Well, it's a great joy to be
here with you tonight. It's been my privilege to have
spoken at each one of these G3 conferences, and we have seen
it just grow up before our very eyes. From the very beginning,
with some 800 people sold out at Praise Mills Baptist Church
until now, here we are at the Atlanta airport with over 2,500
people, and God's hand is upon this conference in such a remarkable
way. And I want to thank Josh Bice
for this invitation. It's a great privilege, and it's
a great honor to be here, and I look forward to this time that
we have now to look together into God's Word. I want to invite
you to take your Bible and turn with me to the book of Galatians.
The subject that has been assigned to me to preach is justification
by faith alone. And I can think of no greater
book to which we would turn tonight than the book of Galatians. When
we think of Martin Luther and his conversion, we normally think
of the role that the book of Romans had in the life of Martin
Luther. But the fact is, he said, Galatians
is my epistle. And he called this book his his
wife, that his heart was married to the book of Galatians. And
during his conversion in 1519, it was this book that he was
teaching in the classroom as professor of Bible at the University
of Wittenberg, and it was this book that was so instrumental
in him coming to faith in Jesus Christ and his articulation of
the doctrine of justification by faith. So I want to begin
by reading Galatians chapter 3, beginning in verse 6, and
this will be our focus during this session. Galatians 3, verse
6, even so Abraham believed God,
and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be
sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham."
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles
by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying,
all the nations will be blessed in you. So then those who are
of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. For as many as
are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written,
Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in
the book of the law, to perform them. Now that no one is justified
by the law before God is evident. For the righteous man shall live
by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices
them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, curse
it is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that in Christ Jesus
the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that
he would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." It was on October 31st, 1517,
some 500 years ago, that an obscure former Augustinian monk, who
had become professor of Bible at the University of Wittenberg
in Germany, posted his 95 theses to the front door of the church,
the castle church. It would be these 95 theses that
set off a theological firestorm of conflict that engulfed Europe
and led to the recovery of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. At the time Luther posted his
95 theses to the front door of the church in Wittenberg, he
was an unconverted man. He was in the process of coming
to faith in Christ, but he was not all the way there yet. His soul was troubled as he was
seeking to find peace with God. Earlier as a monk, Luther said,
when I was a monk, I wearied myself greatly for almost 15
years with the daily sacrifice, tortured myself with fastings,
vigils, prayers, and every other rigorous works. I earnestly thought
to acquire righteousness by my works." Martin Luther pushed
himself, perhaps as hard as anyone has ever tried, to pull himself
up to meet the standard that would make him acceptable before
God. Luther reflected and said, I
tortured myself with prayers, fastings, vigils, and freezing. He would sleep outside just to
buffet his own body, to show God how serious he was. He would
sleep outside in the freezing cold and almost killed himself
in his effort to find peace with God. He was tortured on the inside
of his soul. And all of this led to what he
would record in that same year, 1519. This is two years after
he posted the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. I
had begun interpreting Psalms once again. I felt confident
that I was now more experienced since I had dealt in university
courses with Paul's letters to the Romans, to the Galatians,
and the letter to the Hebrews. I had conceived a burning desire
to understand what Paul meant in his letter to the Romans,
but thus far, there stood in my way one word, the righteousness
of God. Luther said, I hated the righteousness
of God. which I had been taught to understand
as referring to formal or active righteousness, and by which God
is just, and by which He punishes sinners and the unjust. But I,
blameless monk that I was, felt that before God, I was a sinner
with the extremely… with an extremely troubled conscience. I could
not be sure that God was appeased by my many sacrifices. I did not love, no, I hated the
righteous God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I did not blaspheme,
then surely I grumbled vehemently and got angry with God. I said,
is it not enough that we miserable sinners lost for all eternity
because of original sin are oppressed by every kind of calamity through
the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon
sorrow through the gospel and threaten us with His wrath? This
is how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience. I constantly
badgered Paul about that one spot in Romans 1 and anxiously
waited to know what he meant. I meditated day and night on
those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention
to their context. The righteousness of God is revealed
in it as it is written, the righteous man lives by faith. I began to understand that in
this verse, the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous
person lives by a gift of God, that is, by faith. I began to
understand that this verse means that the righteousness of God
is revealed through the gospel, but it is a righteousness that
by which the merciful God justifies us by faith. Now, listen to what
Luther said. all at once. I felt that I had
been born again and entered into paradise itself through open
gates. Immediately, I saw the whole
of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures
from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings.
