Back in 1976, Brother Henry Mahan
asked me to come and preach for him in Ashland. It was on a Wednesday
night. It was the first time I'd ever
gone to Ashland to preach. And I didn't know many people
there. I knew a few of them, but not
many. And after Shelby and Faith and I arrived, shortly after
we got there, an older couple came in. They had been charter
members They'd been with Brother Henry back when he was at Pollard
before the church split back in 1954. So they were a much
older couple, Brother M. Adkins and his wife, Ruth. We
chatted for just a little bit and Ruth asked me a question.
She said, Brother Fortner, how good does a person have to be
to get to heaven? I answered, as good as God, and
she been from ear to ear. I'd never been asked that question
before, but the answer was immediate. How good do you have to be to
get to heaven? As good as God. If you will turn with me again
this morning to Leviticus 22 and verse 21, I want to make another stab at
this one statement given in verse 21. In the latter part of the
verse, it shall be perfect to be accepted. It shall be perfect
to be accepted. Throughout church history, there
had been a form of perfectionism. It arose very early in the early
church, men teaching that a person can become sinless while he lives
in this world, perfectly holy without sin. They attribute the
work to being God, the Holy Spirit, giving us the enablement to do
so. But it is a work that's accomplished,
as Charles Finney put it, by the power of your will. If you
want to be, once you have the Holy Spirit in you, if you just
want to be. If you will exercise the mighty
power of your will, you can overcome sin and become perfect, sinless. John Wesley taught the same idiocy,
which is contrary to scripture, contrary to every believer's
experience, contrary to the experience of any honest human being. Any. I don't care who he is. It doesn't matter if it's your
son, your daughter, your mother, your father. Anybody who says
he is without sin is a liar and he makes God a liar. There is
another form of a doctrine similar that's commonly taught by people
who profess to believe the gospel of God's free grace. both the
Puritans, most of the folks who call themselves Reformed, Calvinists,
most fundamentalists, every fundamentalist I know of, all the writers I've
read after, most people involved in religion who would say they
believe the gospel of God's free grace, yet believe that a man
or a woman, once they're born again, the Spirit of God gives
them the ability to become more and more holy if they will just
discipline themselves and read the Bible and pray and mortify
the sins of the flesh and do good and think good things, they
will gradually get more and more holy until at last they're ripe
for heaven. They have the idea that you can
live above sin, that you can at least for a while not sin. But you and I know better. The
book of God declares otherwise. There is no possibility that
you can not see it. Not ever, while you live in this
flesh. Not for a moment, not for an
hour, not for a day. He who thinks that he can not
sin does not know the things of God and does not know himself. You who are gods, born of the
Spirit, while you live in this world, while we draw breath in
this flesh, it is not possible for us not to sin. I know that there are many, I've
heard statements, I've been warned. You can't preach like this, it'll
cause people to look carelessly upon sin. Well, because some
fool goes out and buys a rope and hangs himself, that's no
reason for us to quit making rope. And I'm not going to deny
the truth of God to try to prevent men and women from behaving as
they wish to behave. but God's people don't respond
that way. The Holy Lord God cannot and
will not accept anything less than what He is. Our text says,
it shall be perfect to be accepted. And yet, I've just told you,
we have no possibility of that. Never a time when we can't say
it. But God speaks to some folks who are perfect. Do you remember
how God described Job? When Job was first mentioned,
he said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? A perfect man. A perfect man. Job later said,
I abhorred myself. I repent and sat clothed in ashes.
Behold, I'm vile. But God said, you're perfect. Are the two contradictory? Not
at all. And that's what I want to show
you this morning. The title of my message is Perfect Yet Vile. Perfect Yet Vile. If you believe
on the Son of God, if you're washed in the blood of the Lamb,
If you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're born of God, if you've
been made a new creature in Jesus Christ, sitting here where you
are right now, you are perfect, yet vile, just as vile as when
you came out of your mother's womb. just as vile now as before
you believed. Just as vile now as before God
gave you faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord God cannot and will
not accept anything less than perfection. It shall be perfect
to be accepted. We are nothing but sin. But God
says you gotta be perfect. Perfect in heart. Perfect in
thought. Perfect in feeling. Perfect in
emotion. Perfect in word. Perfect in deed. It shall be perfect to be accepted. But we're nothing but sin. Is
there therefore no hope for sinners? Must we all perish forever? No, blessed be his holy name. Our God, the holy Lord God, who
demands it shall be perfect to be accepted has found a way in
his infinite wisdom. A way that none but God could
discover. A way that none but God could
find. A way that could not be found in anywhere, in any place
except God himself. He found a way whereby he could
be just and the justifier of him that believeth. Moses asked
God, show me your glory. And the Lord God said, all right,
you stand right here and I'll put my hand over you as you hide
in the cleft of the rock and I'll declare my name. And this
is my name, this is my glory. He said, I will by no means clear
the guilty. I will by no means clear the
guilty. I will charge the father and
the son under the third and fourth generation with every sin, forgiving, iniquity, transgression,
and sin. What a contradiction. What a
contradiction. I will by no means clear the
guilty, forgiving, iniquity, transgression, and sin. How could
that be done? Turn to Romans chapter three.
