In Deuteronomy chapter 25, I want to read to you the first
three verses. If you have a few Bibles, it is found on page 245. Deuteronomy chapter 25. I want to read the first three
verses to you. We'll look at them this afternoon. If there be a controversy between
men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them,
then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. And it
shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the
judge shall cause him to lay down, and to be beaten before
his face, according to his fault, by a certain number. Forty stripes
he may give him, and not exceed. Less if he should exceed, and
beat him above these many stripes. then thy brother should seem
vile unto thee." Now these books of Moses, especially beginning
in Exodus through this book here, the Lord has given laws to the
children of Israel, laws concerning different things. He writes to
them of the ecclesiastical concerns, the concerns of the church, the
worship of God. And that was the priesthood and
all the sacrifices, mainly that was given in regard to the worship
of the church. And then, of course, he gives
the law, and we studied this in chapter 20, regarding even
the military. When the military went out to
war, they had certain procedures they took. The priest went with
them, and the Levites, and the priest blessed them in the name
of the Lord. The Lord God be with you and
fight your battles. And then they would divide groups
up by captains over 50s and 100s and so on. And when they took
a town, they were first to proclaim peace to it. And then if it didn't
surrender, then they had procedures they took. But military laws
was given. And not only these type of laws
but civil laws. We studied in the chapters before
this and chapters before this about some of the liberties,
the civil liberties that God wrote in this book for the children
of Israel. He gave them all kinds of liberties
and rights. It is sort of what our forefathers
got a constitution And they said God has given humanities certain
rights. Well, He gave the children of
Israel certain rights that you couldn't go into their home.
You had no authority if you remember we studied on if they had pawned
you something. You couldn't go into their house
to get its equivalent if they paid you. They had to bring it
out to you. So there was liberties concerning their land. They owned
their own land, their crops. You couldn't bother their crops.
There was all sorts of civil liberties. The laws that he gave
here in verses 1 through 3 is concerning the criminal courts,
the states settling controversies between two individuals that
had fallen out. Now, I've studied the Scriptures
on this, You could probably study secular history and go back,
but the Bible doesn't say very much about how controversies
between individuals and individual nations were settled up to this
time. We just don't have any history
of how controversies were settled. Who set the criteria for what
crimes were? and what crime should be punished
and how severely it should be punished. It was probably a lot of vigilantes,
I'd say, sort of an eye for an eye among all other nations,
ruled by conscience. You remember when Cain killed
his brother Abel? There was no authority. There
was no state. There was no courts to try that
man in. God tried him, didn't He? and
you can go through the old testament scriptures and find in places
where were nations that were living in open sin and criminals
that but you never read where they were subject to any laws
of man any government sodom and gomorrah comes to my mind how
violent that place was but nobody ever stepped in to say you can't
do this this is against the law but god did didn't he And even
up into Jonah's day, Nineveh was a violent place. And nothing
was said of, you guys are breaking the law. So we don't know, we
look back through history, we don't know how other nations
were ruled, what laws they followed, what was the crime and how you
were to punish them. But here in verses 1 through
3, the Lord sets up a court system here in Israel. And He set aside
judges. They were to set aside judges
to judge men as to their guilt or innocence. And the criteria
for the judgment is here in verse 1, to justify the righteous and
to condemn the wicked. Now this shows us here that God
is a God of judgment, doesn't He? He is a God of judgment. No sooner had he brought this
group of people out, these Jewish people out, Abraham's seed, out
into the wilderness, he's going to make a great nation out of
them. And what does he do? He gives them these laws. He
gives them these judgments to follow, discernment between the
wicked and the righteous. And this was very important to
this nation because they were to imitate God. He said, Be ye holy, for I am
holy. That's why He gave them these
laws and these statues to keep. It revealed unto them the very
nature of their God. And they were to keep these and
imitate Him. They were to represent Him before
the nations. That's why He gave them these
statues and these laws. And you know, it was out of this
nation that the Gospel came. The gospel came from the Jewish
nation. When the Lord Jesus sent His
apostles out to preach, He said, You go preach in all the world
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ repentance and remission
of sins. And where were they to begin
at? Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Salvation is of the
Jews. The gospel came from the Jewish
nation. Now here in verse 1, if there's a controversy between
man and they come into judgment. Now what's the first thing we
see here but man's depravity? I tell you, you see it no matter
where you look. If you'll just look at the passage
and meditate on it just a minute, you'll say there's man's depravity.
