to the book of Job chapter 1
today. Last Sunday, as we've already
said, we were few in number and we started a message which we
thought was a very, very important message and one which I felt
that everybody in this church ought to hear. Everybody ought
to have the opportunity and the privilege of hearing this message. Not that it's a message that
I'm preaching, but that it would be edifying and helpful to you
in your Christian life. And I believe that if you were
to get these things that we're talking about today, if you were
to get them well fixed in your heart, if you were to understand
them to the point of where that it affects you spiritually, and
affects you in your heart of hearts, You'll know more than
99% of the religious people in America,
and you'll know more than probably every preacher in the state of
Montana. You'll probably know as much
or more than any preacher in the state of Montana. This is
a very important message and I hope sooner or later you're
going to run into this truth that we're talking about and
you need to understand what the Bible says about this truth. In Job chapter 1 today, I want
to read the 8th verse. And this verse is similar to
the verse that we read last week out of the 2nd chapter, verse
3. But this is the verse we'll read this morning, Job 1 and
verse 8. And the Lord said unto Satan,
Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like
him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth
God and exqueth evil? This is the text. Let us have
a word. Now then, what we want to talk
about here, we find in the eighth verse here of Job 1, that the
Lord is speaking unto Satan. And this is God's testimony concerning
His servant Job. The Lord said, Hast thou considered
my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a
perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth
evil. Now this is the Lord's testimony
concerning his servant Job. Now there are three facts that
are plainly stated here in this text of scripture. The number
one fact is that Job was God's servant. God owned Job. Job belonged unto God. God owned him in that that he
had redeemed him and he had bought Job and Job belonged to him. It is true that Job's Redeemer
had not yet died on a cross. But it is true that in the mind
of God that Jesus Christ was crucified. He was the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. And when Christ in the mind of
God was slain before the foundation of the world, all of the elect
were redeemed in God's mind. At that time, Job was one of
the Lord's redeemed. He had been bought with a price
just as much as you have been bought with a price if you're
here today and are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. God
owned Job. Job was God's servant. Now, Job also was a man, we're
told here in the text, that feared God and excueth evil. He was a man that feared the
living God. Job had learned by the grace
of God to fear God. He had a holy reverence for God. Job trembled at the word of his
God. Job was one who bowed his knee
and submitted himself unto God. Now this phrase, the fear of
God in the Old Testament, we discussed this a little bit last
week. But let me just say a couple of things about this this morning.
This term, the fear of God, was a term that had reference to
a man submitting himself to God, his eyes being opened by God,
to know God, to understand something about the holiness and the majesty
and the wisdom of God. a man would bow himself unto
God, not in a slavish fear of God, but he bowed, not with the
terror of a slave, but he bowed to God in reverence, filled with
the awesomeness of God, the majesty of God, and he believed God. He was a man who believed God.
He was a man who worshipped God. He was a man who loved God. He
was a man that was kept back. from sin by his knowledge of
God and by his fear and reverence of God. And he was a man who
was moved to do what pleased God because he feared the living
God. Now this term, the fear of God,
was used for all of this in the Old Testament. It had reference
to piety in the whole, if you please, and to a man's religion. in the whole. Now Job had learned
this fear of God and so Job hated all evil, he hated all sin, and
he loved righteousness. He hated sin because evil and
sin is contrary to the nature and law of Almighty God. Now God makes this statement
concerning Job. This is the third fact that I
see in this text and that was that he was a perfect and an
upright man. Job was a perfect and an upright
man. Now these words perfect and upright
are not so much a description of Job's activities and deeds
in life but rather a description of Job's heart and of his character. I say it is a description of
Job's heart and of his character. Now I know this to be true because
the Bible says that the Lord seeth not as man seeth because
the Bible says that man looketh on the outward appearance but
God looks on the heart. And I know that God was looking
at Job's heart when he said that Job was a perfect and an upright
man. Now when God looked on Job's
heart, not on his deeds, not on his speech, not on his outward
deeds, he said this man, Job, is a perfect and he is an upright
man. Now we know that Job was a perfect
man because God makes it plain here to us that he was indeed
a perfect and an upright man. Now our work this morning is
to find out what God means by that statement. By that statement,
this is my servant Job, and he is a perfect and an upright man. Wouldn't you like to meet a perfect
and an upright man? Well, Job was that man. And I'm
interested, I'm mightily interested, because all throughout the Word
of God, I find God in describing His people, He describes them
in various ways, but He describes them as being perfect, and he
describes them as being upright. Now we know this also by the
Word of God, that Job was not, I repeat, he was not, we know
by the Word of God, a sinless man. He was not sinless in the
flesh. Job did not claim sinless perfection. He said in Job 40 and 4, he says,
Behold, I am vile. Job said, How can a man be just
before God? He asked that question sincerely. Job also said, How can he that
is born of a woman be clean? And Job recognized him being
born of a woman. He knew that he was born with
a fallen nature. He knew that he was vile by nature
and that he needed to be made clean before God. And that he
needed to be justified, not by himself, but he needed to be
justified by someone else. And in Job 9 and 20 he said,
If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me. If I
say I am perfect, It shall or my mouth shall also prove me
perverse. If I say I'm perfect, my own
mouth will prove me in a short time to be perverted in my understanding. I just don't understand myself
if I say that I'm justified and if I say that I'm perfect. Any
man that says that he's perfect is perverted. That man doesn't
understand. He doesn't understand the truth.
