Let's open our Bibles again to
Romans chapter 9. The title of the message this
morning, The Work of Righteousness. Human beings just have a knowledge
in them that there's a God we must please. There's a God we
must answer to, that we are not in and of ourselves what he requires
us to be. But our problem is we don't know
who God is. We don't know what God's like.
So men try to imagine what God may be like. And what they end
up doing is making up a God that they think that they can please.
You know, the reason it's so hard to study Greek and Roman
mythology, you have to spend a lot of time trying to study
all the Greek and Roman mythology. It's so complicated. You know
why that is? It's because they made up so
many different idols. trying to represent who God is,
what God's like, what God does. They made up many idols in charge
of so many different things because they never imagined a God like
God. One God who's in control of all
these things. That's the people Paul's writing
to here in Rome. This is the very seat of that, where all
that was going on. That's why the Apostle Paul told
those men at Mars Hill, in all things, you're far too superstitious.
But you know what? Nothing's changed. We don't call
it mythology today. But you've got to get a degree
to try to understand and remember all the different gods, little
g, all the idols that men worship today. Every denomination has
their own version of God, and many of them go under the same
name, but they're very different. The Baptists and the Methodists
and the Presbyterians all have a god. They're all different.
Pentecostals, the Muslims, all the different Eastern religions,
they all have a different version of God. And they're all idols,
every one of them. And I tell you the reason for
it. It's the same thing as what happened in Greece and what happened
in Rome. By our own intellect, by our own human mind, many of
you are brilliant, brilliant people. But no matter how brilliant
we are, we can never know who God is. Because God is too high
above our imagination. We just cannot imagine how high
and glorious and wonderful He is. This is the reason men think
God loves everyone. You reckon the people of Noah's
day thought that? I don't think so. This is why men think Jesus
just wants to save everyone. You think people in hell think
that? This is why men think, oh, now, God's too nice, He's
too kind, He'd never cross your free will. Well, you better hope
He does. You know why men think that?
Men are making God out to be like us. Because what we are,
this fallen flesh, is as high as we can think, and that's very,
very low. We ought to be thankful God's
not like us. God is holy, God is just, and God is truly loving. truly gracious, truly merciful
sinners. That's why God saves sinners.
The reason I said we ought to be thankful God's not like us,
if it were left up to us, we wouldn't save the people God
saved, would we? No, we'd save good people. We'd
save people who are like us. I didn't promise you we wouldn't
save our enemies, would we? No, we wouldn't. I'm glad God's
God and that God is the one who saves His people. By our own
intellect, man can never figure out who God is. We can never
figure out by our own intellect how a sinner can be saved either.
God's too high above our imagination and our sin is too great for
our imagination to ever be able to comprehend it. So the salvation
of a sinner, how a sinner can be made righteous, is a whole
lot harder than what the natural man will ever realize. And that's
why I want to talk about this morning. How is it that God does
save sinners? How is it that God makes a sinner
righteous? How is it a sinner can be made
righteous? It's only by the work of God. And Paul gives us a very
simple outline here that tells us the work of redemption, tells
us the story of salvation. Now, the first thing we've got
to understand, we can't go any further about this matter of
the work of righteousness until we understand this. We have a
real need, you and I, all of us here, we have a real need
to be made righteous because we're sinners. We have a real
need for God to do something for us that we cannot do for
ourselves because we're dead in sin. Look at verse 25 of Romans
chapter 9. Here's us. As he saith also in
Hosea, I will call them my people which were not my people, and
her beloved which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in
the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people, there
shall they be called the children of the living God. Now you understand
what this is referring to. It's referring to God's eternal
purpose to call the Gentiles. It's God's eternal purpose to
have mercy upon the Gentiles. And this was news to the Jews
of that day. It shouldn't have been, but it
was. All throughout the Old Testament, the Jews were the people of God,
the nation, the physical nation Israel, the Jews. They were the
people of God, weren't they? That was the only nation that
God revealed himself to, the only nation. It was the only
nation God gave his word to. It was the only nation God gave
the prophets to. It was the only nation that God gave the sacrifices
to that pointed to our Lord Jesus Christ. It was the only nation
that God gave the priesthood to. Israel was the people of
God. When God sent news to Pharaoh,
God sent a message to Pharaoh, what did he tell him? Let my
people go. My people. I don't know if Pharaoh
had anybody else enslaved in the world or not, but the people
God meant for Pharaoh to let go were my people. Israel. That's his people. And throughout
the Old Testament, the only people that God showed any love to was
the nation Israel. As a nation, the only people
God showed any love to was the nation Israel. God set his love
upon Israel and no other nation. But you know, now we know this.
