Titus chapter 3, if you want
to turn your Bibles there. We're going to be looking tonight
at verse 7. We've made it down to that verse.
Verse 3 of Titus, but let's go back up again and begin in verse
4 and read down through verse 7. But after that the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we have done, But according to His mercy, He
saved us. By the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."
Being justified by His grace, that is what we are going to
look at a little bit this evening, and Paul has been speaking here
in these verses of the way that God saves us. And if you'll go
back to chapter 1, he hinted here in chapter 1 and verse 2,
he hints here, at least he hints, that God had purpose salvation.
He hints here at what he states clearly in other places. He says
in chapter 1 and verse 2, In hope of eternal life, which God
that cannot lie promised before the world began. Before the world
began. So salvation and its purpose
is older than the world, ain't it? It's not something that just
rose up even in the mind of God lately or when the world started,
but it was in His heart. And it really shows us where
it originated at, doesn't it? Salvation originated with God
Himself, with the Triune God. And then look here in chapter
2, He tells us something else about this salvation, that it
is by grace. He says here in verse 11, Chapter
2 and verse 11, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation
hath appeared to all men, appeared to all kinds of men salvation. And it's by grace. The grace
of God. By grace are you saved through
faith. By grace. And then here in chapter
3 in verse 5, he attributes salvation to the mercy of God. Look what
he says again in verse 5. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. What was it in God that motivated
Him to save us? His mercy. You know, the elect
are called vessels of mercy, prepared before to salvation. Vessels of mercy. God saves us
by His mercy. And mercy is the attribute that
motivated God to choose the elect to salvation to begin with. And
listen, in time, in time, it's mercy. that calls them. They
obtain mercy in time. Paul, I don't know, we don't
hear this much anymore, do we? We don't hear very much about
obtaining mercy. Paul had just gave a list of
the awful crimes that he was guilty of against heaven. I was
a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, I was injurious, and then what
did he say? But I obtained mercy. We ought
to start here tonight determining, we're going to start using that
phrase a little bit more. When we start talking about what
the Lord's done for us in calling us out of sin, I obtain mercy. I obtain mercy. He saved us by
His mercy. And then He goes on here in verse
5 to tell us how that He saved us. He saved us by His mercy. How? By the washing of regeneration
by washing, we looked at that. What is it to be saved? It's
a washing, isn't it? It's a washing. It's not turning
over a new leaf. It's not just stopping a bunch
of things we used to do and start doing more things. It's a washing. He washed us from our sins in
His own blood. And then what else did He say?
It's a regeneration. That word simply means it's a
new life, a new life which He shed on us abundantly. through
Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost. That's a work in us, isn't it?
Washing is a work in us. Life is a work in us. It's been given to us. It's a
work of the Holy Spirit. So that's what we looked at last
week. And now He comes here and tells another way the Lord saves
us. He saved us by mercy. Saved us by washing. Saved us
by regeneration. And now He says here He saves
us by justifying us. See what he says in verse 7?
That being justified by His grace. Boy, Paul does something here
in verse 7. And if you're very familiar with
Paul's writings, he does this sometimes. It seems like he's
going along. He started this chapter. I don't know if he was
going in a different direction or not, but he started to tell
Titus to make sure to remind the Christians to be obedient
unto the principalities and powers, the powers, the authority, the
state. Be obedient. Don't be rebels
against the state. But then he just changes. He
changes and says, you know, remember what we were. Don't be so hostile
towards these poor politicians because remember what we were.
And then he begins to tell what we were, that we were deceived
and served in divers lust. And then he hits on this subject
of salvation. And it is hard for him to get
off of it. And he just goes on and on and on. And finally in
verse 7, he seems like he reaches this climax. And what he does
here in verse 7 is absolutely amazing. He uses five terms that
volumes have been written on each one of these words before. And he jams them all right in
one verse. He seems like he is so full of
these things that he just jams them all in one verse. And I'm
telling you, you can read volumes on each one of these words. The
first one is justify, grace, heirs, hope, eternal life. And the Bible is absolutely full
of these five things. Justify, the word means to be
counted just, innocent, not guilty, free from all charges. I was
looking in Webster's, I have an 1884 or 5 Webster's, 86 something
Webster's, and I often go to to find definitions of Bible
words. And I'm amazed, I have two brand
new Webster dictionaries and they completely changed the definition.