Now, without question, Job was a sinful man after the flesh. He had many faults, and the Spirit
of God does not attempt to cover that up, makes no effort to cover
it up in the book of Job. Well, God says Job was a perfect
man. How can both be true? How can
it be true that he was a perfect man and yet he was not sinless
after the flesh? Now to many, this is a paradox
and it is an unexplainable riddle. They cannot figure it out in
their hearts how both could be true. Now there are other people
like Job in the Bible. We mentioned this briefly last
week, but I want you to notice this. It's important that we
lay this foundation. Because if we do not, you'll
never be able to grasp exactly what we're talking about when
we attempt to explain this paradox or riddle in the latter part
of our message this morning. Now, as we said, there are other
examples in the Bible. Men like Job, for an example,
Noah. in Genesis 6 and 9. These are
the generations of Noah, says the Word of God. Noah was a just
man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God. And Noah walked with God. And yet, as we said last week,
there is no drunk. on the face of the earth that
will allow us to forget that Noah had his faults because Noah
did fall after the flood. He fell into a drunken stupor
and I don't have the wisdom and I don't know of anybody else
that has the wisdom to know exactly what was the effects of that
fall in that drunken stupor. There was some tremendous effects
that came forth from that And I'm not going to get into that
this morning, but Noah did fall into a drunken stupor. And then
secondly, we'll mention Abraham. Abraham was commanded by God
to walk before him and to be perfect. God said, you walk before
me and you be perfect. But if you read and study the
life of Abraham, you will find as it comes to his walk and to
his deeds and to his life, that his life was, as far as it was
concerned, was anything but perfect. His life was not a perfect life. And then you can read about Zechariah
and Elizabeth in Luke chapter 1, verses 5 through 20. And we
find that he was a priest after the order of the Levitical priesthood,
and that his wife was of the daughters of Aaron. And then
in verse 6 of that chapter, Luke 1, it says that they were both
righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and the
ordinances of the Lord blameless. And yet, in that very chapter
you see where God struck Zacharias speechless for nine months because
of his terrible, sinful unbelief. He did not believe God when God
said that his wife Elizabeth was going to have a baby. That baby was going to be John
the Baptist. and he didn't believe it. And
the angel Gabriel knew that he didn't believe it, and that he
was full of unbelief, and so the Lord struck this man who
was blameless, this man who had walked in all the commandments
of the Lord blameless, this man who was perfect in his generation,
God struck him speechless because of his sin of unbelief. Now I said all of that to say
this, that the Bible does not teach, it does not teach the
doctrine of sinless perfection. Such doctrine is contrary to
everything that is taught in the Word of God and contrary
to the experience of every child of God that walks the face of
this earth. Every day of our lives we know
by experience that the doctrine of sinless perfection is not
true. Now, I want you to turn, if you
will, to the book of 1 John. I want you to see this text of
Scripture, 1 John, chapter 1. 1 John, chapter 1. And I want you to look at this
with me. And we read beginning here with verse 8. Listen to
what it says. 1 John, chapter 1, verse 8. If we say that we have no sin,
that's present tense. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then notice this, if we say
that we have not sinned, that's past tense. If we say that we
haven't committed sin, then we make him a liar and his word
is not in us. Now the man who claims sinless
perfection is a proud, he is a vain, he is a wicked, perverse
liar because he calls God a liar. Verse 10 says, if we say we have
not sinned, we make him a liar and his word or his truth is
not in us. What could be more wicked, what
could be more obnoxious than for a sinner to stand in the
face of God and say, God, you don't know what you're saying
when you say that I have sinned. There are some people that are
so proud, so vain, so wicked in their hearts that they call
God Almighty a liar. Spurgeon said, nothing discovers
an evil heart more surely than glorying in its own goodness. He that proclaimeth his own praise
publisheth his own shame. Now then, someone said, I never
met but one perfect man, and he was a perfect nuisance. And beloved, it's true. If you
ever meet anybody that's perfect, you're going to find that individual
to be a perfect nuisance because he's a perverted individual.
