Open your Bible, if you would,
to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. The name of the message is justified. Justified. Last night I decided to Look
up the word justified in the Greek. It means to be rendered innocent. I'm looking at a bunch of folks.
If you're trusting in Christ, you've been rendered innocent
before God's law. Rendered innocent. We're sinners,
aren't we, still? Rendered innocent. by the grace
and by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. My. And how are we justified? By
Christ and Christ alone. And we're going to see here a
lot of folks don't like preaching on the blood and they're even
taking the blood out of hymn books now. But how can you be
justified except by the blood? except through the redeeming,
precious, flowing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture
says here in Romans chapter 5 verse 9, that's where we start, says,
much more than being justified by His blood, the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We shall be saved from wrath
through Him. Saved from wrath! justified by
his blood and saved from wrath. Whose wrath? God's wrath. Saved. Justified. Rendered innocent by his blood. Sinners. We're sinners from the
top of our head to the bottom of our feet. We come out of the
womb speaking lies. We're conceived in sin. Rendered
innocent. by the blood of Christ. And as
I said in Sunday school, when he died on the cross, he endured
the wrath that was due us for all the elect of all the ages.
So by the shedding of his blood, he rendered innocent all the
elect of all the ages by his one work, never again to be repeated. He cried what? It is finished. It's perfect. And we are rendered innocent
by his blood. That's a wonder. We couldn't make ourselves innocent
of one of our sins, could we? let alone the billions that we
commit in our life, and by the shedding of his precious blood,
we are rendered innocent by his blood. Saved from the wrath of
God that fell upon him instead of us. What a Savior. What a Redeemer is Jesus Christ
our Lord. Look at this, for if when we
were enemies, that was in our minds, right, before we were
saved, People have a hard time with that. You've heard me say
many times, I'll talk to people and say, you know, we were enemies
with God before we were saved. And I even had one lady who told
me, she claimed to be a grace lady, and she said, I was never
an enemy with God. And I said, well, if you were never
an enemy of God, then you're not one of his. Because we all recognize that
we were enemies with God in our minds. It says, look at this
though, for if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son, see there's the work of the, there's the
finished work of the cross right there, right? Much more being reconciled,
so the breach that occurred during Adam's fall, right, the broken
fellowship with God has now been restored. in and through the Lord Jesus
Christ. We're now reconciled to God. Paul's stating facts
here, isn't he? And remember, who the true author
is, the Holy Spirit's stating facts, isn't he? He says you're being reconciled. Reconciled. To God. By whose work? By the death of
his son. By his work. In his work alone. Much more being reconciled, we
shall be saved by his life, his perfect life, living as our substitute. And not only so, but we also
joy in God. Now we have joy. We talked about
that, Dave. We got joy we never had before. Unspeakable joy. We search for joy in other things,
and all they did was bring misery. This is true joy. This is heart
joy. This is soul joy, isn't it? In
Christ. Look at this. Not only so, but
we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the conduit,
right? He's the only name under heaven
whereby we must be saved. He's the great conduit. He's
the only way that the blessings of God come from the throne of
God to we who are his people through Christ. Look at that. By whom now we have received
the atonement. Henry Mahan used to explain the atonement as atonement
with God. Atonement. We had enmity with
God, right? Now we're at atonement. We've
been reconciled. by the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. See, it's all Him. It all circles
back to our great God and King, doesn't it? All right back to
Him. Wherefore, by one man sin entered
into the world. Now, here we go. Paul, again
by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is gonna set before the Romans the fact that we became sinners
through Adam. through his fall. See, I remember
hearing a preacher say, if you get it wrong at the fall, you
get it wrong with it all. That's so true. There's been
preachers who denied the fall and preached Christ, but they're
not really preaching the Christ of the Bible, are they? Because
you can't get it wrong at the fall and know the one true living
God. No, no, no. The only reason Christ
came into this world was to save those who fell, who are his people. The elect of God, right? My oh my. Wherefore by one man
sin entered into the world, that's Adam, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. Look at that. So death, spiritual
death, fell upon us all. Do you know there would be no
death if Adam hadn't fallen? They were living souls. There
would be no death. But the Lord said, don't eat
one raw, don't eat of that tree. We didn't fall when Eve ate the
fruit, did we? We fell when Adam ate the fruit.