It's so obvious to us now. Now we know God's eternal purpose
was to always have mercy upon the Gentiles. God's purpose was
always to call the Gentiles. And aren't we glad? They're not
a physical Jew in this room, but they're children of God.
Aren't we glad it was always God's eternal purpose to have
mercy upon the Gentiles? And he gave us hints of that
throughout the Old Testament. In Hosea, he didn't give us a
hint. He told Hosea exactly what his purpose was. He said, they're
coming today, I'm going to call the Gentiles. And he gave us
examples of it throughout Scripture. God in His mercy saved Rahab,
the Gentile harlot. God in His mercy saved Ruth,
the Gentile heathen, and he brought the Savior according to the flesh
to those two women. God sent his prophet one day
to heal an old leper. He passed by every leper in Israel,
and he cleansed Naaman and Asiri. It was always God's purpose to
have mercy upon the Gentiles. He gave us that in picture. That
was all done to give us a picture of who God's people, who his
people, really are. Not the nation Israel, but spiritual
Israel, the nation, the people that God chose. And the people
that God chose to save, the people that Christ came to redeem are
sinners. They're real, live, vile, guilty
sinners. Everybody that God saves is born
in sin. They're born a spiritual Gentile,
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, separated from God.
And that's you and me. We're born into this world by
the seed of Adam, aren't we? We come into this world, we're
not God's people, we're Adam's people. We're not like God, we're
like Adam. We're not born the first time, we're not born spiritual
people, we're born fleshly people. And that's all there'll ever
be is flesh. We're not born being a friend of God, we're born the
enemy of God. We're not born beautiful and
lovely, we're born ugly and unlovable. We're born hateful and hating
God. You see, that's our sin. That's our nature. And that sin
nature makes us opposed to God in every way. So if God's going
to save those people, He's going to have to make them what they're
not. He's going to have to make them His people. God's going
to have to change their citizenship. He's going to have to change
their citizenship and translate them from the kingdom of darkness
in the kingdom of His dear Son. He's got to take them from the
dunghill and set them among princes. God's got to make them His people.
He's got to make them His people by giving them a new nature.
Because that nature of Adam can never be made God's people. He's
got to give them a new nature. If God's going to love those
people, and He does, God loves those people. He set His love
upon them. Now that means something. If
God loves them, He's going to save them. But God can't take
them the way they are. If God's going to love those
people, He's going to have to make them people He can love.
He's going to have to make them righteous. God can't love someone
in their sin. God can't love unrighteousness.
So if God's going to love somebody, He's got to make them holy like
He is, because He can't love them in their sin. Well, that
reveals our problem, doesn't it? We don't have the ability
to give ourselves a new nature. We cannot cause ourselves to
be born again. And we can't make ourselves righteous. We can't
make ourselves holy. So if anybody's going to be saved,
if any sinner's going to be made righteous, isn't it obvious who's
going to have to do all the work? God is. He's going to have to
do all the work. And this is what the gospel declares.
It's a very simple gospel that any child can understand. That
the triune God, the three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
they have done. all of the work of righteousness
for God to let. But first, we've got to understand
it. We've got to understand these things. We've got to understand
our need to be made righteous. Here's how God makes his people
righteous. He does it by the work of the
Father, the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit.
