Jesus Christ the Righteous is
a beautiful name, a wonderful name, a delightful name of our
precious Saviour. The apostle John was the writer
who called the Saviour by that name. And it is so very appropriate,
Jesus Christ the Righteous, He is the Lord God Almighty. He is the true and faithful one. He is the one of whom it is said,
Righteous are all thy judgments. Whatever the Lord God has done,
whatever the Lord God has said, there is a perfection, there
is a purity and a holiness in everything that appertains. to our Saviour Jesus Christ. There never was a word spoken
that was not holy and righteous. There was never a thought in
his heart, in his mind, that was not God honouring in the
extreme. There never was anything that
was done by our Lord Jesus Christ from the creation of the world
to his judgment in all purity and holiness at the end of time
that is not characterized by absolute and total righteousness. The testimony that he has given
throughout all eternity is that he is righteous. And the testimony
of his elect people throughout all of eternity is that he is
righteous. The psalmist says in Psalm 116,
verse 5, gracious is the Lord and righteous. In Psalm 145,
verse 17, the Lord is righteous in all his ways. and holy in all his works. Let us never demean the Saviour
by countenancing for a moment a thought of him that is less
than perfect and glorious and righteous in every way. He is the One, the Holy One,
the Righteous One, for whom the Old Testament prophets in the
Old Testament scriptures longed for and waited for. In Jeremiah chapter 23, verse
five, we read, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign
and prosper. and shall execute judgment and
justice in the earth. We look around in the world and
we see many things happening and we shake our head and we
wonder and we think, why does this happen? Why is this allowed
to happen? What is all of this about? And
the testimony of scripture is clear. that everything that happens
in this world, everything, let there be no reservations in your
mind with regard to what that word everything means. Everything
that happens in this world attests the righteous justice and judgment
of the Lord Jesus Christ. They anticipated the coming of
the righteous branch, the Old Testament prophets as they waited
for him. Then, at the time appointed,
at the exact moment when it was perfect that the Lord Jesus Christ
should come into this world, David's greater son came. He's called in Acts, the Holy
Child. The Holy Child came into the
world. Our Saviour, whom we have gathered
to worship this morning, our Saviour in whom we trust, is
the Holy One of God. Righteous, holy, true, pure,
good and gracious, gentle and loving. This is our God. This is our Saviour. But the sad reality is this,
that not all men acknowledge Him. Not all men honour Him. Not all give him his right and
his holy due. And we have discovered both in
the testimony of Scripture, in our observation in the world, in the depths of our own hearts,
that men rebel against this Holy One of God. This righteous, this
perfect and pure and good and gracious One who is revealed
to us upon the pages of Holy Scripture in His coming, in His
incarnation, in all the things He said and did, in His great
work of redemption on the cross, in His ascension and glorification
and intercession for us in heaven, this Great One, has been rebelled against, has
been maligned, has been disrespected, has been hated, has been murdered
and slain. In Acts chapter four, verse 27,
we read, for a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou
hast anointed. Both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together. An unholy gathering together
of rebels and malefactors and vicious, aggressive haters of
Christ. Verse 23 of chapter 2 of Acts
says, Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and for
knowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified
and slain. Who would do such a thing? Who
would do such a thing? to such a gentle and good one,
such a righteous and holy one as the Lord Jesus Christ? And why would such a thing be
done? Today, for a little while, I
want to look with you at why the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous,
holy one of God had to die. And why he had to die so viciously,
so violently, so brutally upon the cross. And to help me to do that, I'm
going to enlist the help of four Roman Catholic nuns. Four Roman Catholic nuns. Now I guess you've not heard
that before from this pulpit. That got your attention, didn't
it? Where are we going to find four
Roman Catholic nuns to help us out this morning? Well, let's
take the Roman part. We'll turn to Romans chapter
three. Romans chapter three. And look at verse 10. As it is written, here's our
first none. 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. So there they are, our four Roman
Catholic, Catholic just means universal,
nuns. Let's take the first one. There
is none righteous. Now we need to just remember
as we embark upon these thoughts that this is God, the Holy Spirit,
who is speaking. Absolutely. Paul is the writer. He has written this epistle.
