three things that inspire worship
there. First of all, you have beautiful
words because they honor and glorify the Lord and a beautiful
melody and a beautiful voice. You put them all together and
it inspires worship, doesn't it? And that's what it's all
about. Well, I want you to open your Bibles to Psalm 32. Psalm
32. While you're turning, let me
just express again my gladness and to be here. And it's an honor
to stand in the pulpit where your pastor stands. He means
a lot to me and the people of 13th Street. He's been a very,
very faithful, by the grace of God, faithful gospel minister
and a dear, dear brother in Christ. to me and to our folks. And we
thank God for you, too, for the congregation here, for your prayers
for us. And as I said, it's just an honor
for me to be here to deliver God's Word to you and to be with
you again. I always enjoy coming up here
at this time of year. Of course, you know, we had a
pretty bad one in Kentucky this year, a pretty bad winter, but
you all, I don't think you'll feel sorry for us. But that's
okay. But we'll take whatever the Lord
gives us and put a coat on or take a coat off. But we just,
I do want to express our appreciation to you. All right, well, it's
kind of, you know, somebody said, well, this feels like an act
of providence, but you know, everything is an act of providence.
I don't believe God ever steps down off that throne. I believe
he's in control of all things. I believe he's working all things
after the counts of his own will. But just let me give you some background to this message
that I believe the Lord has laid on my heart to preach to you
this morning from Psalm 32. I've entitled the message A Sinner
Without Charge. A sinner without charge. And
I believe that if you know anything about your sin, and you know
something of God's revelation of himself in mercy through Jesus
Christ, that statement will just thrill you alone. A sinner without
charge. The reason that I decided to
preach on this passage and this subject was really it was an
article that your pastor wrote called the non imputation of
sin. And read it in your bulletin
and that Bonnie sends each week and put it in ours. The non imputation
of sin. And it was a great article. I
don't know if you remember or not. Just if you don't reread
that article, it's just it's just a classic article. And I
began to wonder about that subject. How many people today really
understand the reality of the non imputation of sin? How many people even understand
or even know? The word imputation, impute,
what it means, what it doesn't mean, what it involves. And the
reason I think that so many people are ignorant of that is because
we're living in an age of experience-based religion. In other words, salvation
and the work of God, the work of the Holy Spirit can only be
attested to, proven, Or it can only be evidenced by what we
experience in ourselves. The problem and of course, salvation
in salvation, we do experience some things. There are there
are experiences that that and there are feelings, you know,
but we don't we don't believe in experience based salvation. We believe in a scriptural based
salvation. Salvation is what God's word
says, not what we feel. That's what I mean by that. Feelings
come, feelings go, feelings can be deceiving. We know that. If I'm in Christ, if I'm washed
in His blood and clothed in His righteousness, I am truly saved
whether I feel good or whether I feel bad. Is that not right? You know how I know that? It's
what this book says. You see, God's Word outweighs
anything we feel, think, see, say or do, really. But I began
to wonder that, about this non-imputation of sin. What do people think
about it? Well, a sinner without charge. And basically, you could put
it this way. It's a sinner in some miraculous
way. standing before the court of
God's justice and hearing God, the judge of all, say in truth,
not pretense, but in truth, looking at that sinner and saying to
that sinner, listen to it, not guilty. Now, that's not God pretending. God doesn't say, well, you're
a sinner, but I'm going to pretend you're not. No, you're a sinner. You deserve nothing but condemnation. That's me too. But yet God, the
judge of all, who always judges according to truth and reality,
who knows me better than I know myself, who knows my thoughts, my motives,
looking at me and speaking these words, not guilty. Not guilty. But it goes even
further than that. It doesn't stop there. It's that
same God looking at me, a sinful man, who has nothing to recommend
himself unto God, looking at me and saying, righteous. Not pretending. He didn't say, now, how do you
feel today? What kind of day are you having?
