You may want to first open your
Bibles to James chapter 3. We're going to be taking note
of several scriptures this morning. The theme of the message, or
the title of the message, is The Importance and Seriousness
of Preaching the Gospel. These thoughts that I'll give
you this morning were prompted by Sister Bernice's departure. Shortly after, Garen called me
yesterday to let me know that Bernice was gone, and I was in
my study, and I just sat down in the chair I've got in there.
I've got an easy chair in my study. more comfortable than
me to sit and read or something like that rather than an office
chair. I just sat there and it kind of hit me awfully strong,
awfully powerfully, that preaching is no light matter. What we do here week by week
as we meet to worship the Lord and as I stand up here and open
up this book, this is no game. This is no religious exercise.
This is serious business. My thought was, shortly after
we hung up the phone, and this sobered me so much, that Bernice
left this world to face God, believing what I preach. As I said, that's a very sobering
thought to me. I stand here week by week and
I claim to preach the gospel of God. I feel a great burden for the
sake of those who listen to me. I don't want to lead you astray. One old preacher, and I can't
remember his name, I think it maybe was Richard Baxter, but
I'm not sure. But he made this statement about
preaching. He says, I preach as one who may never preach again,
as a dying man to dying men. Brother Mahan once told of a
preacher who went to visit one of his parishioners who was dying.
And the preacher said, is everything well with your soul? And the
man looked at him and said, it's well with my soul if what you
told me is true. How serious preaching is. Many of you here believe what
I say. That is what I preach. You believe
this. And someday you'll go and meet God believing that. And when that thought hit my
mind, Man, I better be very careful what I say. I better be very
sure what I preach. How lightly some take preaching,
both the act of preaching and the act of hearing it. They'll
preach anything and they'll listen to anyone. It's written in the scriptures,
God is determined by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Preaching is very important. I want to preach what's true
because the people who listen to me and to believe what I say. And it's good to have a religion
that one can live by. And if you look at the advertising
for most churches, most of them are setting forth a message on
how to live from day to day. Messages on the family, messages
even on matters of politics, and messages on how to be a success
in this world. Well, I hope that we know how
to live well. I'd like to do a good job of living. I'd like
to have what the world would call a successful life. I've
got no problem with that. But when it comes to the matter
of religion, I'm less interested in having a religion I can live
by than one I can die by. Because how my life will go,
I don't know. Whether I'll live successfully
or not, I don't know. But this I'm certain of, I will
die. And so will you. We've got old people in this
congregation this morning. We've got babies. And while there
may be a difference in when they die, there is no difference over
the fact. that every one of us will die. I want a gospel that I can die
with. I want a gospel I can hold on to when I breathe my last. In this business of preaching,
I feel a burden about it for myself. I shall answer for what
I have preached. Listen to what James says in
here, in chapter 3, verse 1. Not many of you should presume
to be teachers, preachers, pastors. Man shouldn't just flippantly
say, well, I can tell the truth. I can be a preacher. I can do
that as good as anybody else. Don't many of you be that? He
said, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be
judged more strictly. Everybody in the world thinks
they can be a preacher. A man told a story, went to a
dentist one time. And of course, you know how dentists
are, they get your mouth pried open and stick it full of tools
and then start talking to you. And this was back in the 70s
when that musical Jesus Christ Superstar was real famous. And this dentist starts saying,
he said, you know, I like that Jesus Christ superstar. I think
it really presents good. And Henry pushed his hands away,
got the tools out of his mouth and said, hold on a minute. He
said, when I came in here, did I tell you how to do dental work?
Can everybody be a dentist? He said, I'll tell you that that
Jesus Christ superstar is blasphemous. And I know because I've been
called to preach. Not everybody has. And those
who are, just like we hold doctors more responsible because they
set themselves forth as doctors, we hold them responsible for
what they tell us to do. Likewise, preachers are held
accountable for what they tell people. They are held accountable
if they hold back that which they think will offend people.
The Lord said to Ezekiel, He said, The enemy comes, and I
set a watchman, and he doesn't blow the trumpet? And the people
don't run? He said, well, the people will
die for their own sin. He said, but I'll hold that watchman
accountable that he didn't tell them of the danger that lies
ahead. And there are some who preach
a false gospel, who preach falsely with smooth words. They won't
tell me how God sees them. And they'll set before them ways
of salvation that puff up the flesh. And they get big fat paychecks. And they get people to call them
Dr. This and Reverend That. And folks will bow and scrape
to them. And think they're the most wonderful thing since sliced
bread. But someday they'll meet God.