The work of God is that which God works in us. The power of
God is that power from God that makes us powerful. The wisdom
of God is that which makes us wise. The strength of God, the
salvation of God. Luther said, I saw that it was
all from God. And in that moment, he understood
that the righteousness of God that every person so desperately
needs is not a reward for the righteous. It is a gift for the
guilty, and it is given as a gift from God, and it is received
simply by faith. Luther was born again. And he
went on to say concerning this doctrine of justification by
faith, it is appointed for the standing or falling of the church. He said, this one and firm rock,
which we call the doctrine of justification, is the chief article
of the whole Christian doctrine. In other words, every other doctrine
of salvation in one way or another is resting upon this Mount Everest
of gospel truth, the doctrine of justification. Luther maintained,
when the article of justification has fallen, everything has fallen. This is the chief article from
which all other doctrines have flowed. It alone begets, nourishes,
builds, preserves, and defends the church of God. And without
it, the church of God cannot exist for one hour. He maintained
that this doctrine of justification is the master, the prince, the
Lord, the ruler, the judge over all other kinds of doctrines."
In other words, if you're right about justification by faith,
you will be correct in 20 other areas of doctrine. But if you
are wrong at this point, you will be wrong across the board.
in every area of your understanding of salvation. It is this pivotal
doctrine by which it defines a true church and a false church,
a church in which God's presence is real and evident, and a church
that God has abandoned and God no longer is working with. And so tonight, in the time that
we have, I want us to look at these verses in Galatians chapter
3. These are the verses that were
before Luther as he was lecturing in the classroom at the University
of Wittenberg, as he was a professor of Bible there. These verses
were echoing inside of his mind. And as we look at them, I want
you to note five things. Number one, the meaning of justification. As we look at verse 6, Paul writes,
even so Abraham believed God. And now, here is the statement
for the doctrine of justification, and it was reckoned to him as
righteousness. The ESV says, counted as righteousness. The NIV and the Holman says,
credited as righteousness. The King James and New King James
says, accounted as righteousness. What this means is when the sinner
puts faith in Jesus Christ alone, God declares the guilty sinner
to be righteous before Him. This word reckon carries the
idea to impute, to charge, to credit. The word means to put
to one's account and to count as one's possession. In the New Testament, there are
three different metaphors that are used to describe the meaning
of justification. The first is a clothing metaphor,
in which we as guilty sinners stand before the holy judge of
heaven and earth and we are absolutely naked. We have no good works
that would commend us to God. In fact, we are clothed with
our own garments and filthy rags of self-righteousness. We stand
before God condemned, and when we believe upon Christ and put
our faith in Him, God clothes us from the top of our head to
the bottom of our feet with the perfect righteousness of Jesus
Christ. That is the first analogy or
metaphor that is used in the New Testament. The second is
a banking metaphor, that as we stand before God, the holy judge
of heaven and earth, and He audits our spiritual life. we are found
to be spiritually bankrupt. We have no spiritual capital
within ourselves by which we may commend ourselves to God. In being spiritually bankrupt,
we have incurred the wages of our sin, which is death. We have
a debt to pay to God by which we can never repay and we are
paupers, in my hand no price I bring." And because of our
faith in Jesus Christ, God the Father bestows the riches of
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are immediately deposited
into our accounts. We who were paupers, we who had
nothing by which to commend ourselves to God, we who had no spiritual
capital whatsoever in order to find acceptance with a holy God,
we are given now the treasures of the riches of the glory of
His grace, and they are deposited into our account, and we become
joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. The third metaphor is
the one that is used here. It is a courtroom metaphor. And
in this courtroom metaphor, We stand before God, the holy judge
of heaven and earth. The books are open. All of our
unrighteousness is presented as evidence against us, and we
stand condemned before Almighty God. But because of our faith
in Jesus Christ, and because of the righteousness that Jesus
Christ has secured on behalf of all who will put their faith
in Him. By virtue now of our faith in
this Christ, God the Father declares us to be the perfect righteousness
of Christ. We have done nothing to deserve
it. We have no works of our own by which we may commend ourselves
to God, but entirely because of the work of Jesus Christ on
our behalf, we are declared to have a right standing before
God. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. There is now therefore no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. And I want to tell you now, give
you seven words that will define, help further define this act
by which God declares us to be righteous. in justification. It is, first of all, a divine
act. It is something that only God
can do toward us. We cannot justify ourselves. The church cannot justify us.