My second point is this. Here's the work of God the Father
in this work of righteousness, verse 27. Isaiah also crieth
concerning Israel. Though the number of the children
of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. Now the work of the Father in
this work of righteousness is election. That's what this remnant
is all about. It's God's election. It's God's
choice of a people to save. And this is a gracious, glorious
thing that God would choose a people to save. Look over page of Romans
chapter 11, verse 5. Even so, at this present time
also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. The election of grace. Friends,
don't ever think of election as a mean, as a harsh doctrine. For God would not allow some
poor sinner to be saved who came to Him wanting to be saved, wanting
to be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Election never means
Election is a loving doctrine. Oh, it's so sweet. It's the election
of God's grace. His grace to sinners. That God,
how wonderful does the thrice holy God have to be to choose
to save sinners who are the opposite of Him. Oh, it's grace that would
move God to save sinners. Choose to save sinners who are
His enemies. Oh, what a gracious, glorious
doctrine. The only way any sinner could
ever be saved is if God would choose to save them by His grace.
By His grace. Because they could never deserve
it. God's got to do something for them they do not deserve.
And He did. He chose to save them by His
grace. And in grace, undeserved free
grace, God chose to save sinners. Remember I told you by our human
intellect we can never imagine what God is? Nobody ever could
imagine such a thing as God's grace. Man could never make that
up. Only God could have such grace.
Nobody knew all these sinners were God's people. They weren't
known to anybody but God. They didn't even know they were
the people of God until God told them about it. They didn't even
know God loved them until God set His love abroad in their
heart. And here's how God describes His elect. He says they're a
remnant. And the word means just exactly
what you think it means. It means just a few. God gave us a picture of this
remnant, a few, throughout the Scriptures, throughout the Old
Testament. In Noah's day, how many souls entered that ark?
Eight souls. Just a few. They were saved,
weren't they? Millions, millions of physical
descendants of Abraham live on this earth. They have for many,
many, many, many years. But just a remnant, just a few
of them are saved. And at this time, God puts judicial
blindness upon them so that they cannot see. They refused Christ,
they would not have Him. They said, let His blood be upon
us and our children. God said, all right, I'll give
you what you want. And they're blinded to this day, Paul says.
In Egypt, when God sent that word to Pharaoh, let my people
go. Now, Pharaoh's going to hang on. He's going to rebel, but
he's going to let God's people go, because that's God's will.
And over three million of them left Egypt. Three million. I can't even imagine how many
people that is. Two. Two over the age of 20 entered
into the Promised Land. A few. But they had rest there,
didn't they? Remember, Elijah thought the
number was so few, he said, I'm the only one left. God, I'm the
only one left. What's going on here? I'm the
only one left. They're trying to kill me. God said, Elijah,
just hang on for a second. I reserved unto myself 7,000
men, but not bowed to me and bailed. 7,000 is a lot of people,
isn't it? That's a lot of people. But it's
few compared to the number that did bow to me and bail. Just
a few. God's elect on earth are just
a remnant. They're just a few. You just
wait. You just wait until God puts
them all together. Scripture tells us at that time
there are going to be a number no man can number. The Lord is
the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts. And that host is made
up of these few. Just a remnant. Only God can
do that. Only God can have a few. That's
a number no man can number. But here's something else about
this remnant. I think you're so comfortable to encourage it.
It shows us this election of grace. It's so undeserved, it's
so sweet. What is a remnant? A remnant
is what's left over after the good work has been done. The
remnant is what's left over after the good part has been used.
You go down to the carpet store and you can buy at a cheaper
price remnant. You know what a carpet remnant
is? A carpet remnant is what's left
over after the rich people have carpeted their house wall to
wall. And then the poor people can
go buy a remnant. Now, it's not going to fit your
house just right. It's just a remnant. It's what's
left over. And you're just going to have
to put up with it not fitting right because it's a remnant. It's the part
that's of no use to us good people. A remnant is what someone else
didn't want and what someone else didn't need. Oh, that's who God saved. Those
people are not worth a thing. They're what nobody else wants,
what nobody else needs. That's who God saved. And then
a remnant, a seamstress has remnants. Women who sew, they cut out a
pattern. They make them a nice dress. And the remnants are what
falls on the floor. What that woman is cutting out
to make her dress, she doesn't let that fall on the floor, does
she? But those remnants that fall down, that's what she doesn't
need. That's not going to be part of the dress. And when she's
done making that nice dress, you know what she does with all
that scraps laying down there on the floor? She scoops them
up and puts them in a bag. Just jams them all down there
in a bag. She doesn't fold them. She doesn't do any special. She
just jams them down in a bag. Later on, maybe she'll use those
remnants for rags or something. She'll use them for dishrags.
