How Can Man be Just with God?

Thanks, Sally. Thanks, John. It's not going to be my text, but turn to Regulations Chapter 1 with me to start with. The Lord laid it on my heart to look at questions from Job in the book of Job, and we'll go to that in a minute. In preparing this and in speaking to men and hearing in the past, I've seen men try to claim that the Old Testament God and the New Testament God, the Gospels and the Epistles, is not the same God. I've seen this. I've heard this.

False religion teaches it that, you know, our God is, the God of the Bible is holy. can only be just with his justice. But men in false religion has taught that the God of the old Bible that was, you know, wiped out the world with the flood is not the same God that we live under now. He's more mild.

But Hebrews 13, 8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And in Revelations chapter one, the first verse says the revelation of Jesus Christ. So this is speaking of Jesus Christ throughout this book of Revelation. The first verse declares what the book is about, and men still miss what the revelations are. But in verse eight, John, he saw Christ here.

In verse eight, he said, He said, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, which was, which is to come, the Almighty. It's like God declaring who he is. He has always been, he always will be, he's the first and he's the last. He purposed everything that has happened up till now and everything that will happen from this point until he declares an end to it in this world. In verse 11, he declares again, he says, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches. And in verse 18, again, he says, I am he that liveth and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore, amen, and have the keys of hell and death. This is our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has all power, has been given all power, and has all power to do what he wants with whom he wants. He said in Romans 9, he said, I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy, have compassion on whom I will have compassion. It's not on him that willeth or runneth, but of the Lord.

So now let's go to Job chapter 9. We're going to look at a few things in Job, some questions. The Lord sent Job great trials. Our pastor preached that here a while back. He sent him great trials. Well, let's look at chapter one to start with. Chapter one says that the Lord, verse eight says that the Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant? that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God and that sheweth evil.

This was the Lord speaking of Job because Christ was his savior. Because the Lord Jesus Christ was his savior, he said he was perfect and an upright man. He was still a sinner in this world and he proved that later in the stories. But this was what the Lord said of him because he had saved him and this is what he saw.

And then, let's see, it was in chapter two. Yeah, verse three. Again, the Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect man and an upright man, one that feareth God and that cheweth evil. And he still, he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movest me against him to destroy him without cause.

Satan could do nothing except what the Lord allowed him to do. The Lord pointed him to Job. The Lord allowed Satan to wipe out everything he had and then to smite his skin, but he couldn't take his life. The Lord owned that because of the Lord Jesus Christ's blood.

So in chapter nine, verse two, our first question, Job says, I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with God? It's one of the questions I want to look at. And that's the title of my message, is how can man be just with God? In chapter 15, verse 14, Eliaphus, the Temanite, he's speaking here.

And he said, what is man that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman, he should be righteous. How can man be clean and righteous? And in chapter 25, verse four, this is Bildad the Shuite, another one of Job's friends that were sitting around through this story. They all sat around talking. And he said in verse four, he said, how then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? These questions we need to look at.

How can man be just with God? How can we be clean and righteous before God? We're born in sinful flesh. How can we be just with God? And to understand these, the Lord needs to give us some knowledge of three things. He needs to give us a knowledge of the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and what does it mean to be just before God, justified before God?

What does this mean? And we'll start with the holiness of God. I will only scratch the surface because in studying this, I could speak from now till the time the Lord takes me and I would still not have a full understanding of what God's holiness is and I won't until he reveals it to me in glory. We only see this through a glass dimly.

But God's chief attribute is that he's holy. I remember years ago I was a young man but I have never forgotten it that somebody spoke of there being a wheel, the hub of the wheel is holiness, God's holiness. All the spokes that come off of there is what he's holy because of the fact that he, or what he does because he's holy. He has a holy love. He loves his people with a holy love. They cannot escape his love if he loved them. They can't reject His love if He loved them. Boy, I thank the Lord for that one.

His mercy, His holy mercy, His holy grace, all of those are unearned and they're gifts given to poor sinful men. And His justice, He has a holy justice. There's a lot more attributes, but those are ones that I just picked up and wrote down. But that's his chief attribute is that he's holy. Everything the Lord does is because he's holy. When he, as we mentioned a minute ago about the ark and the flood, he poured out his wrath upon this world because he's holy. And they had defiled his holiness. But all that were in the ark were shielded from his wrath. That's a picture of Christ. Christ is that ark. That's how all of his people will be saved.

Let's turn to Isaiah 6. Isaiah saw God's holiness. You may want to mark that because I may come back to it a little bit further down in here. But first five verses of Isaiah 6 says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

And one cried unto another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

This is God showing himself to his prophet, Isaiah, that he chose, showing him that he's holy. that how holy he was. Psalm 119 says he sent redemption unto his people, and he hath commanded his covenant forever, holy in reverend or his name. That's how holy God is. Habakkuk 2 says the Lord is in his holy temple, that all the earth keep silence before him. Man cannot speak before a holy God. We cannot stand on our own before a holy God, only in Christ.