And they'll give an account for what they told people. Paul said
this, necessity is laid on me. Woe unto me if I don't preach
the gospel. And also, I don't want to misrepresent
God. Man that preaches. Look over here at 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. You know, a man that preaches, he's not engaged in
a theological debate with other preachers. We who preach, or not to take
the attitude that we're in some kind of contest with other preachers
and other religions to see who can argue their point the best,
to see who can somehow have the biggest church, who can attract
the most people, who can demonstrate the most talents. Here's what
preachers are. They are representatives of God
in this world. They are spokesmen. Paul says,
I'm an ambassador. Now, what's an ambassador supposed
to do? He's not supposed to go to the foreign country and say
whatever he thinks that foreign country wants to hear. He's not
supposed to go to that foreign country and say what he thinks
that would be good. He's to represent the king that
sent him. And Paul says here in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15, verse 15, he says, more than that, When he's
talking about it, he says, if we're preaching that Jesus Christ
raised from the dead and He really didn't, he says, we are then
found to be false witnesses about God. For we have testified about
God that He did raise Christ from the dead. He said, well, it would be a wonderful
thing to tell folks that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.
Paul said, it wouldn't be a wonderful thing if it didn't really happen.
Because if we go around saying God raised Christ from the dead
when he really didn't, we've been lying on God. And the preacher,
when he stands up to preach, he has this burden laid upon
him that he is an ambassador of God. He's been sent not to
make a message, simply to deliver one. I don't want to misrepresent
the God that sent me. If indeed I've been sent of God, And friends, if preaching is
no light matter, then neither is listening. You should listen to gospel preaching
with just as much seriousness as the preacher preaches it.
We must never allow the world, the flesh, or Satan to draw us
away from hearing the word preached. Do you ever wonder why there
is such strong temptation in you to dismiss yourself from
regular attendance on the priest work? I mean, let's face it, you know,
we can think of plenty of things to do. We've got places to go,
people to see, things to get accomplished. And it's easy for these things
to draw us away. Why do you think that there is
such a tendency, even in believers, to dismiss themselves from the
preaching of the gospel? Very simply this, the devil knows
full well that the word of God is that which gives life to God's
elect and that which sustains them. The devil knows how important
preaching is. Therefore, he'll do everything
he can to keep you from it. Do you believe that? The most important thing you'll
ever do is listen to the gospel. The most important thing on your
calendar every week should be listening to God's gospel preached
by whatever means is available to you. As pertains to our bodies,
do we not count it very important that we eat? So much so, we work
a lot through the week to make enough money to go to the grocery
store and buy food, and we're careful to prepare it. And we
schedule our day around, generally speaking, three meals and maybe
a couple of snacks thrown in. Why? Because it's important to
eat. And my friends, it's as important for your soul to feed
upon the bread of life as it is for your body. Yet more important,
our Lord was willing to go without food for 40 days to seek the
face of His God. There's never been a man or a
woman who gave light attention to the preached Word, who did
not suffer for that light attention. When we listen to someone preach,
we should give our whole selves to it. I say this, you should prepare
to come here to listen just like I prepare to come here to preach.
I realize that you wouldn't spend as much time at it, But you ought
to prepare your hearts. You ought to come here intent
on hearing, having set your hearts upon that task, to hear the Word
of God. Give our whole selves to it.
We should listen to gospel preaching with a critical ear to make sure
that what we're hearing is the truth. It amazes me what people
sit and listen to. And they know it's not true. Folks will go week after week
to the same church and they won't leave that church simply because
it's the church they've always gone to. They were raised in
it. Their mom and dad were there and grandma and grandpa and all
that. And they're not going to leave even though they know full
well that there's nothing of any value being preached there. Don't come. hear week after week,
and listen to me preach, unless you think it's the truth. Listen
critically. It says of the Bereans in Acts
chapter 17, Paul went there and preached. And they listened. And it says, and they received
the word with joy. And they daily searched the scriptures. to see if the things that Paul
told them was really true. Do you realize I, you know that
I just, I won't accept the title. And, because I'm not deserving
of any titles. But there's another reason. I
don't want anybody ever to think I'm an authority. I'm not. This
is our authority. And you who listen to me week
by week, I'll tell you, I may be Pastor Joe to you, and I may
be a friend, and I may have been faithful up to this point, but
don't you believe a word I say that cannot be backed up by this
book. You search the scriptures. God may send you preachers as
a gift to you to tell you the truth, but he also holds you
responsible to listen with a critical ear. Check it out. Is this really
true? And if it's not, don't believe
it. And we furthermore should act
on what we hear, to listen to a message at church and smile
and nod and say our amens, to shake the preacher's hand on
the way out and tell him how good it was and then not act
on what we hear. Terrible. It would be better for a man
to never hear the word of God at all than to hear it and not
act on it. Really, it would. You're held
responsible for what you hear. James tells us, he says, don't
be just hearers of the word, be doers of it. I went to the mirror this morning.
