we recognize and rejoice to acknowledge
that salvation is altogether the work of God's free sovereign
grace in Christ. Having said that, it needs to
be said often and said clearly that God's grace comes to sinners
only in a way of justice. God Almighty absolutely unbending
in his justice. God has never done anything and
will never do anything except by righteousness, justice, and
truth. He will not bend. He will not
alter his law, not even to save a sinner. God will always acts
in justice. The title of my message this
morning is Doing Justice. You'll find my text in Leviticus
19, verses 35 and 36. Doing justice, that's my subject. Here in this 19th chapter of
Leviticus, The Lord God gives us a command, a command that
is repeated and enforced by law throughout the Old Testament
scriptures. It's a command regarding measurements,
weights, and balances. Leviticus 19 verse 35. Ye shall do no unrighteousness
in judgment, in metered, in weight, or in measure. Just balances,
just weights, a just ephah, and a just hen shall ye have. I am the Lord your God, which
brought you out of the land of Egypt. in measuring property
or measuring cloth, in weighing and measuring out dry goods or
liquids, in buying and in selling, The Lord God required his people
Israel always to use just balances, just weights, a just ephah and
a just hyn. Why? Why? I just read earlier
this morning, Mr. Gill quoting one of the ancient
Jewish commentators. He said that the breach of these
things dishonesty in these things by the judge who measured land
or the judge who measured out liquids or dry goods. If he did
so with dishonesty, with corruption, with deceitful weights, and with
unjust balances, that would cause the glory of God, the Shekinah,
which shined upon the mercy seat in the tabernacle to remove from
its place. God is not simply giving us here
strict laws to teach people to be honest. Rather he is teaching
us something here by these precepts concerning the gospel of his
free grace and his glory in Christ Jesus. He tells us in Micah 6
11 that by these things he was showing us his way of bestowing
salvation upon chosen sinners in complete and perfect righteousness,
justice, and truth. Hear his word. Shall I count
them pure with wicked balances and with a bag of just weights? Shall I count them pure with
wicked balances and a bag of just weights? The title, I repeat,
is Doing Justice. Doth the Almighty pervert justice? We read in Job chapter 8, and
the answer is never. Throughout the scriptures, the
Lord God states in unequivocal terms that he abhors injustice. If he saves, he will be a just
God and a savior. If he sends you to hell, he will
do so upon the grounds of strict justice, giving you exactly what
you deserve. He'll never use wicked balances. He'll never use deceitful weights. He has named himself God who
will by no means clear the guilty. Behold, God will not cast away
a perfect man, neither will he help evildoers. We're told in
Proverbs 17 twice, we're told in the book of Proverbs, he that
justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just, even
they both are an abomination to the Lord. Now back here in
Leviticus 19. The Lord God shows us his absolute
unbending justice in the exercise of his free saving grace in Christ. Now I want you to follow me through
the scriptures as I show you four things with regard to God
doing justice. Number one, and this is the principle
matter. The Lord God Almighty used just
balances and just weights when he punished his son as our substitute
at Calvary. When God slaughtered his son,
when God put his son to death in the place of his people, when
God sacrificed his son upon the cursed tree, he was doing justice. The Lord Jesus Christ could not
have been slain as a sacrifice for sin if somehow he were not
made to be justly deserving of God's wrath. Oh What a wondrous mystery is
the mystery of redemption by Christ our substitute. If we
were to be redeemed, Christ had to die in our stead. The just
must die for the unjust. The righteous must die for the
ungodly. The innocent must die for the
guilty. The holy must die for the unholy. the sinless one must die for
the sinner. Because the Lord God is holy,
just, and true, he could not and he would not impute sin to
his dear son and punish him for our sins, except he first make
him sin who knew no sin. Turn with me, if you will, to
that very familiar text, at least familiar in this congregation,
2 Corinthians chapter five. No court on earth can impute
guilt to a man who is not guilty unless the court itself is unjust