Now why do I say that? What was the necessity of this
law? The very depravity of man necessitated
this law. They had a falling out. One man
had did something wrong to another man. What do we call that? Man's
depravity, don't we? Man's depravity. No matter what
nation you found men in, no matter what religious institution they
belonged to, even among God's Israel, there was controversy
among men. And that's all because of man's
depravity. Now, look over with me, hold
Deuteronomy 25, and look over in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, and I think it's
in chapter 6. Yeah, look in 1 Corinthians chapter
6. One believer in the New Testament,
one believer in the church, was forbidden to go to law with another
believer. The Apostle Paul forbid that.
The Holy Spirit forbid that. In the secular society, in civil
society, they go to court before the unjust,
before unbelievers. But in the church, in the church
where there is a controversy between brother and brother,
the Scriptures forbid us to go to law, one with another. Now look how He tells us this
here in chapter 6 and verse 1. Look how He says, ìDo any of
you, having a matter against another, go to law before the
unjust and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints
shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged
by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?î KNOW YOU
NOT THAT WE SHALL JUDGE ANGELS? HOW MUCH MORE OF THINGS THAT
PERTAIN TO THIS LIFE IF YOU THEN HAVE JUDGMENTS of thanks pertaining
to this life, set them to judge who are the least esteemed in
the churches." Pastors should not get involved in that, probably
for lack of time or so on, but there are wise men in the church
that can judge these small matters. I speak to your shame. Is it
so that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall
be able to judge between his brethren. But brother goeth to
law with brother, and that before the unbeliever? Now therefore
there is utterly a fault among you, because you go to law one
with another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer
yourselves to be defrauded? Nay, you do wrong and defraud,
and that your brother." So here, even in the Church of Christ,
there are laws to go by. And as you read through the New
Testament, you find that sometimes there is controversy among brethren
or sisters in the church. And the Lord gives us these rules,
the laws of Christ's house. We see this big universe and
we have the state, we have the laws pertaining to Caesar, and
we have the laws pertaining to Christ's kingdom. And as we read
through the Scriptures, here are some of the laws of Christ's
kingdom. Be ye kind. tender-hearted, forgiving one
another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. And listen
to Colossians 3.13, "...forbearing one another, and forgiving one
another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." Forgiveness one
of another. Sometimes it goes beyond that,
doesn't it? The Lord Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 8, if you
have ought against your brother, if he's done something to you,
go to him and tell him. And if he acknowledges that he's
did it, you warn your brother. If he won't hear you, then take
two or three with you from the church and go and confront him
with his faults. If he won't hear you, bring him
before the church. And if he doesn't hear the church,
then the Lord said, let him be to you as a heathen. and as a
publican. In other words, don't be his
enemy, but let him be foreign to you. Let him be a publican
and sinner to you. So that's the law of Christ's
house. Sometimes, though, it spills
over into criminal activity. And that's what this law here
was concerning that you and I are studying in the 25th chapter. And the state takes over then,
doesn't it? The state takes over then. The civil courts take over. And they determine a man's guilt
or a man's innocence. And how? What was the criteria? It was this. Justify the righteous
and condemn the wicked. Justify the righteous and condemn
the wicked. But you know, this teaches us
something there because who was he writing this law to? Wicked
among Israel? Was there some wicked people
among Israel? There was, wasn't there? There
was. Man, you could go through the
Old Testament and you could find a lot of wicked people among
the Jewish people. You think of Korah and the way
that sometimes those Jews drifted and became criminals. And you come into the New Testament
and you find some criminals in the New Testament too, don't
you? Right in the church. Those who professed the Lord
Jesus Christ. Remember Judas? He was a thief,
wasn't he? I don't know who all he stole
from, but he was a thief. Ananias and Sapphires in the
church, they were liars. They even had a saucer who professed
Christ, who tried to buy the Holy Spirit. So you and I shouldn't
be shocked if we've got criminal activity in the church. Joe likes
to watch these news magazines, I think they call them. I went
in the other night and sat and watched one with her. And this
lay preacher was having trouble with two of his neighbors. And
they came to the church where he was preaching and confronted
him. Told the congregation they'd
been having trouble with him and wanted him to sort of intercede.