Let me show you one more time. God requires perfection. We must
be made perfect, but the perfection God requires and the perfection
God gives has nothing to do with what we do, has nothing to do
with our abilities, has nothing to do with our works, has nothing
to do with us something that we produce, but rather it is
altogether the work of God's free grace. The Lord God took
our sins and made them to be his sons. And when his son was made sin,
he imputed our sins to his son, all of them. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, being made sin for us, suffered all fury of God's holy wrath and
justice in the room instead of poor wretched sinners such as
we are as our substitute. And the Lord God makes sinners
chosen in infinite love before the world began and redeemed
by the blood of his Son at Calvary. He makes sinners chosen of him
to be the righteousness of God He comes to chosen sinners at
the time of love and invades their hearts. makes them new
creatures in Christ, creating in them a new man, created in
righteousness and in true holiness. Christ comes in, takes possession
of you. In your own heart, he sets up
his throne so that you now have Christ in you, the hope of glory. And when God gives you faith
in Christ, he declares to you, he imputes to you consciously
the very righteousness of God in Christ. so that God, by the
sacrifice of his Son, by the power of his Spirit, makes chosen
sinners perfect in Christ Jesus. Romans 3 verse 24. We're justified freely by his
grace. Through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation,
a justice satisfying sacrifice 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. Romans four, verse
six. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven, whose sins are covered like the blood on the mercy seat. Jimmy just sang about covering
the sins, the broken law of God. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord will not impute sin. Now, God requires perfection. We see this back here in Leviticus
22. He requires a perfect priest
to offer his sacrifice. In the third verse of chapter
22, he tells us that priest must not be one who has any blemish
or corruption, whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations
that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel
hallow unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that
soul shall be cut off from my presence. I am the Lord. God
requires a perfect priest. That's Christ, our high priest.
In verse 21, The sacrifice that's offered also must be perfect. Look at verse 21, 20 and 21. Whatsoever hath a blemish, that
shall you not offer. The last line of verse 21. There
shall be no blemish therein. The sacrifice that's perfect
is Christ. He's holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners. in him is no sin. He had no sin. He did no sin. He is the Holy
One. We have in Christ both a perfect
priest and a perfect sacrifice. So perfect, so infinitely meritorious
is our great high priest and sacrifice that he makes even
our imperfect gifts and sacrifices. He has such virtue, such merit,
such infinite efficacy in his perfection that by his sacrifice,
by his work as our high priest, as our substitute, the Lord Jesus
takes even our faulty works and makes them perfect. Peter says
we offer up gifts and sacrifices acceptable and well-pleasing
to God by Christ Jesus. This is portrayed in Leviticus
22 verse 23. Either a bullock or a lamb that
hath anything superfluous are lacking in his parts, That mayest
thou offer for a free will offering. You can bring your poor, weak,
maimed, superfluous, lacking sacrifice to God. Not for atonement, for a vow
it shall not be accepted, but for a free will offering just
because you want to do something for God. Bring what you want
to. Come on now and bring your prayers.
Bring your needs. Bring your heart. Bring your
faith. Bring your obedience. Bring your
efforts to help your neighbor. Bring your reading. Bring yourself. Superfluous. Wounded. Weak. failing, dirty, lacking. Come on to God just like you
are. Christ makes you perfect. So that he takes the alabaster
box of ointment from the hands of a wicked woman who'd been
saved by his grace, and it's just an alabaster box of ointment.
