What do you know about righteousness? What is righteousness? What is a truly righteous person? Our Lord Jesus declares, accept
your righteousness, shall exceed the righteousnesses of the scribes
and Pharisees. You shall in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and Pharisees were
men, to all outward appearance, who behaved very well. They were
devoted religious men. They memorized scripture, they
quoted scripture, they taught scripture. They went to church
every week, several times a week. They talked about the things
of God through their day-by-day conversation. They fasted twice
every week. They prayed three times every
day. They're what you would call very
good men, exceptional men. But our Savior said, except your
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven without
question Righteousness, perfect righteousness. We must have,
or we will forever perish under the wrath of God. But what is
that righteousness? What is a righteous man? Where
I've asked you to give me one example, one example. All the folks you know or have
read about in history are in the book. One example, other
than our Lord Jesus himself, of a man you could point to and
say, there is a righteous man. Reckon who he might be. Turn
in your Bible to 2 Peter 2, and I'll show you. I'll show you
a righteous man. As we look at a man that God
calls a righteous man, I hope it will become obvious to you
that righteousness before God is not what men do. It is not what men call righteousness. It has nothing, absolutely nothing
to do with those things by which men and women go about to make
themselves righteous and establish righteousness before God. Righteousness
is something that God imputes to chosen sinners, redeemed by
the blood of His Son in free justification, because in Christ,
those who are redeemed by His blood have been made the righteousness
of God in Him. just as he was made sin, and
therefore God charged him with sin and justly punished him for
sin. So we who believe have been made
righteousness, and God rightly charges us with righteousness
and rewards us with perfect righteousness in the end. Saying to all who
believe on the Son of God, when the books are opened and all
the records set forth, Come, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. Well done, thou good
and faithful servant. And righteousness is something
that God imparts, something he puts into his elect, something
he creates in men and women in sanctification. By sanctification,
I mean, as the scriptures speak of it, regeneration, the new
birth. in the new birth, in regeneration,
in sanctification. God the Holy Ghost creates in
us a new nature, a new man. We're told plainly in Ephesians
4, 24, created in righteousness and in true holiness. So that
that new man in the believer, that new man who lives in us
by whom we are now made whole in Christ Jesus the Lord, that
new man was created of God in righteousness and true holiness. No wonder that new man is so
described for we are thereby made partakers of the divine
nature and in both cases both in justification and in sanctification,
both in what Christ did for us outside of us 2,000 years ago,
and what God does for us in the appointed time of love when he
comes to call the sinner to life in Jesus Christ. In both cases,
Christ Jesus is made of God unto us righteousness, so that all
the righteousness you and I have All the righteousness you and
I can ever have. All the righteousness I hope
you hope to have is Jesus Christ the Lord. Nothing else. Nothing else. All of God's people
in this world are truly righteous. I'm looking at a congregation
of men and women, young and old, who are righteous. Do you know
how God describes you? More often than anything else,
do you know how God describes you? God calls you saints. Saints. The word is holy. So that the scriptures refer
to the brethren as holy brethren, holy men of old. And when the
scriptures speak of that, the scriptures are not talking about
special, extraordinary, unusual brethren. Holy brethren are any
who are brethren. Saints are any who are born of
God and all who are born of God. We are a people sanctified in
Christ Jesus, righteous in Christ. Christ is made of God unto us
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And yet God's saints in this
world are commonly vilified as wicked men. The ungodly, the
reprobate, Those who do not know God and do not know us, and do
not know the gospel of Christ, try desperately to make themselves
feel good and look good, and try desperately to appease their
own consciences by convincing themselves that God's saints
really are wicked, hypocritical people. That kind of slander
is hard to bear, but it is to be expected from wicked men.