and corrupt. And the court of heaven is never
unjust or corrupt. In fact, the Lord God specifically
declares, by mercy and truth iniquity is purged. When our
Lord Jesus bore our sins in his own body on the tree, he was
made sin for us. When he was made sin for us,
he became guilty. I'm telling you things I would
never dream if I did not read them in this book. If I did not
read them in this book, I could not imagine these things being
so. When our Lord Jesus was made
sin for us, he, the Holy One, became guilty. Our substitute
had our sins imputed to him because he was made sin. He who knew
no sin was made sin for us. Listen to what he says. As he
hung upon the cursed tree, our Savior says, innumerable evils
have come past me about. Mine iniquities. Mine iniquities. He claims your
iniquities as his. He claims my iniquities as his. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me. so that I'm not able to look
up. They're more than the hairs of mine head, therefore my heart
faileth me. He said, reproach hath broken
mine heart. He said, oh God, thou knowest
my guiltiness. My sins are not hid from thee. And when he was made sin, God,
in furious, angry justice, in infinite fury, infinite anger,
infinite justice, drew forth his holy sword and slew him,
who is the darling of heaven, who was made sin for us. Let's
begin reading at 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17. Our Savior, the Lord
Jesus, was wondrously, mysteriously, profoundly made, calls to be
sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him, because there was no other way for us to be made the
righteousness of God in him. Therefore, verse 17, If any man
be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. And this is God's work. All things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. to wit that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world, the world of his elect
unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. and hath
committed unto us the word of reconciliation. And this is the
word of reconciliation. This is the word God has sent
me to preach to you. This is the word God sends his
servant to proclaim to sinners. Now then, we're ambassadors for
Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's name, be you reconciled to God. How? How? How can I be reconciled
to God? What will conquer my heart? What
will satisfy justice? What will satisfy my need? For
he hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. Traditionally, it
is said that Christ was made sin by imputation. I have erroneously
made that statement many, many times myself. But the Word of
God never says that. There is never even once, not
even once, where you find a forensic or legal term used with reference
to Christ being made sin. It's certainly true that our
sins were imputed to our Savior. Had they not been imputed to
Him, He could not have suffered for them. But He was not made
sin by imputation. Rather, our sins were imputed
to him because he was made sin. When I was a young man, I used
to drive with a very heavy foot. Some of you can identify. And
my first year, I had my driver's license. The state had them longer
than I had them. I lost them a lot. It cost me
a lot. I finally learned. It cost me
a lot. But the record books imputed me with a crime, an offense against
the law. And I had to pay the penalty
out of my pocket for the offense I had committed because the offense
was justly imputed to me. I was guilty. I was guilty. Now that's a horribly insignificant
comparison. Jesus Christ, God's holy son,
was made sin. When he was made sin, he said,
the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen on me. Reproach hath broken my heart. I don't know a better way to
emphasize what I'm trying to say is this, than this. We often speak of our Lord paying
our debt, and that's true. Our sins are a debt, a debt owed
to divine justice that we could never pay. But if I should take
my wealth, if I were the richest man in the world, and expend
all that I possess to deliver Jimmy Bowman from a crime where
he owed debts. The debt paid by me would be
painful. The debt paid by me would cause
me difficulty. The debt paid by me would hurt,
but it would not break my heart. It would just be a little money
going from one account to another. That's all, nothing else. What
is it that broke Emmanuel's heart? Thou knowest my guiltiness. When the Lord Jesus was made
sin for us, he was forsaken of God. He cried, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And he answers his own question.
