I thought as Brother Don was
trying to find someone, a place to sit, I thought of a little
story. I think my old deacon friend,
I have an old, old deacon friend, and he's told me so many stories.
But he said this, having a meeting in a place that must have been
full like this, I guess, and he said the fellow that was preaching
had nothing to say. But he wanted to preach on the
major prophets. He said, I love the major prophets, and I'm going
to preach some on the major prophets. And he had no liberty to say
anything, and he wore everybody out talking about the major prophets.
And finally, I guess he discovered he had some liberty, and said,
well, if I can find some room, I'm going to bring a minor prophet
in here. And one fellow stood up on the
front row and said, brother, you can set him right here, because
I'm leaving. So I hope, I hope when I start
preaching, I hope there's not a lot of seats to come available. I don't know really, I doubt
seriously, if this is the best way to preach, but I have a subject. I just have a subject that I
want to share with you for a few minutes. But I want to take my
text over in Romans chapter 5, if you would turn there with
me. My subject that I want to speak to you about for a few
minutes is justification. Justify. Now, I could have took
my text different places in the book of Romans. You know that.
But I want to look at verse 1 in Romans chapter 5. being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Being justified. Now, I've consulted
several dictionaries, legal dictionaries, secular dictionaries, theological
dictionaries, to try my best to get the true meaning of this
word, a definition of the word of what justified means. What does that mean? It was John
Duncan, been dead many, many years, but he said, when I was
young, I speculated a lot, but as I get older, I've fallen in
love with the facts. I want to know, I want to know. I don't want to speculate. I
don't want to speculate to myself. I don't want to speculate to
you. So I went to some of the best sources that I could find
and here's some of the meanings that they gave of this word,
justify. And this, like all gospel mysteries,
is one of the most important things that you and I will ever
learn, that we'll ever know. what it means to be justified.
And here's some of the definitions. A legal dictionary says this,
to prove or show to be just or confirmable to law, right, just,
in duty, to defend or to maintain, to vindicate as right. We've all heard that phrase,
this man was vindicated by the court. That's what it means to
be justified. Another definition is this. This
is from a theological dictionary. To be acquitted of any and all
charges before God, free from sin and the punishment thereof. That's what it means to be justified.
I pulled this excerpt out of another theological dictionary
and it's sort of lengthy. Sometimes you wonder if it's
a definition or a commentary, but I got this out of a dictionary,
and here's what it said. To be accounted, accepted, and
treated as righteous in the eyes of the law, and therefore the
lawgiver, having conformed to all its demands, justification
declares that all the claims of the law are satisfied in respect
to those who are justified. The law is not relaxed nor set
aside, but is declared to be fulfilled in the strictest of
sins. And so the person justified is
declared to be entitled to all the advantages and rewards arising
from perfect obedience. Now that's sort of lengthy, but
that's amazing thing, then I would say to be justified. And the lack, though, of this
definition, to be justified presents a dilemma for you and for me. It presents a mystery. I bet
if you went out through any neighborhood or any community and asked the
residents to tell you how a man could be justified, you would
get several different answers, and probably not one of them
would be Scripture. The Scriptural way of a man to
be justified is wonderful. It's a mystery. But it presents
to us a dilemma, problems. And here's the first problem
that we face with it. There is no son of Adam who is
free from sin. and deserved punishment. There is no one who has conformed
to the perfect, rigid, strict demands of God's law. There is no such person. This
was a mystery that if you'll read the book of Job, the book of Job, those writers
looked upon justification as a great mystery. I want you to
turn, if you'll turn quickly with me, in three places in the
book of Job. Here in the fourth chapter in
verse 17. Look in the fourth chapter in
verse 17. Shall mortal man be more just
than God? Shall a man be more pure than
his Maker? Behold, he put no trust in his
servants, and his angels he charged with folly. How much less in
them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in
the dust, which are crushed beneath the moth." Look over in the 15th
chapter. Look in verse 14. Chapter 15 and look in verse
14. What is man that he should be
clean? And he which is born of a woman
that he should be righteous? Behold he, the Lord God, put
no trust in his saints. Yea, the heavens are not clean
in his sight. How much more abominable and
filthy is man who drinketh iniquity like water? Now look in one more
place, look in the 25th chapter, and they just graduate into this,
and here's the mystery that they were talking about in chapter
25, and look in verse 4. It seems like almost this was
the conclusion they come to after reading the first two portions
of Scripture that I read to you. How then can man be justified
with God? Or how can he be clean that is
barned of a woman? Behold, even to the moon, and
it shineth not. Yea, the stars are not pure in
his sight, how much less man that is a worm. And some said you could translate
that as maggot. Probably so. Maggot. Man is a maggot. How can a maggot? I would step on a maggot. I would
crush a maggot. How can a maggot be accepted
of God and to be found without sin, having to met all the demands
of God's holy law? And here's what David said about
it. If our Lord should mark iniquity, who shall stand? Will God mark
iniquity? If He's God, He must. If He marks
iniquity, no man can stand. And here's what David said again, You see the mystery
here. Is this not a mystery? Aren't
we faced with a dilemma when we talk about justification?