In fact, just before I came here, I ran downstairs and I looked
at myself in the mirror. I figure you all got to look
at me for about an hour. I want to give you the best face
I can, you know, make it as easy as possible. And I went to check,
because I didn't get any hairspray put on my hair, so I ran down
there to check my hair. And I looked at it, and it wasn't that bad.
I don't know what it's like now, because like I said, there's
nothing to hold it in place. But it wasn't that bad. But there's a little outside.
I did this with my feet. I acted on what I saw. It wouldn't
make any sense for a man to look in a mirror and then not do anything
about what he sees. And there's no reason for us to look into
the Scriptures and not do anything about what we see there. Do you think that God can speak
and us ignore it and nothing happen? Preaching and listening to the
gospel are very important. Well, what is the gospel? Well,
that's not as easy a question as it may seem. You who believe
the gospel, you may at first think, well, that's simple. Well,
I ask you, what's the gospel? How would you tell it? You see,
we can mean several things by that word gospel. We can mean
the historical truth of the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, I preach to you the
gospel that I remind you of the gospel I once preached to you,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
and how that he was buried and rose again according to the scriptures.
That's the gospel. But the gospel can also be described
as that whole doctrinal system of grace. That whole doctrinal
system of gospel truth. The gospel can even be expanded
to include all the effects of God's saving grace. For you see,
the gospel is simply God's good news. That's what the word means.
And everything that pertains to that good news, that message
of how it is that God takes sinners like you and me and makes them
acceptable in His sight and blesses them forever, that's the gospel.
And everything that involves the gospel of God, which the
book of Hebrews calls the Word of God. It's a living thing. It's an active thing. It pierces. It cuts. It changes. It grows
in a man. It transforms him. It won't transform him all at
once. You plant a seed in the ground, it takes a while. First that seed is going to Put
out a shoot and roots and start growing to make a plant. Some
leaves will come out. And eventually there will be
some fruit. Maybe more fruit. Some people
think that as soon as God regenerates a man, that man is totally turned
around and changed. You know, God does that to some
people, but not most. Most of them, they struggle with
their sins all their lives, the same old sins. And yet we can
say this of a certainty. that the gospel will have an
effect on a man's thoughts and on his affections, on his actions,
on the way he perceives things. The gospel changes a person.
And a gospel that does not change a man is a gospel that has never
been put in the heart. But what I want to be certain
of, and this is getting back now to the main subject, and
if you'll turn to Job 25, as I said, Those that listen to me, when
they die, they go to meet God believing what I say. And that frightened me enough
that I wanted to go back and look and make sure I'm telling
the truth. Make sure that I told Bernice
right. Make sure I'm telling you right. And here's the ultimate question
that I want to make sure I get right for me and for you. Here
in Job 25 verse 4, how then can a man be righteous before God? Everything, every issue of the
gospel is summed up and centered on that one question. That's
it. I'm not saying that there are
not more questions in the gospel, that there are not other issues
which the gospel addresses, but this is the foundational one,
because you see, it's sin that caused all of our problems. All
the other issues that the gospel addresses were caused by sin,
and fixing that problem begins with fixing the problem of sin.