Let me give you the definition of what Webster says, I think
it's 1886 edition, of what it means to be justified. Here's
what he said. Imagine now going to a modern
version of Webster and reading this definition of what it means
to be justified. To pardon and clear from guilt,
to absolve or acquit from guilt and merited punishment, to be
accepted as righteous on account of the merits of the Savior,
or by the application of Christ's atonement to the offender. Isn't that wonderful? I'll read
that to you again in just a minute. That's what he said the definition
of justify was. And you know the Bible is full
of that. It's full of the whole concept of what it means to be
justified. Some tell us that Job may be
one of the oldest books of the Bible. You know, it's there.
They ask this question, how can man be just with God? Bildad said this, How can He
be clean that's born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon, and
it shines not, the stars are not pure in His sight. How much
less man that is a worm, and the Son of Man that's a worm.
How can man be justified with God? That's a question they were
asking back then, and Job was justified. And we come to Abraham
and he was justified and a lot more people in the Old Testament
were justified. And Abraham said that justification
was a blessing that God had promised even to the heathen. Listen to
this. The scripture foreseeing that
God would justify the heathen through faith. preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be
blessed." Justification. For God to justify a sinner was
promised to Abraham all the way back there in the Old Testament
Scripture. So it is an old concept. It is
an old doctrine. Grace. Let's look at this word
just for a minute. Grace. Boy, that goes back to
the beginning, doesn't it? Noah found grace. in the eyes
of the Lord? For by grace are you saved through
faith, not of yourself. It's a gift of God. You know
the Bible even says that grace is older than the world. Grace
is as old as God Himself because He's the God of grace. He said
that He's not saved us according to our works but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. That's old grace, ain't it? And
then Peter says, Look in, look in for the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So from eternity past to eternity
future, grace is the way God saves us. By grace are you saved. And then he says, Heirs, we are
made heirs. Being justified by His grace,
we are made heirs. And people have written into
our volumes on this whole concept of what it means to be an heir
of God. You are no more a servant, but
a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. The Spirit bears witness with
our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then
heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs
with Jesus Christ. And James said, Hearken, my beloved
brethren, have not God chosen the poor of this world, rich
in faith, and heirs of the kingdom? which He's promised to them that
love Him. Here's another word, hope. Hope. Wayne just dealt
with this the other day in his lesson on Romans 8. We're saved
through hope. But hope that is seen is not
hope. For what a man hopeth for, for what a man don't see, he
hopes for, doesn't he? If you see it, you don't hope.
What are we hoping for? Paul was writing to the Colossian
church and he said, our hope is laid up in heaven. It's laid
up in heaven. He said, We don't cease to pray
for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ and love to all
the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. Heaven is our hope. Isn't that
a wonderful hope? Wouldn't your heart break if
you didn't have a good hope of heaven? Our hope is of heaven
and everything we hope for comes from heaven, doesn't it? It's
a heavenly hope and God has given to you a good hope through grace. My goodness, they wrote volumes
about that too. And then he says, your life lives
this. What do we hope for? Eternal life. In hope of eternal
life. This is somewhat of a mystery.
Really it is that the Bible says we have life now. He that hath
the Son hath life. And yet we're living in the hope
of eternal life. It's sort of like I guess we
have the seed in us, there's life in us, but we're waiting
for it to blossom. We're waiting for all of this
death to be swallowed up in victory, in life at last. We live in hope
of eternal life. So see, you can read volumes
on this one verse. We just went through it quickly,
but couldn't we spend the next five weeks in this one verse
studying all these things? I'll tell you, Randy, what's
his name? I can't even remember his name.
I forgot him already. Boy, he could spend a year in that one
verse. Oh, let's consider, though, just
for a few minutes, being justified by His grace because That's what
Paul is saying here. He saved us by justifying us. And we see here the importance
of this because all these other things follow being justified. An unjustified person won't be
saved with it. If a man ain't justified, he
can't be saved. That's the way God saves us, by justifying us.