Psalm 99.3 says, let them praise that great and terrible name for it is holy. Our God is holy. That's his chief attribute. He is holy in everything he does, holy. Everything about our God and having to do with our God is holy. His holy angels, his holy spirit, everything. And when God manifests His grace and mercy and love, it must be in keeping with holiness. How holy is God? Well, let's look at some things.

Adam was separated from the presence of God because God is holy. Adam sinned. Turn with me to Genesis 3. Genesis 3, at the end of that, the Lord had created Adam in the likeness of himself, had placed him in a garden where the Lord's presence was, and he had fellowship with our Lord. I can't enter into that, but he had fellowship with our Lord because he was not a sinner until he disobeyed God. Once he disobeyed God, in verse 23, it says, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. And so he drove out the man and he placed at the east gate, east garden, east of the garden of Eden, cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. Adam could no longer be in the presence of the Lord. He was a sinner. He was a sinful man.

That's the same as us. We cannot, without a sacrifice, we cannot be in the presence of God. The priest, the holy priest, or the chief priest rather, not the holy priest, the chief priest, that God chose to be the chief priest, the high priest, went one time a year into the Holy of Holies to enter a sacrifice for all the people. That's what our Lord Jesus Christ did once and sat down. He did that once and sat down at the right hand of God. Exodus 33 is about Moses.

Moses requested to see The glory of God, the holiness of God. And he could not see it and live. He couldn't see his face and live. 323. 18 through 23 and he said, I beseech they show me that glory. Moses speaking to the Lord. And the Lord said, I will make all my goodness pass before the And I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put thee in the cliff of the rock, and cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen." We can only, as sinners, see a portion of how holy our God is. Moses couldn't look upon God and live. Manoah thought he had seen God and that he was gonna die. First Chronicles chapter 13.

This is the story of David having the ark returned. Yeah. Verse six, and David went up, and all Israel to Bala, that is to Kirjothim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up, thence the ark of God the Lord, that dwelleth between the cherubims, whose name is called on it. And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah, and Ahio, drave the cart. And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, with thimbles, and with cymbals, and with trumpets. And when they came upon the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumble. Uzzah touched the ark of the covenant. and God killed him for it.

That's how holy our God is. Our God needs no help. He doesn't need anybody steady and anything for him. But we can't touch the Lord our God. He is holy. He's too holy for us to touch. Back there that I mentioned in Isaiah, how holy is God? Well, the seraphims, The seraphims had six wings, two of them that covered their face, two of them that covered their feet before a holy God. They couldn't even look upon the holy God. And these were angels. And when Isaiah saw how holy God was, he cried that he was cut off.

Verse five, he said, woe is me, for I am undone. I looked that word up undone and it says that it's to be cut off, to be cut off. A man sees how holy God is and see how much of a sinner he is, he'll wonder if the Lord will save him, not anything else.

Our brother David Evanston wrote a song. He said, I know you can, but will you? I love that song. I play it over and over. But it is true. You know, men are out here telling everybody that God loves them. Nah. We need to see the holiness of God. We need to see how sinful we are. But finally, how holy is God? Turn to Matthew 27 with me. In verse 46, our God is so holy that when The sin of the people, sin of his people were laid upon him when he was made sin and went to that cross.

God forsook him, turned his back on him. 46, he said, about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? This was God that hung on the cross. God the Son. And God the Father turned his back on him because he's holy.

Could not look upon that sin. That is. Man wants to have something to do with the Holy God. The only way he can do it. Is with the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ will have to do that for him. Christ told Nicodemus that he had to be born again. No man can have anything to do with his birth. And the same with his spiritual birth. The Lord Jesus Christ has to do it all. And our second point is, so man is a sinner. Man wasn't created a sinner. Adam was created in Genesis 1. It says he was made after the image of God. He was perfect. They said, let us make man after our own image. He was perfect. He had no sin. If there was a man that had free will, it was Adam. And Adam chose to disobey God. He chose to disobey God and put all men into, he put all men into sin.

That's why the Lord Jesus Christ was born of a woman. The woman seed to be holy and without blame and perfect and without sin. In Romans 5, Chapter 12, or I'm sorry, Romans 5 verse 12 and 19. The Apostle Paul wrote, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. We're all dead spiritually and we will die physically. and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, all have sinned. None got around it. All that are born of women by manseed are dead.

And verse 19, for as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous. The Lord Jesus Christ, in his blood, makes all his chosen righteous. All of his chosen. But man is sinful. Man is born into sin. Psalm 51, five, behold, I was shapen in iniquity. David cried that. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. How sinful is man? We looked at how holy God was. Let's look at how sinful man is. And there again, we can always scratch the surface of that. We know we're sinful. Lord has shown us that. But has he shown us exactly how sinful we are? Genesis 6, 5 said, every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually. Man is going about, that's why the world looks the way it does right now. Man is going about thinking that everything he is doing is good and right.

And it's an offense to the Lord God that is holy. Let's return to Psalm 14 with me. The psalmist declared The Lord had him declare what man he is, how sinful man he is. Verse one says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none, none that doeth good. The Lord looketh down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that understood and seek or did understand and seek God. And they are all gone aside. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. None that understand. None that seek after God.