How can a man be righteous in the sight of God? This is the
all-important question, because you see, all of God's blessings
are for the righteous. Do you realize that? Life is for the righteous. Acceptance
is for the righteous. Heaven is for the righteous. You say, well, I thought God
saved sinners. Yes, He does. And yet the Scriptures tell us
this, saying to the righteous, it shall be well with them. Well, then that brings us to
this question. How can man be righteous in the sight of God? Do you realize that every religion
in this world Trying to find an answer to that question. Everything that people do in
religion is an attempt to appear righteous in the sight of God. All the ceremonies, all the doctrines,
all the religious duties, all the moral actions that men do
is an attempt to appear righteous in the sight of God. Because
even though men are ignorant of the things of God, God has
by common grace, what is called common grace, put within the
heart of everyone that comes in this world an understanding
that God is righteous, and he demands righteousness of his
creatures. Everyone understands this, even
though they try to deny it, even though they try to silence The
word of conscience in their heart, everyone knows this, what God
said to Moses in Exodus 34, I will by no means clear, I will not
justify the guilty. How then can we be righteous inside of
God? If everything depends on that, how can I be righteous
before God? One thing's for sure, one of
these days I'm going to be before God. Righteous or not, I'm going
to be before Him. Righteous or not, I'm going to
stand in His presence, and His eye is going to behold me. In that day, how am I going to
be righteous? Well, that's a big question. And we
better look at the individual terms of that question, because
you know you can't come up with a good answer until you've understood
what the question is. For you see, most of religion,
even most of the religion that goes under the name of Christian,
has changed this question by changing the definition of the
terms in it. You say, how's that? Well, they have set forth a God
different from what he really is like. They've brought God
down. And they have perceived man to
be something more than he really is. They've made God less than
he is. Made man more than he is. And
then answer the question, how can the little God, or excuse
me, how can the big great man be righteous in the sight of
the little puny God? And they based their religion
on it. They set forth men that aren't
all that sinful, and they set forth a God that's not all that
righteous. And there really isn't that big
a gap to span. And therefore, their little gospels
are well suited to their little gods. They can build them a bridge
of ceremonies. They can build them a little
bridge of moral duties. They can build them a bridge
of Sabbath keeping and tithing and all this. And think they're
going to get a cross. And indeed, With their little
God and their great men, those Gospels are good enough. But
you know something? That's not the God of the Bible,
and that's not the God that you and I will face. And that's not
man as he's described. Look what Bildad says here. These
are the words of Bildad as he's speaking to Job. Look how he
describes God. Dominion. This is verse 2 of
Job 25. Dominion and all belong to God.
He establishes order in the heights of heaven. How does Bildad describe
God? He describes Him as one who is
so high and lifted up. He rules everything. He describes
him in terms of a great king who has an innumerable army.
Of course, that innumerable army is just himself. God by himself is an innumerable
host. But dominion belongs to him.
You know, Job in chapter nine asks the same question, and he
talks about God's dominion and sovereignty and how he's the
one that makes the sun come up and he's the one that covers
the sun. He's the one that puts the stars in their place and
he can hide you, make it so the stars don't shine if he wants
to. He can tell the sea to overflow
the earth and he can tell it to go back. Do you realize that everything
that happens, everything that happens, happens because God
willed it and ordained it and brought it to pass. He does as
He wills in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and nobody can stay His hand nor say unto Him, what
do you think you are doing? How can you be righteous in the
sight of a God like that? He gives life when He wants to
give it. You were born on the day that God ordained you to
be born. Your mother went in to labor and brought you forth
at the time that God decided. And He's already got it marked
in His calendar, the day that you'll leave. When we bury someone, we put
in their birth date and their death date. But long before we
ever chiseled it in stone, God did. And man thinks he's going to
have his way with God. It can't be done, friends. You can't stand up against God.
You'd do better spitting into the wind. Dominion and all belong to Him.
Have you ever been before God? Have you ever been confronted
by a God who put your soul in the dust? Before whom you cowered? before whom you trembled? Have you ever met a God who shut
your mouth? It says what things the law says. It says to them that are of the
law that every mouth may be shut and the whole world become guilty
before God. I'll tell you one way you can
tell that a person has met the God of the Scriptures, he got
real quiet. He quits talking about all the
good things he's done. He quits making excuses for his
sins. He quits making reasons not to
obey God. He gets real quiet. Because he
stands in awe of the God who made the heavens and the earth.
and orders all things by the power of His Word. He commanded,
it stood firm. Or it came forth, He spoke, and
it came forth, He commanded, it stood firm. Have you ever
met that God? Or have you only met the warm,
fuzzy God that popular religion wants you to believe? Who is this God before whom we
must appear righteous? He's the righteous God Himself.
