I invite you to turn in your
Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5. The book of 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. I want us to begin reading this
morning with verse 17 and read down through verse 21. That is
2 Corinthians chapter 5. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And all things are of God, who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. and hath given
to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, We pray you
in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God. For he hath made him
to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. My text primarily this morning
is verse 21. I mention the subject of substitution
quite often in my preaching, but as far as having ever preached
a sermon just from verse 21, I suppose that I never have. However, this morning I feel
impressed of the Lord to bring to you a message on substitution,
which is the heart, the very heart of the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now our text this morning reveals
the vital truth, a very vital truth of the gospel. Substitution
is the foundation, it is the foundational truth of Christianity. It is the very rock upon which
our hope as the people of God are built. This is the only hope
of the sinner, the substitutionary work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I believe that it is the
joy of every believer who understands it, every believer who has been
enabled by the Spirit of God to lay hold of this truth of
substitution and simulate it into their spiritual system.
I believe it's been to the comfort of their heart. He, God the Father,
hath in holy justice and infinite mercy, made by divine imputation,
Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, His infinite and well-beloved and
only begotten Immaculate Son, to be sin, an awful mass of iniquity
for us helpless and condemned sinful rebels. Amen. Church dismissed. We can go home. Isn't that marvelous? Isn't that
wonderful what our Lord has done on our behalf? Now, beloved,
this is the greatest transaction that ever took place upon the
earth. Now I know that this transaction
really took place before the foundation of the world. I know
this transaction took place back yonder before the flapping of
the seraph's wing had ever disturbed the unnavigated ether air, but
I know that this also was a transaction that took place when our Lord
Jesus Christ came into this world. This is one of the most marvelous
sights that men ever saw, and the greatest wonder that heaven
ever executed, that He, the spotless Lamb of God, was made to be sin. on the behalf of those that God
has chosen in the eternal covenant of election. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, made to be sinned by His Father for us. Now, no man living upon the earth
will ever really be able to plumb this truth to its depths. Many
of the people of God have struggled and struggled to come to a clear
mind and a clear understanding of this truth. And I pray today,
and I prayed ever since I felt led of the Lord to preach this
message, that God would enable you today to be gripped by the
glorious reality of this truth, of the substitutionary work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. In plain language, I guess, I'm
praying that God would cause this truth to get a hold of our
hearts in order that we might respond as we should to it. I know that I'm preaching to
those that have never-dying souls, and I know as I stand before
you this morning that every service that we have together in this
hall here, that is one in which God would be pleased to do His
work, and we believe that God is doing His work, and I want
this morning that the Lord would lay hold of your heart, and I
wish that you would listen very carefully today to the message
in order that you might be able to have a clear mind and a clear
understanding on how God saves sinners. Now the doctrine of
substitution is indeed one of the greatest truths of the Word
of God. It must be plainly and faithfully
declared. If I as a preacher, if I do not
preach this, it were better for me that I'd never been born. If we do not preach this constantly
and incessantly, we have missed our mission. We have failed to
keep the Great Commission. Woe is me, the Apostle Paul said,
if I preach not the gospel. Now substitution will be the
one constant and glorious theme of this pulpit as long as I have
the strength to occupy it. Now, as I said before, and all
those of you, and there's some people here that's been listening
to me preach for over 20 years, and you know that this has been
the theme of my message, the doctrine of substitution. The
gospel of Christ will not be pushed aside as an old piece
of furniture in this church. The glorious gospel of substitutionary
redemption is the strength. It is the glory and the life
of this church. Well, first of all then, in getting
in to this subject this morning, I believe there are three persons
that are mentioned here in the text. He, that is God, hath made
him, that is Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us sinners. So we have God, the Father, and
we have Christ, the Son, and then we have the sinners. Before
we can understand God's salvation, it's necessary, I believe, for
us to know something about these three persons that are set forth
in this text. Here, number one is God. Let
every man and woman, boy and girl, know what God is. God is a very different being
from what some of you suppose that he is. The God of heaven
and of earth, the Jehovah of holy scripture, the God of all