He says, thou art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Why
did God forsake his son upon the cursed tree and spread over
the earth three hours of darkness to identify to all the world
that he had forsaken his son? because God Almighty is a purer
eyes than to behold iniquity. God cannot look upon sin. The heavens are not pure in his
sight. And when his son was made sin,
the Lord God turned his back on his son. And then he cried,
awake, O sword. against the man who is my fellow,
smite and slay the shepherd. And he did so in just anger because
of his fury against sin. And when the Lord Jesus suffered
the wrath of God in our stead, he took the sword of justice
into himself and swallowed up the fury of
God. He swallowed up the wrath of
God. He swallowed up the justice of
God. So much so that the Lord God
says to Jacob, fury is not in me. He spit his fury on his son when
he crucified his son in our stead. And when justice was satisfied,
our sins were put away. We were justified before God,
made righteous by his obedience unto death, so that now we stand
just before God without sin. You know he was manifested to
take away our sins. And in him is no sin. Now, by the grace of God, upon
the grounds of justice completely satisfied, because sin has been
put away by the blood of his Son, every sinner who believes
on the Son of God is made the righteousness of God in him. That very righteousness which
Christ earned by his obedience unto death is our righteousness. We obeyed God in him. And we suffered the wrath of
God in him, for we are one with him. And now Christ Jesus is
ours. Wondrous, amazing mercy. We are the righteousness of God. I'll tell you one more time.
I'll probably tell you another time. But you see the bulletins. Pull your bulletin out and look
at it. Many, many years ago, some of
you are too young to remember such days, we didn't have computers. And my dear wife would come in
from work, she taught school in those days, and I had written
out the bulletins in longhand because I couldn't type, and
she would type them. And then she would take a straight
edge and lay it over here and count the spaces. And then she'd go back and retype
the bulletin and put spaces in to justify the right-hand margin
so that it looked close to being justified. But if you look closely,
you'd see there were a lot of spaces in the lines, a lot of
extra gaps, because that's the best you could do in those days.
Now, you hit Control-J, and this is what you get. The right-hand
column is justified with the left-hand column, or the right
side justified with the left side. Now, here is God's holy
law. Everything God demands, all his
justice, all his righteousness, all his truth, all his perfection,
all his law, everything God requires, here it is. And here I am in Jesus Christ,
exactly what God requires. No gaps, nothing missing. That's what Christ has made us. God doesn't pretend that's the
way it is. That's the way it is. You have
been made the righteousness of God in his Son. To whatever degree it is that
Christ was made sin, to that same degree we who are his have
been made the righteousness of God. To whatever degree it was
that God made him sin, by whatever means it was, so we are the righteousness
of God in him. And that's his promise to every
sinner who believes. He is just and the justifier
of all who believe. Here's the second thing. God
does justice. He uses balances that are just
and weights that are just when he makes sinners righteous in
Christ. I can't explain nor will I attempt
to explain how Christ was made sin. And I can't explain nor
will I attempt to explain how we are made the righteousness
of God in him. But I'm telling you that God
does not count us pure with wicked balances and a bag of deceitful
weights. In Romans chapter 4 verse 25,
Romans 4 verse 25. Christ was delivered for our
offenses and raised again for our justification. Now this is
what it means. Christ was delivered to the hands
of justice and death because our offenses were made his. He
was raised from the dead because he had accomplished our justification. Therefore being justified by
faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our faith in Christ does not justify us, but it receives and
experiences justification. Now, therefore, being justified,
we have peace with God by faith in Christ, by whom also we have
access by faith into this grace, this grace of free justification,
this grace of perfect righteousness, this grace of God's salvation,
wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. By the obedience of his son,
as our representative, we fulfilled the law. By the death of his
son, as our representative, we satisfied the law. And in the
new birth, Believers are made to experience the blessedness
of this salvation. In the new birth, God the Holy
Ghost makes redeemed sinners new creatures in Christ. He does
not come and make the old man new. No, he does not. But rather,
he comes and puts in us a new man. a new creature, Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Brother Todd Nyburn and I talked
several times this week about this very subject. He called
and asked me a few questions about the passage of Scripture.
And I said to him, in my opinion, the dual nature of the believer,
is one of the most precious, least understood things revealed
in scripture, and one that's most crucial for the peace and
comfort and joy of the believer. Because men and women do not
understand and have not been taught what the scriptures teach
in this regard, that every sinner saved by grace is a person with
two distinct natures, flesh and spirit, Adam and Christ, the
old man and the new man. Because they rather are taught
to think that somehow The old man has been changed and he just
gets better and better. Then they start looking at themselves
and they don't see what they know the scriptures teach concerning
this new man. And so they struggle and they're
cast down and they're unbelieving and full of doubts and confusion.
