The book of Job in the ninth
chapter. The only basis upon which any one of us can
ever determine right, wrong, truth, There is the Word of God. I claim no other authority but
the Word of God. And every event that takes place,
especially as we get closer to the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, every event, is so ordered of God so that there is a redefining,
a reproclaiming and affirming of what God really says. I want you to listen this morning, because this week, in a country where Most liberals
insist upon a total separation of church and state. A parade
of potpourri has taken place. It's been all over the news. It's been in the halls of Congress. It's been in the UN. It's taken place everywhere. And one would wonder how such
error and such superstition and such idolatry could engulf a
land and could consume such a multitude of people. Men and women know in their conscience
that God exists, and they know that He cannot be approached
directly by they themselves. They know that He is above all,
and they know that they need a go-between. You know that. I know that. Most all know that. But the problem is that we by
nature, since our natural minds are enmity against God, we by
nature reject the go-between that God has appointed. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians, and listen in chapter 2 at what
the apostle says concerning that which is to precede the
coming of the Lord Jesus. He wrote to these believers,
and they were true believers. The Apostle is himself the Apostle
of God. And he says, Now we beseech you,
brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our
gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in
mind, or troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter
as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any
means, For that day shall not come except there come a falling
away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,
who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,
or that is worshipped, so that he as God sits in the temple
of God, showing himself that he is God. In other words, before the coming
of our Lord Jesus, and as that hour and day approaches even
closer, He says it will be characterized by a falling away, an apostasy
against the truth, against God as He is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Satan, who is, as the Bible teaches
us, the author of every false religion. Satan has his harlot. That's how she's described. The
one who is instead of Christ's bride. He has his harlot, his
spirit of Antichrist, and his counterfeits such as this, one who calls himself the vicar
of Christ, that means instead of Christ. And he is the one
who supposedly speaks ex cathedra, that means as God. He speaks as God, and who acts
as this go-between. Supposedly God's representative. And who also by means of another
go-between, Mary, who is described by them as the
mediatrix necessary in this intercession to Christ, all the way down to
these individual priests who are supposed to be necessary
for the same purpose. If you want to go to God, If
you want blessing from God, if you want forgiveness from God,
the favor of God, you have to go, they say, through these,
through all of these. The man in our text this morning,
whose name is Job, was a man who was brought, and
brought by the grace of God to see the great difference between
himself and God. If you look back here in chapter
9, listen to what Job says as he
begins in response to what others have said. It says, "...then Job answered and
said, I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with
God? If he will contend with Him,
he cannot answer Him one of a thousand." He is wise in heart and mighty
in strength, who hath hardened himself against him, and hath
prospered." There is not anybody who has ever hardened himself
against the true God and prospered. "...which removeth the mountains,
and they know not, which overturneth them in his anger, which shaketh
the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble,
which or who commandeth the sun, and it rises not, and sealeth
up the stars, which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth
upon the waves of the sea, which maketh Arturus, Orion, and Pleiades,
and the chambers of the south, the very constellations of the
stars, which doeth great things past finding out, yea, and wonders
without number, Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not. He passeth on also, and I perceive
him not. Behold, he takes away, and who
can hinder him? Who will say unto him, What doest
thou? If God will not withdraw his
anger, The proud helpers do stoop under him. And how much less
shall I answer him and choose out my words to reason with him,
whom though I were righteous, yet I would not answer, but I
would make supplication to my judge. If I had called and He
had answered me, yet would I not believe that He had hearkened
unto my voice. For He breaketh me with a tempest,
and He multiplieth my wounds without cause. He will not suffer
me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness. And if I
speak of strength, lo, He is strong. Or if of judgment, who
shall set a time to plead? So if I justify myself, mine
own mouth shall condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it shall
also prove me perverse. Though I were perfect, yet would
I not know my soul, I would despise my life. This is one thing, therefore
I said it, he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. If the
scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand
of the wicked, he covereth the faces of the judges thereof. If not, where and who is he? Now my days are swifter than