If he ain't justified, he can't be an heir. And if he ain't justified,
he can't have hope of life eternal. So we see the importance of what
it means to be justified, being justified by His grace. What is it to be justified? I
heard one dear brother make this statement about the definition
of being justified. He said it's as though we never
sin, just as though we never sin. But there's two reasons
I don't like that. And I don't want to be harsh
about it because I love him. But I've never found that definition. Maybe it's out there and if you
ever find it, I'd love to see it and see how they get that.
But he said it's though we never sinned. And here's what I find
wrong with that. We have sinned. It sort of denies
the fact, the reality that we have sinned. It is a denial of
this, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And Paul says this very thing
in Romans chapter 3 and verse 23 to 24. Listen to how he says
this. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being
justified freely by His grace. Justification is in light of
our sins. Justification is being cleared
from our sins. It's not as though we've never
sinned because we did. I want you to turn here to Romans
chapter 4. Over to your left, over in Romans
chapter 4. We're told that God justifies
sinners. You know there's no place that
I know of in the New Testament that anybody is justified but
sinners. Look this up sometime and check
me on this and show me if I'm wrong about this. But initially,
when we're first justified, when God first comes to us and justifies
us by His grace, you know we're called ungodly? That He justifies
the ungodly? I want to show you that. Look
here at Romans chapter 4 and let's go all the way back up
to verse 1, Romans 4 and 1. What shall we say then that Abraham
our father as pertaining to the flesh is found? For if Abraham
were justified by works, he can glory, but not before God. For what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. He believed God. Now to him that
worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. But to
him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness." Now you won't find anyone who
is justified that's addressed as ungodly. The Lord doesn't
address His children as ungodly. But initially, when He comes
to them to justify them, they are indeed ungodly. Then He says
in verse 6, Even as David also describes the blessedness of
the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without work, saying,
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins
are covered. So justification takes in forgiveness
of sins, doesn't it? It doesn't say it's though we've
never sinned, but his sins forgiven. It's a justifying from those
sins and the guilt of those sins. That publican that stood there
in the temple, he was a sinner. When he beat on his chest and
said, God be merciful to me a sinner, he was a sinner and he was justified. He went down to his house justified
rather than the other. So let me read you Webster's
definition again. Here's why I like his definition.
of what it means to be justified. To pardon and clear from guilt. To absolve or acquit from guilt
and merited punishment. Somebody's earning wrath, but
they're cleared. They're acquitted from that merited
punishment. To be accepted as righteous on
account of the merits of the Savior or by the application
of Christ's atonement to the offender. So being justified
can't mean by this that it's though we've never sinned because
we have. And we're by nature ungodly when
we come into this world. So God justifies the ungodly,
justification To be saved by grace, justified by grace, means
we have sinned and those sins are forgiven. We're cleared from
all the charges and deserved punishment. We're acquitted of
it, even though we're guilty of it. This is the most encouraging
way to look at justification because it just suits our need.
It suits what we have experienced. It finds us right where we are
and like we are, and in spite of that, clears us from all charges. Now somebody will ask the question,
Bruce, how can God justify a sinner? How can God justify an ungodly
person? By His grace. By His grace. By His grace. That's what our
text tells us, isn't it? Being justified by His grace. by his unmerited, by his unearned,
by his undeserved favor. If God waits to see something
in the sinner that qualifies him to be justified, then God
won't justify anybody because there's nothing there that merits
or earns or qualifies him to be justified. God is not looking
for anything in the sinner to qualify him. The qualifications
for justification is found in God. It is by His unmerited,
unearned, undeserved favor. That is why He can come to the
most ungodly man in His dying hours, a thief on the cross,
and justify him because it is by grace, free grace. And listen, here is the flip
side of that. That is why He can justify one sinner upon the
cross. and pass by the other. That's
why He can save the publican in the temple and pass by the
Pharisee. He owes no man anything. He don't
have to save anybody. But if it's by grace, He can
justify anybody. That's confident to our consciousness.
That's confident to our soul. The unmerited favor, He justifies
us. Another reason I don't particularly
like that definition, that justification, to be justified, means as though
we never sinned, is because we're justified through an atonement. We're justified through an atonement.