He has written this great epistle. It's a marvelous piece of writing. It is so theologically well argued
that the gospel resonates, it echoes and re-echoes in this
book with such clarity and such beauty that it is regarded and
rightly so as the very apex of theological reasoning and understanding. Paul wrote this and he wrote
it to the church at Rome. That's why it's called the letter
of the epistle to the Romans. He wrote this to the church of
Rome, but... We know that all scripture is
given by inspiration of God. We know that it is given for
our doctrine, for our learning, for our instruction, for our
discipline. We know that God himself has
breathed out, has inspired holy men down through the ages, men
that were set aside for this purpose of revealing the truth. of the gospel of Jesus Christ
to others and to us. And so when Paul writes that
there is none righteous, let us realize that this is God who
is speaking. This is the Holy Spirit who is
saying, there is none righteous, no, not one. Paul is telling us that neither
the Jews of their day, with their legal observance, with their
Ten Commandments, with their sacrifices, that the Jews of
the day were not righteous. Not one of them was. From the
highest Pharisee, and the scribes, and the Sadducees, and all of
the religious clerics, and all of the priests, and all of those
that walked in their paths to do their religious observances,
not one of them was righteous. And all down through the society
of that day, there was an unrighteousness attached to every single individual. Nor amongst the Jews was there
any that was righteous, nor amongst the Gentiles, with their superstitions
and their religions and their philosophies. and all that they
did to try and make sense of the world in which they lived,
and all of the ways that they tried to appease the deities
that they imagined, and all of the efforts they put into whatever
it was that they did as their religious practices. not one
amongst the Jews or the Gentiles, has ever attained righteousness. From the time of Adam's fall
into sin, that iniquity, that bent, that biased towards opposition
to God, towards sin and rebellion against God, has dogged mankind. The Lord God told Cain, sin lies
at the door. It touches, it spoils, it infects
everything that we think, everything that we say, and everything that
we do. And it's Catholic, it's universal. That fall by Adam and Eve in
the garden. That fall in the garden brought
every single individual that has ever been born under the
curse of God, condemned by God with a root of sin so inherently
connected to their very humanity. that there has not been a righteous
one, save Jesus Christ, the holy child, the righteous Jesus Christ,
there has not been a holy one born into this world or attained
in this world an acceptability with God. It is God who says,
there is none righteous, no, not one. He has looked down from
heaven, said the psalmist in Psalm 14, upon the children of
men. He has looked at us, he has examined,
he has come, and he has searched out the hearts of men. He has
tested, he has inquired, and none has been found. They've
been weighed in the balances, and every one is found wanting. And we can say with absolute
certainty that it was an exhaustive search because God himself testifies
there is none righteous, no, not one. Well, you see, that's
pretty emphatic. But what about the holy men and
women that have lived in the world over the years? What about those who have attained
a level of spirituality? Can't we regard them as being
holy? No, not one. Well, what about church leaders?
What about the popes and the archbishops and the reverends? No, not one. What about the little lady down
at the end of the street who goes to church every week and
is kind and gracious and just exudes that Christian gentleness
and goodness? No, not one. I guess there's some truth in
that when we think about what we would get as an answer if
we spoke to men and women. I suspect that the vast majority
would say in reply to a question about whether they were righteous,
something like, well, I'm not perfect, but you know, you really
don't have to go any further. in your statement because you've
already agreed to the testimony of Scripture. There is none righteous. No, not one. There's none perfect. There's none pure. There's none
holy. We condemn ourselves by our own
words. We sin in our heart. We sin in
our mind and in our thoughts. We sin in our actions. and we
are spoiled in everything that we do. All the world over, it
is a universal fact that none are righteous, no, not one. And if none are righteous, no,
not one, then none can enter heaven. Because that is a place
of holiness. That is a place of perfection
and purity. It is a place of righteousness. No sin can dwell in the presence
of the holy God. And men might think that they
have got good works that they might use to recommend themselves
to God. But Isaiah says in chapter 64
verse six, we are all as an unclean thing. And all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. And so the judge, and believe
me, if any of you have ever been to court, he's the only one that
matters. He's the only one that matters.