No pastor can justify us. No church leaders, no denomination
can justify us. Only God, who is our judge, can
justify us. It is a divine act. Second, it is an immediate act.
It is not a process. It is not something that takes
place over time. It is not an extended act. But
it is that which happens in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. A
man can come to church under the wrath of God and hear the
gospel, put his faith in Jesus Christ, and when he leaves to
go home, he can leave right with God. Third, it is a legal act. It does not describe an inner
moral change of a person's character. That's sanctification. What changes
is our legal standing before God in heaven. Justification
is a forensic legal act by which the gavel comes down by God in
heaven, and He pronounces us to be righteous. Fourth, it is
a just act. A justification is on the basis
of the perfect righteousness of another in our place Jesus
Christ. This is why Jesus had to be born
under the law. Later in the next chapter in
Galatians 4 and verse 4, Paul will say that Jesus was born
of a woman under the law. Why would Jesus have to be born
under the law? The answer is, He must obey and
keep the very law that you and I have broken again and again
and again. Not only did He die in our place,
He lived in our place. And by His perfect, active obedience
to the law of God, He secured perfect righteousness on our
behalf, and when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, His righteousness
is credited to us as though we had lived perfectly under the
very law that you and I have broken time after time after
time. You see, you and I need far more
than just forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness of sin removes the
guilt and the stain of sin, and it washes away our sin. But all that does is bring us
back to zero, and zeros do not go to heaven. We must have a
positive righteousness in order to have a perfect standing before
God. The removal of our sin only brings
us back to a state of neutrality, where Adam was in the garden.
We now need a positive, perfect righteousness to be charged to
our account, and it was accomplished by the sinless life of Jesus
with His perfect obedience under the law of God. And it was consummated
in His death upon the cross. And so it is a just act in that. The righteousness that is given
to us, God does not simply create an ex nihilo at a thin air and
just speak a righteousness and deposit it into our account.
The righteousness that you and I have received is a real righteousness
and actual righteousness that Jesus secured on our behalf as
He lived a sinless and perfect life. Fifth, it is an irrevocable
act. That is to say, once justified,
always justified, never to be reversed, never to be repeated
again. And it is a comprehensive act. Everyone who believes upon the
Lord Jesus Christ is equally justified. No one here tonight
is more justified before God than anyone else who is justified.
No one here tonight is less justified before God than anyone else.
We all are equally justified because we have a comprehensive
justification. And finally, seventh, it is an
accompanied act, meaning everyone who is justified will inevitably
and immediately be sanctified. The narrow gate always leads
down the narrow path. You cannot go through the narrow
gate and then walk the broad path. Narrow gate, narrow path. Broad gate, broad path. You cannot
mix and choose. And everyone who is justified
before God is immediately sanctified and set apart from a life pursuit
of sin, now to a new pursuit of living for the glory of God. This is the meaning of righteousness.
It is for us standing naked before a holy God, being clothed with
the perfect garments of righteousness, those secured by Jesus Christ.