And several commentators, I was telling the dear sister this
the other night, several commentators bring forth, I think it was Henry,
that the whole reason he took that fruit, because his love
for Eve. His love for Eve. His bride. And because he's the federal
head, we all fell in him. And think of this. This is something
I want us to think about, too. Again, this was brought up by
an old-time preacher, and he said this. He said, man is placed
in the perfect environment, and he still falls. There it is, right? So by one
man, sin had entered the world, and death by sin. And then what
happened? Death passed upon all his kin,
all his people. We're all sons and daughters
of Adam, no matter what the pigmentation
of our skin is. We're the human race. Remember,
it's not different races. We're the human race. Scripture
calls people go crazy when you say that. I told my son, I belong
to the human race. I don't look at different people
of different races. It's the human race. Oh, Dad, you can't
talk like that. Well, yeah, I can, because the
Bible talks about that. We're one people. One blood,
right? Just different pigmentation of skin. That's all. Different features. That's all.
We're all human, though. All of us. See, it's man that's
made this division. It's hatred in our hearts that's
made this division. And you know what? Man's pride
makes one think they're better than the other. We're no better
than anyone at all. We're just a bunch of dead dog
sinners, aren't we? That's all we are. Oh my. Look what it says here. Wherefore
is by one man sin into the world, and death by sin. And so death
passed upon all men. That means everyone. man, woman,
and child. Every human that's born of a
father, a human father, see? We have to qualify that now,
right? Because Christ is the seed of the woman. He's conceived
by the Holy Spirit of God. But every son and daughter of
Adam, dead in trespasses and sins. That's what that's saying
to us. All sin. All of us are guilty
before God. What a predicament. And not one
of us can help ourselves, let alone anyone else. And it says this, for until the
law, sin was in the world, but sin's not imputed where there's
no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, spiritual
death. Moses was born dead in trespasses
and sins, just like us. All those people. Born dead in
trespasses, they had to be born again, just like us. They had
to be given faith to believe, just like us, right? That's why
Spurgeon said, all the elect of all the ages is the bride
of Christ. Who were the Old Testament saints
looking to? The Messiah. Who are we looking
to? The Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. His name is being revealed to
us now. But they were looking to the Messiah. They were looking
for the coming one. They were looking for the promised
one. And when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law. That's us. Wonderful. Wonderful. And it says here, Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure
of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also
is the free gift. For though the offense by one
man many be dead, look at this, much more the grace of God and
the gift by grace, which is by one man. Jesus Christ hath abounded
unto many. People say, oh, just a few folks
that the Lord says. Well, the scripture says many.
I don't believe the scripture over someone's point of view,
right? When God says that the elect
are a number that no man can number, I can't number that,
can you? That's a lot of people. We don't
even know the number of the people. Spurgeon put this out there and
he said he believed, I like this, he said, I believe there's going
to be more people in heaven because the devil won't beat out the
Lord because he's suffering. I don't know. I just know this.
I know it's many. I know it's a number that no
man can number. I know the Lord's never turned away anyone who's
come to him. I know that. I know that. That's why we say
sinner friend come to Christ. He is the only hope for sinners.
My oh my. His grace abound unto many and
we're living, we who believe, we're living proof of that. We're
monuments of His grace. Even though we don't think that
way, we are. We're monuments to the grace of God. Isn't that
wonderful? That's just incredible. It says, and not as it was by
one that sin, so is the gift for the judgment was by one to
condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification.