But sometimes God's saints are vilified by other saints as well. What a shame. What a shame. God forgive us
for ever participating in such vile behavior. God's saints are to be treated
by us and esteemed by us as they are esteemed by God. Let each
esteem other better than himself. Is that what the book says? Better
than himself. How can you do that? How can
you honestly do that? Because man, I know what I am. I know what I am. And I know
you in Christ. And Christ is perfection, righteousness,
sanctification. So that it is my privilege and
my responsibility to view him as Christ. And if I view him
as such, I'll treat him as such. Each esteem other better than
himself. Of all the men in history who
have been unjustly maligned by those who ought to highly esteem
them. One man stands out in the most
extraordinary way. I can think of no other man in
history except the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who has been
so unjustly and yet universally misrepresented as Abraham's nephew,
God's servant, our brother, whom God the Holy Ghost distinctly
calls just lot. Lot has been constantly repudiated. The theologians, commentators,
and preachers throughout history have represented Brother Lot
in a very bad way. The ancient Jewish writers denounced
him as a vile reprobate. And most of the very best commentators
have treated him only slightly better. Let's see what God says
about Lot. This is what God the Holy Ghost
tells us about this remarkable man, Lot. Remarkable man. Remarkable man. But what he says,
2 Peter 2, verse 7. God delivered just Lot, vexed
with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For that righteous
man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous
soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds, the Lord knoweth
how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve
the unjust under the day of judgment to be punished. Here God the
Holy Ghost identifies Lot as a truly righteous man, a godly
man, a just man. who lived among wicked men, and
in their midst, living among a race of reprobate, profligate,
ungodly, vile, wicked men. Day by day, he vexed his righteous
soul with their ungodly and lawful deeds. Now, you're all familiar
with the story of Abraham and Lot. You can go back and read
it at your leisure in Genesis 13. Remember that Abraham and
Lot parted company when a strife arose between their herdsmen.
They didn't part company in bitterness. There's no indication of that.
They didn't part company because Abraham and Lot had hard words. There's no indication of that.
The reason they parted company is there was a strife between
their herdsmen. And being brethren, Abraham, being a man of magnanimity,
suggested and offered to Lot the choice of the land. And Lot
saw the plains and he pitched his tent towards Sodom and dwelt
there. And Abraham said, you go there
and God bless you. And for 14 years, Lot lived in
Sodom. A little while after that, the
kings of the plain were all taken captive along with their inhabitants
and all the possessions and the people of Sodom. and Lot and
his family taken captive, but not for long. Abraham came to
his rescue. Abraham raised up an army of
300 men and delivered the kings of the plains and the king of
Sodom and all the Sodomites, all because he was determined
to deliver Lot. After that, Lot and his family
continued to live in Sodom. until God sent his angels to
destroy that wicked city, along with their inhabitants, all except
for just Lot and two of his daughters. They were delivered from the
cities of destruction by the hand of God, stepping in in sovereign
intervention, and he takes the hand of Lot and his daughters
and brings them out of the land. After being delivered from the
cities, from the impending judgment of God, you know, we think, boy,
he'd learn now. We think that because we think
real highly of ourselves. We think, now, after experiencing
things like that, Lot's gonna be a different man. After he
was delivered from the judgment of God in such a miraculous way,
Lot, in a drunken stupor, was twice enticed by his daughters
into incest. As a result, Lot sired two nations,
cursed of God, permanently forever cursed of God, Ammon and Moab. And yet this is how God the Holy
Ghost inspired the Apostle Peter to describe this man, Lot. Read
it again. God delivered just Lot, vexed
with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For that righteous
man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, decks his righteous
soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. The Lord knoweth
how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve
the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. Why has God given
us this record along with that in the book of Genesis about
this man whom he calls a righteous man, this just man. What are we to learn from the
record given in scripture of this righteous man? Why was his
history written? Why was it written the way it
was written? I can't answer all of those questions
fully, but I can answer all of them to a degree. I want to show
you seven things clearly revealed in the scriptures to us, lessons
drawn from the life of a righteous man. And I pray that God, the
Holy Ghost, will write them on your heart and mine. Number one, Brother Lot was a righteous man. Obviously, he was not born that
way. He was not naturally a righteous
man. He did not by anything he did
make himself righteous, but rather he was justified and made righteous
in exactly the same way as you who are justified and made righteous,
in exactly the same way that his uncle Abraham was justified
and made righteous. Brother Don read, the 12th chapter
of Isaiah's gospel to us. Brother Aaron back in the office
read to us from Galatians 2 and 3, dealing with God's salvation,
God's grace, God's mercy. And God did things the way he
did them. By pen he wrote and by pen he
recorded history to teach us that it is the pleasure of God
to justify his people through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, understand what that means.