It is we who are spiritual paupers who have no spiritual capital
by which to commend ourselves to God and the righteousness
of Christ being deposited into our bankrupt account. It is we
standing condemned before a holy God, guilty under the law, charged
as lawbreakers under the sentence of death. being imputed the perfect
righteousness of Christ, and now being given a perfect standing
under the law before God." No wonder Martin Luther said, this
is the chief article. Everything stands or falls depending
upon how a church A seminary, a denomination, a movement understands
this cardinal doctrine. Later, after Luther was converted
in 1519, he preached a very famous sermon entitled, Two Kinds of
Righteousness. And in this sermon, Luther says
that the righteousness that we receive in justification, is
an alien righteousness. It is a foreign righteousness,
meaning it is a righteousness that comes extra gnos, outside
of ourself. It is a righteousness that is
foreign to our experience. It is a righteousness that must
come from God, and it has come through Jesus Christ. This is the meaning of justification. and the church in Rome. had a
false gospel. The church in Rome to this day
still has a damning gospel, a false gospel, because it does not teach
what the Bible teaches here. And that was the whole conflict
in the Reformation, that the Reformers said that this righteousness
comes to us by faith alone, and Rome said it comes to us by faith
and everything else. Now I want you to note second,
the means of justification. In Galatians 3 and in verse 6,
the means by which this divine act occurs in our life is exclusively
by faith. And so we read in verse 6, even
so Abraham believed God. That's all. He believed God. This is a quotation from Genesis
15, verse 6, in which it says, Abraham believed God, and it
was reckoned to him as righteousness. The soul means by which this
righteousness is imputed to us is by faith alone, not by faith
in anything else, not by faith in good works, not by faith in
water baptism, not by faith in church membership, not by faith
in penance, not by faith in the treasury of merit, not by faith
in worshiping the Virgin Mary, not by faith in prayers to dead
saints, not by faith in relics, not by faith and pilgrimages,
not by faith and last rites, not by faith and the purchase
of indulgences, not by faith and anything except faith alone
in Christ alone. That is what this text so clearly
says. And he goes on throughout this
chapter to underscore that in verse 7. He says, therefore,
be sure. In other words, there is no room
for any uncertainty whatsoever at this point. And what he is
about to say, we're not just dogmatic about it, we're bulldogmatic
about it. Therefore, be sure that it is
those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham, not faith in
anything else. Verse 8, he says, God would justify
the Gentiles by faith. Verse 9, those who are of faith
are blessed with Abraham the believer, not Abraham the Abraham
the believer. In verse 11, he says, the righteous
man shall live by faith. Verse 12 says, the law is not
of faith, meaning you cannot mix these two systems, one of
law, one of faith, one to try to keep the law, the other by
simply exercising faith. You can't play both ends into
the middle and try to pursue both approaches to God. It's
either or. And then in verse 14, he says
that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And nothing could be more obvious
than this. A blind man ought to be able
to see this very clearly here tonight. Martin Luther, as he
was lecturing on Galatians at this very time, writes, Paul
places the emphasis upon the two words, Abraham believed. Faith in God, he writes, constitutes
the highest worship, the prime duty, the first obedience, and
foremost sacrifice. Without faith, God forfeits His
glory. The first duty of man, Luther
writes, is to believe in God and honor Him with his faith. to believe in God, Luther writes,
is to be right with God. And Luther would go on to say,
faith cannot be inherited or gained by being baptized into
a church. Faith is a matter between the
individual and God. Faith unites the soul with Christ
as a bride is united with her bridegroom. So the means is very
clear. It's by faith. And before I go
any further, I must ask you this question. Have you exercised
faith in Jesus Christ? Have you turned your back to
all your own efforts to commend you to holy God? Have you looked
away from yourself? Have you committed your life
to Jesus Christ in an act of decisive saving faith? That is the only way by which
the righteousness of God will be credited to your account. As we continue to look at this
text, I want you to note third, the magnitude of justification. In verses 8 and 9, the scope
is enormous. It is far-reaching. Notice he
says in verse 8, the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify
the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham. Please notice it says, God would
justify the Gentiles. This means that this divine act
of justification is for all the nations. In fact, he goes on
to say here in verse 8 that all the nations will be blessed in
you. This is extraordinary. anytime,
anywhere, anyone on the face of the earth has ever been made
right with God has been by this act of justification, the divine
act of justification. And this clearly speaks that
there is only one way of salvation. There was not an Old Testament
way to be saved, and then a New Testament way to be saved. There
was not one way for a Jew to be right before God, and now,
in this era, there is a different way for a Gentile to be made
right before God. no matter what nation a person
is a member of, no matter where you are upon the earth. If anyone
is ever to be made right before God and to be declared righteous
by Him, it will be only by this gospel of justification by faith
alone. And Luther understood this, and
Luther wrote as he lectured in class on the book of Galatians
on this very text, he said, the whole world is blessed if it
believes as Abraham believed. That all nations are to be blessed
means that all nations are to hear the gospel, and all nations
are to believe in Christ, and all nations will be declared
righteous before God. And then Luther adds, and all
nations are accursed by God without faith in Jesus Christ. This means that we have a great
obligation to take this message of the gospel of Jesus Christ
and His truth of justification by faith. And we must take this
message to the nations. We must preach it to our own
land and to our own nation. And we must get on airplanes
and get on boats and go far and wide and proclaim this message,
for there is salvation in no other name, for there is no other
name under heaven whereby we are made right with God. Fourth, I want you to note the
misconception of justification. As we look at verse 10, we see
the false teaching that was coming to the Galatians by the Judaizers,
who sought to put those in Galatia back under the law, and to tell
them that they must keep the law in order to have a favored
standing of acceptance with God in heaven. And so in verse 10,
we read, for as many as, and that is a reference to the Judaizers,
and it is a reference to those who are seduced by their false
gospel and their false teaching. For as many as are of the works
of the law, or under a curse. If in any way you are trying
to commend yourself to God by anything that you bring to the
table of your own goodness, your own morality, your own religiosity, Paul says you're under a curse.