grace, is not the God that some make unto themselves and worship. Now there are men and women in
this so-called Christian land of ours who worship a God who
is no more God than the ancient idols of Egypt. an imaginary
God they have. They have a God that they fashioned
after the thoughts of their own hearts. A God that is not fashioned
out of stone or wood, but a God that is fashioned from their
own thoughts and ideas and opinions. Now, beloved, the God of the
Scripture, the God with whom we have to do, there are three
great attributes of our God that I believe is implied here in
our text. Now the first great attribute
of the God that we worship, the God that we bow before, the God
that we declare unto you this morning, the first great attribute
is this God of Scripture is a sovereign God. He's a sovereign God. We read that He hath made Christ
to be sin for us. Now, beloved, he could not have
made Christ to be sin for us. He could not have done this if
he had not been a sovereign. Now, he did what all of us together
could not have done. We could not lay sin on Christ. We could have not made Christ
to be sin in our place and on our behalf. We had not the ability
to do that. The God of the Bible, He has
absolute authority and absolute power to do exactly as He pleases
to do. Over the head of God there is
no law. Upon His arm there is no necessity. He knows no rule
but His own free and mighty will. God is not to be controlled by
the will of man, nor the desires of man, nor by fate. He is God
doing as he wills in the arms of heaven and in the lower world. He is a God, too, who gives no
account of his matters. He makes his creatures just what
he chooses to make them, and he does with them just as he
wills. I'm talking about a sovereign
God. I'm talking about a God who rules. I'm talking about
a God who does according to his own will in the arms of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth. And if any man resents
the fact that God does just what he chooses with his own creatures. God would speak to him in Romans
9 and 20 and 21, says, Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replyest
against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay the same lump to make one vessel
unto honor and another unto dishonor? Beloved God is good, but God
is sovereign. God is absolutely sovereign,
knowing nothing that can control him. The monarchy of this world
is no constitutional and limited monarchy. It is not tyrannical,
but it is absolutely in the hands of an all-wise God. But mark
it, beloved, it is in no hands but his. He has the power even
to make his own son to be sin on our behalf. No nun assists
God in the dispensation of his government or in the applying
of his sovereign goodwill and pleasure among the inhabitants
of the earth. No cherubim, no seraphim helps
God or assists God in the dispensation of his government. The poet said,
he sits on no picarious throne, nor borrows leave to be. He is
the God of predestination, the God upon whose absolute will
the hinges of this world swaying to and fro. I quoted part of
this poem last week. I wanted to give you all of it
this week. Chained to his throne a volume
lies with all the fates of men, with every angel's form and size
drawn by the eternal pen. His providence unfolds the book
and makes his counsel shine. Each opening leaf and every stroke
fulfills some deep design. This is the God of the Bible.
This is the God whom we adore. This God is no weak God who is
controlled by the will of men, who cannot steer the ship of
providence, but he's a God unalterable, infinite, and unerring. This
is the God we worship, a God that is infinitely above his
creatures as the highest thought and higher still than that. This is our God. This is the
first character mentioned in our text. I said he had three
attributes that I wanted to mention. I'm introducing to you the God
who has done what verse 21 tells us that he's done. The second,
the first was he's an absolute sovereign. The second one is
that he's a God of infinite justice. He has found a way, thank God,
to be both just and justifier, Romans 3 and verse 26. He is
a God of inflexible justice. He's not the God whom many religionists
bow before and adore. Many have a God who winks at
sin. Some worship a God who does not
punish sin. There God is so weakly merciful
and so mercilessly weak that he passes by transgression and
iniquity and never enacts punishment for sin. Some of you may believe
in a God who will not punish sin. Your unbelief of the gospel
tells me that. That there may be some of you
here that do not believe in a God who is absolutely just. a God who will punish sin. Some of you may believe in your
heart that God is going to listen just to some of your little prayers
and that He's going to just forget about all of your sin and all
of your iniquity and never call you into account for it. You've
got a few sweet words that you're going to whisper in the ear of
God and He's going to just forget about you because you are a special
case. Well, let me make haste to say
that your God is not the God of the Bible. The God of the
Bible is one who is inflexibly severe in justice and will by
no means, the Bible says, clear the guilty. The Bible says in
Nahum 1 in verse 3, the Lord is slow to anger and great in
power and will not at all acquit the wicked. The God with whom
we have to do when His subjects rebel, He marks their sin and
never forgives them until He has punished that sin either
upon them or upon their substitute. Now you mark it down. He is inflexibly
just, and God will punish sin. That's the message of the cross.