Well, he got his gun and shot him. They had it on telephone. They was talking to him while
he shot him. We heard he did. A preacher shot him. A preacher? Well, I tell you, no wonder Christ
has laws. No wonder we have laws in the
world. We need them, don't we? We need
laws. So you and I shouldn't be too
shocked that when the Lord gave these laws here to the children
of Israel and yet he said there's going to be some wicked people.
There's going to be some wicked people. And buddy, we've seen
a lot of it in our day. We can name some of the gems.
We went there for a few years, Jim Jones and Jimmy Swagger and
all these gems were popping up and you start thinking, I'm glad
my name's not Jim. I'm about to change my name.
Criminal activity. We've had preachers in our day
that's been put in jail. Criminal activity. Look back over here again in
our text. So they were to justify the righteous and they were to
condemn the wicked. Boy, that was what judgment was
all about. God is a God of judgment, isn't He? And here in verse 2,
notice what He says here. This is instruction from God
concerning how they were to treat criminal activity. Look here
at what he said in verse 2. And it shall be, if the wicked
be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to
lie down and be beaten before his face according to his fault
by a certain number. Now notice this. These are instructions
from God concerning how to treat criminal activity. These are
instructions from God how to treat criminal activity. Somebody said, what would Jesus
do? Have you ever heard anybody say that? We've heard that so
much. What would Jesus do? Verse 2 tells us what Jesus would
do. Romans chapter 13 tells us what Jesus would do. Ain't it sad? It's always been
this way, but we're judging in our day that people come up with
all these concepts of God And they make statements like, what
would Jesus do? How would God feel about that?
Well, you don't have to wonder. He gave us His mind on these
things. In Hebrews chapter 13, listen
to what He says about criminal activity. If you do that which
is evil, be afraid. Why? For he, the state, the authority,
the civil authority, beareth not the sword in vain, for he
is the minister of God, a revenger to execute judgment upon them
that do evil. There is such thing as evil in
this world because there is evil in men's hearts and when it comes
out, God not only gives permission for the state to punish it, He
commands them to do it. Gives them the authority to do
it. They are the ministers of God. Now I want to say four things
right quickly in our text. Four things. First of all is
this. Those who commit crimes deserve to be punished. He says
that in verse 2. It shall be if the wicked man
be worthy to be beaten. He deserves, that word deserves
means worthy. Worthy to be beaten. We used
to go down to jail. I went down with the Gideons
for a number of years. And boy, it was so easy to get
somebody on a profession. I mean, you went down there,
I went down there with a mind to talk them out of a profession.
That's what I went down there to do. bunch of professions,
some of the others wouldn't talk them into one, I went to talk
them out of one. Because their professions usually were no good.
Usually they were willing to profess faith in Jesus Christ
to get them out of trouble. Because they knew if their lawyer
could say, these men have gotten religion, it will happen, it
will happen. It would help them get out. Their
courts was looking for a reason to turn them loose anyway, so
they'd make a profession to thinking that would relieve them from
their punishment. You know, I think if a man is
seeking to be right with God, he would acknowledge the truth
about what he deserves. Don't you? Paul said, if I've
done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. And if a man has been a criminal
and he's in jail and he professes Christ, you know what he's out
to say, I'm right where I deserve to be. I refuse not to stay here
and serve my time or endure my punishment. If this wicked man is worthy
to be whipped, if he deserves to be whipped, look over here
with me in Leviticus. Hold that and look in Leviticus
right quick. Leviticus chapter 26. You know wicked are the religious
people. Leviticus 26. Religious people need to be careful when they
try to get criminals off from a just punishment. You see it
all the time, but they need to be careful doing that because
God doesn't do that. He just doesn't do that. When
He said a man is worthy of punishment, He says punish him, punish him. And this carries right over into
the spiritual realm. If a man won't acknowledge What
he deserves if he's a criminal in the physical realm, he won't
acknowledge what he deserves from God in the spiritual realm. Those two go together. We see
men today making excuses, blaming society, blaming their upbringing,
blaming their parents for their criminal activity. That's a bad
sign when you see society giving over to that. That shows we're
on a low spiritual ebb. Because repentance is not just
saying, I confess my sin and receive Jesus as my Savior. It's
an acknowledgement that we're criminals against God and we
deserve to be punished. Isn't that what the thief said
on the cross? He looked at that other thief and he said, Why
are you accusing this man? This man's done nothing amiss.