She'll use them to wash the car or something, you know. If she's
really, really, really talented and wants to take a lot of time
with those scraps, she might make a quilt out of them. You
know why so few people make a quilt? You know why it's so expensive
when you find one to buy? Nobody wants to do much with those remnants.
They're just scraps. Yeah, she might save them for
something, but she really won't shed a tear if they all get damaged
or destroyed, will she? They're just scraps. They're
not worth anything. That's God's elect. That's the
people that God saves. That's the people that God chose.
They're just a remnant. The world sees no value in them
whatsoever. And I want to tell you what else.
They don't see any value in themselves either. I'm not worthy. That's what Jesus
said. I'm not worthy. But God saw value in them. You know why God saw value in
His people? Not because they were valued. No, there wasn't
any value in them. You know why He saw value in them? Because
He saw them in His Son. God chose those people in His
Son. He set His love upon those people. And those people that God chose
to redeem, those people He chose to make righteous were so valuable
to Almighty God that the Father sent His Son to make them righteous
and to suffer and die to pay for their sin. That brings me
to the third point. The work of the Son in righteousness. We see it in verse 28. For He
will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because
a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. Now, the people
that the Father elected to save, they're totally sinful people,
totally depraved. They can't do anything but sin. Everything they do is depraved. It's just depravity. They can't
make themselves righteous by their depravity, can they? You
can't make something clean by washing it with dirty water.
They can't make themselves righteous. So God had to send somebody else
to do the work for them. They can't obey the law perfectly,
so God had to send somebody else to do what they could never do
for themselves, to obey the law as their representative. And
that's what the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to do. He
came to do a great work. Now, this is just no light work
He came to do. This is a great work, the work
of obeying the law perfectly, the work of making God's people
righteous to his obedience that he would give to them. Christ
came as a man and he did indeed make his people righteous. He
obeyed the law for his people, for the people that God chose.
Gave to his son, Christ came and he obeyed the law for them
as their representative. He did it perfectly. And God
imputes, he counts the obedience of Christ to be the obedience
of his elect. So Christ's obedience to the
law is your obedience to the law. Believe me, it is. It's your obedience because God
gave it to you. He gave it to you to be yours.
And the Lord Jesus Christ did exactly what He came to do. He
didn't come to failure. He came and He finished the work.
He got the job done. The word finished, Paul uses
here, means to complete entirely. He didn't do it all and leave
one thing left for you to do. He finished it entirely. Christ
obeyed the law in every job in every title. If I were to attempt
to obey the law, I can promise you I'd miss one. You know, the
law is not just the Ten Commandments. The law takes up, the ceremonial
law, the law of Moses, takes up pages and pages and pages
of your Bible. If I tried to read all the law
and obey it, there'd be one I'd miss completely and I'd ruin
the whole thing. Christ didn't do that. In every
job, every till, there was no minor point of the law to the
Lord Jesus. He obeyed it all perfectly. Everything
He did in action, completely obeyed God's law. It was always
according to God's law. And what's more, He also obeyed
it in heart. There are a few laws I could
outwardly keep for a while, but inside I don't. I don't want
to. It's just like the speed limit. I don't want to. Even if I do go to the speed
limit because there's a police officer sitting there, I don't
want to. Our Savior never had that attitude. Ever. He loved
God's law. He loved his Father. He did indeed
love God with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind,
all of his strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself. And
I'll tell you how he showed it. He loved his Father so much,
he agreed to the humiliation of being made flesh and dwelling
among men. He agreed to appear as a servant for a time to obey
his father and do his father's will. The prince of glory did
that. The prince did that. And he loved the father and he
loved his neighbor so much he agreed to be made sinful. He
agreed to suffer and die to give his soul an offering for their
sins. put their sin away, He loved
perfectly. And this, the whole purpose of
Christ being on this earth was to fulfill this mission, this
work of making His people righteous. He came to finish it. It consumed
Him. It just, the zeal of His church,
the zeal of His people consumed Him. The first words we have
recorded of the boy, Jesus of Nazareth, are this. It must be
about my father's business. He was already about the work
of finishing righteousness for his people. And the next to last
words he said before he gave up the ghost are these. That 12-year-old boy said, I've
got to finish this work. I wonder if he did it. Do you reckon? Does a 12-year-old
boy ever get distracted? Do you reckon he finished the
work? He who cannot lie said, it is
finished. He finished the work perfectly. He made his people righteous. He took their sin. He made sin
for them. And in doing so, in his sacrifice,
he made his people the righteousness of God in him. He finished the
work completely. That's the gospel. Now what's
that for me to do? Huh? What's that for me to do?
