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. That's the doctrine
of his person, the doctrine of his finished work. It's the doctrine
of sin. Why did Jesus Christ have to
come into the world? and do what he did to save his
people from their sins. And it's sin as measured not
by appearance and not by popular opinion or not even by the Supreme
Court and what they say, it's sin as measured by God himself
in his nature of holiness and justice and righteousness and
according to his word. You see, that's where you have
to begin with this issue of salvation, with the justice of God. Well,
somebody says, well, no, we have to begin with the love of God.
Oh, no. Now in the preaching of the gospel, in the preaching
of salvation, we who know the truth do preach the love of God,
but it all begins with the justice of God. Did you know that? Some
people go around all the time quoting John 3.16, for God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Beautiful
verse. Speaks of God's love, not to everyone without exception.
The whole world there doesn't mean every individual in the
world. It's God's people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue,
and nation in Christ. But you know, before you read
John 3.16, there's some other verses. Back up in verse 14 of
John 3, it says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
remember Moses lifted up that brazen serpent on the pole, so
must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth on
him might not perish. What does that mean lifted up?
On the cross. Christ had to die to satisfy
the justice of God. And it's the love of God that
sent him to do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves in
him. I hope you'll join us next week for another message from
God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.