It's me and you, the guilty one. We are getting just what is due
us. Ain't that what he said? That's
repentance, isn't it? I have been wrong, I have been
against God, and I'm worthy, I'm worthy to be punished. I
think that's repentance. Well, when a man can come wholeheartedly
in agreement with God, say, if I go to hell, I'm getting just
what I deserve, that's repentance, ain't it? Look what he said here
in the 26th chapter. of Leviticus in verse 39. He was talking about them sinning,
them leaving the Lord and not hearkening to Him, walking contrary
to Him. And in verse 39 of Leviticus
26, And they that are left of you shall pine away in your iniquity,
in your enemies' lands, and also in the iniquity of their fathers
shall they pine away with them. But if they shall confess their
iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers with their trespasses,
which they have trespassed against Me, and that also they have walked
contrary to Me." Now boy, that's something that has to be confessed,
ain't it? Well, I've not been all that bad. It's me and God
have been sort of walking parallel. I just need to step over. No,
it's not that, is it? Different direction, different
direction. Confess that you've been against
Me. You've been contrary to Me. And look in verse 41, And that
I also have walked contrary unto you, and to them, and have brought
them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised hearts
be humble, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity,
then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and with Isaac, and
Abraham, and I will remember, and I will remember the land.
if they accept of their punishment, Lord, I'm getting just what I
deserve. I think that has something to
do with repentance, don't you? If a man be worthy to be whipped,
that's the first thing. There are crimes for which men
are worthy. They deserve to be punished and
they must be punished. Look at something else. Look
back over here again at our text. Look in chapter 25 and verse
2 again. Here's something else that I
love the way the Holy Spirit writes this down. Boy, if you
were setting up a nation, right here's the way you've got to
set it up. Something else you'll notice here, the criteria for
judgment, the punishment for judgment was set beforehand. See what he says in the last
part of verse 2? If a man is to be beaten, the judge causes
him to lie down to be beaten before his face according to
his fault. by a certain number. Now, see that? The judgment,
the punishment was set beforehand. Now, why is that so important?
Well, for two reasons. The first one is this, to keep
them from being ruled by passion and by heart rage. There's times
if If somebody's close friend had gotten killed, or child,
or relative, what would somebody do? Just fly into a rage. It's
mob mentality. The judgment, the punishment
had to be set beforehand. Have you ever heard anybody say
they're so mad because something happened? Put them in there and
throw away the key. That's what I do to them. Hang him. Why try him? Hang him. What is
that? That's passionate. Uncontrolled
passion. So the Lord said the law has
to be just. You've got to write the laws
down beforehand. Set them beforehand. What the
criminal deserves. The number of stripes that he's
to receive for a certain crime. Set it beforehand. Secondly, it was determined beforehand
as a deterrent. As a deterrent. If a man committed
a crime, if he thought about committing a crime, boy, he had
to think about the punishment because it was already determined
what he would receive if he did it. If he robbed a store, there's
25 stripes. You're going to get it. That's
what the law says. This is God's way of giving instructions and
warnings beforehand. to keep men back from punishment. A man is a fool, brothers and
sisters, a man is inexcusable to go on sinning against God
when God has already written in His book the punishment for
that sin. A man is a fool to do that, isn't
he? We know the exact punishment men will receive for sin. I was
down visiting my dear brother, and I bought him one of J.C. Philpott's daily devotional,
and I got his Bible out for him, and I could tell he hadn't been
reading them. And he sits there, he's got his little routine,
little silly routine he goes through every day. He drives
down through the cemetery and back around through the lake and through
the park. Every day, same old thing. I could almost drive it
with my eyes shut. And I got my little Philpot book
out and I read him, I read him a good little devotional. Explained it to him. I said,
listen to what he's saying. I showed him his Bible. I said,
listen, listen to me. You can know this. You don't
have to wait until you die to know this. You've got this good
book. You've got this excellent book,
the Bible. If you sit around here, like
you've been doing now for years, and you don't read and seek God
and pray to Him and seek Him through Jesus Christ, you're
going to spend eternity cursing yourself. I said, I know that
because I know what's waiting you. How do I know that? God
has already told us, hasn't He? He's already told us. He's already
written it down as a deterrent from crime, from sin, that men
may seek Him. I tell you, when you look out
at death, when lost men look out at death, what's waiting
them? Can they know? Well, sure they can know. It's separation from God. It's
utter darkness. It's a lake of fire. It's a bottomless
pit. And God has already written in
His Word for a deterrent, hasn't He? For a deterrent that men
may repent and seek Him while yet there's time. That's the
second thing. The third thing is this. The
punishment, here in verse 3, must not be too harsh. lest he
said, your brother seemed vile in your eyes. They had to beat
him no more than with forty stripes. They could beat him with five
stripes or ten stripes or whatever, but no more than with forty stripes. The worst of men is what he's
telling us here. The worst of men, no matter what
crimes they had done, they were still human beings. They weren't to be treated as
beasts. They were to be treated as human. It's not right. It's not lawful. It's not just
to put a man in prison and starve him half to death. It's not just
in the eyes of God to put a criminal in prison and let prison guards
turn their heads while the man is abused, to say the least. If you treat men like animals,
you know what they'll start doing? They'll start acting like animals.