Is it a down day or an up day? No, it has nothing to do with
that now. Now let me make good on that
from Psalm 32 and some other passages. But listen to what
the psalmist David says in verse 1. He said, Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no guile. When I pulled up to the church
this morning, I saw this verse, this first verse on the on the
marquee out there, and I thought, well, that just seals it in my
mind. That's what I'm supposed to preach this morning. You know,
in those two verses, we have every Hebrew word for the word
sin. In those two verses where we
see a sinner. He says, blessed is he who's
what? Transgression. Now, you can't claim a blessing
in this way unless you're a transgressor. If you're not a transgressor,
you have no interest in what I'm saying today. It's as blessed
as he whose transgression is forgiven. In the Bible, the forgiveness
of transgression and transgression is a word that simply means breaking
the law. We're lawbreakers. we come short
of the glory of God. And the forgiveness of sins in
the Bible only comes by blood. Isn't that right? Didn't God
establish that in Genesis chapter 3 right after the fall? Didn't he tell Adam in Genesis
chapter 2 that in the day that you eat thereof, dying thou shalt
die? In other words, the penalty of
sin is death. And you remember when Adam and
Eve, when they became aware of their nakedness, which in the
Bible is symbolic of lack of what? Righteousness. I have no
righteousness. I'm naked before God. I'm exposed
to His wrath. I deserve condemnation and death. I've done the deed. I'm a sinner. And then what did Adam and Eve
do? They tried to cover over their sin with fig leaf aprons,
symbolic of man's efforts in religion to hide his sin from
view under the guise of false religion. What did God do? He removed the fig leaf aprons.
And what did He do? In verse 21 of Genesis 3, He
slew an animal. Death. Shed blood. And He made
coats of skin. And in that one verse, you know
what he did? He established, right then and
there, the sacrificial system of sinners approaching God for
salvation, for blessedness, for acceptance. Not on the basis
of an animal, but on one whom the animal typified, the Lord
Jesus Christ. So when he says, blessed is he
whose transgression is forgiven, he's not talking about God just
looking at you and saying, well, I'm a I'm a soft hearted granddaddy. Just forget it, fellas. Well,
you made some mistakes. No, it's forgiveness based on
blood. How do you know that? I look
at the next line whose sin is covered. Now, as forgiveness
is the removal of the guilt and punishment of sin, This covering
does not mean covered over or hidden from view. This covering
that David is speaking of refers to an atonement. You see, as
we said, forgiveness comes through the shedding of blood of a God-appointed,
able, willing sacrifice, substitute. And this covering refers to an
atonement and it refers back to the mercy seat, the covering
over the law, the lid on the Ark of the Covenant. And on that covering, you remember
one time a year, the high priest would come in with the blood
of the Lamb and he would sprinkle that blood on the mercy seat.
That's the covering that David's referring to. It's not just covered
over with false religion. It's not just covered over with
good intentions. It's not just covered over with
false religion, man's religion, man's works, man's morality. Let me say this. Should people
in this world be moral people? Yes, but that's not going to
put away sin. That's not going to cover their
sin. This covering points to justice
satisfied. That's what the covering means. Justice satisfied, the sin debt
fully paid by the blood. And it all pointed forward to
the death of Christ, the Lamb of God on the cross. For Christ
is our sin bearer. Christ is our mercy seat. We're redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ. It's not possible that the blood
of bulls and goats could take away sin. And then look at verse
2. He says, blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord... Now, if you've got a King James
Version, you know the word Lord there is capitalized. That means
it's referring to Jehovah. That's the God of the covenant,
the God of promise. That's the God who identifies
himself as the God of mercy, who justifies the ungodly, as
per Abraham, Romans chapter 4. So whom the Lord imputeth not
iniquity. Now, well, this word impute, what does it mean? Well, it means
to account something. It means to charge something,
you know, I've often said to people, especially our young
teenagers and young adults at 13th Street, I said, you know,
if any if any generation ought to understand the word imputed,
it ought to be our generation. Charge it. Charge it. That's what impute
means. It means to reckon. Talk about
the day of judgment as a day of reckoning. Men are going to
give an account. Are there any charges against
me? That's the question. You say, well, there may be,
but you may not know about it. Well, that's true. People out
here today, there are charges against them. They don't know
about it. Let me ask you a question. If they don't know about it,
are the charges less real? Is the day of reckoning not coming
because they don't know about it? Is God just playing some
game? Is this fiction? You know why
a lot of people today in religion Have no idea about this truth
of the non imputation of sin and the imputation right is because
the Catholic Church. For years has kind of conditioned
people to think, well, that's legal fiction. And I said to say, I've heard
some. Even so-called gospel preachers call it that, too. It means to
reckon, you know, sometimes The word impute in the New Testament
is translated think. Remember Philippians 4, think
on these things. That's the same word as the word
impute. And what is he talking about? It's how God thinks. How
does God think of you? How does God think of me? You know what? I'll tell you
something. I know how I think of myself.
I know how my wife thinks of me. I know how my friends think
of me. I know how my enemies think of
me. You got any enemies? You know none of that matters.