God will punish sin. Now hear it. The God of the Bible
is as severe as if he were unmerciful, and as just as if he were not
gracious, and yet he is as gracious and merciful as if he were not
just. The God of the Bible will punish
sin, and He's a God of grace and mercy, and He will provide,
as our text teaches today, a substitute in order that the sins of His
people might be forgiven and put away. Now, the number three
thing that I want us to notice about the attributes of our God
revealed in this text is this, that the God of our text is a
God of unfathomable grace. He's a God of grace. We did not
send to heaven. Now you can read this in our
context here this morning. In verse 18 it says, All things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given us the minister of reconciliation, to witness
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. Now then, Paul says, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you,
in Christ's stead, be you reconciled unto God. Well, what do I get
from this? Well, beloved, I believe that God Almighty has demonstrated
His grace In that, that we, as men, we had offended God, God
was the offended party, we had sinned against Him, we had broken
His law, and yet we, as men, didn't get together and send
an ambassador up to heaven to seek reconciliation. It was God
who sent his son down here to this world. It was God who initiated. You read it in verse 18 in the
first phrase of the verse. And all things are of God. Meaning that this plan of redemption
meaning that this offering up of the eternal Son of God, that
this was all of God, it was His plan, it was His will, it was
of His grace, His deep unfathomable grace, that we see this. Well,
we did not send for an ambassador, but our Lord Jesus Christ He
was sent of God. God took the initiative. And
beloved, this is grace. God is full of grace. He delights
in mercy. According to the great grace
of God, we have been delivered and forgiven, if we have been,
this morning from our sin. There is hope through grace.
Now then, beloved, let me say this to you this morning. As
we look at this text of Scripture, as we look upon it, I know that
there are those who may say, well, you know, I see in this
verse here, in verse 19, that God was in Christ. I believe
that. I believe that God sent the Lord
Jesus Christ down here and that Christ was God and that he came
into the world to reconcile the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us, Paul
says, that word of reconciliation, to go out and preach to men that
God was in Christ and that he was imputing the sins of the
world, as some say, unto Christ. Well, what does that term, world,
there mean? Somebody says, you know, preacher,
I believe in whosoever will. Well, I believe in whosoever
will too. That may shock you, but I don't believe in whosoever
won't. I don't believe in whosoever will not. I believe the people
of God will be made willing in the day of his power. The word
world here does not mean all men without exception. It means
all men without distinction of nationality, race, or so on,
but specifically it means that not the Jews only, but also God
will call a people out from among the Gentiles for his name. God is in the business of saving
a people. a particular people and this
people is the one that he took their sin and imputed them to
the Lord Jesus Christ and so we have a message And that message
is that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Now then,
we've talked then about our God, about the three attributes that
we said was revealed here and implied in our text. That is
sovereignty, inflexible justice, and the grace of God. Well, that
has to do then with the first person in the text. The second
person is the Son of God. And that is Christ who knew no
sin. He's the Son of God. He's begotten
of the Father before all worlds. Begotten, I say, not made, being
of the same substance with the Father, co-equal, co-eternal,
and co-existence. Is the Father Almighty? Well,
so is the Son. The Almighty God from heaven
has the Father power to give life, even so the Son of God
has power to give life. He's the very God of very God,
having the dignity. and not inferior to the fathers,
but being equal to him in every respect. God over all, blessed
forevermore. Jesus Christ also is the son
of Mary, a man like ourselves. He is a man subject to all the
infirmities of human nature, sin excepted. of this God in
Christ, our text says, that he knew no sin. It does not say
that he did not sin. That we know is true. But if
it says, I believe more than that. It says more than the fact
that he did no sin. He did not know sin. He saw it
in others, but he did not know it by experience. He committed
no sin. He was a perfect stranger to
sin. He did not know it. It was no
acquaintance of his. He knew no sin of any kind, no
sin of thought, no sin of birth, no original sin, no actual transgression,
no sin of lip or of hand. He was pure, perfect, spotless,
without spot or blemish, the word of God says. He was utterly
incapable of committing anything that was wrong. He knew no sin,
or he could not have been a suitable substitute. You see, the one
that was to be the substitute for God's elect people, he had
to be without sin himself. He had to be one who owed no
debt to the law of God. He had to be one who was absolutely
immaculate. As God looked him over, he was
perfect, and there was not a blemish in this Lamb, this Lamb of God. Now then, let us go on to the
third person that is in the text, and that is the sinner. The sinner. He was made to be sinned, the
Bible says, for us. He knew no sin, but that we,
talking about we sinners, that we might be made. God in him. Well, the sinner, where is he?