Not one blessed thing. Don't do one thing. Only believe. Just believe. Just rest in Christ. He finished the work. Paul says
he cut it short in righteousness. That word short means speedily.
Before you know it, he finished it. Our Lord Jesus spent roughly
33 and a half years on this earth as a man. Relatively speaking,
that's a short time. half of 3.10, it's a very short
time compared to all the 6,000 years this earth has been existing,
just 33 and a half years. But in that short time, you know
what he did? He established righteousness for his people. Our Lord's public
ministry just lasted about three years. All that time, three years,
not very long, just a very short time. In that time, that three
years, people watched him. They looked at him. They said,
well, this man's a sinner. This man, he's in league with
Beelzebub. He's a winebibber. He's possessed
of the devil, they said. But speedily, before they even
knew what happened, Christ had established righteousness for
his people. They didn't even know it was happening. Then he
went to the cross. They nailed him to a cross. Stuck
it up in a hole. Sat there watching, mocking.
In just a little over three hours, there are three hours of darkness
and a little time, I reckon, before and after that. Now I
know, to the Savior, that three hours seemed like an eternity.
Three hours is a long, long time on your side. But in just three
hours, three hours of darkness, before people knew what was going
on, He established righteousness for His people. When he said
it's finished, he gave up the ghost. Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit. The veil in the temple was rent
in twain from top to bottom. The way to God is now wide open
through the Lord Jesus Christ. He finished the work of righteousness.
He made his people righteous in the end. And this work of
righteousness of the Son is so important. You and I will be
damned if we don't have it. We will. If we try to stand before
God in our own righteousness, will be convenient. Because we'll
be standing before God in the filthy rags of our own righteousness.
And those filthy rags don't mean that we're there in a dirty shirt,
a white shirt that needs to be bleached. No, we're standing
before God in garments defiled with our sin. Defiled. If we
stand before God in that, in that attempt at our righteousness,
the Lord's going to make a short work of judgment. A short work.
Anyone who's not in Christ will be damned to speak quickly before
you know it. There's not going to be any long,
drawn-out process of appeals. There's not going to be any long
waiting period after the sentence has been handed down. It's going
to be short work. You and I have a perverted view
of judgment, justice. I saw this week a man who'd been
convicted of a brutal, brutal murder of his pregnant wife,
been convicted No question whatsoever of his guilt. But of course,
he's allowed all this long, drawn out process of appeals. And someday,
those appeals are going to be exhausted. And when those appeals
are exhausted, all the different levels of court have found him
guilty, so there's no more appeals. When there's no more appeals,
nothing left. The state says, it will still
take five years to put that man to death. That's not justice. The Lord's going to make a short
work of judgment upon this earth. It'll be over before we know
it. But, but, if we've been made righteous in Christ, if God has
given His obedience to us and made it ours, we will be accepted
speedily. A short work of this earth the
Lord's going to make. And He's going to take His people
out of it quickly. There'll be no probationary period. No, no,
aren't working your way up and earning a way. No, immediately
we'll be accepted into the presence of the Father. To be absent from
the body is to be present with the Lord. Short word, to close
your eyes in death in this life is to immediately open them in
glory and to look upon the face of our Savior and have him say,
well done, I've been faithful. That's the work of the Son, this
matter of righteousness. He made His people righteous
through His obedience to the Lord and by the shedding of His
perfect blood to wash them from all of their sin. But here's
the fourth thing, the work of the Holy Spirit in redemption.
Now, this story is not over. This work of righteousness is
not over until we have this work of the Spirit, verse 29. As Isaiah
said before, except the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts,
They left us a seed. We had been a sovereign and been
made like and took a more. Now we've seen the Father elected
a people to save. The Son came and redeemed those
people. He paid the price of their redemption, made them righteous.