The only thing that matters in this situation is how does God
think of me. That's the issue. Blessed is
the man unto whom what? Mama doesn't impute iniquity. Now, you know what iniquity is? It means it doesn't equal out.
Inequity. It's not equitable. Iniquity. Here you've got the word transgression.
That's lawbreaking. Here you've got the word sin.
That's coming short. Iniquity means it doesn't measure
up. That's why, you know, in Matthew
chapter seven, when those false preachers came before the Lord
and they said, Lord, Lord, haven't we preached in your name? Haven't
we done many wonderful works, haven't we cast out demons? And
he said, depart from me ye that work what? Iniquity. What is
he saying? Is it sinful to preach in Christ's
name? No. But I want to tell you something. My preaching in His name does
not measure up to righteousness. And if I plead it as my righteousness,
it's iniquity. You understand that? You see,
I have one righteousness before Holy God, and that's Christ and
Him crucified and risen. Anything that doesn't measure
up to Christ crucified and risen, His righteousness is iniquity. The best works that the best
of human beings can do is iniquity when measured with Christ. That's why Isaiah said, all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. But here he
says, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. What does that mean? That means
God does not charge him with the guilt of sin. Is he a sinner? Well, David said
that. Look over at verse five of Psalm
32. He said, I acknowledge my sin
unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess
my transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgave us mine iniquity,
the iniquity of my sin. David himself says he's a sinner.
Remember Psalm 51, he said, against thee and thee only have I sinned
and done this evil in thy sight. I've heard preachers say God
doesn't see our sins. Oh, yes, he does. But what does
he not do to a sinner who's washed in the blood of the Lamb? He
doesn't charge him. He doesn't charge him with sin. I even heard a man say, well,
that doesn't sound like much. Are you kidding me? Do you know
what you are? Do you know what you deserve? Oh, Lord, don't give me what
I deserve. Don't give me what I've earned.
Give me Christ. God be merciful, propitious to
me, the sinner. Does this mean that God was pretending
or faking it? Is this a legal fiction? Absolutely
not. This is God speaking reality
to a sinner without charge. That's amazing. The reality of
the non-imputation of sin. Here it is, in and by the Lord
Jesus Christ, based on His death, in my place, in the place of
his people, as my substitute and my surety. You know what
a surety does? He took my debt. What I owed
was accounted to him. Remember Paul in the book of
Philemon? He said, Philemon, if Onesimus
hath done thee wrong, charge it to me. I'll repay it. That's
what Christ did for his people. When was he made our charity?
Before the foundation of the world. And so Christ in the place
of his people, the Lord God does not charge the sins of his people
against them. He does not impute, charge, account
sin to his chosen elect people. He does not look upon their sins
with the eye of justice. He hides His face from them and
He forgives them. And though there is much sin
in us, right now, there is much sin done by us, right now, as
every true believer will confess with David. Yet God sees no sin
in His people by way of legal imputation. Is that real? You bet it's real. Here's the way it is, and I know
your pastor tells you the same thing. I've been preaching this
gospel for over 30 years now. You put all the gospel sermons
together, I preached the best of them. And if God were to judge
me based upon my best preaching, I would be damned forever. There's only one reason that
I can claim salvation in any way. And that's because of Christ. Right now. Today. And when I
stand before God at judgment, if I stand before Him and say,
look, Lord, I was in Almont, Michigan, and I preached the
gospel. If I say that, He's just going to look at me and say,
Depart from Me, you that work iniquity." What do we plead at judgment?
Christ. He's our plea. His blood for
the forgiveness of my sins. His righteousness for my justification
before God. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
the world to destroy, to purge, to remove and take away the sins
of His people, and He's done it. It's finished. And all the sins of God's elect
were laid upon him, he bore them in his body on the tree. How did he bear them? Did God
take a vial and pour it down his throat or did he shoot a
needle into him or did he mystically transfer it to him? No. He charged
him with our sins, with our death. That's what he did. Somebody
said, well, that doesn't sound real. Well, I'll tell you how
real it was. Under the charge of the debt
of our sin, he had to suffer, bleed, and die to pay that debt. That's what it took. It took
his blood to pay our debt. All the sins. He bore them in
his own body on the tree. the sufferings, even the death
of the cross. So suffering. The wrath of God
was poured down upon the Son of God incarnate, that innocent
Lamb who remained perfectly innocent in Himself, but became guilty. How? Because God charged it to
Him. How guilty was He? Well, he cried
out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was forsaken
of God. And yet that whole time on the
cross, he didn't have one sinful thought or one sinful motive. Even when he was forsaken of
the Father, he had perfect faith. You know how I know that? Because
when he cried out those awesome words that we cannot really understand,
remember what he said? He didn't say, God, why have
you forsaken me? He said, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? And he wasn't asking a question
for information there. He was making a point. Sin separates
from God. Now, we can ask the question,
how could God be separated from God? I cannot explain that to
you, not even going to try it. It is something we stand back
in awe of. But here's the point. I know
it was because of my sin charged to him. It wasn't my sin put
into him. You can't put sin into anybody.