Where is the sinner? Well, you just turn your eyes
within you and look for him, each one of you. He is not far
from any one of us. He's sitting next to you this
morning. And might I say that there's one sitting right next
to you who might be looking around. We're all sinners. The Bible
says we were born in sin. We were born in sin, our hearts
are a cesspool of iniquity and sin. Matthew 15 and verse 19. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Romans 3 and 23. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately, incurably wicked. Jeremiah 17 and 9. Man
in his best state. The psalmist said, is altogether
vanity. There is none good save one,
and that is God, saith the Lord Jesus. There's none righteous.
No, not one. No, not one. Paul said in the
book of Romans chapter one, and so there's none righteous. Somebody
said, well, there's none righteous but me. Well, you are a sinner. Our name is sinner. The Bible
says in Romans 3, by the law is the knowledge of sin. We've,
every one of us, broken God's commandments. And until relief
comes through the gospel, the heart beats, the heart of the
sinner, and I think I hear your heart palpitating this morning,
sin, sin, sin, wrath, wrath, wrath! Wrath is to come upon
the world of the ungodly. The question is, how can the
sinner get deliverance from his sin? Well, now we've introduced
the three persons of our text. Now let's talk a little bit about
the consequences of this great substitution, the consequences
of it, and how wonderful it is to be able to focus upon this
this morning. I hope that you know something
about the God, of our text, something about His Son, the blessed Lord
Jesus Christ, and something about yourself that will make the consequences
of this great transaction amazingly interesting to your heart. Well,
first of all, let me talk about it like this. was made, and that
word M-A-D-E there means he was legally constituted sin. That means that God looked upon
him as a sinner, that God looked upon him and treated him like
sinner and we are made legally constituted the righteousness
of God in him which means that God as we're chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world eternally justified in
the Lord Jesus Christ as we stand accepted in the beloved that
as we stand in him in God no longer looks upon us as we stood
in the first Adam, but as we stand in the second Adam, the
Lord from heaven, and he looks upon us as being as righteous
as the Lord Jesus Christ himself. What a tremendous blessing. Now
then, let me go through a little bit about this, about Jesus being
made or legally constituted sin for us. It was in the past, long
further back, I guess than the angels can remember, an eternal
covenant was formed between the father and the son, wherein it
was stipulated that the son would suffer death on the behalf of
the elect. And the father agreed to justify
his people through the work and death of his son. Eternity rolled
on and time came and with it soon came the fall of Adam in
the garden and then after many years the fullness of time arrived
and Jesus must fulfill his solemn engagement. He came into the
world and he was made a man. He came into the world and took
upon himself the veil of our inferior clay. From that moment
when he became a man, You watch, you look at the change that took
place in the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man. We told you about
how innocent he was, how that he was without sin, how that
he was incapable of doing anything that was wrong, how that there
was never a thought that went through his mind that was not
perfect. And as we look at this, before
the Lord Jesus came into this world, he had been entirely happy. He had never been miserable before
he came into this world. Think about it. Never had he
ever been sad. Never had he ever been sorrowful.