He's a perverted man. He doesn't understand himself.
He's calling God a liar, and he is an obnoxious individual. Now then, we have, I know this
morning, those of you here that agree wholeheartedly with everything
that I've said, and you would agree with me that the doctrine
of sinless perfection is heresy, blasphemous heresy. It's heresy,
and I don't think anybody here, if you'd study the Bible, read
the Bible, would disagree with me. You wouldn't have any trouble
with the statements that I'm making. The Bible does not teach
that men and women become sinless in the flesh. Now, let me go
on to say this, that the root and the essence of this doctrine
This doctrine of sinless perfection after the flesh is so pleasing
to our proud flesh that it is common for us who know better
to embrace this in some areas of our life. And even when we
know better, We yet talk like, and our speech betrays us, we
talk like that the doctrine of sinless perfection was taught
in the Bible. How often have you said or heard
someone else say such things as insinuates The possibility
of sinless perfection. Well, let me give you an example
or two of this. We hear religious people talk. We listen to the radio. We listen
to the television. And we read, we read, we read. Everything we can get our hands
upon. And I've heard preachers say or read what they said in
counseling those who are in any kind of trouble. who are having
problems and trials, tests, and all kinds of various afflictions
and trouble. And they say to them, they say,
if, if you have, this is where they start, you see. They say,
if you have any sin in your life, then confess it. Well, beloved,
the if, we don't need the if. We don't need the if. There is
sin in your life. There's no question about it.
There isn't anybody here, and we must acknowledge this, and
if we're in Christ, we will acknowledge it. Now, if we're not in Christ,
we probably won't. But every one of us here this
morning, as a believer, we need to admit, we need to admit that
there is sin in our life. And we best acknowledge it because
the Word of God says that it's there. Now, then I heard also
a man say one time, he says, it's not necessary that a believer
sin. He says it's not necessary. He
says a believer does not have to sin. Have you ever heard anybody
say that? Well, this is heretical. It's
very heretical. Now, you say, well, I don't have
to sin, do I, preacher? Well, no, it is not compelled
by any law of God. It's not compelled by the Word
of God, and it's not compelled by the law of God, or the will
of God, or in any way, shape, or form. But, beloved, it is
compelled. It sure enough is compelled by
your nature, by what you are. It is compelled. If you are breathing,
it is compelled that you sin if you are alive in this flesh. As long as we live in this world,
we live in the flesh, and as long as we live in the flesh,
we live with sin. It is a continual part of our
being. There is no escaping sin, not
for a moment. And we know that there are certain
people who join the monastery thinking they can get away from
sin. And there are other people that will quit doing this, they'll
quit doing that, quit going certain places, quit driving by in certain
streets, looking at certain billboards, thinking they can get away from
sin when they don't understand That beloved, that sin, we cannot
get away from it because sin is mixed with everything that
we do. Sin is mixed with every thought
that goes through our minds. There is not one of us here right
now that is not full of S-I-N. Our own natures are full of it.
We're full of sin. Now, in our worship, sin and
self-righteousness is mixed with it. It is mixed with it when
a brother reads the scriptures. I pointed this out last week.
Or one leads in prayer. We're so much concerned about
everybody, what they're going to think about our public speaking
and our reading and about our ability to lead in public prayer. We're so much concerned about
that that we give very little concern to what God is thinking
about our worship. and our prayer unto Him. It's God that's supposed to be
hearing our prayer, not just the brethren. And we're not to
pray for their benefit, we're to pray for God's. But many times
we try to pray something that is pleasing to the ears of our
brethren. And then when a man gets up to
preach, oh, you talking about sin! When a man gets up to preach,
why, he's interested and he's very conscious of the people
that he's preaching to. And even when he's preparing
a sermon, many, many times the influence of the people to whom
he's preaching is going to have a tremendous effect on what he
says when he gets up to preach. And so many, many times, you
know, we preach so that maybe that so people will approve of
what we have to say. John Bunyan one time preached
and he come down the stairs and there was a lady that met him
and said, John, you did real well today. And John said, well,
I know that already. The devil's already told me that.