Look at that. Justification rendered innocent. Rendered innocent through Christ
Jesus our Lord. And then the apostle is establishing
here the truth throughout this epistle, that a man is justified
before God, not by our works, not by anything we do, no, but
through Christ in him alone. And we're giving God given faith
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, aren't we? Yeah. Paul says we have peace with
God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We have everything. We're justified
through Him. We're sanctified through Him. We're redeemed through
Him. We have everything through Christ as believers. My! Look at verse 9 again. It says, Much more than being
now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through
Him. So he's bringing forth in this chapter, is justification
only for the circumcised Jew or for the Gentile as well? Is
it for both? Or is it just for the Jew? And
why does Paul ask this question? Well, because the Jews not only
believed that justification before God depended on at least part
of their works, but that this blessing was connected
with circumcision. See, they'd been taught that
all their life, that this blessing was conditional upon circumcision.
I always ask, well, what about the ladies? See, the blessing was circumcised,
or circumstantial, in Christ. In Christ, in him alone. Just because one was circumcised
didn't make him a spiritual Jew. He was a Jew by nature, born
into that, but not a spiritual Jew. Do you know we who are born again
are spiritually Israel? Isn't that incredible? How do
we know that? Well, Galatians chapter 3. We've been going through that
but I want us to look at this again. Galatians chapter 3. It's so clear in scripture when
the Holy Spirit gives us eyes to see because otherwise I never
knew any of this stuff before the Lord saved me. He had to
reveal it all. Galatians chapter 3. Look at
this. We're starting verse 24 of Galatians
chapter 3. It says, Wherefore the law was
our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. When we looked at
that in Sunday school, that's not like a teacher, because it
can't teach us anything. That was a child conductor in
the Greek. That was one who took the child
to school to the teachers. See, the Holy Spirit's our teacher.
He teaches us. Law was our schoolmaster to bring
us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. See, every
believer has faith in Christ. There's no true born-again believer
that doesn't have faith. That's why you hear me talk about
that justification by death. You go to a funeral, you know
this person didn't love Christ, didn't, and that preacher will
preach him right into glory. Some of the old timers call that
justification by death, and it's a horrible thing. Because we're
only justified through Christ. That's the only one who we're
justified through. Christ and Christ alone. And it's by faith
in Christ. And that's God-given faith, isn't
it? That's God-given faith. For you are all children of God
by faith, look at that, you're all children of God by faith
in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Now look at this,
here we go. There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither bond
nor free, there's neither male nor female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. That means Jew or Gentile, right? Our differences in any kind of
form Right? In any kind of form. Things that
divide man are not to divide us in the body of Christ. We're
one. Doesn't matter where you come
from. Right? Doesn't matter the color of your
skin. Doesn't matter about any of that. That all vanishes in
Christ. All of it. there's neither Jew
nor Greek, there's neither bond nor free, there's neither male
nor female, for you are one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ,
then ye are Abraham's seed, and look at this, look at that, look
at verse 29, and if you be Christ, if you're Christ, here's a statement
of fact, put in here, you know, for years I never saw this verse,
for years I never saw it until the Lord showed me grace. I remember
when we first found out, we were, Vicky and I were, we were, I
remember exactly where we were. We were listening to a sermon
by Henry Mahan and he said, God's people are spiritual Israel.
And we, we just, oh my, we were crying and he was preaching on
Ephesians chapter 2. My, oh my, the middle wall partition
broken down. And we who are far off, Gentiles,
are bought nigh by the blood of Christ. Isn't that wonderful? That's what happened to us. Look
at this. And if ye be Christ, if you're
Christ, now here's a statement of fact, then ye are Abraham's
seed. You're the one to whom the promises
were given. How can we say that as Gentiles? Because the promises are in who?
They're in Christ. Amen, sister. They're only in
Christ. They're nowhere else. They're
nowhere else. There are absolutely no promises
of God outside of Christ. They're all in Him. And we know
that because in 1 Corinthians, he writes, Paul writes, and all
the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ. So Paul, again, this is the Holy
Spirit's words. This is the Holy Spirit's word.
