long ago, probably in the days
of Enoch or Noah or Abraham, whom God described as the greatest
man in all the East, whom God described as one who was perfect,
that is, mature, upright, one who feared God and disputed evil,
a man who worshipped God in a day when few worshipped God, a man
who walked with God than a day when few walked with God. A man
who believed God than a day when few believed God. And the Lord
God sent Satan to try his servant Job. Satan didn't come to him
by accident, God sent him. God raised the issue and God
sent the devil to try him. You see, Satan is not a rival
to God, he is God's vassal. He does God's bidding as clearly
and as immediately as the angels in heaven, though unwillingly. He does only what God Almighty
has ordained must be done for the good of his people and the
glory of his name. Though Satan is a roaring lion
and would destroy God's people, God uses his roars to strengthen,
edify, and sanctify his people. And Satan came against Job in
one day. In one day, Roy, Job had ten
children, seven sons and three daughters, and God took them. He had riches, riches beyond
any man in the East. And God took it all, all his
cattle, all his sons, all his daughters, all his property. And the scripture says, then
Job bowed his head and worshiped God. And in all this he sinned
not, and neither did he charge God foolishly. We will be wise
to learn from God's servant Job. Don't ever think about charging
God with poverty. Don't ever sit in the vanity
of your haughty pride and imaginary worth and imaginary understanding. And say, I don't understand why
God did this. You don't need to understand why God does what
he does. It's not ours to question God
or charge God with folly and say God hasn't done right. For
to question him is to say he hasn't done right. Job bowed
his head and worshiped God. Because Job had learned from
experience that God rules everyone. He said, the Lord gave, the Lord's
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
His wife said, why don't you just cuss God and die? He said,
you talk like a blasphemer, woman. We'll worship God. We'll worship
God. Now, with that in mind, I want
you to turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter seven. And I want us to take a visit
to the funeral home. You say, well, that's a morbid
subject. You might think so, but it's the wisest place in
the world for a man to be. I know some of you try your best
to stay away from hospitals and rest homes and funeral homes
and graveyards. I encourage you to go. You're
headed there. You're headed there far quicker
than you think. Shelby and I have had a little
experience with it. She far more than I. We've been
married just a few months. Got a call on early morning,
November the 1st. 1969, her brother had been killed
by another man. 23, 24 years old. A few years later, got another
call. Her nephew, two years old, fell
in a creek behind their house, drowned face down in the creek. Just a few years after that,
her dad died after suffering from cancer for a long, long
time. And then yesterday we buried her mother, 94 years old. Nephew, two years old, little
less, about the age of our granddaughter. And now this old, old woman. 18 months ago, I did the same
thing I did yesterday for her folks. I preached my mother's
funeral. And I preached my mother's funeral
knowing that my mother never knew God. And I want you to understand
something. You will be wise to lay these things to heart. All
right, read with me. Ecclesiastes chapter 7. It is better. It is better. Now these aren't the words of
Aristotle or Plato, these are the words of God Almighty. It
is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house
of feasting. We all like to go to a party,
we like to get together, I as much as anybody else. I like
to sit down and laugh and have a good time, enjoy good company.
But the best place to go is funeral home. It's better to go to the
house of mourning than to the house of feasting. But that's
the end of all men. This is where you're headed. At God's appointed time, you're
not gonna move one second beyond it. You're not gonna move one
second beyond it. I know we live in this materialistic,
humanistic age in society in which everybody thinks, you know,
I'm gonna work eat the right stuff and drink the right junk
and I'll exercise and I'll add years to my life. You're not
gonna add a breath to your life. Not even a breath. It's appointed
unto me and wants to live and wants to die. And after this
the judgment and the bounds of your habitation God has set.
Before you were ever born God marked every step you'd take
and every breath you'd take and every place you'd live and he
marked the time of your death and the means of it. It's done. It's done. That's the end of all men. And
the living will lay it to his heart. That's the reason you're
trying to stay away from it. That's exactly the reason why.
You don't want to go see somebody gasping for their last breath
because you know you got to do the same thing. You don't want
to go see somebody who's laying in a coffin because you know
you got to lay in the same place. You don't want to go see somebody.
We do everything we possibly can to keep from being exposed
to reality. The funeral directors, they'll
rush the family aside. Don't even want to see close
the coffin. We can't stand that. We can't stand that. Oh, let's
not be around when they start shoveling dirt in the hole. That's
the end of all men. And if you see it, you've got
to lay it to heart. The living will lay it to his
heart. Sorrow. is better. Sorrow is better than
laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart
is made better. The heart of the wise, Dave,
is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in
the house of mercy. I wonder if you'll lay these
things to heart. Oh may God Help you too for your soul's sake,
for the glory of his son. These bodies, these bodies, just reach out
and touch them right next to you. I don't care who it is,
just touch them. Touch them. I'm serious, touch them. What
you're touching fixin' to rot. These bodies, these bodies must
die because we're sinners. We're going to bury them in the
ground. They must rot. They must decay. They must return to the dust
because the wages of sin is death. But the wages of sin which is
death is not just the death of the body. Do not foolishly imagine
that when we die we die like a dog and that ends everything.