He told me that before I started down off the platform. And so,
beloved, we're just full of sin. Whether it be the preacher, whether
it be the man or the woman sitting in the pew, in everything we
do, sin is mixed with everything that we do. Now if I listen to
this now, the doctrine of progressive sanctification, this is a doctrine
where we find this very subtly, this idea of sinless perfection,
where we find it very subtly put in. And that is, this teaching
that we can progressively gradually become more and more holy in
the flesh. This is rooted in this notion
of sinless perfection and that it is possible. If I can by my
deeds, if I can by my diligence, if I can by my dedication and
devotion to God become more and more holy in my being, more and
more holy in the sight of God, if I can do so gradually, then
I can do so perfectly. If I can do it gradually, I can
do it perfectly. Now if I can get a little better
today, a little better tomorrow, then I can eventually, that is
if I live long enough, I can eventually get rid of this thing
called sin. Well, that's not so. That's not
so. We know that the Bible does not
teach the possibility of sinless perfection regardless of how
long a man's pilgrimage is here in this world. Yet the words
perfect and perfection are used throughout the Bible to describe
the people of God in this world. What does It means, what does
these words mean? How can it be said that a true
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is a perfect and an upright man? Now let me make this clear before
I get in to trying to give you a description of what this really
means. Let me say this to you this morning
that, and I want to make it clear that we do not make any excuse
for anybody's sin Not for our own or for anybody else. At any
time, a child of God is to make no excuse for anybody's sin and
say, well, you know, they can't help it. They can't help it.
Now listen, we do not make any excuse for our sin. There is
no excuse. The thoughts, the deeds, actions
of a believer are due to his own perverse nature. That's where
they come from. They come from a man's sin is
his own. You say, well, I had extenuating
circumstances. My friend, there are no extenuating
circumstances. You say, well, I had this reason,
that reason. There are no reason, no excuses. Your sin is your own. and you're responsible for your
own sin. It comes out of your own perverse
nature. Beloved, this is why we constantly
and why our message we preach it over and over again that sinners
must trust Christ alone and that is because they are indeed Sinners and there isn't any good
thing in a man He's got a he's got a nature that hates God and
nature that will drink iniquity out of mud holes And we just
simply are corrupt Corrupt seed from corrupt seed and and everybody
he brings into the world he corrupts and by his own nature Man is
a perverse being and we preach that Christ only can save a sinner. That salvation is all together
by grace alone through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our only hope of salvation. There's no hope to be found in
us because we were born sinners, born that way. We love sin and
we hate the light by nature. with that kind of people now
listen to me we do not come to God first of all as sinners and
trust Christ to save us and then come the next time as a little
less sinner because we're getting a little better you know no no
no and then as time goes on we come as a perfectly holy saint
unto God no no that's not the way it is we come to God in the
beginning And we come to God in the next day and all through
our lives, we come to God as out-and-out sinners, and that's
all we are. And we never get past being sinners. You don't ever get so good that
you can come to God and say, Lord, I just come straight to
you this morning, and there's no sin to confess, there's no
weaknesses, no frailties to mention. of heaven that a child of God
can look back and say, there, there, there, I merited this. There I earned something from
God. No, not from the gates of hell
to the gates of heaven. All is of free grace. All is
because of the merit of our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there
seems to me to be five biblical definitions of this word perfection. And I want to give them to you
this morning. And I want you to listen as I give them to you.
And I'll get through every one of them. I'm going to try to
cut it just as short as I can. We've got plenty of time. We
changed our format this morning so we'd have just a little bit
more time. And so we'll get them everyone in today, and so you'll
be able to have them. First of all, let me say this,
that perfection, while we know we shall never attain it in the
flesh, perfection is the goal of God's people. Is the goal
of the Lord's people if you were to turn with me to the book of
Philippians chapter 3 Philippians chapter 3 I will read to you
here some verses that will help you to understanding of what
I'm talking about We'll read here beginning In verse 12 of
Philippians 3, Paul said, Not as though I had already attained,
were either already perfect, either were already perfect,
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which
are before, I press toward the mark. I press toward the mark
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now Paul said, I have not attained
yet. He said, I'm not already perfect,
but I'm on my way. I'm on my way. Paul knew. that
there was a time coming when he would be perfect. And we do
not pretend that we are perfect, nor do we pretend that as long
as we live in this body of flesh that we're going to attain to
perfection. But we as believers union with
Jesus Christ, and we are married to him, joined to Him in holy
marriage. We are joined to Christ. We cannot
be satisfied with anything short of absolute perfection, of absolute
holiness and perfection. David said that he would be satisfied
in the Psalms. He said, I'll be satisfied when
I awake in thy likeness, when I'm like you, I'll be satisfied. And that's when we're going to
be like Christ completely and entirely is when we wake up there
on resurrection morning and we see Jesus as he is. Now, if I
could speak for you today and myself, I would say that if we
could, And I believe this is the attitude and the true feelings
of a child of God, and that is that we would not sin again.