Your defence lawyer might be the smartest guy in town, but
the only one that matters is the judge. And if the judge says, no, not one, then that's the
end of the matter. The Lord Jesus Christ says in
Matthew chapter five, verse 20, I say unto you, that except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom
of heaven. Well, that's our first Roman
Catholic nun. But if this wasn't bad enough,
Paul's second nun, goes on to say, there is none that understandeth. You can search the world over.
There is none that understandeth. You can look high and you can
look low. You can look in the universities
of the most advanced countries in the world, or you can look
at the mass movements wherever they might be that can number
in their Thousands, there are hundreds of thousands and there
are millions. And there's none that understand. There's none that are righteous
and there's none that understand. The highest intellects, the wisest,
most accomplished theologians, and there's not one of them understands. the things of God, spiritual
things, holy things. Spiritual wisdom in the lives
of men and women is absolutely, completely non-existent. In the natural man, there is
absolutely no spiritual understanding. Paul says there's none that understand.
There's none that understand. Now I do not deny for a moment
that man and mankind, men and women, have great skill in the
natural things of the world. It's astounding. We step back
in amazement at the accomplishments of men and women these days.
In the past hundred years, they've gone from riding around on horses
to sending people to the edges of space. It's truly amazing,
the achievements and the accomplishments of mankind. But it's all in one
realm. It's all in one sphere. As far
as spiritual things are concerned, we have never even scratched
the surface of understanding the divine nature, understanding
the holiness of God. We're not beasts of the field,
we're not like the trees and the vegetation that lives upon
the face of the earth. But our hearts are as dead as
stones towards God as far as our understanding is concerned.
And I dare say that we think too highly of ourselves in these
matters. We think we can reach God. We
think that there is a finding out of God if we just take the
right paths and follow the right course. And some people, they've
endeavoured to spend their whole lives in the study of religious
scriptures in the hope of gaining some spiritual insight and understanding. Other people, they climb up onto
the top of a mountain and they sit cross-legged in front of
a cave. for years and years and years
and they hope that in some way of meditating and of self-consideration
they'll be able to break out of themselves and gain some spiritual
insight and understanding. And there are people who cut
themselves with knives or get whips and flagellate their backs
and trying to get rid of the flesh and to get some sort of
insight and understanding of a spiritual nature. Paul says there's none that understands. Not God, not spiritual truth,
not the Lord Jesus Christ, not the gospel of God's grace. There's
none that understands. How can we possibly know God
when we cannot uncover the depth of our own sinful nature? The flesh wars against the spirit. The carnal, wicked nature of
man seeks to know nothing. The testimony of the word of
God is that fallen man has never had a true spiritual thought
in all his life. No understanding of the spiritual,
no spiritual knowledge of God. no true sense of ourselves. We don't appreciate our own sin
and the misery and the benightedness and the darkness into which that
sin has brought us. We do not know the true way of
salvation by the person of Jesus Christ. We have no experience
of the work of God, the Holy Spirit upon our souls. And we have no experimental,
no actual, no real knowledge of the doctrines of the gospel,
the things that are revealed in scripture. Men can read this
from back to front. They can memorize the verses.
They can know the doctrines. and have no spiritual insight
and understanding whatsoever. Paul says, there is no righteousness
and there is no understanding. What a sad state of ignorance
we are in as a people. You don't know what you don't
know. And proud man tries to build
a tower of Babel, tries to construct something in this world, something
of his life, some sort of religious activity, anything, anything
to reach up to God in order to have some communion with the
divine being, which is evidenced all around him. Man knows that
there's something bigger and better than himself, but he has
no understanding of how to reach him. even to the point of building
bricks and mortar one on top of another and standing on the
top and shouting. It's all we can do. In the darkness and in our ignorance
and in our foolish pride, we are rushing headlong to hell
and to condemnation. None that are righteous None
understanding. Is there a third Roman Catholic
none to be found here? Yes, there is. Paul's not finished
with us yet. There is none that seeketh after
God. Well, how can there be? Because
we're all opposed to God. And I need you to see this this
morning, because this is the nature and the extent of our
depravity. There's religion all over the
world, as there was in the day of Paul. Paul said, neither the
Jews nor the Gentiles, it really didn't matter. The Jews had many
blessings from God. To them had been committed the
oracles of God. They knew that there was a God. They knew that there had been
revelations and prophets given during the history of God's dealings
with men. and yet they still were ignorant
of him. And the Gentiles, they knew no
better than the animism and the superstition that they pursued
and that they followed with their idolatry. Despite all of the
religion in the world, all the spiritual talk that men and women
make, then and now, no one seeks God. Now you might think that's,
Unbelievable. Why can you say that? Well, I'm
only telling you what the Apostle Paul has said. I'm only telling
you what the Holy Spirit has written here by inspiration.