That does not mean that when you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, then justification is accomplished. Oh, no, no, no.
Justification was accomplished before the world began when God
accepted you in Christ. Read the eighth chapter of Romans,
first chapter of Ephesians, and if you can get around that, let
me know how. Justification was accomplished from eternity. Justification
was accomplished for us when Christ was made sin, and we were
made the righteousness of God in Him when our sins were put
away by His blood. And three days later, He was
risen, justified in the Spirit. God declared that He had put
sin away. And then when a sinner is convinced
of righteousness, I'll tell you when you will believe on the
Son of God. I'll tell you when you will believe. I can't talk
you into it. I beg you to come to Him. I plead
with you to trust Christ. I urge you, believe on the Son
of God, lest you die in your sins. But I'll tell you exactly
when you will believe on the Son of God. When God the Holy
Ghost convinces you that you're righteous before God. When He
comes and convinces you of righteousness, because Christ has finished His
work and gone back to the Father. then you can't help but to believe
him. And as you find yourself believing in him, God speaks
peace to the soul and declares yourself to be clean before him,
purges your conscience from dead works and gives you freedom of
access to God so that now, for the first time in your life,
you lift your heart to heaven and you call God, my father,
my father. You know what I'm talking about,
you who believe. There was a day, Clare Sherwin,
you were terrified of God. Every thought you had of God,
if you had any, made you shake in your soul. There was a day
when you were terrified at the thought of eternity until God
came and spoke peace to your soul and declares you righteous
in Christ and you lift your heart to heaven. And now you come to
God boldly, freely. I speak to God, Clare, more freely
than I speak to you. I speak to God more freely than
I speak to that beautiful blonde sitting back there. I speak to
God with absolute freedom because I have no guilt before the holy
God. That's what it is to be made
righteous. And that's by the doing and dying
of Jesus Christ the Lord. As by one man's sin, we were
made sinners in our father Adam. So by the righteousness of one
man, the last Adam, Jesus Christ, by his obedience, we are made
the righteousness of God in him. When Christ lived on this earth,
I obeyed God's law in him perfectly. I don't mean by that that it's
just as though he had done that for me. That's certainly true.
I mean by that that I lived in him in perfect obedience to God,
just as I lived in Adam and disobeyed God. And when Christ died at
Calvary, I died in him. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. There is no other way for a sinner
to be made righteous before God. Lot was made righteous in justification
and made righteous in regeneration, just as you and I are. Made new
creatures in Jesus Christ. new creatures in Jesus Christ. I said to our folks at home last
night, I was preaching on the subject of holiness out of the
book of Leviticus. Some of you are old enough to
remember back a few years ago when we didn't have computer
desks and the floppy desks and then the CDs and other DVDs and
the flash drives, we had recordings. And on every tape recorder, there
was a button that said rewind. and you start to listen to something,
I'm gonna hear that again, hit rewind start all over. 50 years ago, God Almighty hit the
rewind button for me. And I began a new life. Now listen
to me, listen to me. A new life that I can't mess
up. A new life that I can't mar.
A new life that I can't sully. A new life that I can't defile.