If there's no sin on our part, then there's no need for an atonement
on Christ's part. Look over here in chapter 5 of
Romans, just right where we're at. chapter 5 of Romans and look
in verse 9. Look in verse 8, all the way
back up in these verses. Verse 8, chapter 5 of Romans. But God commendeth His love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,
much more than, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him, justified by His blood. Now when our text
says we are justified by grace, we are not denying it takes merit. It is just not merit on our part.
But it takes merit to save a sinner. But it is Christ's merit. It
is His death. It is His bloodshed. It is His
suffering that justifies us and not ours. Christ's death is the
meritorious cause of God justifying us. It's through the redeeming
work of Jesus Christ that God can be just and the justifier
of them which believe in Jesus. A full satisfaction has been
rendered to God as a payment for our sins. The court of heaven
is fully satisfied. It's satisfied. Christ has satisfied
the divine justice of God. That's so important, isn't it?
That's such a vital aspect of our justification. Yes, it's
through grace. It must be through grace. God
justifies us. But here is the meritorious cause,
the blood of Christ. His blood, His death answers
all the charges that could ever be justly brought against us. Charges we can't answer. When
that publican and that Pharisee stood up in the temple that day
to pray, that publican had nothing to justify him. He offered nothing
to justify him. All he could plead was, I'm a
sinner. I'm a sinner. Can you save me by mercy? Can
you justify me by grace? Can you justify me through the
merits of another? I have nothing." He went down
to his house justified. The Pharisees said, here's what
I'm going to offer. I'm going to offer my fasting
twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I possess.
I abstain from defrauding people and from adultery. Will you justify
me on these terms? He didn't, did he? He didn't.
I was reading, I was watching, Joe and I watched these, like
a documentary, these crimes where they go into people's lives and
try to figure out why they committed crimes and so on. But watching
this is like a documentary on these two brothers. And just
a handful of times in the whole history, they kept stats on people
committing certain crimes, that this has ever happened. Two brothers,
two teenage brothers, both of them were serial killers. They
turned into serial killers when they got up in their twenties.
Both of them did. One of them did and they put him in jail.
Then the other one started doing it. And it was so sad. They reenacted these things out
and it was so sad. One of them got these two girls
and pretended like their car was broke down and killed them
and hid their body in the woods. One woman was coming out of the
grocery store with her two-year-old baby. He came up behind her and
stabbed her with a huge knife and just kept twisting it until
she died right there in the parking lot. And it went on and on. He was hitchhiking. This guy
picked him up and he put the guy in the trunk and the guy
was screaming. And he just opened the trunk and shot him, put the
trunk back down and went off. Wicked, wicked men. Young men. so awful things they did. But
they took them to court and they gave them several life sentences.
They should have put them to death. They weren't insane. They were just mean, sinful,
devilish people. But imagine this. Imagine those two fellows and
their lawyers coming up before the judge and the jury brings
back in the verdict, guilty, guilty. And here the lawyer gets
out a whole pocket full of pennies, and he goes and lays them down
there on the bench, and he says, here's a penny for the girl with
the little boy, and here's a penny for the guy that picked him up
hitchhiking, and here's a penny for the clerk that he shot in
the face, and here's a penny for this one, a penny for that
one. What do you think people would have thought? You talk
about outrage. You talk about an insult on justice. You think the judge and the jury
got together and clapped their hands and went out the door and
said, man, the debt's paid. These men are justified. It would
never happen, would it? And yet, how much worse when
a man stands before God and says, I fast twice a week, and I pay
tithes, and I read, and I go to church, and I do all these
religious duties. That is worse than laying down
a penny to atone for murder, isn't it? Micah said, Shall I
give my body for the sins of my soul? My firstborn, is that
enough to give? Nothing will merit justifying
a sinner. Jesus Christ and His blood answered
all the charges that could ever be brought against us. And that's
the only way that God can justify a sinner. By His grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Look in a couple of places. Look
in Romans chapter 3. Just back over to your left just
a little bit. If you want to study this subject in detail,
you can look in the book of Romans. There's an excellent book in
the book of Galatians also. But look in a couple of places.