It's just a box of perfume. And he said, he said, smell that. Smell it. Oh, do you smell that? She has wrought a good work on
me. Skip, if God says something's
good, it's good. It's good. And God Almighty takes
you and me in Christ Jesus. and that which we bring to Him
in the totality of our lives and says, this is good. Christ
is everywhere in this chapter. I can't begin to expand it, that's
not my purpose. Verse 24 speaks of one that was
not bruised, crushed, broken or cut, castrated as a sacrifice. because Christ our surety was
a man, fully a man, a man in all things. His manhood was in
perfection. After he had lived a full life
of manhood, after 33 years, this uncut, unbruised man offered
himself to God for us. Now look at verse 28. And whether
it be cow or you, you shall not kill it, and her young both in
one day. Now, I tried to address this
a little bit last week. Let me make another stab at it. I don't know whether anybody
here, other than Billy McCormick and his family, knows what it
is to hear the bawling of a cow and her calf when the two are
separated. Well, Ruth would. Excuse me.
Ruth would. Not many folks. I was raised
in the city. I was raised on the streets of
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. But when Shelby and I started
dating, and many times after we were married, we'd stay with
her folks just at the time when her dad would separate calf from
his mother. And unless he put them on the
other side of the farm behind the barn, there was no sleep
that night. The bawling was horrible. It'd
almost break your heart. It was just horrible to hear
the bawling of those separated calf and its mother. This is
a picture of the sacrifice of God's dear son and the bleating
of the Lamb of God. I don't know how to address what
I want to say here, Don't know how to say it without someone
finding fault and there's fault to be found in it. I know that
God is pure, eternal, infinite, immutable spirit. I'm fully aware
of that. I know that God has no parts
or members. I know that God is infinite.
I know that God never changes. I'm fully aware of that. But
I want you to understand something. Our God is not a stone. He's not a stump. The scripture speaks of God delighting
in some things. How do you jive that with the
fact that God doesn't change? The scripture speaks of God rejoicing. How do you put that together
with God never changing? The scripture speaks of God's
displeasure and of God's anger. How do you put that together
with God who doesn't change? Well, I'm content to recognize,
and I hope you are, that God is infinitely bigger, infinitely
more than we have yet begun to imagine he is. I said all that
to say this. When our Savior died at Calvary,
He was, as it were, snatched from the heart of His Father. And when His Father made Him
to be sin for us. As the Savior cried, reproach
hath broken mine heart. As he cried, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? I just cannot imagine that having
no effect upon the heart of our Heavenly Father. And so God gave this command.
You shall not kill the calf and her mother in the same day. Let
there be this time of separation, this time of boiling as it were,
because as he's portrayed in the sacrifice in Genesis 22,
Abraham and Isaac went up together to the Mount of Sacrifice. At
Mount Calvary, there's a sense, a very real sense. may be more
real than anything else about the place, which none were present
but God and his Son. The triune Jehovah and the incarnate
God, our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Now, let's look at this
text for just a few minutes. It shall be perfect to be accepted. First, understand this, we have
both a perfect priest and a perfect sacrifice in the person of our
all-blessed, all-glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Having offered
himself without spot to God, he passed into the heavens as
our great high priest, having obtained eternal redemption for
us. mentioned this morning in his
first message the previous hour that why were the tabernacle
furnishings given before the coverings, before the tabernacle
was finished? Much the same could be said with
regard to the order in which God has preserved for us His
Word. in preaching through the book of Exodus a few years ago. I constantly had this in my mind. Why did God in his providence
give us the book of Exodus before he gave us Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy? Why? Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy give the basis for everything that's exposed in
the book of Exodus. Why then is Exodus given first?
There's a reason. I think. You don't have to agree
or disagree, it doesn't matter to me. This is what I think.
In God's providence, he gives us the book of Genesis, the book
of beginnings, in which we have the seed of everything else revealed
in Scripture. Everything else taught in this
book of God is spoken of in one way or another in the book of
Genesis. The whole revelation of God. And then in the book
of Exodus, you have the exodus. The Exodus. That's the reason
the book is named. The coming out of bondage. The coming out of captivity. The deliverance of the people
of God from their enemies and from those who held them captive.
Portraying the believer's experience of grace in the new birth. And
then you have Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Why? Those things
show us the legal basis for everything. They give us the legal commands
and requirements of God Almighty. And you cannot understand those
things until you first experience God's deliverance. You've got
to be in the kingdom before you can see the kingdom. You've got
to be in the house before you can see the house. And then we
have the Book of Joshua and the Judges and the various times
of Israel's captivity and bondage and deliverance, captivity and
bondage and deliverance, all portraying the believer's continual
experience in this world. But we, who are gods, are here
given a perfect priest and a perfect sacrifice. He has fulfilled all
the types, accomplishing eternal redemption for us. So that when
Moses and Elijah appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration
with the Lord Jesus, do you remember what they spoke to him about?