It's called Christ in you, living in you. And this new life is
God's new creation. It is righteous and holy. That which is born of God, what
does the scripture say? Can not sin. It is born of God. Here's the
second lesson. Lot was a righteous man who lived
in a terribly evil society. The Sodomites, among whom Lot
lived, worked and raised his family, were people whose lives
were beyond wicked and abominable. Their lives were filthy. Lot
vexed was vexed with the filthy conversation, the filthy manner
of life of everybody who lived around him. I sometimes forget
what you men and women, you young people have to deal with. I know, I've been there. I worked
on the docks and I worked as a janitor, I worked in factories.
I've been there, but it's been a long, long time since I had
spent day after day after day after day after day after day
after day after day with ungodly folks who hate God. A lot did, just like you. lived among a people known throughout
the ages of history for one thing more than any other, we call
it sodomy. And words can't be found sufficient
to denounce the evil of sodomy in our day or any other. It is
a vile, vile, horrid result of free will works religion. A vile, horrid result of man
being worshipped as though he were God. A horrible result of
man thinking he's more important than anybody else around him.
And Lot lived there day after day after day after day. just like you do. Now, I hope
you live like Lot did, vexing your righteous soul. It is a
rare man who can live righteously as the only one in the crowd. A rare man who will live righteously
when nobody else around him has any interest in righteousness.
Third, Lot was a righteous man who endured great troubles and
sorrows all the days of his life. You see, faith in Christ, righteousness,
godliness, do not exempt believers from sorrow, trouble, and heartache. These things do not exempt believers
from all the sorrow, trouble and heartache that all other
men and women endure in this world. Heartache, trouble and
sorrow, raising your children. Heartache, trouble and sorrow,
in your house. Heartache, trouble and sorrow,
on the job. Heartache, trouble and sorrow,
with sickness. Heartache, trouble and sorrow,
one on the heels of the other. Righteousness doesn't relieve
that. The righteous suffer all the
consequences of sin except eternal death, just the same as all other
men do. As long as you live in this world,
you shall have tribulation. Frequently, the trials and troubles
and tribulations of believers are trials and troubles and tribulations
that we bring on ourselves. My dear friend who's been with
the Lord for some time now, Brother Harry Graham, you've heard me
mention him many times. I always managed, up until now,
now I'm the old friend, but when I was a young man, most of my
friends were 30, 35 years my senior. And Shelby and I spent
a lot of time with Harry Noble Graham when I was in college
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Brother Graham said to me one
night, Mother Dawn, sometimes the way God chastens his children
and corrects their sins, is to give them what they think they
want and make them experience and live with the consequences
of their disobedience. Sometimes God will give you what
you want and say, now live with it, bud. Live with it. Such was the case with Lot. Once
he moved to Sodom, I don't know why, but once he moved to Sodom,
He could not extricate himself from that place, though he obviously
despised it. There was something holding him
in that abominable place, which he couldn't leave until God destroyed
it. Now, I say this to you. Almost
everybody here is considerably younger than me. I see a few
exceptions. Will you hear a man pushing 70 years old? Will you listen to me? Will you
listen to me? Everything we do, every choice
we make, be it bad or good, has its consequences upon us and
upon everybody we influence. Everything. No exceptions. Lott made a horribly bad choice
early in his adult years, for which he suffered until he died. It was a choice that resulted
in the destruction of his wife, his sons-in-law, and his daughters. The fact is, it still stands,
you can't take fire to your bosom and not be burned. You're a fool
if you think you can. Here's the fourth lesson. Lot
was a righteous man for whose sake a wicked, cursed people
were temporarily preserved from destruction and given space for
repentance. When the kings of the plain and
the sodomites were carried away into captivity, they were delivered
from their captives not because Abraham cared for the kings of
the plain, he didn't give a hoot for it, only because Lot was
among them. The angels of judgment came,
came to destroy Sodom, but they could not destroy the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah until Lot was safely out of the city. If
they had only known who Lot was and what mercies they enjoyed
because he lived among them, Those folks would have been coming
every day to sweep Lot's driveway and take care of his grass and
carry off his garbage and asking anything else they could do for
him. Everything they enjoyed. Everything they enjoyed because
Lot lived there. Now some folks talk about common
grace. And they say, well, God causes
the sun to shine on the just and the unjust alike. That doesn't
mean he causes it to shine for the unjust. Do you know the reason
my neighbors got some rain yesterday? Because I live on that hill out
there. It's the only reason they got
it. If I didn't live out there, I
wouldn't have got any. The only reason they got it. Do you know
why your neighbors are gonna have some sunshine tomorrow?