Sin's not a glass of water that you drink. It's not a germ that's
floating around in your blood. What is sin? Well, here he says
it. It's transgression. It's breaking the law. It's sin. It's coming short. It's iniquity. It doesn't measure up. It manifests itself in all sorts
of ways, in selfishness, in pride, in immorality, from the thoughts
Sin is an inward thing, yes, because it comes from the thoughts
of God. It's not what goes in the mouth
that defiles you. It's what comes out of the heart.
What is the heart? It's your mind. It's how you
think. It's your will. It's your affections. It's what
you want. What drives you? What drives
the natural man? What does he desire? Not the
things of God. Not the things that would honor
God, even in his religion, he desires religion that exalts
himself. And not God. The Son of God redeemed us from
the curse of the law. With his own precious blood.
And look back at verse two, he says, Blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is
no guile. Now, what is that? That's spiritual
life. Now, let me let me put it in
perspective for you. And this is how I would conclude
the message, this non-imputation of sin. What does it mean? What does it involve? I want
you to turn to two passages of Scripture to 2 Corinthians 5.
Turn to 2 Corinthians 5. And then we're going to look
at Romans chapter 4, 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans chapter
4. What does the non-imputation
of sin? Now, it means that God doesn't
charge us. Paul wrote in Romans chapter
8. If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies.
Who can condemn us? It's Christ that doth. He rather
is risen. It means three things. I'll be
very brief on these. Number one, the non-imputation
of sins means that our sins were imputed, charged, accounted to
the Lord Jesus Christ. He took our debt. Look at 2 Corinthians
chapter 5 verse 17. He says, therefore, if any man
be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are new, become new. And all things are of God who
has reconciled us unto himself by Jesus Christ and has given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. Now, what is that ministry of
reconciliation? It's a ministry of peace between
God and sinners. What's the content of it? Look
at verse 19. To wit, or namely, now I'm going
to, Paul's saying here, I'm going to describe to you what the content
of the ministry of reconciliation is. That God was in Christ. First of all, Christ is God. The Son of God, the second person
of the Trinity. He's the God man. Immanuel, God
with us, and the triune Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
engaged His glory in the person of the God-man. Colossians 2.9
says it this way, for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily. So God was in Christ, look at
it, reconciling the world unto Himself. Now the world there
doesn't mean every individual without exception. It means God's
elect over the whole world. And here's how he describes them.
Now, let's look at it. Reconciling the world, not imputing
their trespasses and not charging them with their trespasses. All right. and hath committed unto
us the word of reconciliation, now then we are ambassadors for
Christ, as though God did beseech by us, we pray, and Christ did,
be ye reconciled unto God, for He hath made Him sin for us."
Now there it is. What does the context say? God
didn't impute, charge the sin to us. What did He do with them?
What did He do with that death? He charged it to somebody else.
He charged it to Christ. How he made him sin. He didn't make him a sinner.
You know, if one of your children runs up a credit card and you
decide you're going to pay it, there's no way that the bank
can legally say, you ran up the debt. But you become chargeable
if you say, put it on my account, I'll pay it. And you pay it and
it's wiped out. That's what Christ did for his
people as our surety. He paid the debt. It was charged
to him. He didn't run it up. You did.
I did. We're the sinner. He's the sin
bearer. We owe the debt, but he became
the debtor when he said, put it on my account. So that's what
it means. Our sins were imputed to Christ.