And then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
Well, who's the heirs? Look at verse chapter 4. Now
then I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth
nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all, but is under
tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father.
So you can't tell one of God's elect from someone who's not
one of God's elect. You can't tell in their natural
state. No one would know that I was one of God's elect in my
natural state, and no one did. I didn't even know. Did you know?
We had no clue, did we? This is a revelation of God,
and we're rejoicing, aren't we? So then look at this. There he'd
be Lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the
time appointed of the Father. See, our God is absolutely sovereign.
There is a time appointed. Now think of this. Travis brought
this up yesterday. He had mentioned this in his
message the last time I had him fill in for me, and it was wonderful. He said that Our great, great,
great, great, great, great, great grandparents were where they
were, exactly by God's providence and decree, and they were bought
to be exactly where we would be to hear the gospel. Isn't that amazing? My wife's
family was bought from Germany to Michigan. and went out west. They were
Waldensians when they came over here. Waldensians were Baptistic
Calvinists. They loved the gospel and they
were being slaughtered by the Catholic Church just like the
Huguenots. And so they fled to all different places over the
world while her family came here to Michigan. And then, as sometimes
happens, the mother was very strong in her faith and the kids
just went off the rails. and got into Christian science
and all this other stuff, and eventually ended up out in Oregon,
where my bride was born, and then, or California, I'm sorry,
California, and then up to Oregon, and then we drive down to a conference
in Rescue, California, and lo and behold, the Lord brings a
preacher over named Donny Bell. and she hears the gospel for
the first time. All orchestrated. Then we come
here, unknown to us, we've made full circle with her family,
and we're back in Michigan. Isn't God amazing? All for his
plan and purpose, see? We had no idea. She meets some Canadian guy on
the internet, and her family says, well, he might be an expert,
Well, yeah, I might have been, but I wasn't. My, oh my. My, oh my. And here we are with you guys.
And we love it. It's amazing what God does. You
see how God works and moves? By his appointed time, right?
And then look at this. Even so, when we were children,
we were in bondage under the ailments of the world. But when
the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under law. Why? To redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Now remember over there in verse 29 of chapter 3, it said, if
ye be Christ and ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. Look at this in Galatians chapter
6. And because ye are sons, because you're heirs, God sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
You ever wonder why, Lord, was I saved? Because you were sons. Because you were chosen by God
in eternity. Nothing to do with us, is there? Oh my, look at
verse seven, we're close to that one. Wherefore thou art no more
a servant, but a son. And if a son and an heir of God
through Christ, we're justified through Christ. We're rendered
innocent through Christ. Isn't that wonderful? Glory to
his name. Much more now being justified
by his blood. Purchased by his blood, redeemed
by his blood. We're not our own anymore, are
we? We're Christ now. We're Christ now. My, let's look
at verse 10 again. It says, for if when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son,
how much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life?
Well, was Abraham justified? Yes. We found that out in the
study of Galatians, right? He is justified by faith, just
like we are in Christ. And he was justified by looking
to the Messiah, who is Christ. Do you know he has the same faith
as you and I? We say, but he had such strong faith. He got
the same faith as you and I. Isn't it funny how we always
say, we always look at these Bible heroes, oh, they had such
strong faith. They got the same faith as we
do. Now remember, Elijah, great man of the faith, right? Every
day we look at this, great man of faith. He's like, Lord, I'm
the only one left. And Jezebel wants to kill me. And the Lord says, I got 5,000
who haven't bowed their knee to Baal. The Lord's always got
a people, doesn't he? He's always got a people. But
see, even people of strong faith can be bought low. It's normal
for us. We're humans. We're humans, beloved. Oh, my. And righteousness wasn't
imputed to Abraham before he was circumcised, because he wasn't
circumcised until years later. The promise was given to him
first. See, folks tend to leave that
stuff out, don't they? No, he was looking to Christ,
beloved. Turn if you would to Genesis
chapter 17. I'll read Genesis 15, 6, and
it says this about Abraham. And he believed the Lord, and
he counted it to him for righteousness. He believed what God said. Did
we not believe what God said by the grace and mercy of God?