Now the work of the Spirit is to make those people that the
Father chose and those people for whom the Son died, the work
of the Spirit is to make those people actually righteous in
themselves, make them righteous. And I'll tell you how he does
that. Wayne, he doesn't do it by changing your flesh. I don't know that I know a more
honorable man than Wayne King. I really don't. But that's not
good enough, Wayne. He's not going to change your
flesh into being an honorable, upstanding citizen. No. That which is born of flesh is
flesh. The Spirit makes His people actually righteous by making
them to be born again, by causing a new man to be born who's righteous,
who's got a righteous nature. That's what this seed is all
about, except the Lord left us a seed. Nobody would be saved. Nobody could be made righteous.
Nobody could be born again. It's all about the seed. Now,
this goes all the way back to our first point. All of us are
sinners. All of us are born dead in sin.
When I say sinners, this is what I mean. I mean real, vile, guilty,
wretched sinners. Just as vile as anyone who lived
in sodomy. Just as vile. That's offensive to the flesh,
isn't it? Just as vile as a sodomite. I'll tell you this. If you haven't
seen yourself, just as vile as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah,
just as deserving of that fire and brimstone that fell upon
them to fall upon you. If you haven't seen yourself
that way, God hasn't saved you because you still yet don't yet
have an accurate view of yourself. We're all just as vile as everyone
who died in Sodom and Gomorrah. So if God the Holy Spirit does
not cause us to be born again, we're going to perish and we
need new seeds. There's got to be new seed that
causes us to be born again. If we're not born again from
new, holy seed, we'll never be given a new nature and we'll
remain in our sin and we'll perish there. Well, what is this seed? Now, what is it? What is the
seed that Paul is talking about here? Well, Peter tells us, 1
Peter chapter 1, if you misunderstand this, you're willingly ignorant. It's just impossible to misunderstand
what Peter says here. 1 Peter 1, verse 23, being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. The seed that God uses, it's
incorruptible, it's perfect, it's holy. The seed that God
uses to give His people life and the new birth is His Word. This is the seed. Now, everything
about us is determined by the seed by which we're conceived.
Our DNA is all in that seed. Everything about our height,
about our weight, about our hair color, our eye color, our personality
traits, all of that is in the seed. by which we're conceived.
That's why we're all sinners. That's our DNA because we're
conceived from sinful seeds. That's all our father had to
pass on to us is a sin nature. That's all sin can produce. All
the flesh can produce and more flesh. But we're born again. We're not born from that kind
of seed. That seed's corruptible. It's sinful. But the Word of
God's not that. The Word of God is pure and holy. And anyone who's born of that
seed will be pure and holy. That's exactly right, like 1
John chapter 3. Whoever is born of this seed,
the Word of God, can never and will never sin. It's impossible
because of the seed by which they're conceived. 1 John 3 verse
9. This is another thing. If you
misunderstand this, you're being willfully ignorant. This is too
simple to misunderstand. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin. Does anybody not understand what
that says? Anybody who is born of God does not commit sin. It's
simple, isn't it? Why not? For His seed remaineth
in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. He cannot
sin because he is born of that perfect, holy seed. And the only person that God
will ever accept in His presence is the person who has never and
never will sin. That's what holy means. God can
only love holiness. He can only accept holiness.
So He makes His people holy. He makes His people so that they
cannot sin when they're born again in the new birth. Now this
is the objection of the unbeliever and the worry in the mind of
every believer. I know what is bothering you. But I still sin. Boy, I do. You are absolutely right. That's
all I do. There's been enough sin in the
last Ten seconds of this message to damn me for many eternities.
That's all I can do. But I mean this flesh. And that's
all this flesh is. And all that old man flesh can
do is sin. But the only me there is, is
not what you're looking at in this flesh. There's been a new
man. Born of God. It's a new nature.