Look at verse 3. The last line says, Upon whom
does His light not arise? Skip down to verse 5. If even
the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in His eyes. When it says, Upon whom does
His light not arise? The sense is this. Who is it
He doesn't see? You remember as a kid, you thought
you could get in the dark and hide from your mom and dad. Of
course, your mom and dad have spent some time being a kid,
and they knew exactly how kids act. There's nothing more dangerous
than a quiet child, you know? As long as they're making noise,
they're probably okay. My mother used to tell me, I
knew we needed the mischief because everything got quiet. And we
think we can get quiet in the presence of God. We think we
can hide back in the little nooks and crannies. Especially do we
hide in religion. We hide in our works, and we
hide in our ceremonial performances, and we hide in our dutiful actions. And we get back in our little
nooks and crannies and we think we can hide in the shadows and
God's light won't come on us. On whom does His light not rise? You cannot escape God. You're
not going to find a blessed eternity by avoiding His gaze. He will
see you. And He will see you not as you
keep trying to convince everybody you are. He will see you as you
really are. That's a sobering thought. God's not going to see you like
you pretended to be. He's going to see you like you
really are. He says the moon's not bright
and the stars are not pure in His eyes. I think it was last
Sunday night. Reverend Dean pointed out to us the moon. It was just
coming up over there. It was a big full moon, just
so bright. It looked white. And that's even with whatever
pollution we've managed to put in the air. Imagine in Job's
day when the air was clear, and they'd see that sun, excuse me,
the moon in the sky, and it looked so bright and pure. And those stars out there, crystal
clear. Here's what Bildad is telling
us. Those things that we perceive as so white and so pure are not
even clean in God's sight. Isaiah put it this way. He said,
our righteousnesses, all those beautiful, bright righteousnesses
we put on, those things about us we think are so good, they
have become filthy rags, fit only to be cast out. A just God. He says, I'll by
no means clear the guilty. So it's a gospel of a God as
He's revealed in the Scriptures, and it's the gospel of man as
He's revealed in Scriptures. Hold on to your pew. Here's man. Here's you. Let's forget man. Let's quit
being doctrinal. Let's be personal. Here's you.
Here's me. Verse 6, How much less man who
is but a maggot. Can you think of anything more
disgusting than a maggot? It was my job as a child to take
the trash out. I didn't have many chores, but
I was one of them. And once in a while, during the summer months,
you know, you'd put some garbage out, maybe early in the week,
and you'd sit there in that hot sun all week long, and flies
would get to it. And later on in the week, you'd
be taking out another bag of garbage, and I'd lift up that
lid. and is just crawling with those
filthy, stinking maggots. The smell of it was awful. The
sight of it was awful. Make you gag. Immediately put
the lid back down and hope there's another garbage can. I didn't like cleaning very much
when I was a kid, but when I found a maggot-infested garbage can,
I wanted to dump it out and wash it. It's how disgusting those
things are. Nobody likes maggots, friends. That is the only creature
that the scriptures could come up with to define what we are
in the sight of God. That's not flattering, I know,
but it's true. I believe, as Winston Churchill
said, well, all men are worms, but I do perceive myself to be
a glowworm. I'm a little better than all
the other worms, no sir. Maggots feeding on death. We're born that way, having the
nature of a sinner, corrupt through and through. Now I ask you, how
could any of those maggots in the garbage can ever be acceptable
in my sight? And how can I, a spiritual maggot, ever be righteous
in the sight of God? You know, neither Job in chapter
9 nor Bildad in chapter 25 gives us a clear answer. But Bildad
does hint at it. The way he asks the question
begins to show us the answer. Look here in verse 4. Here's the question. How then
can a man be righteous before God? And he repeats the question. And notice how he asks this question.
How can one born of a woman be pure? I turn over here to Galatians
chapter 4. Eve gave birth to the first man,
first child that is, into this world. And that one was a murderer. And every child born of women
since then has been impure, except one. Is it not interesting that
Job did not say, how can the son of a man be pure? Back then, everybody counted
their ancestry by their father. They didn't care about the mothers.