And Paul goes on here in the third chapter of Romans, and
of course you're familiar with this. He said, Are we Jews better
than the Gentiles? Then He said, No, and no wise.
We've proved before, both Jews and Gentiles, that they're all
under sin. They're under sin's dominion.
They're under sin's guilt and its power. But He said, We've
proved before that the Gentiles and the Jews, they're all under
sin. Where did He prove that? Well,
look in Romans, right quickly, chapter 1. Look in Romans, chapter
1. He confronts us with a man everywhere being sinners. It's universal. There's no exception. Look here in Romans 1. I want
you to notice this in verse 18. Notice where the Lord began here
with the Gentiles. when he made himself known to
them as their creator and moral judge. And look what he said
in verse 18, The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is
manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them For the invisible
things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal
power and His deity as Godhood, so that they are without excuse,
because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. Neither were they thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were
darkened. And notice what they said in
verse 28. And even as they did not lack to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not convenient. What Paul is telling us here
is this. The Gentile world. And he's not telling us when
this happened. This happens all the time. It still happens today. You ask me to explain this. Explain
how God has made Hisself known to the dark places of this world. I can't do that. I don't know
how He does that. I just know He does. Creation
speaks in a language that everybody understands, no matter where
you find them. And here's what it declares.
God is the Creator. God is your creator, God is your
sustainer, and He's your moral judge. And His wrath is against
your sin. I don't know how He does that.
He's God. He does that. All the languages of the world,
He speaks that language. But here's what happens. Notice
what happens. They begin up here, on this level. God made Himself known to them
as the Creator and the moral judge. And what happened to them?
What happened to them? They said, we want nothing to
do with you. We desire not the knowledge of
your ways. They would not retain God in
their knowledge. And then what happened? Down
they go. And down they go. And down they
go. And if you want to know the bottom,
Read the last few verses of Romans chapter 1. There you find the
bottom. But you know this happens every
time. You never find, in times of revival in the church history,
when the Lord has visited a home or a community, you never find
a people, when He leaves them there, that they continue to
go up. If He brings them up on this
level and leaves them there, they go down. And they go down,
they claw their way down. Why is that? Men are sinners. Men are sinners. The heart, the innermost being
of men are sinners. This generation doesn't know
it. But the knowledge of God, even as creator and moral judge,
is given to a society by the goodness of God to restrain open
and profane sins. And where men say to God, depart
from us, we desire not the knowledge of your ways, and if God lets
them go, that's a society you do not want to live in. And that's
where we're at today, is it not? They won't post a plaque in any
of our school buildings that says honor your father and your
mother? Why? God said that. Away with
that. You won't go down to the courthouse
and find a plaque inside that courthouse that says, thou shalt
not steal, thou shalt not kill. God said that. Away with God. We desire not the knowledge of
His ways. You won't find a divorced lawyer
pinning a plaque on the front door of his building, thou shalt
not commit adultery. God said that. You're putting
me out of business. Away with God. That's what this
generation's doing, is it not? How's that working out for us?
Huh? And here's my personal opinion.
You ain't seen nothing yet. This keeps saying away with us,
away with you, away with you. And if God lets you have your
way, we haven't seen anything yet. But why does everybody do
that? Everything I know about history,
everybody does it. Why? We're sinners. We have proved
before, both Jews and Gentiles, that they're all under the dominion
of sin. Pastor, I thought you were going
to preach on justification. This generation is so impatient,
isn't it? It wants this quickie stuff.
Make their decision for Jesus. I've got to make it quick. If
it's going to pray a sinner's prayer, it better be a short
one, because I'm in a hurry. And pastors and preachers and
religious people have not taken time to lay the foundation. There's no mystery and justification,
because nobody sees a need for it. Paul said the Jews. What about the Jews? If you read
sometime in the second chapter of Romans, you find out about
the Jews. They were just as bad or worse
than the Gentiles. The Lord called them out through
Moses there out of the land of bondage from under Pharaoh and
brought them out into the desert and made Himself known to them.