Look in Romans chapter 3 and verse 23. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. All have sinned. How then can
we be justified? Being justified freely by His
grace, what's the meritorious cause? The redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. whom God hath set forth to be
a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God." Now, if you want to look at that as
the sins of the Old Testament saints, that's fine. It may be
what it means. If you want to look at it as
your past sins, I would see nothing wrong with that. To declare,
I say it this time, His righteousness, that He might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Where is boasting
then? It is excluded. But what law
of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude
that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Justification by God's grace
through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. One more scripture
over to your left in Acts chapter 13. Look in Acts chapter 13. Here
is where Paul was preaching the first message that we have recorded
of him preaching. And he was preaching of Christ.
Die and look in verse 28. Acts chapter 13 and look in verse
28. Though they found no cause of
death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain,
crucified. And when they had fulfilled all
that was written of him, they took him down from the tree,
and laid Him in a sepulcher. But God raised Him from the dead,
and He was seen many days of them which came up with Him from
Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses unto the people.
And we declare unto you, glad tidings, how that the promise
which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto
us, their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus again, as
it is written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have
I begotten Thee. And as concerning that he raised
him up from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he saith
unto this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore
he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer, thou holy
one, to see corruption. For David, after that he served
his own generation by the will of God, he fell on sleep, he
died, and was laid into his father's, and his body saw corruption.
But he whom God raised again saw no corruption. Be it known
unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are
justified from all things from which you could not be justified
by the law of Moses." Those who believe in Christ and Him crucified,
those whose faith is in His blood have a complete and everlasting
justification from all things. From all things. Let's look at
some all things. From all sin. All original sin. We're born sinners, aren't we?
We're guilty through Adam. As by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. When God justifies us, He clears
us from original sin. You say, Bruce, I still feel
it. I do too. But you know something? You're justified from it. All
things. From all actual sins. Boy, there's
a lot of actual sins, isn't there? A lot of secret sins, isn't there?
Most of our sins are secret, aren't they not? They never get
out of the heart. Thank God for that. He knows
them. And most of them we know. that were justified from them.
All sin. Open sin. Sins breaking out in
the flesh, known to man, bringing shame. When God justifies a man,
He justifies him from sins. Sins of ignorance. If a man sinned
through ignorance, though he wished it not, yet is he guilty. Somebody said, I didn't mean
to do that. I didn't know I did that. But you're guilty. But
you're guilty. Sins of presumption. How many
have sinned? No one better. You say, Bruce,
I've never done that. Don't tell me that. Don't tell
me you've never done something knowing that you shouldn't have
did it when you did it. That's awful, isn't it? That's dangerous. But boy, we've done it, haven't
we not? Sins of omission. To him that knoweth to do good,
and doeth it not, to him it is sins. Sins of commission. All
have sinned and committed transgressions against God, against Christ,
against the Holy Spirit, against light, against the law, against
the gospel, against one another. Sins of commission justified
from all things. Now that is a blessing, is it
not? You think of your sins, how many there are, how high
they have climbed up to heaven. And if this word right here be
true, those who believe are justified from all things. That's a blessing. Justified from all things that
the law can charge against you. The law is spiritual. I'm carnal. The law can see me when and where
I can't see myself. It sees sins in me where I can't. Justified from all things the
judgment of God demands satisfaction for. Sins are debts, aren't they? And justice demands payment.