Oh no! After death you and I are going
to meet God Almighty. infinitely holy, immaculately
pure, inflexibly just, we're going to meet God Almighty face
to face in judgment. And you can try to convince yourself
that's not so. You can try to convince yourself
that when you die, you die like a dog and that just ends everything.
But you know better. You see, man is a living soul. We have these bodies which are
just temporary molds of existence. We have these bodies which are
just temporary shells, just tents that have to be folded up at
God's appointed time, just houses that are decaying and rotting
and falling to the ground. But these things are just the
outward shell. Man is a living soul and you
know it. You know it. You can, you can
cry no God, you can cry no eternity, you can cry no judgment all you
want to in the deep recesses of your heart, in the lonely
isolation of your soul when nobody hears but you and yourself speaking
to yourself before God Almighty. There's something that constantly,
constantly cries out in your heart. Righteousness! Judgment! Eternity! Righteousness! Judgment! Eternity! I've got
to meet God. And you can't stop it. You can't
stifle the voice of your conscience. It can't be done. With these
facts in mind, as I watched my mother-in-law die this past 10
days, I kept asking myself this question,
Don, how's it going to be for you? When you're laying on your
deathbed, When your body is trembling, when you're gasping for your
last breath, when the cold sweat of death is on your brow, when
you're compelled to face the fact that you're about to meet
God in judgment. I'll tell you what I'd like for
you to do. I'd like for you to take that thought home with you.
I'd like for you to go to bed with it every night and wake
up with it every morning. I'm dead serious. I wish I could
get everyone of these children. Every man and woman in this place,
everybody I speak to, carry that thought with you constantly.
I dare you to face it. I dare you to face it. How's
it going to be for you? That'll show you the worthlessness
of your religion or the value of it. That'll show you the worthlessness
of your profession or the value of it. The fact is, these are
questions I ask myself With all the honesty, my depraved heart
can muster constantly. I try, ladies, to live every
moment of every day in the prospect of this fact. Well, how do you
answer? This is the calm, confident answer
of my soul. Are you listening? My sin, oh,
the bliss, of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the
whole, is nailed to the cross, and I ban it no more. Praise
the Lord, praise the Lord. It is well with my soul, and
it is. Well, Pastor, how can you say
that with confidence? I'll tell you how. I know from experience what it
is. to lie on my deathbed, as far as I knew, with the doctor
who's telling me that I must soon leave this world, in the
immediate prospect of meeting God, and to be at calm and peace
with God. Not because of any profession
or faith, not because of any works, not because of any experience,
not because of something I've done, oh no, but because of what
Christ has done, who he is, at peace with God. I stand right now before God
Almighty, before whom everything is. I've got my wife fooled. She
thinks I'm a pretty good fella. She thinks I'm a pretty good
fella. God Almighty sees everything. Everything. everything. And you can't begin to see Bill
Rawley what I see in myself. I stand before God as a man keenly
aware of his sin, the corruption of my heart, the depravity of
my soul, the evil of my mind. I stand before God knowing that
he sees and knows all. Not just the polluted things
I've done with these hands, but the polluted thing I am. He sees
everything. I stand before God without fear. Do you understand what I'm talking
about? Without dread. Without dread. How come? Because
God Almighty has washed me in the blood of his son. And he
sees me in nothing but perfect righteousness, robed in the righteousness
of his Son. He beholds me not in myself,
not for myself, but in his Son and for his Son. And now God,
for Christ's sake, smiles on this sinner. And if you've ever seen the smile
of God on your soul, you can walk through hell with God smiles on this nation. And I know the answers to those
questions. I have found the answers to those
questions. God has revealed to me, inscribed upon my heart,
the answer to those questions, which constantly tormented my
soul from the earliest days I can remember, until God spoke peace
to my heart. Now, if you give me your attention
for just a few minutes, I'll show you the questions and the
answers I'm talking about. Number one, how good do I have to be to be
accepted with God? How good? Now you mamas and daddies
and grandmas and grandpas, you lie to your babies all the time.
You tell them good little boys go to heaven, bad little boys
go to hell. Your good little boys go into hell because they're
not any good ones. They're not any good ones. And the earlier
you make them understand, there's nothing good in them. The better
off you are, and the better off they are. No sir, your goodness
does not extend to God. Know what David said? David said,
my righteousness extendeth not unto thee, O Lord. What'd he
mean? I can't do anything good before God, and you know it. But how good does a man have
to be to get to heaven? How good does a man have to be
to be accepted of God? Perfect. That's what the book
says. It must be perfect to be accepted.