Understand this, the old man in you doesn't just seem to get
worse. The old man in you gets worse
all the time. You who are a little older will
verify what I've said. You see, death can only do one
thing, corrupt, decay, rot. And that's what your old man
is, is death, a body of sin and of death, condemned to death. And dying, dying, dying, dying,
dying is the continual corruption of the old nature. The new man
in you is born of God. It is called Christ in you. It
is a new man created in righteousness and in true holiness. And John
tells us he cannot sin because he is born of God. You see that
new man in you is that of which Peter speaks when he says that
you are partakers of the divine nature. Christ is formed in you. And between the old and the new,
there is a constant warfare between flesh and spirit. But the believer,
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, has testimony from God. As Enoch walked with God, and
before he was translated, he had this testimony that he pleased
God. A testimony God gave in his heart,
in his conscience, in his mind. Not a testimony for men. It doesn't
do me one iota of good in my soul for you to think I'm a fine
fellow. Now, I want you to think so,
but that's not going to give me any peace with God. But for
God to testify that I'm righteous, for God to testify that I please
him, that's another story altogether. And this is what happens in the
new birth. Believing sinners have God's testimony in His Word,
by His Spirit, in their hearts. That they're righteous, without
sin, holy before God. Come close, listen to me, will
you? Listen to me. No matter how you act, no matter how you feel at any
given time. No matter how you act, no matter
how you feel at any given time. God says to you who believe,
you're perfect. It must be perfect to be accepted. Except a person be without seeing,
he cannot enter the New Jerusalem. Perfect. Not he's going to be
holy someday, he is holy. We have been made partakers of
that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord Christ
in you, the hope of glory. And being made partakers of that
holiness, receiving the testimony of God, now we are of God in
Christ Jesus made holy. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption. That according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Now our faith in
Christ did not make Christ our wisdom. Our faith in Christ did
not make him our righteousness. Our faith in Christ did not make
him our sanctification. Our faith in Christ did not make
him our redemption. But by faith in him, we come
to experience the blessedness of life in him. To be in Christ
is to be the object of God's favor always. To be in Christ
is to be the object of God's blessing from everlasting. To
be in Christ is to be one who is constantly complete in Christ
Jesus. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus. And you are complete in him. Complete in him who is completely
God. Now this glass is not full. But if it were full, right up
to here, right up to here, if you put anything else in, The
only way you can get any more water in that glass is to push
some of the water out. Did you get it? You're complete
in Christ. Full in Christ. Nothing lacking. All I want and all I need is
Christ. And if you attempt to put some
righteousness of your own, some goodness of your own, some feeling
of your own, some experience of your own in this fullness,
you can only do so by pushing him out. We are in Christ. The objects of God's favor complete
in him. That means that we're free in
him. Free from the curse of the law.
Free from the yoke of the law. Freed from all possibility of
condemnation by the law. I had great delight earlier this
week, our granddaughter called, she's doing a paper up here at
the college in one of her religion classes. She's gonna write a
paper on law and grace. And she asked me if I had anything
she might look into to help with the paper. I said, I think I
can help you. Believers are free. Free from the law. Entirely,
completely, absolutely free. But Brother Don, what relationship
does the law have to God's people? None. But in what sense are believers
under the law? None. But how do believers view
the law? Satisfied. Satisfied. I just told you a little bit
ago, I had a number of tickets, a number of citations. As far
as I know, those are the only crimes written against me anywhere.
I'm not saying they're the only ones that should have been, they're
the only ones that are written against me anywhere, as far as I know.