But now, all the effects of that covenant which he had made with
God his Father begins to pour wrath upon him. You say, oh now,
does God or did God actually account his son to be a sinner? Well the Bible says he was numbered
with the transgressors. That's what the Bible says in
the book of Isaiah chapter 53. He was numbered with The transgressors,
all we like sheep, have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all. Yes, God does. The Son agreed
to be the substitute, to stand in the sinner's stead. God begins
with him and his birth. He puts him in a manger, not
in a holiday inn. He's born in a manger. The Lord
Jesus Christ, not born sitting on an earthly throne, but he
was born in a manger. But considering him as a sinner,
he subjects him, God subjects him to woe and to poverty from
the beginning to the end. All the foxes have holes and
the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not a
place to lay his head. He was being treated like a sinner,
a common sinner in the world. Why? Is he not perfect? Was he
not immaculate? Justice. Why do you not drive
away the griefs of this holy man? Why do you not drive away
his woes and his sadness and his sorrow? The answer comes,
this man is pure in himself, but he has made himself impure
by taking his people's sin upon him. He has made himself impure
by identifying himself and assuming the debts and the obligations
and the liabilities of all of his people from eternity. Guilt
is imputed to him, reckoned to him, and the imputation of guilt
brings with it sorrow and death and hell. That's what it brings. Oh, all the demons, I believe,
from hell rose up from the place of torment to beset the Savior,
the Son of God. Oh, note the terrible war upon
Him in the garden when He was sweating great drops of blood. I see him in Pilate's judgment
hall, don't you? I see him mocked and spit upon. I see him tormented. I see him
maltreated. I see him blasphemed and the
crown of thorns, I see it pressed upon his holy brow. I see him
nailed to the cross. I hear him say, I thirst, complaining
of the forsakings of God. Can this be just? Is this the
Holy One of God? Is this the Son of God? He that
was very God of very God? But still, man, oh my friend,
listen to me. Be still, oh sinner. Be still
and listen. Listen to me, child of God. He
is the sinner now. The Lord Jesus is now the sinner. God has imputed your guilt and
your sin on Him. And God is dealing with him.
He stands where the sinner stands. He stands where the sinner stands. And the guilt of my people, God
would say, is upon him. Therefore, it is right. Therefore,
it is just. It is what he himself agreed
to. back yonder in that covenant
before the fact that everlasting covenant and his blood was to
be the surety of that covenant that he should be punished. as
if he were a sinner, he agreed to that. That he should be punished
as if he were unholy. That he should be punished as
if he had committed, as if he had broken every one of the commandments. That he should be punished like
somebody who is wicked. That he should stand in their
place and take upon them their hell. Oh my soul, how this grips
our hearts. Therefore it is right It is that
he should be punished as if he were a sinner, that he should
die unblessed, uncomforted, unhelped. This was the effect of the imputation
of sin on our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Hear what the poet said.
Oh, hear that piercing cry. What can its meaning be? My God,
my God, oh, why hast thou in wrath forsaken me? Oh, it was
because our sins on him by God were laid. He who himself had
never sinned for sinners, sin was made. And that's the meaning
of it, beloved brother and sister. Next, well, let's talk a little
bit about what the effects was on us. That's what the effects
was on the Son of God. He was made to be sin, and God
treated him like he was a sinner. Okay, now what was the effect
on us? Well, listen to me. I believe that we all here that
have experienced the grace of God, all of us here that have
been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of God's dear Son, everyone here who has experienced the new birth,
and belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that we know
that we deserve to be damned, that we deserve to be lost, that
we deserve to be sent to hell. We know that we broke every one
of God's commandments. Somebody said, now wait a minute
preacher, some of them I haven't broken. Well, the Bible says that if
you broke one of them, you broke them all. Because the very spirit
that would enable a man or cause a man to break one of God's holy
laws would cause him to break them all. All that's needed is
the right circumstances. That's all that is needed. And
so, beloved, this morning we all deserve to be damned. And
I remember reading what Charles Haddon Spurgeon's grandmother
said to him. When he was lost, she said, Charlie,
if God was to send you to hell, I'd have to say amen. Well, if
God would send every one of us to hell, all we could do is just
say amen. Your justice demands it. Well, we deserve to be lost.