There is none that seeketh after God. We're all seeking for something. We're all pursuing something.
We all have aspirations and ambitions of something. Everybody wants
to go to heaven, but nobody is seeking God. That's
just the reality. That's just the fact of the matter. What about all the hymns that
are sung? People are singing hymns all over Great Falls this
morning, and that's just the beginning. What about all the
prayers that are being made? What about all the sermons that
are being preached? The spiritual talk about all
the amazing things that we've seen happening and all the miracles
that have been performed. You know what I heard about somebody
in Africa that rose from their coffin. Yeah. All of these things talking about
spiritual experiences. It's nothing. It's vacuous. It's nonsense. We need to be
able to see through it, to prick that balloon and see that it's
just full of hot air. Because there's none that seeketh
after God. And I'll tell you what the religion
of this world does. You know, when you go to the
doctor, we were talking about this this morning, actually.
Sean was saying that there are some advocates in here of getting
the flu vaccination. And What is that that happens
when you're inoculated? You get a little bit of the disease
put into your body. And what does it do? It stops
you from getting the real thing. That's religion. That's all religion
is. It inoculates you against the
real thing. and people go through the patterns
of their religious activities. They have their hymns and they
have their prayers and they have their vocabulary and they have
their talk. What about you? Is there more? Is there spiritual experience
with you? There's none that seeketh after
God. You're so self-righteous. but
there's not a man or a woman on the face of this earth in
themselves by nature that seeks God. John chapter four verse
24 says, God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth. The carnal and the fleshy, they
know nothing and they cannot know anything about the Lord. There never has been in the history
of mankind an instance of genuine worship that did not flow from
a quickened spirit or that was not offered upon the ground of
truth. There is no other way of approaching
God except by that way which he has declared. We must worship
him in spirit and in truth. We'll never stumble across God.
You never stumble across God. We cannot find him if we don't
seek him. And there is none that seeketh
after him. The Lord Jesus Christ tells us
himself that he is the way, he is the gate, and he is the door. And we're told by Isaiah the
prophet that we have all gone out of the way. We're not even
on the right path. We're not looking for the door.
We're not looking for the gate. And the sovereign, gracious,
merciful God must arrest us in our wanderings. Like blind men
in a desert. and put us into the way if ever
we are going to find grace from him. Okay, what's the fourth? None. There is none that doeth
good. Not in God's estimation, there
is none that doeth good. Men do good works in their own
view. They do good works in the views
of others. Charitable works, works of mercy,
and they get praise, and they get popularity, and they get
recognition for it. But even our good works of charity,
mercy, kindness, are all tainted by sin. God looks at them and
says, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Do you see how emphatic these
are? How comprehensive and how universal
the Apostle Paul has made this statement? He said, there is
none, none, none, none. No, not one. There is no righteous. There is no understanding. There
is no seekers. There's no good works. This is
the nature of man. Sometimes we use a little phrase.