That's the only way we believe God is by the grace of God, by
the Holy Spirit regenerating us. Otherwise, we wouldn't believe
it. We'd just be like everyone else,
groping around in the dark, thinking that Well, if I do this, I can
be saved, or if I do that, there ain't nothing we can do to be
saved, except look to Christ. And that's a gift of God. Just
think, I want us just to think about this. Marvel today and
marvel this week, meditate upon this, that you and I have been
given the ears to hear. the voice of the Savior. You
and I have been given eyes to see, the eye of faith. We've
never seen Christ, but yet by the eye of faith, oh, we love
Him. And we see Him, don't we, by our eye of faith. One day,
we're going to see Him, just like we see each other. And what
a glorious day that'll be. My. Look at this here in Genesis
chapter 17. We'll start in verse 5, we'll
go to verse 25. Or no, we'll skip a couple of
verses here, hold on. Genesis 17, verse 1. And when
Abraham was 90 years old, and nine, the Lord appeared unto
Abraham and said unto him, I am the Almighty God. What a statement.
I'm the Almighty God, no one else. Walk before me and be thou
perfect. And I will make my covenant between
me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abraham
fell on his face. And God talked with him, saying,
As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt
be a father of many nations. And God said unto Abraham, Thou
shalt keep my covenant, therefore thou and thy seed after thee
in their generations. This is my covenant, which you
shall keep between me and you, and I see it after thee. Every
man and child among you shall be circumcised. And you shall
circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token
of the covenant betwixt me and you." So it was a sign of the
covenant. And he that is eight days old
shall be circumcised among you, every man, child in your generation. He that is born in the house
or bought with money of the strangers, which is not of thy seed. He
that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money,
must needs be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your
flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man-child,
whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall
be cut off from his people. He hath broken my covenant. and
Abraham was nine years old and nine and when he was circumcised
in the flesh of his foreskin and then look at verse or that
was verse sorry I skipped down to look at verse 24 and 25 and
Abraham was nine years old and nine when when he was circumcised
in the flesh of his foreskin so the promise was given to him
about the seed far before he was circumcised It was just a token of the covenant
that God had made with him. And you know, we're circumcised
spiritually by an operation of God, the Holy Spirit. That's
called being born again. It's called being born again.
The circumcision which we've been circumcised with is not
of the flesh, which profit of nothing. It's by the Spirit,
by the Holy Spirit of God. My. And look at verses 11 and
12 of Romans. Chapter 5, back in our text. Look at this. Romans 5, 11, and 12. And not
only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom we have now received the atonement, yet one minute.
Now we are justified in and through the Lord Jesus Christ by his
blood and by his death. There's no other way for us to
be justified before God. None. It's impossible. It's not, man cannot do this
work, but this is a mighty work of God. This is a miracle of
grace. Because remember, we're dead.
We're graveyard dead. I remember hearing, I think it
was Big Don went to a graveyard one time. And he stood beside
this, in front of this grave, old tomb, right? Old grave from
the 1800s. And he said, if you can come
out of there, you can marry my daughter. And he used this in the sermon
illustration. He said, nothing happened. Because the fellow's
dead. See, that's our state. When we
fell in Adam, we were completely spiritually dead. No ability. And God found us in that state,
didn't he? He found us in that state. And
he made us alive, beloved. And now we're justified by His
blood. Justified by the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Rendered innocent. Can we really
wrap our minds around that? It's true. Rejoice. Think of that this week as we
go to various places. Think about that. I've been rendered
innocent by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
true of every born-again blood-washed believer. rendered innocent before
God, before the one whose law we broke. And what love is manifested
by God and sent in his son to die for those who are enemies
in their minds, but yet in their minds they're enemies with God,
but yet they're loved by him from eternity. And because we're sons, God sends
the spirit of a son into our hearts, whereby we now cry, Abba,
Father. You ever wonder why now you cry
out to God? It's because of spirit in you. Did you cry out to God
before the Lord saved you? Now he's the one we go to. Father,
help me. Remember Abba, Father? That's
Hebrew and Greek. Right? Abba being father, and
then father in the Greek, being father. Some commentators say
father, my father. I love that. I didn't have a great relationship
with my dad, but my heavenly fathers loved me for maternity.