Gave them this glorious law. Made covenants with them. Exalted
them like He exalted no other nation. And every time He left
them alone, what happened? Down they go. Down they go. clawing their way to the bottom.
Oh, we've got the law. We're special people. And it didn't matter if they
kept it or not, as long as they taught it. They were hypocrites. And who was it that killed the
Son of God when He came to this world? The Jews. The Jews. And why? They're just like everybody
else. They're under sin. They're under
sin. But here in Romans chapter 3
and verse 10, the Apostle Paul gets very personal, doesn't he?
Look at this. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. Not one without exception. Not
me, not you. Is free from sin. I have not
met the strict demands of God's law and neither have you. I have
sinned against it in my motives, in my thoughts, in my words,
in my actions. I'm a sinner against God's law. What does that make me? Well,
he tells us in verse 19, look at this. Now we know that whatsoever
things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty
before God." Guilty before God. I had the unfortunate experience
of having to go to court several years ago. I never want to go back to court
again. I was charged with a crime. They brought me up. The prosecutor
sat here. I and my defense attorney sat
there. They deliberated a while and
came in. I pleaded guilty. Thought I would just leave and
the fine be paid. But that wasn't what happened.
The judge looked down at me. And he said, Mr. Crabtree, are
you aware that whatever deliberations the prosecuting attorney and
your attorney have made and conclusions that they've reached, I'm not
obliged. I'm not obliged to accept their
condition. Do you realize it, Mr. Crabtree?
No, I didn't realize it. But I said, yes, sir, you are.
Yes, sir, you are. Mr. Crabtree, do you realize
the crime that you've committed is punishable by 10 years in
prison or a $10,000 fine or both? I didn't know that either, but
I said yes, Your Honor. I was standing before a man in
a black robe who was representing the state of Indiana, the Justice
Department, and he was looking right at me, asking me questions
and talking with me. And I'm telling you what, you
talk about solemn. I can talk to my neighbor. I'll
talk to you. And we'll joke and laugh and
be light about it. But when you come there to talk
about a man with a man in that position, I'm telling you, it's
sobering. It's sobering. He has the authority. He has the law behind him. Guilty
before God? Guilty before God who sees sin
in us when and where we can't see it in ourselves? Guilty before
God, who not only can put you in jail, but He can put you in
the pit of hell until you've paid the last fire limb. Guilty
before God. Now we can talk about justification. Without any exception. You and
me, everybody, every man, woman, boy and girl, Guilty before God,
the judge of all the earth. That's the problem we face. That's
the first problem we face. You see a dilemma in being justified? Do you see a mystery in it? The
second problem is this. Not only are we all guilty before
God, but secondly, there's nothing we can do about our situation. We owe a debt we can't pay. We
have no merit to offer. If I gave my body to be burned,
if I gave all my goods to feed the poor, if I wash myself with
snow water and make my hands ever so clean, Job said, if I
be wicked before Him, He'll cast me into the ditch and my own
clothes will abhor me. We're guilty before God and there's
nothing. There's nothing. We can do about
it. Between God and ourselves, there's this radical separation.
And we cannot do anything about it. We can't bring God down from
heaven. He won't stoop. He cannot stoop
and be God. We cannot raise ourselves up
to Him, to approach unto Him. You have to have clean hands
and a pure heart. Our hands are are filthy, our
hearts are corrupt and deceitful above all things. We have a dilemma,
do we not? We're guilty before God and cannot
remedy this awful situation. If God has nothing to say good
about a man, it's not because He would not, He cannot. There
is nothing good to say about us. Our ways are crooked. Our hearts are perverted. Our
spirits are dead and bound in sin and in the kingdom of darkness. We're incarnated devils. We're
beasts in our very soul. It's amazing that God would look
upon us and let us live without putting us in hell at this very
moment. We're sinners. We're sinners. That's the first thing about
justification. The second thing about justification
is this. This same God who has pronounced
our guilt now must be the very one to justify us. If we cannot
justify ourselves and cannot even think of a way to do it,
Then the very one whom we have sinned against and offended,
he must be the one who now justifies us. He must find a way to do
it, and in a way that he can be just in doing so. Here's what Romans says. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect, it is God who
justifies. God justifies. Those He called,
them He also justifies. That He might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. God has to justify. In Romans chapter 4 and verse
5, this is amazing. To him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? We're ungodly.