a post. They flee away, they see no good. They are passed away as swift
ships, as the eagle that hasteneth to the prey. If I say, I will
forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness and comfort
myself. I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that thou wilt not hold
me innocent. If I be wicked, why then labour
I in vain? If I wash myself with snow water,
and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the
ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. For he is not a man,
as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together
in judgment." You see, Job is brought to see how infinitely
higher, how infinitely mightier, how infinitely glorious and holy
and majestic He is, and in that light He sees to a measure what
He is. And there is between the two
a great divide. There is between the two a journey
that is impossible for man to accomplish. God is so high and
holy, and we are so low and sinful. And He is, as Job says here,
not a man as we are. And so he says this in verse
33, "'Neither is there any daysman You see that word? "...neither
is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon
us both." There is such a great difference. And since God is
not a man such as we are, Job is longing for this dayspan. Oh, that there was a dayspan. And that word simply means something
like a go-between. A mediator. Oh, that there was
one. who could be a mediator, a go-between,
between God the thrice-holy One and me the sinner, and who could
lay His hands on both of us. You see, no man like us, not
me, not you, Not any person in the lineage of Adam can be that
go-between. None of us in Adam's race can
be that mediator. And as he says, God is not a
man as we are, but we need a man as He is. And that's the one who's being
made reference to in that 33rd verse. There is one and one alone
who can be this go-between. And when you stop and think,
how many popes have there been? I'm just asking you. How many
popes have there been? There have been many. And the reason that there have
been so many is because they all died. And in their death, they showed
themselves to be mortal. They showed themselves to have
that same wage of sin that God talks about, which is death. One can call them holy if they
want. But when they lay down and die,
they give evidence that they were nothing but sinners. And Job's cry is for this daismon,
one that can represent both parties, one that is suitable for each
side. And God in His infinite wisdom
has appointed one who is called the Wisdom of God. The one in
whom God can remain holy and just in Himself and yet show
mercy to sinners like us. There is a go-between. God has
appointed a go-between. And there is no other. Not all of man's go-betweens,
be they whoever they are, none will suffice, because they're
all the same. He cannot look upon sin. He cannot
receive us as we are in ourselves, and neither can he receive a
mediator or a go-between who is just like us in every way. All the priests that we find
in the Old Testament, he himself says the reason that their priesthood
all ended was because they all died. And when you die, you show yourself to be what
you are. But the one that He has appointed
as this go-between, one of His name is Emmanuel. What does that mean? It means
God with us. God with us. God was manifest
in the flesh. God became a man, but not a man
like us. He's a man without sin. That's
the only mediator God can accept. The only thing that can go to
God is this One who came from God, who is God Himself, manifest
in the flesh. Hold your place, but go over
to 1 Timothy. Now this is why I say that our
only rule of deciding truth and error, our only way of judging,
and God does say contrary to what men say. When they rest
that verse out of Scripture and say, judge not, lest you be judged,
God says this, judge righteous judgment. And the only way to
judge righteous judgment is to judge things based on what God
says. And based on what God says, there
is no place in all of God's Word where it is more concisely and
clearly stated than here in 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 5. Now you look at that and you
tell me what it says. For there is one God, and one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Not a pope, not a priest, not
a preacher, one mediator. Now, I didn't invent that. I delight that it's true. I would
have never believed it had it not been for the grace of God.
I would be as prone to deception as any are that have demonstrated
it in the past week. But if we're going to be believers,
the only ones who are believers are those who believe His truth. You're not a believer just because
you believe something or believe in God. You're not a believer
just because you count yourself to be a Christian. You're only
a believer if you believe the truth of God's Word. If you hold
that Word higher than any other standard, if you use that Word
to determine what is true and what is false, what God says,
What he doesn't say. This is what he says. There's
one God. There's just one. If we had any
understanding about the whole thought and concept of God, we'd
know there can only be one God. But not only that, he says, in
one mediator between God and men, Not man in that generic
sense. But men, these men given to Christ
by the Father before the world began, there is one mediator
between God and men, the singular man, Christ Jesus. Now you don't have to be a rocket
scientist. You don't have to be a Greek
scholar. All you have to be is a believer. And you'll never
be that apart from God's grace. Unless He gives you faith. We
can be deceived by a multitude of everything imaginable, but
we can only believe one thing. That's what God says. He says there's one Mediator.