Because you live on the street. If you didn't live there, they
wouldn't have any. God sends his grace for his own. And those
who live in this world with us are preserved in their being. only because there is a people
in this world called God's seed, his elect, his remnant, for whom
he does all things. Such it was with Lot while he
lived in Zion. As long as Lot lived there, God
wouldn't destroy the city. As long as Lot lived there, they
weren't in hell. As long as Lot lived there, there
was space for repentance. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering
to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance. That's the only reason God preserves
the world. His elect are here, a remnant
who must be saved. Lots, like you and I, was the
salt of the earth for Sodom. That's what our Lord means when
he says you're the salt of the earth. That's a good Southern
expression. We Southerners sometimes get
things wrong. Well, they're the salt of the earth. And what's
meant by that, boy, he's a good man. That's not what God means
by that. The salt of the earth, that's
God's elect by whom judgment is put off and the world is preserved
because the time of their calling hasn't yet come. Here's the fifth
lesson. Lot was a righteous man whose
life was absolutely ruled by his God. Every step ordered of the Lord. Is that what the book says? Is
that what it says? The steps of a good man are ordered
of the Lord. Not some of them, all of them.
Every step. Every decision. Lot was a righteous
man whose life was absolutely ruled by his God for his everlasting
spiritual good, the good of all God's elect, the glory of God,
and the accomplishment of God's purpose of grace in Christ. I can't spend any time here.
I wouldn't get done with my message. You'd wish I'd shut up a half
hour before I did, so I'll be very brief, but I've got to say
this. If ever there was a man whose
life was a commentary on Psalm 76.10, Lot was that man. Surely
the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath
wilt thou restrain. You know what it means? Look
at Brother Lot, righteous Lot, just Lot. Did you ever wonder
why, when the children of Israel were wandering through the wilderness,
the Lord God gave an express command. He said to Moses, distress
not the Moabites. Deuteronomy chapter two. Why
did he do that? He said throughout scripture,
Moab is my wash pot. Moab and Ammon were the nations
that sprung from the incestuous relationship of Lot with his
two daughters. But God said, distress not the
Moabites. I won't give them that land.
I won't give you their land. You can't destroy the Moabites.
Why did God preserve the Moabites? Well, at your leisure, read the
first chapter of Matthew's gospel, and you'll read about a woman
who was Ruth the Moabites. God preserved the Moabites, because
without the Moabites, there would have been no Ruth, and there'd
have been no Redeemer, and there'd have been no salvation. And this
brought to pass by the arrangement of divine providence so that
our Lord Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners from way back yonder
in Genesis 13. So let me show you, I'm the friend
of sinners. From Lot's incest sprang the
woman. who was the great, great, great,
great grandma of the Son of God. Oh God, I thank you for your
overruling sovereign providence by which you take even the wickedness I have done and turn it and the marvelous machinery
of your providence for my everlasting spiritual good and the everlasting
spiritual good of your elect and the glory of your name. I'm
anxious to look back from heaven's vantage point over the ages of
time that I've lived in this world and had the Son of God say to
me, you remember that? Now let me show you why. Let
me show you why I did that. Let me show you what the result
of that was. And we are forever taught to praise Him who sovereignly
works all things together for good, to them that love God,
to them who are called according to His purpose. Truly, he hath
done all things well. Number six. Lot was a righteous man who vexed
his righteous soul day and night with the ungodly deeds of the
people among whom he lived. That word vexed is only used
one other time in the Bible. It's used in Acts chapter seven.