And to be under a curse means that you are under divine condemnation
and you are under divine wrath, and you are under divine judgment,
it is the very opposite of blessing to be under a curse. And basically, in the world,
there are only two religions. There is the religion of human
achievement, and there is the religion of divine accomplishment.
And only Christianity is the religion of divine accomplishment
that God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, has secured the righteousness
that we need and gives it to us as a free gift and received
by faith alone. And every other religion in the
world is a religion of of works, and self-righteousness, and an
attempt by which sinful man would try to pull themselves up by
their own bootstraps to commend themselves to God. and every other religion in the
world is under a curse. And there is only one means by
which we may have the blessing of Almighty God, and it is by
faith in Jesus Christ and His perfect righteousness being credited
to us. And that we would know it has
always been this way. This is not a new message in
the church. In verse 10, Paul says, for it
is written. And when he says it is written,
he appeals to the Old Testament to show that this is nothing
new. This is the way that it has always been throughout the
Old Testament. And so he now quotes Deuteronomy
27, verse 26, and he says, for it is written, cursed is everyone. who does not abide by all things
written in the book of the law to perform them." That means if you have ever broken
the law at even one point, you are guilty of the entire law,
and that you are under the curse of God, and there are no exceptions. This is a very strong message
that Paul writes, that Luther laid hold of. And Luther, writing
on this verse in his commentary on Galatians, says, the curse
of God is like a flood that swallows everything that is not of faith. All men who are under the law
are under the sentence of death and are under the wrath of God
of everlasting death. They abide under the curse of God. Romans 1.18 says, for
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness
and ungodliness of men. Ephesians 5.6 says, the wrath
of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Ephesians 2 verse
3 says, you were by nature children of wrath. Colossians 3.6, the
wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience. In verse 11, Paul writes now
that no one is justified by the law before God. Did you hear
that? No one, not you, not me, not
anyone, no one in America, no one in Europe, no one in Asia,
no one in Russia, no one in Africa, no one in South America, no one
anywhere is justified by the law before God. The law can only condemn. The law cannot save. He says,
it is evident in verse 11, for the righteous man shall live
by faith. Paul is intensely strong at this
point. that justification is by faith
alone. And in verse 12, he says, however,
the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices
them shall live by them. There was by Paul a zero-tolerance
policy for any departure whatsoever from the purity of the doctrine
of justification by faith alone. And he began this book by saying,
if any man preach a gospel other than the gospel which I have
received, he is to be accursed. which means condemned and damned
to hell forever. This is the only way by which
sinful men and women may be made right before an infinitely perfect,
holy God in heaven. It is by the doctrine of justification
by faith alone. Finally, I want you to note in
verse 13 and 14, the mediator of justification. The ground
or the foundation of justification is the person and work of Jesus
Christ. So in verse 13, we read, Christ
redeemed us. from the curse of the law. You
were under the curse of the law. I was under the curse of the
law. There was no way that we could rescue ourself. There was
no way we could escape the curse of the law. But Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law. And the way that He has done
that, He will go on to tell us, is that He became a curse for
us. Upon the cross, Jesus bore our
sins in His body upon that cruel judgment tree. And as Jesus bore
our sin in His body upon the tree, The Father poured out His
wrath deserving upon us. He poured it out upon Christ,
and Christ bore the wrath of God upon that tree. And in the great exchange of
the cross, All of our sins were laid upon Christ, and as our
sins were laid upon Christ, He suffered the punishment and the
wrath and the judgment of Almighty God in our place upon that cross. And His righteousness has now
been transferred to us. The worst about us laid upon
Him. The best about Him laid upon