Can we pay it? Justice requires it. But here's
the blessing of justification. We're free from what justice
requires. We can't pay it. But another
thing, God has paid it on our behalf. justified from all things. And think of this, justified
from all things, Satan accuses us of. He's the accuser of the
brother. I don't know if he's still allowed
in God's presence or not up in heaven. I don't know. But I know
the Bible says he's the accuser, the brother. What he does, he
comes to us, he tempts us to sin and unbelief, and then he
starts accusing us because we do. He's accuser of the brother. justified from all accusations
of others. Have you ever done anything to
anybody that they could justly accuse you of? Some family member? Your husband ever did anything
to your wife that was wrong? To your neighbor? A co-worker? Relative? I've done things that
people could justly say, Bruce, you did me wrong. You did me
wrong. You ever had to apologize to
somebody? There's things that we've done to people that they
could justly accuse us. But here the Bible says you're
justified from all things. Even that you're justified from. Justified from accusations of
your own conscience. Have you ever had a screaming
conscience? You ever been woke up in the middle of the night
and your conscience reminding you of something you did that
was absolutely wrong and you had no rest because of it? I
think all of us have experienced screaming conscience, haven't
we? Justified from a screaming conscience. All things, all things. Listen to this. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Anything. It's God that justifies it. Who is he that condemneth it's
Christ who died? Justify. Justify. This is one of the most blessed
and the most competent truths that an afflicted conscience
could entertain. Here's relief and rest for a
burdened soul. Jesus has earned our justification
from all things. at a great cost to Himself, His
sufferings, His blood and His death. And now the Father is
pleased and the Holy Spirit is pleased and Christ is pleased
when we simply trust in Him to be justified. When we look away
from ourselves and all that we are and all that we've done to
Him to be justified by faith in Him alone. He's pleased with
that. Are we pleased with that? That's
the way God justifies us. And here's where His love in
all of His other saving attributes, His kindness and mercy and grace,
shines into our hearts. And here's where we have the
assurance that we're truly heirs of God. One of the reasons that we lack
assurance sometimes, brothers and sisters, we don't clearly
understand how God justifies us. And we get the leaning towards
the works of the law. Leaning towards self. Instead
of faith in Christ and living by faith in Christ alone. That's
where we have the assurance that we're heirs of God. And we have
a good hope of everlasting life. Because those He justified. He
makes ours of heaven and eternal life at last. But contrarywise,
if we're not convinced and if we don't live in the faith of
it that God justifies us by His grace, freely by His grace, you
know what we'll do? We'll grow resentful. We'll grow
resentful towards God. And I'll tell you why. If we
start leaning to our works, our own marriage to be justified
before God, we'll begin to resent God because when our conscience
begins to afflict us, here is what we'll start saying. I'm
worth more than that. I don't deserve this. I deserve
to have peace with God. I deserve Him to accept me because
look how faithful I've been. Look at my religious duties.
I've done this and I've done that. and we'll become resentful. But when we understand and when
we believe and live in the faith of God justifies us by His grace. He clears us of all charges for
the sake of another. That's when we can have peace
with God. That's when we can live in the
light of being children of God and heirs of God. And when we
look out to death and beyond, we don't have to be afraid. We
don't have to be afraid. God has justified us. Being justified
by His grace. And I love that word being. Paul
says that in different places when he talks about being justified
by faith, being justified by grace, being justified by His
blood. It means once you're justified,
you'll never be unjustified. Being justified. You'd have talked to me yesterday
and I'd have said, I'm being justified. You talk to me today,
being justified. Tomorrow, being justified. It
never ceases. And you want me to show you a
blessing about justification in closing? I've kept you just
a little bit long, but look back over in Romans chapter 8 again.
Look here at the confidence. If God has justified you in the
sense that we've been talking about tonight, Look in Romans
chapter 8 and look at your end. Look at the end. My wife and I were coming to
church tonight and something was happening and we talked about,
boy, how slow it was going. And I said, you know, that's
the way God is. Well, He goes slow. The providence of God grinds
slow, doesn't it? get you under its wheel sometime
and you think it's going to crush you before it gets you back up
on top again. It just goes slow. God's slow in His purpose, but
He's sure in His purpose. He's sure in His purpose. And
if you're here tonight and He has justified you by His grace,
I'll tell you one thing you can be sure of. He'll glorify you
someday. He never justifies you and then
not glorify you. That'll never happen. That is
not His purpose. Look in Romans chapter 8 and
look in verse 28. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to His purpose. And here is His purpose. For
whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among
many brothers. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. And whom he called, them he also
justified. And what happens after a while
to them who are justified? Well, look at it. And whom he
justified, them he also glorified. You are heirs of God? How sure
is it? The eternal purpose of God secures
your glorification. Someday your inheritance, dear
brothers and sisters, will be realized. You have a good hope. If you are justified, you have
a good hope. And your hope is as secure as the purpose of God
can make it. Those He justifies, them He also
glorifies. What a wonderful thought. Dave,
would you dismiss us?