They talked to the Lord Jesus about the death he should accomplish
at Jerusalem. What a strange wording. Whoever accomplished death, this
man who is God accomplished death. But the word that is translated
death, if you were to write it out just using the Greek letters,
write it out in English, this is what it would read. E-X-O-D-U-S. Moses and Elijah spoke to the
Savior about the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem, the
deliverance of his people accomplished by his blood. All right, here's
the second thing. Every believer, every heaven-born
soul is a great paradox, a paradox to ourselves and a paradox to
everybody else. Every believer. How many of you
understand what goes on inside you? How many of you can explain the
reason why you think and do the things you do? I remember when I was a boy,
I'd do stupid things, like most boys do. And stupid things that
often resulted in pain on my backside, like most boys do. And my mother would ask me, Don,
why did you do that? And I'd look up at her and say,
I don't know. And I wasn't lying, I didn't know. I didn't know. I could no more explain myself
when I was six years old than I can at 68 years old. I don't
know. We're a paradox to ourselves
and to the world. This is how Paul puts it. The
world knoweth us not because it knew him not. I'm sorry, that's
John. Paul said this. He that is spiritual judgeth,
discerns all things. Yet he himself is judged, discerned
of no man. Believers are happy people who
mourn all the time. They're full people, always empty. Believers are exalted by God's
grace, constantly abased. Believers are perfectly holy
and utterly sinful. perfectly holy and utterly sinful. Paul speaks of it continually
in the scriptures. It's represented in many ways
in scriptures, but Paul writes about it with great detail in
Romans chapter seven and in Galatians chapter three or chapter five. And we live with it. constantly at war. The flesh
lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. The flesh never surrendering. The spirit never overcome. In Christ by his blood and righteousness
before God we're all together without sin. perfect, complete,
fully worthy of heaven, worthy of God's acceptance, holy, unblameable,
and unreprovable in God's sight. Oh, if you could get a hold of
that, that'll float your boat through a lot of water. Holy, unblameable,
unreprovable in God's sight. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is
with him, and the shout of a king is among them. Peter says, he
that has suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. We have
suffered in the flesh, in Christ Jesus our substitute. And having
suffered in the flesh, we've ceased from sin. Ceased from
sin, we're freed from sin. Holy before God Almighty, as
holy as God himself. Preacher, you don't dare say
such a thing. I don't dare not say such a thing. It's written
plainly in the book of God. In him is no sin, and we are
in him. One with him, just exactly as
he is. In fact, John says this is the
perfection of love. God's love perfected in us. Herein
is our love perfected. That is God's love perfected
in us. Our love from God made perfect,
manifest in us. Because as he is, so are we in
this world. What a word from God. But in
ourselves, were just the opposite. I can't tell you how many times
this week preparing this message, I've been reading the scripture,
studying, and my mind running every foul, dark, hideous, ugly
place a man's mind could run. How come? Here's a holy man, a righteous
man, a perfect man who cannot not see it, even when I'm prepared
to talk to you about God's grace. Cannot not see it, because in
ourselves, by nature, we are exactly the opposite of perfect,
holy, unblameable, and unreprovable, but altogether see it. Just sin,
just sin. From top to bottom and bottom
to top, from the inside out and the outside in, nothing but sin. Paul speaks of this in Romans
7. I want you to turn to Romans
8. With Job we cry, behold, I am vile. God said, Job, you're perfect. Job said, I know that, but I'm
vile, I'm vile. With David, we must confess,
I was as a beast before thee. Though perfect in Christ, forgiven
and accepted into beloved, I'm constantly a sinner in need of
forgiveness in myself. Paul gets to the end of Romans
7 and asks, Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? And he said, I thank God through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. When Paul
said walking after the Spirit, not after the flesh, he's not
talking about a deeper life or a higher life or living on the
mountain or any of the silly works, inspired nonsense people
talk about. To walk in the Spirit is to believe
on the Son of God. To walk in the Spirit is to live
by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through
the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh. But they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. Now hang on till you see. But
ye are not in the flesh. but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you. What? You're not in the flesh? Brother Don, what do you think
this is sitting here in this pew? It's the body of flesh. What's he
talking about? Had Paul lost his mind or is
he writing by inspiration? He says, you who are in Christ
are not in the flesh. You who believe are not in the
flesh. You no longer live in that which
is death. You're in the spirit, life. Now
if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his.
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. Everything about this body of
flesh. And I'm not talking just about
the physical body. I'm talking about what we are
by nature is dead because of sin. You can expect nothing but
death from the flesh. Did you get that? You can expect
nothing but death from the flesh. Forget about trying to impress
God. Forget about trying to justify yourself by your good works.