And His mediation between God and His elect is based on His
priestly work, His redemption of them by His blood. In other words, if you go back
in the Old Testament to those priests who actually, under the
law of God, were appointed of God, They were appointed of God,
not that they could ever really make atonement for sin, but to
show that Christ Himself is the only One, and this is the way
He does it. You see, the priest, the high
priest, though the same thing in a measure was done Every day,
the same way, sacrifices of blood offered up for an atonement of
sin, day by day, blood, blood, blood, these priests offered
it up at God's command to show that only by the shedding of
blood is there the remission of sin. But he goes on and he tells us,
it's not possible for any of this blood to make the comers
thereunto perfect. All these sacrifices, all these
ceremonies, all these things, they all were just pictures pointing
to the One, the Priest. And just to make sure that everybody
understood that, once a year, and only once a year, the high
priest was to go actually into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle
that blood on the altar there, on the mercy seat, and there
represented Christ and His sacrifice. No Israelite ever went past that
curtain into the Holy of Holies except the high priest, and he
only did it once a year. All this mediation is based upon
who he is and what he did. All of it. Because there is only
one, and only one High Priest. Turn over to Hebrews. Hebrews
chapter 7, where again and again and again, if we believe the
Bible, we have to believe what He says.
Here is all this idolatry. And so the church of Rome invented
their own Bible, and they took out one of the commandments,
and they took another commandment and split it in half to make
ten. Guess which commandment was taken
out? Thou shalt not make unto me any graven image. No graven image. No crosses,
no statues, no relics, none of these things. Why? Because God is Spirit, and they
that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. So listen to what the Apostle
says in Hebrews 7 beginning at verse 23. where he is contrasting Christ,
the great high priest, to those Old Testament priests, he says,
and they truly were many priests because they were not suffered
to continue by reason of death. But this man, because he continueth
ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore, he is able also to
save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him." Who is
going to be saved? Those that come to God only by
and through this Mediator. "...seeing he ever liveth to
make intercession for them." Our priests will never die. For such, a high priest became
us. You know what that means? Suited
us. My wife used to tell me in the
early days of my fashion instruction after we were married, that you
don't wear polka dots, big polka dots and stripes at the same
time. She said, it's not becoming,
or you don't dress in such a way. She instructed our children,
you don't dress in such a way because it's not becoming. It's
not suitable. It's not fitting. So here is
the one who is suitable and fitting to us in the light of God. For such a high priest became
us. who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." We need a priest who is not a sinner. We need
a priest who is never going to die. We need a priest that God
has truly appointed. who needeth not daily as those
priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then
for the people's. For this he did once when he
offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests
which have infirmity, but the word of the oath or the covenant
which was since the law maketh the Son who is consecrated forevermore."
Just one. There's just one go-between.
There's just one mediator. There's just one who can fit
the bill. There's just one who can become
us as sinners and God as He is. There's just one who can meet
our need and one who can meet God's need. And so false religion sets forth
all these impostors. Who are sinners just like us.
Just sinners just like us. Who die just like us. Who are the children of Adam
by nature and birth just like us. Who are unable to approach
God just like us. When the Apostle Paul wrote to
Timothy describing this God, he says, "...who only hath immortality
dwelling in the light, which no man can approach unto, whom
no man has seen, nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting."
There is just one Holy Father. And whenever the high priest,
the true high priest, there in John chapter 17, which is referred
to as his high priestly prayer, when he prayed to the Father
on behalf of His people, those given Him out of the world, what
did he call Him? Holy Father. Righteous Father. He says, call no man on earth
your Father in this sense. Now, are we going to believe
man or are we going to believe God? He's the Holy Father. He hates
sin. We in our vileness cannot approach
Him. We as sinners find Him as this
God that no man can approach. And even what passes for Protestantism
in our day is simply the same man-centered, works-oriented,
godless idolatry. And just in my lifetime alone,
I have witnessed how that men and women are running to these
things as fast as they can. They love those things that appeal
to the flesh, give us robes to wear, give us pageantry and ritual
and give us ceremony and holy days and all these things, but
there's one striking absence, the gospel truth. The gospel truth. You see, Romanism
has always sought, if you just open your history books and read
it, always sought to withhold the Bible from the man in the
street. I remember reading a story about
a man who was a custodian in one of the Catholic churches
in somewhere, and the priests had gone out through the community.