We use the phrase total depravity. And people say, well, we're not
all depraved in everything we do. Paul says we are. In everything we do, it's all
touched and tainted and spoiled with sin. And there's none righteous. There's none that seeketh after
God, there's none that understands God, and there's none that doeth
good. Romans chapter three verse 13
goes on after these verses that we read together. To paint such
a grotesque picture of the true nature of man that actually it
would cause us to shake our heads and shiver. Verse 13, their throat. Okay, this is you and me he's
talking about, right? This is us in our humanity. This
is us in our natural condition. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of asps is 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 way of peace they have
not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Friends, this is truly a dark
and a hopeless state that is being presented to us here. It's
woeful indeed. and it leaves men and women lost
and condemned, guilty and corrupt, ripe for judgment. There's no
gospel in this. There's no good news here. There
is only just, rightful, lawful condemnation. This is what we're
like. This is what we are. This is
what we do and what we say. And the judgment of a holy, righteous
God demands retribution. Hell is a place. Judgment is
certain. and everyone who, in their natural
state, has no righteousness, no understanding, does not seek
after God, and no good works, are condemned to an eternity
in hell. And that's all they've got to
look forward to, and it's perfectly just and right. Men will be justly
damned to hell, and they don't give a damn about it. Let me put this another way. There's no gospel here. There's
no good news. Not under the law. Not by the
works of men. Not by the will of men. Not through the ways of men. Nothing that we can do. The law
is merely a means of categorizing and measuring the way that men
act. So we think about the law, we
think about the Ten Commandments, and we think about what the sheriff
or the policeman has to say to us when we do something wrong. It's merely a way of standardizing
how men act and how men live. So when we talk about the law
and we say there's no grace in the law, there's no good news
in the law, we're simply saying that as far as men's works are
concerned, as far as the things that they do are concerned, even
if you have that to the best of your ability with the highest
law possible, the most righteous, the best organized and set forth
measurement of man's best actions, It doesn't amount to a heap of
beans. There's nothing there as far as gospel or good news
is concerned. For there is none righteous,
there is none that understandeth, there is none seeketh, there's
no good works. That's the testimony of the word of God. There is
no righteousness possible because everything we do, say and think
is under the curse of the fall of sin. But what if there was another
way? What if there was another way,
a different way? Something that wasn't to do with
works. Something that wasn't to do with
law. Something that wasn't to do with our natural way of living
and thinking and acting. A method that's totally separate
from man's efforts. A method by which God, apart
from ourselves, could make people fit for his presence. Completely,
completely and utterly independent of anything that we do. What
about if that were possible? Now that would be grace. not works, that would be grace. It would be a righteousness without
the law. It would be a righteousness apart
from law, apart from works, apart from anything that we can do.
It would have no reference to law. without works, apart from works,
with no reference to law, all of grace, all of mercy. That would be gospel. That would
be good news. Look what Paul says further down
the chapter in verse 21, chapter three. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested. Oh, he's told us that there's
none righteous, there's none seeketh, there's none understandeth,
there's no good works. But now he's telling us that
there is a righteousness of God that is manifested apart from
man's works and apart from the law. the righteousness of God,
the very holiness of God, that righteousness which it is said
of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ the righteous, that righteousness
which is nothing to do with man's works, nothing to do with law,
that is without the law, is manifested, it's been revealed, it's been
shown, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Verse 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. You see what
Paul is saying here? He's saying it is possible to
be righteous, but not because of what we do. It is possible
that there is a righteousness, a holiness, but it is beyond
the realm of nature, of law and of works. It's grace and it's
a gift because there's nothing that we can do to deserve it
or to earn it or to achieve it. It must come alone from God. The Bible has a word for this.