We would never commit another sin. Now, I say this is our attitude. If we could have what we earnestly
desire, what is the desire of our new natures, the desire of
that which God has created in us, That nature, which is the
divine nature, it craves, it desires, it wants to live and
certainly that nature is without sin. It never commits a sin.
There is no sin in Christ. And there is no sin in the new
nature. The new nature cannot sin. It
is born of God. It cannot sin. And with our heart
of hearts, our desire would be that we would never. That we
would never sin again. That we would never commit another
sin in the body of this flesh. Sin is an attack upon the throne
of God and our God and our Father. We abhor sin. We hate sin in
our hearts. Our flesh continues to practice
it because it can do nothing else. As long as it lives and
breathes, it will sin. But the desire of our hearts,
the attitude of our hearts is perfection. Now perfection is
the mark. We set for ourselves, and it's
what we seek for, it's what we long for, and it's what we pray
for, is to be perfect, where we'll not commit another sin. A.J. Gordon said, I would rather
aim at perfection and fall short than to aim at imperfection and
fully attain it. Now, beloved as believers, we
are aiming at perfection with the full knowledge that we will
never attain it as long as we live in this world, but that
we're going to attain it in the by and by. Now all I know about
Christ and the gospel of His grace, all that I have experienced
of divine mercy, And all that I felt in my soul and all that
I hope for in eternity continually compels me to hope for and to
pray for and to wish for three things. Let me give them to you
just quickly. This is what I want as a believer. This is what you
want as a believer. The work of God in you causes
you to want these three things. First of all, perfect communion
with God. Now, I don't have that now. I
wish I did, but I don't have it. Perfect communion. I mean
where there's nothing that hinders, where God never hides his face,
where the heavens never are brass, where that I can always feel
his presence, where that I always can walk with God and him walk
with me like Enoch did for 300, better than 300 years, where
I can have fellowship with the Lord, always, always in fellowship
with God. I want that. And then I pray
and I seek after if God will give it to me. Number two, a
perfect submission. to the will of God. A perfect
submission to the providence of God. Now there's grumbling
and moaning and complaining in our lives. We would like, listen
to me, we would like to be perfectly submitted to the wisdom of God. God's smarter than I am. He's smarter than you are. He's
running the world from the point of view that He knows everything,
that there's nothing that's not known to Him. All things are
known to Him from the beginning of the world. He's running the
world on that basis. You and I come in here, John
and come lately, and we look at the way things are going,
we say, well, this ought to be changed, that ought to be changed,
this ought to be different. We must come to the place where
we trust the wisdom of a sovereign, almighty, immutable God. Trust
His wisdom and believe that what He's doing is right, is right. Trust Him! Okay, and then the
third thing is, I want perfect conformity to the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'd like to be like Him. I'd
like to be able, and we're going to be, I mentioned that a while
ago, we're going to be lucky, but I want perfect conformity,
and I believe this covers the desire of a child of God in regards
to this perfection. It covers it, it's what you want
now in this world. I know in my heart of heart I
will never have these things in this life, I won't come close
to them in this life, but I know that I'm going to have them Later
on, Baxter said this life was not intended to be the place
of our perfection, but the place of our preparation for perfection. And when I drop this robe of
flesh and rise to meet the Savior in the sky, the song that we
sang there this morning mentioned that, then we're going to attain
it. That's when we're going to attain
it, not till then. Will we have this perfection?
Now the second of the five definitions, I get to that. And that is this.