Shouldest thou smite my soul to hell, thy righteous law proves
it well. And yet the believer, yet the
child of God, yet that one who's experienced God's grace in the
heart, that one whom the mercy of God has been shown to, that
one is on his way to heaven with a song in his soul. How glorious. He's on his way to heaven. I'm
talking about the effects of us being made the righteousness
of God in him. You see, we deserve to go to
hell and Jesus been treated like we ought to be treated in order
that we might be treated like he ought to be treated. And here
it is. The believer is on his way to
heaven with a song in his soul. All hell is up in arms. The demons
say, we thought we had him. We thought we had him. The devil
says, I thought I had him, and that he was going to be my prey
for all eternity. But here the pilgrim, and he's
been redeemed, and he's been made the righteousness of God
in him, and here the pilgrim, and he casts these challenges
before the world and before even the judge of all the earth, and
he says, who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
Who can lay anything now to my charge? It is God that justifieth. It's God that planned my justification. It is God that provided his son. It's God who spared not his own
son, but delivered him up for us all. It's God that is the
author of eternal salvation. It's God that justifieth. Romans 8 and 33. And then in
verse 34, who is he that condemneth? The devil says that fellow ought
to go to hell. He's a sinner and God knows he's a sinner and
he ought to perish. But he says, the pilgrim says,
who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather
that is risen again, who even is at the right hand of God,
who maketh intercession for us, Romans 8 and 34. And so we can,
with an unblushing countenance, we can challenge even the just
judge of the universe. Now listen to me, beloved. Now
the holy law of God is the best friend I have. Somebody said,
how in? Where in, preacher? Is the holy
law of God the best friend you have? My friend, the substitute,
the Lord Jesus Christ, He kept that law. He honored that law.
He obeyed that law. He fulfilled that law. And in
that that God made Him what I was, and in that that He made and
imputed His righteous life to me, then the law must stand back. It cannot put a hand on me. It
can't touch me because I have a perfect life in the substitute,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh Justice, where are you? This
man, this man has been a rebel. This man has been a sinner. Send
him to hell. No, says justice. He's been a
sinner. But I don't look on him in that
light anymore. I have punished his sin. And the death of the Savior,
the substitute's death, was his death to sin. Therefore, he shall
miss eternal death. He'll miss the death that never
ceases to die. He'll miss it. because I punished
Christ and he's dead. Now he's perfect. The sinner
stands perfect, accepted before me. How perfect, somebody said.
Well, let me say that because Christ was perfect and there
is perfection in him. In that that we stand in Him,
God said it, I believe it, and believing it I find life and
comfort in it, and no man living can deny this text. Every man
that believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ having taken his
sin upon him, He is made to be righteous before
God, justified by faith. We have peace with God, Romans
5 and 1. What is more, we're not only made righteous, but
we're made the righteousness of God. The righteousness which
Adam had in the Garden of Eden was a perfect righteousness.
But it was the righteousness of a man. Don't you see? It was
the righteousness of a man. Ours is the righteousness of
God. Paul said I'm not ashamed in
Romans 1 and 16 and 17. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believes. Unto the Jew first and also unto
the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. Therein, in the gospel, is the
righteousness of God. You remember the accusation against
those ancient Jews in Paul's time. They went about to establish
their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. And so we are
made the righteousness of God in him. Now human righteousness
failed, didn't it? It failed in the Garden of Eden.