They'll start acting like animals. I have visited prisons, and you
know what goes on in there. You hear them talk. The guards
get mad at a prisoner, and they even give things to other prisoners
while they turn their heads and they beat them. We do not treat
any man as a beast, do we? No matter how fallen a man is,
what a criminal he is, and what vulgar ungodly things he's done,
he's still a human being. And if he has to be locked up,
lock him up. But for Christ's sake, treat
him with dignity because he's a human being. And no human being
is to be treated as a beast. It just bothers me. It bothers
me. You and I have seen that. We've
seen it in the news and things like that. Too harsh a punishment. Too harsh a punishment. Punishment
can be too harsh, can it? As well as too lenient. It seems
like we've swung back to the lenient side now, but it can
be too harsh. But you know, when you think
of this, it makes you wonder why that punishment of eternal
fire is not too harsh. Ain't that amazing? God tells
us to be careful, don't to treat a man vilely, don't treat him
too harshly, and yet He is willing to punish him for all eternity.
What does that tell us about sin? Doesn't that tell us something
about sin, that it must be awful? That when a trillion years as
it was passes and there's a man laying in hell, that rich man
Christ told us about 2,000 years ago, still suffering in hell?
Lord, aren't you treating him too harshly? Aren't you punishing
him more than his crimes deserve? It must not be. Because God is
just God and He can't punish a man more than what he deserves.
He has to do right. Sin must be bad, brothers and
sisters. It must be infinitely bad that God has threatened to
punish it for all eternity. Fourthly and lastly is this.
I thought this was very interesting as I read this and meditated
upon it. You will notice here in verse 2 that this punishment
inflicted to these criminals had to be before the face of
the judge. He laid him down and the judge
sat right there and watched him while they beat him. The judge
was standing right up. Get a picture of this. The judge
was standing right up over this man. Why did he do that? Well, he
did that to make sure that the criminals got just exactly what
the law required him to get. No more, but no less. He was standing there to make
sure that justice was performed. If a criminal should complain
that his punishment was being too harsh, this is too much? I'm not worthy of this? Well,
stop the whip. Hold the whip. Let him look into the face of
the judge. What does the judge say? Not enough. Not enough. Lay the lash to him again. The
judge was there not only to make sure the law was meted out, but
he was there so the criminal could not complain. It kept him from complaining. Look
at his countenance, man. Look into his eyes. Look into
his face. And he'll tell you, no, you're
getting just what you deserve. He counted every swing of the
whip until the law's requirements was met, and then he stopped
the executioner. He let the criminal go free to
wash his stripes and to tend to his wounds and be corrected. And what I saw in this as I was
meditating upon this, I thought, my goodness, One of the most
dreadful things for a poor sinner, a miserable, lost sinner to face
in regard to punishment is looking into the face of the Lord Himself. That would be a miserable experience,
would it not? Was that why they said, hide
us from the face of Him that sits on the throne? Rocks and
mountains fall on us and crush us. We can't look upon His face. Why can't you look upon His face?
Because it's a just face. We can't find any relief in His
face. His eyes are telling us, No,
you're getting just what you deserve. I think that would be
horrible, don't you? The face of the Lord is against
them that do evil. You know, when the Lord Jesus
Christ was upon this earth, He spoke just about as much about
hell as He did of heaven, didn't He? For His face, the earth and the
heavens shall flee away from His face. And then the poor wicked
are going to get out of their graves and come slumbering up
to His judgment and see that face. All of us, I think, all
of us, but we watch people's faces, don't we? We watch people's
faces. We tell a lot by people's faces.