And he not like my dad on this world. Now some being blessed
with wonderful dads, and that's a wonderful blessing. But we can all relate that our
heavenly father loves us far more than our earthly father.
And that's amazing. Loves us so much that he sent
his son to die in our ruined place that we might be justified,
rendered innocent before the throne and bar of God, right? by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we know by the shedding of His blood, that's the giving
of His life, isn't it? He poured His life out for us. My, what a Savior. What a Redeemer
is Christ our King. And we joy, we joy in God now,
don't we? You joy in God when you think
that you've been rendered innocent? My, let us fill our hearts with
joy. We can rejoice over this, can't we? This is something we
can be joyful about. Washed in the blood of Christ.
How do you think those Israelites felt when they were set free
out of Egypt? My, I bet you could hear them
singing. When they weren't murmuring. Right? But they were singing
too, weren't they? It says when they got to the
other side of the Red Sea and the Lord had the sea, they were
singing. Remember Mary, I think it's Mariam,
picked up a timbrel and they started rejoicing over what the
Lord's done. Destroying their great enemy.
Do you know our great enemy's been destroyed? Our sin. God
doesn't look at it anymore. He doesn't see us as sinners
anymore. I still can't get over that. Can you? You can keep telling
me and telling Elvis and the preachers, Wayne, your sins are
gone! Hallelujah! Oh, if I could only
just grasp that fully. I believe it, by God's grace. But oh my, just keep telling
me, because I need to be reminded of that. Do you know why we need
the gospel every week? Because we forget so easy. Yeah,
we forget so easy. Let us remind ourselves. Let
us wake up in the morning. If we're God's people, let us
wake up in the morning and go, I've been rendered innocent by
the blood and by the work of Christ in Him alone. Let us, when we're down, and
I, we go through things, we go through, we go through torments
of heart, we go through torments in the mind, we go, let us, let
us, let us wake up and think about these things. I'm redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb. I'm justified. I don't deserve this. And you
know what it'll do? It'll cause us to cry out to him in prayer.
In prayer! You've heard me in the past in
religion, I used to say to Vicki, I'm going to go pray now. And
I go and, you know, I even got on my knees, and I thought I
was more holy when I got on my knees and all that, and on my
bed, and put my hands like that. I remember it was totally ritualistic.
You know, now I just pray to God whenever I want. I'm picking
sticks up outside. I'm praying to him. It's so wonderful.
Thanking him for the beautiful land that we have in this community
where we all live. It's beautiful, isn't it? Hearing
the birds. Oh, I never get enough of those
little fellows. Singing. Oh, praising God. You're going to think I'm crazy,
but I was walking up the side ramp this week. I told Zane in
a couple hours, I was walking up the side ramp here. And on
the top of the steeple's corner, there's this blackbird, red-winged
blackbird. You could see the little shine. And this bird,
it was singing its heart out. And I said, keep praising Jesus,
little fella. My, he was just singing. Who's
he singing to? He's singing to the Lord, right?