Read it for yourself in Leviticus 22. When God gives laws of sacrifices,
he says concerning every sacrifice brought to him, you make sure
it has no blemish, no weakness, no spot, no infirmity. It must
be perfect to be accepted. And I'm telling you, you must
be perfect to be accepted with God. God will not wink at sin,
he won't tolerate sin, he won't cover it up. It must be perfect
to be accepted with God. Our Lord said, accept your righteousness,
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Turn to Revelation
21 verse 27. God told Abraham, he said, walk
before me and be perfect. He said again in first Peter,
Be ye holy, for I am holy. He said follow peace with all
men and holiness, holiness. Now you can talk about partial
holiness, progressive holiness, all you want to, either you're
holy or you're not. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, perfect holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Revelation 21 verse 27. There shall in no wise enter
into the city anything that defile it, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination or maketh a liar. Now just in case you don't understand
it, that means you can't get there. Because you defile. You work
abomination. You're a liar. That's the nature
of man and the act of man. All of us. All of us. No exceptions. That mean everybody without hope?
Oh no, there's somebody to whom those words do not apply. There's
somebody of whom those words do not speak anymore. But they
which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And there's the
word of hope. God Almighty will never accept
the best that I can do. He will not, and in his strict
holiness, justice, and truth, he cannot accept anything less
than absolute perfection, righteousness, and holiness. If there is any
spot of sin found in me, any failure at any point, inwardly,
outwardly, morally, spiritually, any lack of perfection, any blemish
of any kind, I must be consumed in the fire of God's absolute
light and holiness forever. Well, that raises another question.
What does this great and glorious holy Lord God require of me that
I may be accepted and be found holy before him? Two things. Two things. If you've been listening
to me preach more than a day or two, you've heard me say it
a dozen times. Two things. God requires, and he's going
to get it. Satisfaction. Satisfaction. God says the soul that sinneth
it shall die. That means you're going to die.
God says the wages of sin is death. That means death is your
portion. God says, this God who revealed
himself to Moses on the mount so that all Israel trembled before
him, this God before whom the prophet Isaiah cried, woe is
me, this God who nailed his son to Calvary's tree, this God,
he declares, I will by no means clear the guilty. He's not going
to do it. He's not going to do it. Our
judges, they sit on the bench and they say, well, you know,
we consider the circumstances and the age and the environment
of the offender and we consider the fact that, you know, he was
drunk and he was smoking pot or whatever and we'll just, we'll
be lenient. That's because we're all just
like him, buddy. That's exactly right. God's not like you. God's not like me. God will not,
he cannot be lenient. can't be. God Almighty will abdicate
his throne before he'd be lenient with any sin. The soul that sinneth,
it shall die. And if God's not as good as his
word, God can't be trusted. When it says a good God couldn't
send anybody to hell, it's a good God who must send folks to hell.
Justice must be maintained, otherwise chaos rules. God says the soul
that sinneth, it shall die. And God demands something else. He demands perfect righteousness. Perfect righteousness. He says walk before me and be
holy. He didn't say walk before me
and do the best you can. He didn't say walk before me
and keep the Sabbath day. He didn't say walk before me and
go to church. He didn't say walk before me and live the best life
you can live. Oh no. He said walk before me
and be holy. because I'm holy. Translated
elsewise, be perfect for I'm perfect. Does that mean that
we're all without hope? Does that mean that we must all
perish in hell under the wrath of God forever? Oh no. Thank
God, thank God, thank God there is a multitude, a multitude of
sinners chosen of God from eternity who can and must be saved. For
whom justice called And mercy answered, because God is gracious,
he said, deliver him from going down to the pit, for I have found
a ransom. I know, I know beyond a shadow
of a doubt, that since Christ died, since he paid the ransom
price for many, Since he obtained eternal redemption for somebody,
since Jesus Christ put away somebody's sin by the sacrifice of himself,
since he shed his blood to justify and save somebody, then all for
whom he died must and shall be saved. Must be! This is the critical
issue of the gospel. This is the thing that distinguishes
this congregation from every church in this town, every church
in this cadet. This is the thing that distinguishes
this preacher from folks you hear all over the place. We declare
that Jesus Christ is God and he cannot fail. He cannot fail. And to suggest that he died for
some folks and paid the ransom price for some and redeemed some
who must perish after all under the wrath of God is to declare
that he's not God at all, but just the idolatrous figment of
man's imagination. This is what the prophet of God
says, he shall not fail. Bless God then, the cross of
Jesus Christ shall never be discovered in miscarriage. Those for whom
the son of God died must be with him in glory. So one question
then remains. My conscience still requires
an answer to it. Turn to Job 25, I'll show it
to you. How can I be justified before
God? Look at verse 4, Job 25, 4. Behold, they had asked Job, how then
can man be justified with God? If God's holy, if God's perfect,
if God's pure, how can man be justified with God? How can he
be clean that's born of woman? Man born of corrupt seed from
a corrupt womb, how you gonna make him clean? Behold the moon. I love to go out on a beautiful,
clear night, lift my eyes to the heavens and just look at
the moon. Oh, beautiful, full moon. Look at it. It shineth
not, that is not before God. Yea, the stars, those brilliant,
brilliant, brilliant, burning stars, they're not pure in his
sight. Now you go ahead and strut if
you want to. You're just a word. How much less man that is a word.