That's just the way things were. Who your mother was didn't make
any difference. Why would Job or Bildad fly over talking about
somebody being born of a woman but this? Galatians 4 verse 4,
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son born of a woman. Here's one whose biological ancestry
cannot be traced to a man, only to a woman. And this but
one born of a woman is pure. He was pure. He came into this
world without sin. You and I came already guilty
of the sin of Adam. You and I came into this world
already of the nature of a spiritual maggot. You and I came to this
world sinners, impure. This one born of a woman came
in without sin. Though he was born under the
law, the law had not one word to say against him. Not when
he came into the world, not through the whole time he lived in this
world. The law had not a thing to say against him. In fact,
God who gave the law looked down from heaven and said, This is
my son in whom I am well pleased. He never said that about anybody
else. Because there were no other born of a woman who was pure,
but this one was. But now behold this, over here
in Psalm 22. These words were written about
a thousand years before our Lord was crucified, and yet they most
obviously describe His crucifixion. And here's this one born of a
woman who was pure. And yet he says this, verse 6,
but I am a worm and not a man. He who knew no sin. This is 2
Corinthians 5.21. He who knew no sin. He was born
of a woman, made under the law to redeem those that are under
the law. But he knew no sin. He did no sin. He had no sin. In him is no sin. And yet he
was made to be a sin offering. The sin of all God's people from
all the ages were laid on Him. The sin of all God's sheep was
put on Him. The Bible said we're worms, we're
maggots. And yet He who was no maggot became one, was made one. And what does 2 Corinthians 5.21
go on to say? He who know no sin was made to
be sin, a sin offering, in order that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. How can a man be righteous with
God? Not by anything you can do. I guarantee you, God being who
He is and us being who we are, I'm a Baptist preacher. I could
dunk you from now to eternity and it wouldn't wash away your
sin. I could take wine and bread and feed it until you were fat
and drunk and it wouldn't put away your sin. You could walk on your knees
on glass from here to one of the east or west coast of this
country. You could take pilgrimages You
could say your prayers. You could read your Bible through
every year. You could memorize it. It won't
put away your sins in the sight of that God. But this one, this
pure man, born of a woman, he could take to himself the sins
of all God's chosen people and absorb them within himself and
say, I'm not a man anymore. I'm a worm. So did us worms. by His grace
could say, I am the righteousness of God in Him. I don't have any righteousness
of my own. Look over here, Philippians chapter 3. We'll close with this.
How does that righteousness come to me? Christ was made to be sin so
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. But how does that
righteousness get from Him to me? Well, so far as all the legal
matters are concerned, God did that. He put my sin on Christ
and put Christ's righteousness on me. But what God does within
the councils of His own courthouse, He accomplishes in
my own experience, in the believer's experience. And he says this,
Paul says this in Philippians chapter 3, But whatever was to
my prophet I now consider lost, For the sake of Christ, what
is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing
greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have
lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that
I may gain Christ and be found in Him," now notice what he says,
"...not having a righteousness of my own, not one that I made,
not one that I accomplished, not some garment of righteousness
I knit together, Not having a righteousness of my own which comes from the
law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness
that comes from God and is by faith. How can a man be righteous before
God? The first thing is to do like
Paul and count all your righteousness rubbish. He says, I count everything
rubbish. What was everything he's talking about? all his righteousness. Boy, he'd been doing a good job.
He had such a good righteousness, he says, as touching that righteousness
which is in the law, I was blameless. And he said, but I throw that
all away. I count it worthless. I don't want that righteousness
of my own anymore. I want this righteousness, the
one that comes from God and is received by faith. It is the
righteousness of Christ given to sinners. I ask you, today,
everybody here, is trying to be righteous in the sight of
God. Everybody is. You've got some way, you think
that if I died now, there's some argument I could bring forth,
there's some way I could make myself appear righteous in the
sight of God. What is your argument? What is
your righteousness? Is it what you've done? Is it
your church? Is it your preacher or your priest
or your pastor, whatever you call him? Is it your charitable endeavors?
Is it your religious duties? If it is, I'll tell you this,
you are still a maggot. But if your righteousness is
none other than Jesus Christ, who was made to be sin for you,
then notwithstanding all your sins, you have been made the
righteousness of God in Christ. And Job's question is answered.
Now I've done the best I know how to tell you the truth. This
is the gospel I'm going to die with. I'm not planning any changes. I feel confident to leave this
world believing this gospel. So I've told it to you. What
are you going to do with it? Are you just going to go away
from here and forget about it? Or are you going to seek the
Lord? Are you going to try to put the
conviction of your heart out of your mind? The scriptures
say this. Today, if you hear His voice,
don't harden your hearts. God grant that none of us will
harden our hearts. God grant first that He speak.
Because hearing me speak is not the same thing as hearing God
speak. God grant that He speak. And then God grant that you not
harden your heart. but you'll receive the righteousness
of God in Christ by faith.