Anybody that they found had a Bible. They did this often times. They
gathered up the Bible. We'll leave the Word of God to
you. Sorry. I can't trust another sinner.
And so they all piled them in a trash bin somewhere and they
called upon their custodian to dispose of them, take them out
and burn them. And he just, when nobody was
looking, picked up and started reading one of them. Guess what? The Lord opened his eyes to the
truth. Made him to know this is the
Word of God. That this is the only mediator. Christ Jesus the Lord. This is
that ever-living priest. This is that one go-between. I understand that the Pope said
recently that he would absolve the sin of abortion for a period
of one year. You know, the Pharisees who God,
when He was on this earth in the person of Christ, the Pharisees
that Christ said, you know, you're whited sepulchres, you're full
of dead men's bones, you hate God, you hate the truth, you
hate me. You know what they said even?
They said, only God can forgive sin. All that does is play into the
sins of our day. I certainly would be the last
person to ever say that a woman who'd had an abortion could not
be saved. But you better not get that forgiveness
from the Pope. God alone can forgive sins. And Peter, Peter who is supposedly
the first pope, how ridiculous, but supposedly he said in some
of his first sermons, through this man, the Lord Jesus Christ,
through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. Paul says of him, "...in whom
we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin." And if you would have
your sins forgiven, don't come to the Pope, and don't come to
a priest, and don't come to me or any other sinner. You better
go to Christ. Forgiveness is not in a confessional
booth. Forgiveness is not in a trip
down the aisle to the front of this building. Forgiveness is
only in Christ Jesus through Him, through His cross work,
which is the payment for the sins of His people. When Cornelius sent for Peter,
Peter got there. You read it in the book of Acts.
It says that Peter fell down. I mean, Cornelius fell down at
his feet and worshiped him. How many have fallen at the feet
of the Pope this week? You know what Peter said to him?
He said, get up, man. I'm a man just like you. And
one thing I'm sure of, and that is that every true gospel preacher
The thing that would make them more fearful than any other is
for those who hear them to exalt them above what they are. I am simply, as one said one
time, one beggar telling another beggar where he got bread. That's
it. Paul said, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels that the glory, might belong to God. I have to
go through the same mediator you do. I am a sinner whose sins
separate me from God, apart from Christ, just like yours do. And
the high priest, as that Old Testament law pictured, was the
only one who could enter into the Holy of Holies where God
dwelt, and he couldn't enter without that acceptable sacrifice,
and he only did it once. a year. And that's why it's the
highest blasphemy. It's the highest blasphemy to
say that this must be a thing that's repeated again and again
and again. And that's what the cardinal
doctrines of the priesthood involve in Romanism. What is called by theologians,
the doctrine of transubstantiation. That is to say, that only in
the hands of the Pope or the priest or whatever it is, the
bread and the wine, then by their distributing it and praying over
it, it actually becomes the body and blood of Christ. That is
absolute blasphemy. You say, well, don't you take
the bread and the wine? We sure do. But the first thing
I'm sure always to try to tell you is that these elements only
represent the body and blood of Christ. The death of Christ. Nothing I could pray, nothing
I could do could ever change a piece of bread, a wafer, or
whatever, or a glass of wine into the body and blood of Christ.
And to think that it does, and to receive it as such into your
body, and to imagine God's blessing upon it, when it is so contrary
to what He says, is the highest blindness. You see, Christ suffered
for His people once. You don't have to read any book
in the Bible except the book of Hebrews, and you'll find out
that Christ suffered once. That His sacrifice and His glorious
person are such that not only could He alone pay this debt,
But He alone did pay this debt. And so when we take the bread
or the wine in the Lord's table, we just do as He said, remember
me. This do in remembrance of me. And what do we remember about
Him most? When He hung on that cross, He
said, it is finished. Not ever again. Look over in
Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 24. The apostle says, For Christ
is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which
are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to
appear in the presence of God for us. There's that dayspan,
that go-between. "...Nor yet that he should often
offer himself, as the high priest entereth into the holy place
every year with the blood of others. For then must he often
have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now once in
the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself." Whose sins did He put away? You
know, the Bible says Christ died for the ungodly. Christ came
into the world to save sinners. That's the character of these.