The Bible calls it imputed righteousness. Righteousness that is imputed,
not gotten, not earned, not laboured for, not obtained, not purchased,
but granted freely, imputed, put on us, put on us by God. Imputed righteousness. It is given as a free gift of
God's grace to sinners. It is the righteousness of God
himself by the faith of Jesus Christ. Now, what do I mean by
that? Well, we don't have to guess
because Paul tells us in the next verse. Look at chapter three,
verse 23. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. That's already, there's our five
Roman Catholic nuns, right? That's us all in there. All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. But verse 24 says,
being justified, that is made right with God, freely, not because
of our efforts, but at his behest, freely, by his grace, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God's gift of salvation
is being freely made righteous. by his gift and grace. That's what salvation is. Being
freely, by God, made righteous by his gift and grace. And how is that obtained? Because
of the death, because of the shed blood, and because of the
redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's completely apart
from anything of man's nature or anything natural. It's Christ
himself, the righteous one, the holy child that came in. And
by his death, by his sacrifice, by his blood, by his redemptive
labors upon the cross, he has brought a righteousness, the
righteousness of God, that can be experienced by men and women
like you and like me. We see in his death the death
of a substitute because the Lord Jesus Christ took the sin of
his people and he carried that sin in his own body and he gave
them as the substitute the righteousness which was his. We see the blood
of sacrifice. that Christ offered himself willingly
and freely for the sake of the love that he had for his bride
and for his people. He gave his life and he sacrificed
himself even to the shedding of his own life's blood. He gave
everything. He gave everything. And we see
redemption by a saviour. He has saved us from hell. He has saved us from separation. He has saved us from the devil
and the demonic activities of this world by redeeming us when
we never could do it for ourselves and bringing us to that place
of experiencing a true spiritual awareness and understanding with
God. I want to make two more comments
about these verses and then we're finished this morning. You've heard a lot of what I've
said and I've been talking for too long probably, but I've kept
the best wine to the end because this is beautiful. This is really,
really good. This righteousness that God has
given comes, what did he say? Apart from the law. Okay, what does that mean? Nothing
to do with works, nothing to do with our activities. It comes
apart from the law. It has nothing to do with works. Now here's something that will
perhaps surprise you. This is the reason why this little
church is distinct from lots of other churches and the gospel
that we preach is different from lots of other gospels. The vast majority of even those
who call themselves evangelicals and reformed Christians They
teach that believers get Christ's righteousness under the law. They teach that Christ was perfectly
obedient to the law. And what is given to believers
who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ is that righteousness of Christ
which he got by his obedience to the law. Legal righteousness. But the Bible is very clear about
this. The Bible says that it is not
a legal righteousness that comes to the true believer. It's not
works righteousness of any kind. It's God's righteousness apart
from the law. And it is freely given apart
from the law altogether. So that's why Paul, writing to
the Galatians in chapter two, verse 16, says, We're justified by the imputed
righteousness of God in Christ. Christ is our righteousness,
not His works, not His perfect obedience. The perfect obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ is real, for He was the righteous one.
He was holy. He did good all the time. He
was able to say to men, which one of you condemneth me of sin? Which one of you accuses me of
sin? And there was no sin. Nevertheless, Christ's perfect
obedience merely, can I say merely in the sense of his perfections,
but let me use it for the sake of the emphasis, Christ's perfect
obedience merely showed that he was a worthy substitute. He
was the lamb without spot and without blemish. But the righteousness
that we have is not Christ's righteousness under the law.
It is the very righteousness of God. And it is righteousness
by the faith of Jesus Christ, not by the works of Jesus Christ. Romans 3.22 says, 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. Righteousness
of God by the faith of Jesus Christ. Righteousness and justification
comes because the Lord Jesus Christ believed his father. Not because he was obedient to
the law of Moses, but because he believed his father. It was
the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ that brings us our justification,
our righteousness. He trusted The God-man trusted
the covenant promises of God the Father. He trusted that the
blood that he shed at Calvary would avail for the remission
of the sins of his people. He trusted that the sacrifice
that he made of his body would be acceptable to God. and that his death would be sufficient
for the redemption of his people. Our righteousness with God, the
righteousness that will take us to glory, has nothing to do
with law obedience, nothing to do with men's works, either ours
or Christ's. His obedience to all of God's
holy law showed him to be a worthy sacrifice. We talk of justification by faith. We mean the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ, not our faith. Our justification is by the faith
of Christ. To and upon Whom does this righteousness
of God come freely? It comes to all who believe. It comes upon all them that believe. Belief, faith, trust, it couldn't
be easier. The testimony is set out before
us. The work of Christ has been accomplished
and completed. He has come and he has died and
he has laid down his life. And that righteousness of God
comes upon all for the sake of what Christ has done, who believe. Simply believe. Will we trust
him? Will we believe in these great
things that he has accomplished? A man once cried out, what must
I do to be saved? And the Apostle Paul, consistent
with his theology said, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt have the righteousness of God. Believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ and you will be fit for eternal bliss and glory with
God. Do you believe? Do you believe? Lord, I believe. Help though
my unbelief. Amen.