This describes the sincerity of the believer's heart. Perfection. And this is what God meant when
he was speaking to Job. He said, Job, what he meant was,
Job, you're absolutely sincere in your heart. I want you to
turn with me to 1 Kings. 1 Kings chapter 15. And we're
hurrying along, we're making good time, everything I think
is going according to schedule. And so let's look in 1 Kings
chapter 15. Now in verse 3, in verse 3, it
says here, and he, and he's talking about Abijam, that's mentioned
in verse 1, it says, and he walked in all the sins of his father,
which he had done before him, and his heart was not Perfect. This does not surprise me His
heart was not perfect with the Lord his God as the heart of
David his father now then We find over in verse 11. It says
an Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord as David
his father And then it tells us what he did. And then in verse
14, but the high places were not removed. Nevertheless, Asa's
heart was perfect with the Lord all his days. Now, it does surprise
me, it doesn't surprise me that Abijah's heart was not perfect
before God because there's not a man born of a woman whose heart
is perfect before God in nature. But now it does surprise me when
the Bible says that David's heart was perfect before the Lord and
that Asa's heart was perfect before the Lord. King David and
King Asa. Now, I want you to think with
me a little bit here. We're told here that Asa, let's
talk just a little bit about him. We're told that he did that
which was right in the eyes of the Lord As did David his father. He took away the sodomites out
of the land. God help us. It'd be wonderful
if somebody in our day and time could be raised up that could
find a way to take away the sodomites out of the land. And he removed
all the idols that his fathers had made. And also his mother
in verse 13. Even her he removed from being
queen. He took her right down off of
the throne because she had made an idol in a grove and Asa destroyed
her idol and he burnt that idol at the brook of Kidron. But the
high places in verse 14 were not removed. The high places
were not removed. Nevertheless, nevertheless, Asa's
heart was perfect with the Lord all his days. Now then, We find
David mentioned here, and then we find Asa. These two came to
me when it says that their hearts were perfect before the Lord. Well, David's life was not perfect. We all know that. He was a godly
man. And if you were to look down
here in verse 5 of this same chapter, it says, Because David
did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned
not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days
of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
And David failed in that matter. But yet the Lord said he did
that which was right in the eye of the Lord, and he said that
his heart was perfect. Now then, you and I are in no
position to find any fault with David. And I think that he'd
be a wonderful thing. And we know what he did. We know
exactly what he did. But in the general tenor of his
life, I would to God that we could all live as did King David. A man whose heart was perfect
toward the Lord. It means that he was sincere.
It means that he had no evil intentions in anything that he
did. He meant to do right. He meant to do as well as he
could do. As well as he could do, he wanted
to walk with God and fulfill his will and please the Lord. He had a perfect heart toward
the Lord. He was sincere toward God. Now Asa He was a godly man, but
nevertheless, he didn't destroy the groves. The groves were left
where people had worshipped idols, and he left them. But nevertheless,
the Bible says his heart was perfect with the Lord all his
days. Now then, this we see here, God's
people, none of us are perfect in our actions, none of us are
perfect in our thoughts, but the Lord's people are sincere
right down to the very last one of God's people, there are no
con artists among the people of God. They are sincere, they
mean to do right, they want to do right, they mean to walk with
God, and they want to bend everything in their lives toward that which
is acceptable unto God. Now God's people are honest,
they're sincere in their heart of hearts before God. They want
to do what is right. The believer knows himself to
be a sinner and he never, never tries to conceal that. He admits
it all the time. Every time he goes to God and
he admits that he's a sinner as if he was the only one of
them in the world. Like that, we mentioned that
public, and he said, God be merciful to me. The sinner don't know
others anymore or not, but I know I'm one. I know that. I know
and convinced I'm one. And if you find a convinced sinner,
you'll find somebody that's convinced of the mercies and the love of
Christ our Lord. And they'll rejoice in that love. Now the believer then, he sincerely,
he trusts Christ. He makes no pretense. He can't
make it on his own. He'll go to hell without Christ.
He won't one minute live. It's Christ or death. It's Christ
or eternal judgment with him. He's sincere in that. And the
believer rests his soul entirely upon the merits of Christ. Ask
him. And he'll be like Samuel Rutherford who said, I'm just
going to strap my soul. He said, I'm going to strap my
soul to a plank of Christ's righteousness and sail off to the eternal shore. And beloved, that's every child
of God. That's what he said. How are you going to get to heaven?
Going on the merits of Christ. That's how I'm going. And he
sincerely trusts Christ. And the believer loves Christ.
He won't brag about it. because he falls so far short.