Forget about trying to exercise your free will to make yourself
holy. Forget about doing something by which to commend yourself
to God. The flesh is dead because of
sin. You can expect nothing but death
from it, but you don't. But the spirit is life because
of righteousness. The spirit is life because God
has put a new man in you. A righteous man, a holy man,
one that he says in 1 John 3, 9, can not sin, and doth not
sin, because he's born of God. Those that are in the Spirit
are in life. Life, because that new man in
you is Christ, our holiness, our righteousness. Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are
passed away, and behold, all things are become new. Oh, what would you give? What would you give to start
all over? I'm talking about start all over right now. Start all
over. Live your life totally anew from
the beginning. What would you give? Start all
over, push the rewind button, reset everything, start from
the beginning and start out perfect with no possibility of messing
up. Start out perfect with no possibility
of ever messing up. and believe on the Son of God. And I tell you this moment, you're
a new creature in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away. All
things are become new. These things are just facts. We are washed, sanctified, and
justified in him who has forever perfected them that are sanctified. and we are in ourselves nothing
but sin. That's what God speaks of when
he says it shall be perfect to be accepted. Perfect in Jesus
Christ, perfect with Christ, perfect by Christ, our great
high priest, our perfect sacrifice. How do you respond to that? I
know how we ought to respond. Let us, who have been made perfect
in Christ, constantly present our bodies, our lives, a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. Nothing else makes any sense
at all. It's just your reasonable service. Now, you may ask, Brother Don,
why is this so important? Why do you constantly stress
and remind us that we're perfect in Christ and vile in ourselves?
I'll give you a few reasons, I'll be done. I stress these things because
by our experience of God's grace, you and I who are gods are compelled
to look to Christ alone for everything. He's our only salvation, our
only righteousness, our only atonement, our only acceptance
with God. Don't look to yourself for anything. Don't look for peace inside.
Don't look for assurance inside. Don't look for righteousness
inside. Don't look for sanctification
in what you do. Look out of yourself to him who's
seated yonder in glory, who is made of God unto us wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. As we experience
God's constant grace and forgiveness, his mercy and his love in Christ. Oh, Spirit of God, teach me,
teach us to exercise mercy and forgiveness and grace to your
children. How absurd it is. for you and
me to get upset with a brother who falls, a sister who messes
up. How absurd it is for us to be
mean spirited, harsh, unforgiving, even when folks oppose us personally. It's difficult. Difficult to the flesh. to be
kind and gracious to somebody just plumb mean to you. Difficult
to the flesh. It ought not be to this new man.
No, that's not right. It's not to this new man. It's
not to this new man. It's just as natural for a heaven-born
soul to be forgiving and gracious as it is for God to be forgiving
and gracious. I stress these things because
you and I being experimentally aware of what God has done for
us in Christ are constrained by the love and grace of God
in all our affairs to seek in all things the honor of God. Whatever you do in word indeed. Whether you eat or drink or whether
you go outside and watch your kids play softball, whatever
you do, do everything to the glory of God. And to some small
degree, we're able to Anticipate in the light of these
things that blissful time when from a redeemed and holy nation
and royal priesthood, the hallelujahs of an intelligent and fervent
praise shall ascend to the throne of God and the Lamb throughout
the everlasting ages. I like to think about heaven.
Oh, I like to think about heaven. I don't have any idea what to
anticipate. Just some things are clear. I can almost hear
the choirs singing. We have some friends who've been
there for a good while now. Brother James Rankin, Brother
Hubert Montgomery and his wife Louise, Brother Harold Allen
and his wife Nancy, our back, Judy Estes and Bobby, and then
Brother James Jordan, It was last week, Brother David this
week. I can hear him taking up the saw. And James is singing
just as good as David. Just as good. And I'll tell you
what he's singing. Thou art worthy to take the book
and open the seals thereof, for thou was slain. and has redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people and nation, and has made us unto God kings and priests,
and we shall reign on the earth. And then I hear the angels and
those other saints who've been there for a while join them and
they join the chorus and they sing worthy is the lamb that
was slain. To receive power and riches and
wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing and then
every creature in heaven. and thousand times 10,000 and
thousands of thousands, join them, sing, saying, blessing
and honor and glory and power be unto him that setteth on the
throne and to the Lamb forever and ever, amen. Amen. Perfect, yet vile, and
soon vile no more. Sue, vile, no more. Done with all sin. To be done with sin around us. To be done with wickedness we
see, read about, hear about. That'd be good, but this is wonderful. Sue, my brother, my sister, we
shall be done with all sin here. For it shall be perfect to be
accepted. Perfect. Amen. All right.