Oh my. We're going to perish. We're
ungodly. We're going to perish. Not if
God justifies you. But He's the only one that can
do it. They had a law under the Jewish ceremonial law that if
you had leprosy, you had to go to the priest. He was the one
that had examined you to see if you had leprosy. He was trained
to do that. He would put you away, then He'd
bring you back. And then He'd examine you again,
and He would say, yes, you have leprosy. You have contracted
this deadly sin of leprosy. Oh, you could deny it? I ain't
listening to you. No. No, you don't know what you're
saying? No, you've got leprosy, man.
You've got leprosy. And the high priest would grab
his garments and tear them. He would send a man back to his
house to get a few clothes for him. He'd look that man in the
eye and say, if we catch you up at the temple attempting to
worship, we'll stone you. You're not to have any contact
with your family in their house. And they'd walk him outside of
town on an old dirt road and they'd put him with the rest
of the lepers. Until the leprosy spread all
through him and his earlobes fell off and his nose fell off.
and a fever wracked his body and finally he died. But if that
man was to be miraculously healed, you know where he had to go to?
He had to go right back to that same priest that had declared
him to be dirty and filthy with leprosy. And that same priest
that had declared and proclaimed you a leper now says you're clean. Ain't that amazing? And the same
God that looks to us and says, you're filthy sinners, you're
ungodly, you're guilty before me, is the very same God that
now has to say, I justify you. Ain't that wonderful? Ain't that
a mystery? What a mystery. How does God do it? Well, I want
to give you three things right quickly. I'll keep you just a
few more minutes. What would move God to justify
a sinner? I mean a real sinner now. I mean
a real sinner. Not one that somebody's told
you that you're a sinner. I'm talking about a real sinner.
I'm talking about King Manasseh, a sinner that burned his children
in the fire. I'm talking about justifying
a man like that. I'm talking about Magdalenes who has seven
devils. I'm talking about justifying
somebody like that. A man who had legions of devils and ran
naked through the tomb screaming and crying and cutting himself.
What would move God to justify a person like that? What would move God to justify
a man who was going around killing Christians, men and women? You
know what? The cause in God is grace. Grace. Look here. I don't want to disquote it to
you. Look here in chapter 3. Look at this. Look in chapter 3 and look in
verse 24. Being justified freely by His
grace. Our old forefathers used to call
that the moving cause in God. moves him towards a sinner to
justify. That's the first thing that moves
him. He doesn't look upon the sinner
and say, he needs to be justified. Sure, but everybody needs to
be. But grace doesn't move God to
justify everybody. But when we talk about grace
moving God, it's free grace that moves God. And by that we mean
this. Grace that's uncaused in the
recipient. Its cause lies wholly in the
giver. It moves upon a sinner with no
debts to pay. God owes you. No, that's not
grace. God owes us nothing. But that's
free grace. It can move where they're not
looking for debts to pay and not looking for any conditions
to be fulfilled in the sinner before it acts. It's free. It's free. And it's sovereign. God can justify when, where,
and whom He will. And since it's grace that does
it, so often He'll pick the most low down. sorry scum in the community
and set his eye upon him to justify, just to magnify. I'm talking
about people like you, Merle. People like the preacher. Grace don't act where there's
ability or desert. Grace does not come to help.
Grace does everything. Grace does all. being justified
freely by His grace. Look over here in chapter 4.
Look in chapter 4. I'm talking about the moving
cause in God. Look what He says in chapter
4. And look in verse 5. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth, The ungodly. The ungodly. Can you put yourself there? Can
you put yourself there? Paul mentions this four times.
He's done mentioned it once in chapter 1 verse 18. The wrath
of God is revealed against all ungodliness. The wrath of God
is revealed. And now he comes here in chapter
4 and verse 5 and says he justifies. His wrath is there, but he can
justify. And then in chapter 11 he says
this, he gives the moral evidence of a person that's been justified. Thou shalt come to deliver out
of Zion, and he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. He finds
them under his wrath. He justifies them and turns them
from their ungodliness. How does He do it? There's the
moving cause. How does He do it? Well, look
here in chapter 5 and look in verse 6. Look in chapter 5 and
verse 6. He uses this word again. And
by using this word again, He shows us the meritorious cause. This is what old timers Our old
forefathers used to call the moving cause, grace, the martyrious
cause. How can God be just? He can't
just move upon a sinner and justify him and be just. Justice has
to be satisfied. The law has to be made. Look
at this. For when, verse 6, we were yet
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. There it is. There's the meritorious
call. He says in verse 25 of chapter
4, He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. He was delivered for our sins. He suffered in the room of us,
in our place, in our stead, as Brother Scott used to say. He
took our sins to Himself. He made them His own. The awful
wrath of God fell upon Him and punished Him in our stead. God spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up. Somebody said in the death of
Jesus Christ, our debt of sin was fully paid. And in His resurrection,
He received the acquittal of it. When He come from the dead,
He had our acquittal in His hand. My let are justified. I've got it in my hand. And it
won't be many days from hence I'll be calling this one, and
I'll be calling that one, and I'll call that one to faith.