He remembers Peter, the Lord Jesus said to Peter, Lovest thou
me more than these? And Peter said, Lord, you know,
you know, you heard me cuss back there when I was talking to that
maid. And you heard me, Lord, when I said I'm going to quit
this business and go back and go fishing. That's what I'm going
to do. You heard all that, Lord. But
yet, you know, my heart, you know all things. And you know
that I love thee. You know that I love you. Even
though I failed, you know I love you. And so the believers sincerely
trust God. And we do not, as we said before,
we want to submit ourselves, and we don't sing this song very
much, but it says, all to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely
give, I would ever love and trust Him and in His presence daily
live. Have thine own way, Lord, have
thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the
clay. A believer sincerely submits
himself to Christ. And beloved, that's what Job
did, that's wherein his perfection was to be found, and that's where
David's perfection was found, that's where Asa's perfection
was found, in a sincere heart toward God. Now then, perfection
also speaks of the maturity of a believer. And if you were to
turn to the book of Hebrews, the book of Hebrews chapter 6,
And this is the third definition. It's concerning the maturity
of the believer. And here in Hebrews 6 and 1,
it says, therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of
Christ, let us go on unto perfection. And then in verse 3, and this
will we do if God permit. This will we do if God permit. Now then, listen, in the body
of Christ there are babes, there are young men in Christ, there
are fathers and there are mothers in Israel. Now we do not grow
in our acceptance with God, mark it down, we do not grow in our
acceptance with God. We do not grow insofar as our
standing with God is concerned. We do grow, the Bible says, in
grace and in the knowledge of Christ. The new nature that has
been implanted in us in regeneration, don't ask me to explain it, just
let me tell you what I know. The new nature that we receive
in regeneration, it grows and it matures. This new nature. Now, it is the fruit of the Spirit. It is not what we produce because
our fruit is of Him and it's what God produces in us. And
the Bible tells us in Galatians 5 what that fruit is. It's love,
it's joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. It's faith,
it's meekness, it's temperance. And in all believers, this fruit
is present. In some, it's as the seed. in the ground. In others, it's
as the young and the tender plant that has come up out of the soil.
And in others, it is like the full ear. It is the full grain
in the ear. It is ready for harvest. God's
people are all in a different state of maturity. And as God permits, all God's
people grow toward perfection or completeness in the divine
nature. Now this, from the start to the
finish, is divine work. And this is what we do if God
permits. If God permits us, we're going
to go on to maturity in our life. But this maturity is as much
a divine work as election, as redemption, as justification. It's all a work of the Divine
Spirit. And so we do grow, and this word
perfection has reference to the completed maturity of the child
of God. Now fourthly, this word perfection
refers to the believer's standing, get it? It refers to a believer's
standing before God in a substitute, in a substitute. Now, this is
very important. If you want to turn back with
me to the book of Ezekiel, turn back to Ezekiel chapter 16. Ezekiel
16. Now, this chapter here, you should
read it in its entirety. It's very important that you
would do so, and it talks about this baby that was born, which
Israel was a type of, and then all children of God are like
this. as for their nativity there was
a day when we were born into God's family and God loved us
in that day and of course he had loved us before his eye pitied
us and he set about to make us acceptable unto God and then
we read let's just skip on down I must do this But let's go to
verse 9. He says, Ezekiel 16 and verse
9, Then washed I thee with water. Yea, I thoroughly washed away
thy blood from thee, and anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee
also with broadered work. We receive this in a spiritual
way. And shod thee with badger skin,
girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
I deck thee also with ornaments, and put bracelets upon thy hands,
and a chain upon thy neck, and I put a jewel upon thy forehead,
and earrings upon thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine
head. Thus was thou decked with gold
and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk, and broad
at work. Thou didst eat fine flour and
honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou
didst prosper into a kingdom. Now look at this 14th verse.
And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for
it was perfect. through my comeliness which I
had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. Now he tells us here
that we are perfect, our beauty was perfect through his comeliness
which he had put upon us, saith the Lord God. Every one of us
have been clothed with the garment of salvation. And when I'm talking
about perfection, and this word perfect here is talking about
a believer being made perfect through the comeliness of another.