And I'm never afraid of somebody coming in and saying, you broke
the law back here. Back in 1969, the judge, 1968,
the judge required you to pay this fine here, and you broke
the law, he required you to give up your license for a year. Yes,
I know. What are you gonna do about nothing? What do you mean
nothing? I gave him my license for a year
and I peeled out $158.50 and paid him. I don't owe him a thing. I've completely satisfied the
demands. You understand that? I stand
before God's law, complete in Christ. Complete in Christ. How on earth can you say such
a thing? You know, I wouldn't. but I read it in the book. You
wanna read it? Romans chapter six, verse 11. Romans chapter
six, verse 11. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. God, the Spirit, says to Don
Fortner, now God says you're freed from sin. God says you're
free from sin. God says you're free from sin.
God says you're free from the law. God says you're free from
the law. God says you're free from the law. Don, reckon yourself
dead to sin, alive to God. Learn to think about yourself
as God thinks of you. Learn to see yourself always
as God sees you in Christ Jesus. Here's a hymn, I don't know that
you'll find it in any modern hymn books except the Gadsby
Hymnal, but it's worth hearing and we'll sing it soon, Lord,
I'll put it in a bulletin. This is by Joseph Hart. The moment
a sinner believes and trusts in his crucified God, his pardon
at once he receives, redemption in full through the blood. The
faith that unites to the Lamb and brings such salvation as
this is more than a notion or name, the work of God's spirit
it is. It says to the mountains, depart,
that stand betwixt God and the soul. It binds up the broken
in heart and makes wounded consciences whole, bids sins of a crimson
light die, be spotless as snow and as white, and makes such
a sinner as I as pure as an angel of light. That's called grace,
righteous grace, just grace. Measured out! by just weights
and just balances. Here's the third thing. In the
last day, when God cast the wicked into
hell, he will do justice. He will do so by the use of just
weights and just balances. The book shall be opened. And
every man shall be judged according to his works which he has done.
You and me. Everybody. Everybody. And if
God sends you to hell, he'll send you to hell because it's
the only right thing for God to do. It's the only right thing
for God to do. When I was a boy, there was a
movie, some of you have seen it, maybe seen it a couple of
times. I stood in the block surrounding Winston Theater twice to see
the movie. Did it twice. The line circling
the block, waiting to get in. Called Old Yellow. Oh, it's a
good movie. It was a tearjerker for grown
men, let alone little boys. This old boy had an old yellow
dog. And the dog protecting that boy
got rabies. And the boy shut him up and tried
to take care of him. And his daddy, Chuck Connors,
I think it was, played his daddy, informed his boy that the dog's
gotta be killed. And the boy was heartbroken.
He didn't want to kill that dog. But all you can do with a mad
dog is kill it. And God will purge his creation
of wicked men by the exercise of his justice, giving the wicked
exactly what they deserve. He'll send you to hell, feeding
you with your own devices, and you'll acknowledge it. The soul
that sinneth, it shall die. You won't go to hell because
of what your mama did or because of what your daddy did. You won't
go to hell because you didn't have enough education. You won't
go to hell because somebody didn't come and tell you about Jesus.
You won't go to hell because you were raised in a bad environment
and bad circumstances. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. You'll go to hell because you
deserve to go to hell. And when you do, you'll say,
man, this is what I deserve. One more thing. In that same
day, when the Lord God Almighty, our Savior, the Judge, judges
us according to our works with just weights and just balances, He will look at Don Fortner And
he will say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord. And when he takes me to glory,
he will do so because he has made me in Christ meet to be
partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Imagine
that. Imagine that. Well done, thou
good and faithful servant. Come on. Enter now into the joy
of your Lord. Because then, as always, he will
be doing justice. Justice. And the whole world
will bow to him. and say, man, Don Fortner deserves
heavenly glory. How come? Because Christ is made
of God and to me wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption
and I will forever glory in him. Oh, God give you grace then to
flee away to Christ. Flee away to Christ. Believe
on the Son of God. And go home with the testimony
of God in your soul. You please God. You please God. You might not
please anybody else in the world, but you please God. because Christ
is made of God and to me wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. I know he is because I believe
God. I believe the record God gave
of his son. I rest my soul on Christ alone. God give you grace to do the
same. And if he has done so, If he will do so this moment,
you'll be able to sing this next song with great delight. Number
207, oh happy day that fixed my.