Born in the heart. Born in me by the Holy Spirit. And that man never sinned. That's
the two natures that's in every believer. Anybody that does not
believe in the two natures of a believer is lost. If you do
not understand two natures in a believer, you're lost. Because
everybody that God saves, everybody the Holy Spirit causes to be
born again has two distinct and opposite natures. That's exactly
right. I've said this before, Mike Young
gave the best explanation of that anybody can ever hear. Mike
said, well, I know there's two natures in me. The nature that
loves God, that wants to pray, that wants to read God's Word,
that needs to worship God, that needs to hear His Word. That's
not of me. That's not of His flesh. That
man's been born again. That wasn't always there, but is now because
God caused me to be born again. That's the two natures that's
in every believer. And God makes His people what
He'll accept. Perfect holiness. Now, I'm not
going to experience that in this life. because I'm in this flesh
and that's all that flesh can do is sin. But both of those
natures are really, truly me. They're both Frank Taylor. The
person who sins and that's all he can do, that's all he wants
to do, that's all he loves, that's really me. It really is. That's
the me that's born of Adam. But just as true, the person
who never sins, who cannot sin, who loves righteousness, who
loves holiness, who trusts Christ perfectly, That's really me too. That's the me that's been born
of God and born in Christ. And thankfully, one day this
flesh is going to die. Some of you are probably around
to see it. This flesh is going to die. And you're going to have
funeral service, and you've got your rose hill, and you're going
to put this dead carcass down in the ground. You're going to
put it in a casket. You're going to lower it down in the ground. They're
going to throw dirt over it. Don't go home thinking all poor Frank's
out there cold in the dark. Frank ain't there. The carcass
is there. The carcass he used to dwell
in is there. The Frank's not there. You mark it down. This is this way for every child
of God. The me in that glorious day,
the me that was born again by God's grace, is going to leave
this carcass behind and will be taken to be with the Lord
forever. I tell you what, it's going to
happen speedily. A short work is going to be made of this thing.
It's going to happen speedily. Behold, I come quickly. It's
going to happen in the blinking of an eye. That's how God makes
His people righteous. That's how a sinner can be made
righteous. It's the work of God, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. And I'm thankful it's so. I'm
thankful that He's done all the work. It's not left up to you
and me. In our text, Paul talks about Sodom and Gomorrah. That's
a pretty good picture of the redemption that we're talking
about here. Everyone there in Sodom was a sinner, weren't they?
Everybody was. Everybody there deserved God's
wrath. We can't say that there's somebody
there that didn't deserve God's wrath, can we? Even Lot. Lot
was there willingly. Lot couldn't have left. We know
what they were doing grieved him. He didn't leave. He didn't
leave. No, God would have been just
in leaving him there and destroying the whole plain with Lot in it,
didn't He? He wouldn't have been. But He
didn't. You know why He didn't? Because God had chosen Lot. Christ
is going to die for Lot. Lot's that remnant. Just a few.
Just a few came out of that place. One of them turned into a pillar
of salt. Just three came out of that place. When you and I
look at Lot, all we see is a sinful man. Did Lot ever make any decision
right? Did he ever make one? That's what you and I have seen.
You know what God says about Lot? In the New Testament, God
calls Lot righteous Lot. What they did there in Sodom
and Gomorrah, that's to his righteous soul. Why did God call Lot righteous? You make a mistake. You know
why He did? Because that's the way He made him. He made him
righteous. May God be pleased to do that
same work for us today. That's how God makes sinners
righteous, and I pray you do that for us this morning. Let's
bow in prayer. Father, how we thank you. Oh,
how we thank you. We don't thank you as you ought
to be thanked. We don't thank you as perfectly
as we wish we could, but Father, we thank you for your infinite
mercy and grace for your people. this work of righteousness that
you've accomplished for your people, the people that you chose,
the people for whom your son died, and the people who your
spirit causes to be born again. Father, how we thank you. Father, I pray you bless this
message preached. Bless your word that has been
preached. Cause it to bring much glory to your name. You ought
to get all the glory. You've done all the work. All
the glory belongs to you. Cause it to bring great glory
to your name. And cause your people to flee
to Christ. He's our only hope. Cause us
to fall before you, begging for mercy. Father, be merciful to
us. We don't ask for what we deserve,
but Father, we ask for your mercy and your grace. By your mercy
would you save us. By your grace would you wash
us from our sin. Cause us to flee to Christ and
give us faith in Him that we might forever depend upon Him.
It's in His precious name we pray.