There it's translated oppressed. It's one of those words with
many shades of meaning, and every shade of meaning has got to be
given when you want to understand the word. It means oppressed,
tormented, distressed, sick, miserable, pained, exhausted,
worn down with. I don't know about you, but that
pretty well describes the shape I'm in in this generation. Are you a vexed soul with this
reprobate age? I'm fairly certain that the things
which vex me today are the very things that vexed Lot when he
lived in Sodom. This righteous man was vexed
with the idolatrous religion of Sodom. As I hinted at a few
minutes ago, Lott understood what Paul wrote in Romans 1.
The sodomy among which he lived sprang from the doorsteps of
idolatrous works religion, and it vexed him. He was angry with
it. Just before coming over here
tonight, I had to stop by a store to pick up some clothes Shelby
bought me for Christmas, and I had to run into a preacher.
And he seemed to be a nice fella, but it was all I could do to
just be nice to him. Just vexed with religion, just
vexed with it. Brother Locke was vexed by the
utter immorality of the society in which he lived. He was weary,
worn out, pained, sick, exhausted with the evil around him. I had
no doubt Locke was vexed by his sense of the impending judgment
of God upon his family and his neighbors. Lot was a righteous
man. That means he was a compassionate
man, a gracious man, a tender man, a caring man. He cared for
the souls around him. He was vexed. As our Lord, as
a man, had compassion upon Jerusalem as he pronounced the judgment
of God upon them. As our Lord looked at that rich
young ruler and had compassion on him as he walked away from
life and grace and the gospel of Christ, Lot was like his redeemer,
vexed. He recognized he lived among a people courting everlasting
damnation. And he was vexed at the thought
of God's judgment upon him. The wrath of God upon his neighbors
and the world around him. I'm sure Lot was vexed with the
indifference of those who professed to be believers around him. I
don't think there were many, but there were obviously a few.
His wife, probably his daughters, maybe his sons-in-law. But they
were indifferent. When Lott told them that judgment
was coming, they said, Daddy, you've gone too far. You popped
a cork, Daddy. You're talking like a man who's
lost his mind. And they mocked him, mocked him. And I'm certain that Brother
Lott was vexed, perhaps, above everything else with the sin,
callousness, and indifference of his own heart. I'm never hesitant to denounce
the evil of the day in which we live. Somebody tells me I can't say
something about sodomy or fornication or adultery or drunkenness or
theft or anything else. You can bake on it, you're gonna
hear it from me. I'm not careful to avoid offending such people.
But I'll tell you something that vexes me indescribably more. That's the callous, hardness,
and evil of my own heart. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Thank God, Jesus Christ shall
soon do so. So learn this. Lot was a righteous man, delivered
from sin, sorrow, and wrath by the grace of God. The Lord knows
how to deliver the righteous, the God-men. He knows how to
deliver those whom he has made righteous in his Son. in his
sovereign, regenerating grace. He doesn't need any help from
you or from me. He knows how to speak life to
the dead, and he always does at exactly the right time. He
knows how to deliver the godly. He delivered us who were declared
by him godly, righteous, and just for eternity by the just,
satisfying sacrifice of his dear son, and soon, He's going to
come again in resurrection glory and deliver me. And deliver you from all the
evil consequences of sin. It's called the redemption of
the body. The completion of redemption
is complete deliverance from sin. Complete restoration of
manhood in godliness by the hand of God. And he knows how to reserve
the ungodly and the reprobate under the day of judgment. Astonishing grace I'm talking
about. Distinguishing grace. Here we
are. you and me, separated from my
mother's wounds, preserved all the days of our rebellion, kept
in Jesus Christ and now called, called by his grace. Most of
us, just one in a family, one or two in a family. One household in the community.
One or two maybe in the community. Just a few in a huge city. What about the others? Preserved under judgment. All by the decree
and will and purpose of God to the glory of his great name to
whom we bow worship in all things. Amen.