Through the comeliness of a substitute. Now in Jesus Christ, all the
elect stand before him in a state of immutable, positional perfection. Immutable, positional perfection. That's where we all stand as
God's people in Christ Jesus. So that in the sight of God,
we are wholly blameless, unreprovable, sinless. Not in ourselves, but
in a substitute perfect. in a substitute. Now this positional
perfection, it never changes and it never varies. How wonderful
this is. Now there are times when it seems
to me, when I read Ezekiel 16 and 14, that this could not possibly
be referring to me. that I've been made comely, that
I'm perfect, my beauty is perfect, and that I've been made comely
through the comeliness of our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that we are spotless and clean before Him. Beloved, listen. Positionally, We know that this
is true. There are times when we don't
feel it could be written to us and then there are other times
when we feel that it was written to us and that God blessed it
to our hearts so that we can come before Him in worship and
praise and adoration unto Him with boldness. Because we know
that we're beautiful in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our acceptance
with God never, never varies. This never varies. I'm accepted
in a substitute. The substitute is always accepted
and I'm in him. Now let me illustrate this and
don't anybody get mad at me, but I believe this is an illustration
that ought to help you to understand the point that I'm making. This
immutable, positional, perfection never varies think of King David
again and you have King David and Uriah Uriah's wife Bathsheba
and they're in the embrace of adultery and that's David's sin
and there's no doubt about it No extenuating circumstances,
David you're guilty, your sin. But there he is, in the arms
of Bathsheba. And then you have David, in another
picture in the Old Testament, dancing before the Ark of God. The Ark of God is being brought
up out of the house of Obedekim, being brought back to Jerusalem
where the Ark of God belongs. And David knows all about that
ark. He knows what that typifies. That it typifies Christ, His
merit, His perfect work, His substitutionary work on the part
of believers. He knows all and he's dancing
before that ark. Dancing before the Lord and the
ark of God. So you have those two pictures
of King David in the Bible. Now, the question is this. When was David most accepted
of God? Was it when he was in the arms
of Bathsheba or was it when he was dancing before the ark of
God that was being brought back to Jerusalem? When was he most
accepted before God? Now beloved, if you could answer
that question and answer it correctly, you'd see whether or not you
have a correct grasp of the gospel or not. Let me say this, that
David was in both places accepted the same before God. There was no difference as to
his acceptance before God at either time. Now David felt different. He felt a whole lot different.
His feelings, his attitude, his emotions were all together different. Although David was accepted the
same before God. Exactly the same. Now his acceptance
was in a substitute. And you've got to keep that ever
before you in your mind. Just as ours is in a substitute. Always we're accepted by God
the same. And you say, Preacher, was Peter
accepted of God when he was lying? Absolutely, because he was accepted
in a substitute. What he did was wrong. It was
sin. We make no apology for that,
but he was just as much accepted by God. Was you accepted of God
when you did what you did last week on Wednesday, on Thursday,
Friday, Tuesday, when you said what you did? Was you accepted
of God? If you ever was accepted of God,
you was as much accepted of God on Thursday as you was on Monday,
and as you are today, sitting here listening to the gospel.
Just as much accepted of God because we're in Christ and we
accepted in him and it's God looking at his merit Not on mine
on his merit. That's the way I'm accepted So
near so very near to God nearer. I cannot be for in the person
of God's Son I am as near as he All believers are in Christ
by divine decree from Adam down to the last one who will ever
believe on him. We're all in Christ and have
this immutable positional perfection in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our
acceptance is in the beloved one. Every believer is absolutely
perfect in God's sight. Oh, now when the Bible talks
about believers being perfect in Jesus Christ, it's not talking
about how we see ourselves, it's talking about how God views us. He views us as perfect. Comely with His comeliness having
been put on us. We are perfect now as we shall
be when we stand before God in glory as far as God is concerned. That's our position. We're perfect
in the Lord Jesus. Listen to these words. in thy
surety thou art free for his dear hands was pierced for thee
with his spotless garments on you are as holy as God's own
son with his garments on you as holy as God's own son Song
of Solomon 4 and 7 says thou art all fair my love there is
no spot in thee Now that's position I'm talking about. There is no
spot in thee. That's in Christ. That's in a
substitute before God. It may be the fault, listen to
me, if you're drudging along in bondage and you say, well,
I don't understand this preacher and you're not able to understand
the believer's complete perfection in a substitute. It may be the
fault of the ministry. I hope it's not my fault. But
it may be the fault of what you've been listening to. Listen to me. Now, this is not
a fine point of doctrine. No, it is not. It is to be enjoyed
by every believer in Jesus Christ. This is not a... Somebody said
only preachers could understand that. No! Don't you ever say
that to me. Every believer in Jesus Christ
is to understand and to know this truth. that immutable.