But the believer has a divine righteousness which will never
break down, which will never fail. Ah, my friend, this, you
can die with this. I mean, you can set sail on the
plank of eternity with this. This righteousness, the righteousness
of the God-man, imputed to your account. Ah, you can face eternity. You can face whatever you have
to face. It will never fail. He not only
has it, the believer not only has it, righteousness, but the
scripture says he is. He is righteousness. He is God's
righteousness. He has made the righteousness
of God in Christ. The poet said, with my Savior's
vesture on, I am as holy as the Holy One. Now then, in closing
quickly here, the faith that believes this, the faith that
is able to lay hold of this, is a gift of God. Now, this morning
you say, I believe that preacher, I believe that. That's astounding. And it's so mysterious. And I
do not understand all the ins and outs of it. But somewhere
or another I believe this in my heart. And it gives me hope
and it gives me comfort in my soul. I want you to turn with
me in our closing remarks to the book of Romans chapter 10.
And I want you to listen to this. The faith that believes this,
that receives this, truth that we've been talking about. 2 Corinthians
5 and 21 this morning is a faith that obeys God. It obeys God. Now you listen to what these
two verses, verse 9 and 10 of Romans 10. That is, thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. Shall believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shall be saved
now verse 10 for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness
with the heart Man believeth unto righteousness. Now, you
take note, it didn't say that with a man's body and willingness
of mind, he goes out and he tackles this business of becoming righteous,
and he does, and he works, and he labors, and he strives to
become righteous. That's not what it says at all.
It says, with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. The only
way you can ever become righteous before God is believing unto
it. That's the only way you can do
it. You must believe what was preached to you this morning.
You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that
he was treated like you ought to have been, and now God will
treat you like he should have been treated. Now, with the heart
man believeth under righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. Now the question is this, who
among us believes this truth? Who believes what's been preached
here this morning? Now, there's many of you that
would say, Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. I believe
that preacher. It gives me comfort down here
in my heart. But this faith Beloved, we'll move a man to make confession
with his mouth and we'll move him to obedience unto the Lord. It will affect every decision
made from this morning on in your life. It will affect everything
about your life. It will affect you to the very
core of your life if you believe God. You will walk in the light
of the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. You'll obey Him.
And I believe that one of the first things that crosses the
path of any individual who believes this truth is believer's baptism. The Bible says in Mark 16 and
16 that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he
that believeth not shall be damned. I believe that that is one of
the ways in which an individual who says, I believe this truth,
It is the first step of obedience unto God. It is the confession. It is the identification of you
with your Savior. And my friend, my friend, hear
me out. I beseech you therefore by the
mercies of God, listen to me, that if He was willing to identify
with your sin, if He was willing to be made what you are, Why
would you not be willing to confess him in Believer's Baptism and
say, I own him. I identify myself with him. He died in my place. He stood
between me and the wrath of God and took my wrath upon him. And
you know, the only character in the New Testament that I know
of who was a believer and yet was not baptized, the believer's
baptism, was that thief hanging on the cross next to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, if you have that as an excuse,
if you are nailed to a cross, we'll exempt you. And I believe
God will. But if you're here this morning,
you say, I'm a professing believer. I believe what this preacher
preached this morning. I believe it. And I stand on that. That is my hope and my comfort.
Then I believe you ought to make... Somebody said, well preacher,
I'm a little ashamed to do it. Listen to the next verse, verse
11 here in Romans 10. For the scripture saith, whosoever
believeth on him, get it, whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed. You believe on him, you accept
his work on your behalf, you trust in him to save your soul,
then you'll not be ashamed. You'll confess him before men
with your mouth. Now, we don't ask anybody to
come forward in this church, in our services. You don't have
to move a muscle to get to Christ. You don't have to move a muscle.
You can come to Christ in your heart, wherever you're sitting.
No physical act required whatsoever. But if you have been saved, if
you know in your heart this is the hope of your soul, what this
preacher's preached here this morning, then I believe that
you ought, as we're going to stand and sing a song, I believe
that at the end of the song you ought to say, Preacher, Preacher,
I believe this. It's what I believe. This is
what I believe in my soul. And I want to be baptized. I
want to follow my Lord in water baptism. And we praise the Lord
with you. We praise the Lord with you.
I believe I'm directing you in the right way. Am I doing so,
church? Amen? Amen. Well, Michael, let's stand.