I remember when I was, I told somebody the other day when I
was a little kid, my dad, he was a preacher. He would sit
up front and I'd sit in the back. I'd be squirming around, making
a little bit of racket, and the minute I'd look around, boy,
his eye caught my eye. Man, I just sank. And he wouldn't
get his eye off of me. He wouldn't quit looking at me.
I'd look down, look up, and he's still looking at me. Boy, he
had a look, I remember it so well. He could have tucked his
knuckles and put knots on my head and not hurt me any worse
than that. Can you imagine the judge of all the earth stirring
a man down? Stirring him down. Bring here
my enemies that refused my reign over them and slay them before
my face. Well, I'm looking. And if they
complain, let them look into my face. See if they find any
defense. See if they find any comfort.
Because my face, my eyes, are going to add to their torment.
Right before the face of this criminal, there that judge stood,
looking down on him. There's another reason I think
the judges need to be there, too. They need to experience
themselves. this punishment. They needed
to know what this punishment was about. It wasn't enough just
to say, take this man out and give him 49 stripes. It wasn't
enough for somebody to tell them what that was and write a letter
and say, here's what happened. They needed to be there to see,
to experience what they had sentenced that man to. You know I'm all for capital
punishment. I think there's certain crimes
that the scripture would prove that a man needs to pay the ultimate
price for his life. But I think we've had so many
crooked prosecutors and so many crooked judges and so many silly
jurors I think today, probably, if they're going to sentence
a man to death, you know what I think they need to make the
investigators, the prosecutors, the judges, and all the men and
women on the jury, if they sentence a man to death, they need to
be made to go watch him die. Now that may sound cruel, but
I'm telling you, to sentence a man to that kind of punishment,
you better be dead certain of it. And you better go there and
say, this is what I've sentenced this man to. And I'm sure that
the evidence proved his guilt. These judges didn't sentence
a man to be whipped, then go home and go to bed and not think
anymore about it. They went there and watched the punishment inflicted.
And boy, the Lord Jesus Christ, He knows something about it,
doesn't He? Don't let any man say it's not right that you should
sentence me to eternal ruin. It's not right that I should
die under the wrath of God. I'm telling you the Son of God
experienced it Himself. He went right there in the heat
of it, didn't He? The judgment of God fell upon Him. He knows something about it. One last Scripture I'll read
to you in regards to that. Look over in Lamentations chapter
1. Just between Ezekiel and Jeremiah, Lamentations chapter 1, our Lord had this on His mind
when He first came into this world and became of age to think
that He was going to be about His Father's business. And I
tell you, His Father's business was not just going preaching
and healing people. His Father's business was atoning
for sin. put in the way of sin. And boy,
that's something He had to experience. There in the garden, that's why
He began to sweat drops of blood. He began to feel the lashes of
the wrath of God, the curse of the law upon Him. In the judgment
hall and there upon the cross when He said, My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me? He experienced. He can tell us
what it's like. And look what he says in Lamentations,
page 892 in my Bible, verse 12. Lamentations chapter 1 and verse
12. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking. Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by, remember
them passing by Him on the cross, sitting down and watching Him,
behold and see, consider this, if there be any sorrow, liken
to my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger. From above hath he sent fire
unto my bones, and it prevailed against them. He hath spread
a net for my feet, he hath turned me back, he hath made me desolate
and faint all the day." This is Christ speaking. That's why
you here tonight that send the Lord Jesus Christ, there's no
condemnation to you because somebody else has already bore the punishment
for your sins. God is a God of judgment. And
for those who are outside of Christ, mercy cannot save you
at the expense of justice. Somebody had to die. Somebody
had to pay the price because God is a God of judgment. I tell you, He'll send every
one of us to hell. He'll send every one of us to hell for eternity
before He will save a one of us at the expense of justice. And that's what the cross is
about. God will not clear the guilty at the expense of justice. But I tell you, as Fannie Cosby
wrote, and we sung it this evening, the very instant a sinner believes,
believes in a crucified Savior, a full pardon he receives. And it's a pardon that's just
as well as merciful, because the Son of God has laid down,
and justice and wrath has rolled over His back and His soul. We'll take up there next time
in verse 4 and try to go on from there.