And you know what the word is, don't you? Ever go out and pick
up your garbage after it's been sitting in the garage, hot July
day for four or five days, and dampness underneath you picking
up just those wiggling maggots? That's the world. You. You and me. Your baby's in mine. Your mama and daddy in mine.
How much more hemispheric man than is a maggot in the son of
man that's a maggot. I know you're religious. Most
of you made a profession of faith. Many of you come here regularly
and you try to do good. But God didn't send me here to
make you feel good about yourself Pat you on the back while you
go to hell. God sent me here to declare the truth to you.
And I fear for your souls. I fear for you. Most religious
people in this world are well described by the prophet Isaiah.
He said you made a covenant with death. You're at league with
hell. You said death's not going to
touch me. Everything will be alright. I'm
not going to hell. Don't worry about me. I'm alright.
I'm alright. And God said, I'm going to lay
judgment to the lion. And I'm going to drop a plummet
ball of righteousness. And your foundation is going
to fall. Your refuge is going to crumble. You have a bed. Nice, religious
bed. Been in church all your life,
you know. Always went to church, didn't ever do anything too bad.
Made a profession, little boy. Got baptized, somebody splashed
a little water on your face or something. Every time you have a little
uneasy feeling, I remember. I remember. I was there. And
you try to stretch out on your bed, but your feet hang off. And you can't ever get any rest.
Your bed's too short. Too short. You got some covers.
And you, every time you get a little uneasy, every time a sermon begins
to probe a little bit, you try to wrap yourself up in your religious
covers, but they're too narrow and your nakedness is still exposed.
You've chosen the wide gate and you're walking in the broad road
that leads to destruction, everlasting wrath. For there's a way that
seems right to a man. Everybody says. Everybody just
knows this is right. God's going to look at my good
works and look at my bad ones. And as long as my good works
outweigh my bad ones, God's going to accept me. Problem is you
haven't got any good ones. There's a way that seems right
to a man. But the end thereof is the way of death. I know you
have a refuge. But if your refuge is a refuge
you've made, I don't care what name you call it. I don't care
where you got it. It's a refuge of lies that is
going to be destroyed. How can a man be justified with
God? Not by something I do. Oh, whenever I hear men start
bragging about what they do, what you do. You know, I don't
cheat anybody. I don't steal. I don't run around
on my wife. Don't get drunk too often. Now
you tell me. Come on. What if you dare be
honest? Dare be honest with God? What
did you ever do you prepared to offer God? Me? Yeah. But I'm blind. What did you ever think? I mean,
just a thought. Just a thought. Your best, best,
best thought. Your best thought. With which
you're willing to stand before God Almighty in judgment. Merrill,
if that doesn't shake a man to the very depths of his soul,
I don't know what will. You can't be accepted of God
by what you, if I justify myself, Job said, this man of whom God
said he's a perfect man, one who fears God and excuses evil. Job said if I justify myself,
my own mouth will condemn me and prove me perverse. And I'm
guaranteeing the same is true of you. You see, salvation is
the free gift and operation of God Almighty. If you and I have
eternal life, it must be given us and brought in us by God himself. Yet, if God would save us, he
can do it only on the grounds of justice satisfied and righteousness
established. The only way he can, and the
only way that could ever be done, is by the sacrifice of his darling
son of Calvary. And now he hath made God made his own darling son
to be sin. David, I've been preaching that
for 33 years and I haven't gotten close to preaching it yet. Christ
who knew no sin and did no sin, who could not know sin, who could
not do sin, was made to be sin. How? By divine imputation. Our sin was made his. And when
he was made to be sin, Soak itself into the very heart
of the God-man until justice was satisfied. How come? So that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Christ. How? You can't do anything righteous.
You can't even think righteous. You can't even imagine righteous.
But how are we going to be made righteous? In exactly the same
way. divine education, God put it
on us and give him to us the righteousness of his Son. And
now, as God held Christ accountable for sin, he holds every believing
sinner accountable for righteousness. And he smiles upon every sinner who finds refuge
in Jesus Christ his son. God help you to flee away to
him. Amen.