It also says that He laid down His life for His sheep, for those
the Father had given Him. But they'll all be manifested.
in this, they'll believe on Him and only Him. You see, we're
not saved by anything we do in time, and we're not saved by anything
that He would do to us in time. We're saved by what He did. He
said, it's finished. He entered in once, and He put
away sin. by the sacrifice of Himself. And through Christ, we have direct
access to God. When He died on the cross, there's
a wonderful thing that's noted in the Bible. When our Lord died on the cross
and He said it's finished, it says, "...and the veil of the
temple was torn in two from top to bottom." In other words, that
separating veil that had been there centuries. Tabernacle, temple, high priest
alone could only go in, but he had to come out because his work
was never finished. There was no seat, no chair in
that place because he couldn't sit down, he never finished his
work. But the apostle says, when He had by Himself purged our
sins, He sat down at the right hand on high. And the evidence
is that there is now access to God in Him. The veil of the temple. Well, if it was torn from top
to bottom, who do you think tore it? God Himself. He's the way. He's the truth. He's the life. For through Him,
Paul says, we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Again, he says, in whom we have
boldness and access with confidence by faith of Him. Look over in
chapter 10 of Hebrews. The Messiah would say, according
to the prophets, and say He did. Then said He, Lo, I come to do
Thy will. Verse 9, O God, He taketh away
the first, that He may establish the second, by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Actually, that ends with once. And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sin. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down on the right hand
of the majesty on high." Look at verse 19. having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through
the veil, that is to say, His flesh. And having a high priest
over the house of God, let us draw near." We need neither priest nor pope. nor preacher who would be pope
or priest. We need Christ. We only need
Christ. We need all of Christ. We need
Him in His glorious person and His marvelous, marvelous work. The Lord Jesus Christ alone mediates
between God and man. Hebrews again, but now hath he
obtained a more excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator
of a better covenant which was established upon better promises. Hebrews 9.15, it says, "...for
this cause, through His death, He is the Mediator of the New
Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions
which were under the first covenant, they which are called might receive
the promise of eternal inheritance." One go-between. One Mediator. a priest forever. And we come by faith to Jesus,
the Mediator of the New Covenant. We come in the One whom God has
appointed. He is our go-between. He is our Mediator. He has put
away our sin, and the Lord has laid on Him the sins of His people,
and He has already suffered the penalty due to Him. And so, on
the basis of His dying for our sins, even now when we sin, we
have an Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous. We are often a people of need. But we have a high priest, he
tells us in Hebrews 4, who can be touched by the feeling of
our infirmities, who was in all points tempted like as we are
yet without sin. Therefore, let us come boldly
to the throne, to the throne of grace, that we might find
help and grace and mercy in all our times of need. What if you're somewhere you
couldn't get to your priest? You needed help. I'll never be
like that, by God's grace. He, as our priest, is the omnipotent
and omnipresent One. Oh, I love what Paul says here,
"...wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost
that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession
for them." Now, what I've told you this morning
is not my invention. It's not my theological position,
as they say. It's what God's Word says. So who's your go-between? Who
are you looking to? Some are just looking to themselves
on the basis of what they've done. Same problem. We're to be looking to Jesus,
the Author and the Finisher. The One Great High Priest forever. The One who by His one sacrifice
for sins forever put away sin. The One who is Himself the Way.
The One who in Himself is God manifest in the flesh. God provided,
therefore God accepted for all our sins. How could any who know the truth
embrace anything else. Or all this idolatry, which is
a reproach to God. Blasphemy. The man of sin. Whether it's one man embodied
or that whole representation of it. And not only in Catholicism,
but in religion as a whole, which most of the time is a little
version of the same. John the Baptist said, Behold
the Lamb of God. He was looking at Jesus Christ
that takes away the sin of the world. Whether you're a Jew or
whether you're a Gentile, whether you're in one place or another
place, whether you're in Italy or America, there's just one. The Lamb of God. God help us
to look to Him. Janice, if you'll come and we'll
sing a closing hymn today.