And they're going to find out about it in their experience,
in their conscience. I think it goes something like
this. Can you imagine now? And really it happens somewhat
in this way. Here you're standing before the
judge of all the earth, and you're guilty. Your guilt has been proven
to your conscience. You have nothing to say. God
Himself has proved it to your conscience. And there you stand
before Him with no defense. And you just know that the next
word you hear from the judge is going to be this, bind this
criminal and take him and cast him into outer darkness. But
instead, what happens? Why, to your utter amazement,
The judge himself stands, and he stretches out his hands to
you. And what do you see? You see prints of nails in the
judge's hands. He pulls back his robe, and you
see a hole in the judge's side. And he looks down to you, and
he says, your iniquities have been punished. Your sins have
been atoned for. I've done it myself. And now,
I, the judge of all the earth, the final authority, declare
that you are free! You are justified! And no devils or angels or men
can find any fault in that type of justification. Ain't that
wonderful then? Go ask your neighbors then how
they can be justified. Poor, fallen, ignorant man. He
knows nothing of this. He cannot justify himself and
he cannot think of a way that God can justify him and yet be
just. And yet he brags about his relationship
with God, how good it is. This is a subject, brothers and
sisters, I want to know about. I want to save an interest in
it. Don't you? What's the instrumental cause?
By faith. Being justified by faith. You know what faith is. It's
really simple. It gets into the soul. Faith
gets into these faculties of the soul. Here's the way you
know that you're alive. Faith gets into the hearing.
And you hear. How do you know you've got faith?
Are you hearing? Faith hears the report justified. You hear that? Hear and your
soul shall live. That's what faith is. It's hearing.
It's just hearing. I went for 20 something years.
I never heard this. And faith is the eyes of the
soul that looks out of itself, that quits looking within for
a cause or remedy, but it looks out of itself to the wounded
side and the wounded hands, the meritorious cause. Now I see. Now I see. Do you see? Can you say with Brother Newton,
I once was blind, but now I see? That's faith. Faith is the empty,
trembling hands as they may be that says, give me that record.
I tell you, if I was found, if they charged me with a crime
and the judge told me, you're justified. I know you thought
you were going to prison, but you're free to go. You know what
I'd say? Could I have the record of that? That lady that's been
typing all this down, would she give me a copy of that? I've
got to have that. I appreciate you telling me that.
But sometimes I need to take this out and look at it. And
boy, you get in there, you're a trembling hand. Boy, there
it says it. Right there in writing. Well, here we got it. Have we
not? And don't you sometimes open
it up and with trembling hands you read it? But there it is.
What is that? Faith. Faith. What's the effects of it all?
Peace. Peace. Some fellow says this word should
be written, I don't know. Therefore being justified by
faith, we ought to have peace. Something like that. What they're trying to say wasn't
it? Maybe so, to a certain degree. Peace has been perfectly obtained. Peace has been perfectly obtained
on our behalf through our representative with God. Perfect peace. And
you know why you and I don't enjoy perfect peace? It can only
be enjoyed through faith. Through faith. If we believed as Abraham believed,
he was strong in faith, giving glory to God. He considered not
his own body now weak. Quit looking within. Quit looking
around at your circumstances. Keep this in the view of your
faith. Live upon this. That perfect
peace has been made on your behalf. And God who has justified you
for Christ's sake will never condemn you again. Live upon
that. Amen. The peace, the degree of peace
that you enjoy in your heart, I'm sure of this, will be determined
to the strength of your faith. Everybody's got peace that's
justified. But you may not have much peace. But if you'll live as Abraham
did. And you know the end to this? Here's one of the glorious
things about this. You know what the end will be
to those whom God justifies? He glorifies. Those whom He justified,
He also glorifies. What has yet come upon you and
I in this world? What of the veils that we have
to walk through? The tears that we're going to
shed. The brokenness of heart we're going to feel. What will
we face before the Lord comes again? You know it don't much
matter. if I know that He's justified
me. And He'll never go back and say,
Bruce, we brought you back here in the court today because we've
looked over some things and now we've got to reconsider your
case. He'll never do it. When He says you're justified,
you're glorified, bud. You're glorified. God bless you.