us. It is double imputation. Our sins imputed to Christ, His
righteousness imputed to us. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 says,
him who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us, that we might
become the righteousness of God. in Him. He bore our sins that
we might receive His righteousness. He goes on to say in verse 13,
for it is written, and he now appeals to the Old Testament
again. He appeals to the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 21,
verse 23, for it is written, cursed, judged, condemned, sentenced
to death. Cursed is everyone who hangs
on a tree. And in the Old Testament, under
the law, when one broke the law and was worthy of the death penalty,
they would be stoned to death. And after being stoned to death,
their dead body would then be nailed to a tree, there to be
exposed publicly as a statement to the community of being under
the judgment of God by being stoned to death. And Paul now
draws upon that Deuteronomy passage and sees its ultimate fulfillment
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that as He hung upon that tree,
He was becoming a curse for us. Finally, in verse 14. Paul writes, in order that –
here's the purpose of his sin-bearing, wrath-absorbing, curse-suffering
death – in order that in Christ Jesus, in His sinless life and
in His substitutionary the blessing of Abraham. This blessing is
the blessing of justification. It is the blessing of imputed
righteousness. It is the blessing of being given
a right standing before God and a standing of acceptance before
Him. It is the blessing of being dressed
in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is the blessing
of being declared, forensically, to be the righteousness of God
in Christ. in order that in Christ Jesus
the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. It is this
same gospel truth that saved Abraham, a Jew in the Old Testament,
is the same truth that will save you and me today, either a Gentile
or a Jew, so that we, referring to we who believe in Christ,
would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. What is faith? The Reformers, Luther, Calvin,
were so articulate as they defined saving faith. They understood
that there must be the knowledge in the mind of the truth. There
must be the persuasion in the heart of its truthfulness, and
there must be the act of the will to act upon this truth. Saving faith is the commitment
of my life to all that Jesus Christ is. It is the recognition
that my own righteousness is but filthy rags in the sight
of Almighty God, that by my own works of the law I am condemned
and under the sentence of death. It is to be persuaded in my heart
and to be convicted of my sin, of my desperate need for the
righteousness that only Jesus Christ can clothe me with, to
give me a perfect standing before God. And then it is the decisive
choice and act of my will to take that step of faith and to
commit my life to Jesus Christ. It's more than just head knowledge,
and it's more than just knowing and being persuaded of it, but
it requires taking that step of faith and entering through
the narrow gate and entering into the kingdom of God. This is what Paul has written
concerning justification by faith alone. And if you have never
committed your life to Jesus Christ, if you have never believed
that you're a sinner and that Jesus Christ is the only Savior
of sinners, if you have never committed your life to Christ,
I call you this night. to believe upon Him, to entrust
your soul to Him, to turn away from all of your own self-efforts
and your own self-righteousness, and to repent of that, and to
come by faith to Jesus Christ, and to surrender your life to
Him. Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father but through Me. The Bible says, whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And if you
will commit your life to Christ, the Bible says, there is now
therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
because Christ has suffered our condemnation on our behalf as
He bore our sins upon the cross. If you've never committed your
life to Christ, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, today
is the day of salvation. If you hear His voice, harden
not your heart. Boast not yourself of tomorrow,
for you know not what a day may bring forth. I plead with you
to commit your life to Christ tonight and to believe upon Him,
and He will clothe you with His perfect righteousness. He will
deposit the riches of His grace into your bankrupt account, and
He will declare you legally. to have a perfect standing of
righteousness before the Father in heaven. Let us pray.