Spurgeon said that. The birds lift their head up
in adoration after they eat and drink. What do they do? They
lift their beaks up, right? The trees wave in adoration,
all creation. Watch it in the wind. The next time you see a tree
waving, Spurgeon said, it's waving in adoration to the Lord. He said, go to a lake the Great
Lakes here, or go to the ocean, that sea comes in, crash, crash. He said, clapping, praise you,
Lord. Praise you, Lord. Isn't that
a wonderful way to look at things? My, what a wonderful way to look
at things. It's amazing. I know you heard that story five
times, but it's still, it just, it's so wonderful. It's wonderful. My, so let us think about these
wondrous things that we have in Christ. My, oh my, we are
justified in and through the Lord Jesus Christ in Him alone. Let's go back to Romans chapter
five there. Let's bring out some things that
are right here in our text for us, and then we're closed. First
point. Justified. Justified. Oh, actually, we're in Romans
chapter... Boy, I got lost there. Romans chapter 5, verse 9. Let's start at verse 1. I want
to start at verse 1. Look at this. Romans chapter
5, verse 1. Therefore being justified by
faith, No one is justified except those who have faith in Christ.
And that faith is God given, right? He gives it to us. We
have what? These are statements of fact.
We have peace. So we're justified in Christ and through Christ.
We have peace with God. How? Through Christ. Look at
that. One verse with so much packed into it. By whom also
we have access by faith. There's the next point. We have
access to the throne of grace, continuous. We have access by
faith, that's in Christ of course, into this grace wherein we stand
and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We rejoice in the
hope. Who's our hope? He who we've never seen, Christ.
Isn't that amazing? See, people have to see things
to believe things. We don't have to see Christ to
believe in them. Because we've been given, again, we've been
given faith by God to believe on Christ. See, the natural man,
they have to see it to believe it. And we were there too. And we may even say that about
some things in life now. But think, we believe in something.
We believe in someone who we'd never seen. That's because of God-given faith.
God-given faith. Look at that. And we have a hope. We have a hope, which is Christ.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations, also known that
tribulation worketh patience. Look at that. We can look back
on our tribulations and go, look what the Lord's done for us.
And we will come out of the other side more patient, I guarantee
you. We might not see it in ourselves, but others will see it. Others
will see it. And patience, experience. How
can we help another who's going through the similar thing that
we're going through, or that we went through, except by experience,
right? You ever think about how you
go through a trial, and then someone you know goes through
the same thing, and you can comfort them? It's amazing. And it may be 5, 10 years down
the road, maybe 20 years down the road, but you're able to
help them get through that. It's incredible. And experience
hope. See, these trials that we go
through in this world, these tribulations, they produce hope
in us. And that hope is only in Christ. And hope maketh not ashamed,
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which is given unto us. You've heard me say many times
that the one thing that the devil can't counterfeit is this true
love of God that's shed abroad in the believer's heart. He can
counterfeit a lot of things, but he can't counterfeit that.
Because this love that we have, not only for our King, but for
one another, right, only comes about through the Holy Spirit
of God. No other way. There's no other way. Look at this. For when we were
yet without strength in due time, Christ died for us. We were strengthless. We were destitute. Remember in that
verse, too? Why go back into the weak and
beggarly elements, the strengthless elements in Galatians? That's where we were. Christ
died for us, sent by the Father. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet, peradventure for a good man, some would even
dare to die. But God commanded us to love
toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Much more, here we go, now here we see the tie in with
our verse today. Much more than being now justified
by his blood. Do you know right now, you're
justified? If you're a believer, right now.
Right now, that's what he's saying, right? He's not saying in the
future. Does he? Right now, you and I,
as believers, right now are rendered innocent, right now. Someone
will say, well, how can you preach that way? People will go out
the door and go crazy. God's people won't. No, God's people won't do that,
not at all. We're not against the law. We
just know we can never fulfill it. But praise God, Christ fulfilled
it for us. It says here, look at this. I'm
going to close with this. Look at this. Much more than
being now, right now, rendered innocent,
it says, Justified, that's rendered as how? By His blood. That's
the key, isn't it? By His blood. We shall be saved
from wrath through Him. And what do we say? Hallelujah! What a Savior! What a Redeemer
is Jesus Christ, my Lord! He's truly a wonderful, merciful
Savior, isn't He? Truly.