Said that all of his chosen would be taught by God. He said that in Isaiah, and Christ repeated it when he was here on earth. All of his will be taught. The Lord will draw them. The Father will draw them. The Son will save them. and reveal himself to him. Romans 3. I hope y'all remember to mark that, because we're going to go there several more times. I didn't plan it that way, but whenever I was studying and I kept hitting Romans for this part of the message and that part of the message, I'm like, well, I'll read Romans for the whole beginning, and then we'll just kind of look at that as our second text. But anyway, 10 through 18 declares how sinful man is.

As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongue they have used deceit the poison of asbestos under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the ways of peace have they not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes. That's this world today. There is no fear of God in this world, none.

Man is going about to achieve his own righteousness, claiming there is no God, claiming that what they are doing, they're doing for a God that can't save you unless you let him. This chapter here tells us what sinners we are, but then it also, at the end, what I liked about it, tells us who justifies us, which we're getting to. And men are dead, having no hope, and without God in this world, Ephesians 2. And you hath he quickened, who were dead and trespasses sin. God had to quicken us. He had to make us alive. That's the only way we could be saved. He had to do it.

And then in Ephesians 2.12, y'all turn with me there.

Ephesians 2.12, that at that time you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant and promise having no hope and without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made now by the blood of Christ. We had no hope without Christ. And if he doesn't reveal himself, if he doesn't save us, we have no hope, none whatsoever. There is no hope apart from Christ.

And it's that every mouth must be stopped, and the world become guilty by the deeds of the law. No flesh shall be justified. That's Romans 3, verses 19 through 20. After he told us how sinful we were, he said, now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped. All the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law shows us what sinners we are. The law shows us that we can't keep it.

We need someone to keep it for us. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He kept it for us. He shed his own blood to do it. But that's how sinful man is. Man thinks he's something when he's nothing. God is holy. Man is sinful. So then it comes to the third point.

What does it mean to be justified before God? To be justified is to be without sin, guilt, or blame, just as if I had never sinned. I can't comprehend that. I can't comprehend what it's like that one day I will stand before a holy God in Christ only by what Christ has done and it'll be as if I never sinned. I'll have no remembrance of sin. I won't be able to sin because Lord Jesus Christ is keeping me from it. I can't comprehend that.

Colossians 122 says in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did for his people. In Colossians, he was speaking to his saints. Paul wrote that to the saints at Colossae.

And it's to be justified is to have a perfect peace with God. Can't enter into that one either. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have this Romans 5 one. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Only way we can have peace is by the work and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He had to do it for us. He had to save us. He had to pay that debt. And we have perfect peace with him because of it. To be justified is to be free from the curse of the law and free from all charges. Romans 833, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. God, the father, God, the son and God, the spirit, they're one. God the Son came and did it all. God the Father accepted it from Christ.

To be justified is to have eternal life and glory, Romans 8.30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. To be justified is to be totally reconciled to God.

Romans 5.10 says, for if when we were enemies and we were reconciled to God by the death of his son and much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

The Lord Jesus Christ saved his people. He paid a debt that we could never pay. Therefore, in the view of God's holiness, man's sinfulness, and inability, and what it is to be justified, clean, righteous before God, we ask the question again, how can man be justified before God? How can man be justified in God's sight? And how can God be just and justify? A man cannot be justified by his own words.

Job 9.20 said, if I justify myself, my own mouth condemns me. We're sinners. We can't justify ourselves. A man cannot be justified by keeping the law. We've already seen that. We cannot keep the law.

Galatians 3.11 says, but that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God. It is evident for the just shall live by faith. We shall live by his faith. That's what it said in Habakkuk. A man cannot be justified by works. Nothing we can do. Nothing whatsoever we can do. Turn with me to Titus 3. Verse five of chapter three, Titus says, not by works of righteousness which we have done.

So if it's not by works of righteousness that we have done, how can a man be just with God? It's according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That's how we're saved. That's how we're justified. That's how God can be just and justifier. It's by what the Lord Jesus Christ did. It's by His mercy. He saved us. It's by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That's how we're saved. So turn with me back to Romans 3, and I'll close. I'll wrap this up. So how can man be just? Or how can man be justified in God's sight? How can God be just and justifier? Let's read, starting in verse 21. We'll just read down through 26 to close. But now the righteousness of God without law is manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

The law and the prophets, the whole Old Testament was about Christ and him coming. The gospel said he's here, the epistle says he's coming again. Tell us what he's done for us and that he's coming again to get us. 22, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Right there it is, being justified freely by his grace. Grace is a gift he's given us, bestowed upon his people, and then he redeemed us in Christ Jesus.

That's what Job said. He said, I know my redeemer liveth. Verse 25 says, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

All we're told to do is believe, believe. If the Lord draws us, the Lord speaks to us, if he opens our heart, we will. We will be justified before God by the Lord Jesus Christ, by his blood, his righteousness, all the works. That's why we can say at the end, Christ is all and in all, and salvation is of the Lord. No other way around it. May the Lord have mercy on that. Yeah.

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How Can Man be Just with God?

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