Secondly. Secondly, the non imputation of sins. To us. means his righteousness imputed,
charged to his people. Now look over in Romans chapter
four. Now, here's one of those great
examples of having a direct New Testament commentary on Old Testament
scriptures. Now, you know, the New Testament
is a commentary on the Old Testament. You know, we talk about how The
Old Testament is Christ concealed, the New Testament is Christ revealed,
all of that. And that's true. But here, the
Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, quotes our
text, Psalm 32. And you know what he does? He
tells us exactly what David meant. What David intended, what was
on David's mind and heart. And look at it in Romans four
and verse six. He's talking about how God justifies a sinner, how
God brings a sinner to be not guilty and to be righteous before
him. And he says, verse six, even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man. Now, look at unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works. Now, if you go back to the text,
do you even see the word righteousness in our text, Psalm 32? No. You don't see the word righteousness
literally written out there, do you? But you want to know
something? It's there. How do you know that? God, the Holy Spirit, says it
is right here. This is what when David said,
blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.
This is what he meant when David said, blessed is the man unto
whom God imputeth righteousness without words. When did David say that, verse
7, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose
sins are covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord will not infuse sin. That's what David meant. You
cannot have in God's, listen, in God's salvation that he provides,
you cannot have the non-imputation of sin without having the imputation
of righteousness. They go together. And then you look back at 2 Corinthians
5, verse 21. For he hath made him sin for
us, Christ who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him." What is that righteousness of God? That's
the righteousness that Christ worked out on Calvary in his
death that's charged to his people. Not only has Christ paid my debt
in full, he's given me the riches of his grace and his glory. That's what's put to my account.
I'm righteous in God's sight. Somebody said, well, you don't
look righteous to me. You're exactly right. I don't. But I
don't have to. I don't have to look righteous
to you. Truth is, you don't look righteous to me either. But you
don't have to. If you have Christ, you have
it all. He's my all and end all. Well, here's the third thing.
The non-imputation of sin, which means the imputation of righteousness,
also means his life, the life of Christ, imparted to his people. What do you mean by that? Well,
you remember over there in our text in Psalm 32, the last line
of that, verse 2, was, in whose spirit is no guile. What is the
spirit? That's the heart. That's the
inner man. What is guile? Well, guile is
a lot of things. It's dishonesty. Like a sinner
being dishonest about himself, about his sins. Any sinner who
comes before God pleading anything but the righteousness of Christ,
the blood of Christ, is dishonest. He's not confessing his sins.
But to be dishonest, if you're in Christ, And to not realize
that in him you have a righteousness that answers the demands of God's
law and justice. My friend, that's dishonest,
too. We have faith in Christ. Now,
Christ said you must be born again. Where sins are not charged and
righteousness is charged in Christ. Where righteousness is imparted,
spiritual life is given, it is imparted. in the new birth. You must be born again. The Bible
says in Romans 5 and verse 21, that as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 8 and verse 10, if Christ
be in you, the body is dead because of sin, that's his physical body,
but the spirit is what? Because of what? Righteousness. Now, when the spirit imparts
life, he does not make you righteous in yourself. There's not a verse
in this book that will back that kind of sinless perfection up. But I'll tell you what he does
do. He convicts you of sin. Because you believe not on Christ,
he convicts you of righteousness because Christ went unto the
Father, and he convicts you of judgment because the prince of
this world is judged. He makes you hunger and thirst
after righteousness, which hunger and thirst can only be satisfied
one way, in Christ. And you won't find it in anything
else. You won't find it in yourself.
You won't find it in anything you do. You say, well, I got
baptized when I was 12. If that's where you find righteousness,
you fall way short. You say, well, I had a dream
and it was so real. Well, hell's real, but I don't
want to go there. You say, well, I've gone to church
all my life. If that's your righteousness,
my friend, that will help you not at all. You say, well, I
went on missionary trips. I gave my tithe or I did this
or whatever. Listen. If it's anything less
or anything more than Christ and him alone. You know what
that means? You have no life. Haven't been
born again yet. Somebody asked me one time, said,
how can you tell the difference? between Holy Spirit conviction
and natural conscience conviction. I said, well, it's simple. Where
do you find peace? Where do you find relief? Where
do you find hope? Where do you find forgiveness?
Where do you find righteousness? Where do you find salvation?
If you find those things anywhere but in Christ and Him crucified
and risen, it's not Holy Spirit conviction. Because if it's Holy
Spirit conviction, he'll lead you nowhere to no one but Christ
Jesus the Lord and him alone. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
how thankful we are for your grace and mercy in Christ, for
the non-imputation of sin, the imputation of righteousness,
the impartation of spiritual life, so that we might look to
Christ and rest in him for all salvation. We pray, dear Lord,
you would bless us throughout this day, bring us back tonight,
for it's in his name we pray. Amen.