Today I would like you to turn
in your Bible to the book of Job, to the book of Job chapter
25. Let's read verses 4, 5, and 6
together, Job chapter 25. Now you listen carefully. How
then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that
is born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon, and
it shineth not, Yea, the stars are not pure in his sight, in
God's sight, how much less man that is a worm, and the Son of
man which is a worm." Now this is a question that is asked over
and over by Job and his friends when you read through the book
of Job. How can a man a sinful man be justified or stand justified
before a holy God? This is the greatest and most
vital question that any man can consider. Yet in religion in
our day, in religion in our day, it is a very question that nobody
is asking. Nobody's considering this question. My friend, if we can learn the
answer to this question, We've learned the gospel, the gospel
of God's saving grace. How can a holy God be consistent
with his holy justice and yet justify the ungodly, justify
the sinner? Now that's the question that
we want to consider this morning. This question is the question
of question, and it arises from the understanding of three essential
things. Now, here's the three things.
The holiness of God, the sinfulness of men, and how a sinner is justified
before God. Or how can a guilty man be made
free from all charges that God lays against him? Well, let's
consider those three things this morning. God's chief attribute
is holiness. The God of the Bible is holy. If there is one word to describe
God, it is this, God is holy. Psalm 111 verse 9, holy and reverend
is His name. Psalm 99 verse 3, let them praise
thy great and terrible name for it is holy. Everything about
God and having to do with Him is said to be holy, His word. We read from the Bible and it's
called the Holy Bible. His angels are called holy angels. His temple is called His holy
temple. His Spirit, His Holy Spirit,
His works are said to be holy and righteous. God Almighty sits
on a holy throne of judgment and justice. Isaiah said this,
in Isaiah chapter 6, He said, I saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.
Above it stood the seraphims, those winged creatures, the angels
of God. And one cried unto another and
said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth
is full of His glory. My friend, when God manifests
and reveals His love and grace and mercy and salvation to sinners,
it must be in such a way that is consistent with His holiness. God is love. That is true. But God does not show His love
or manifest His love or shine out His love at the expense of
His holiness. God's love must be like Himself. It must be holy. How holy is
God, someone asked. Let me give you this. How holy
is God? God is so holy that fallen Adam must be put out of the garden. God is so holy that Moses couldn't
look on Him and live. So holy that Uzzah was smitten
for touching the Ark of God. So holy that King Uzziah was
smitten with leprosy when he went into the Holy of Holies.
Disobeying God. So holy that He burned. God is
so holy that He burned Sodom and Gomorrah to a cinder. So
holy that He cannot look upon sin with favor. God is so holy
that He cannot let sin go unpunished. My friend, but the grand design
and the grand display of His holiness is manifested at Calvary. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
made to be sin for God's elect, when God laid on Him the iniquity
of His people, the sin of a certain people, we see the holy wrath
of God fell on the Lord Jesus Christ without any mixture of
mercy. You remember what the Lord Jesus
Christ cried out on that day? He said, My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? The answer is recorded over in
Psalm 22 in the Old Testament in verse 3. The answer is, but
thou art holy. O thou that inhabitest the praises
of Israel." God is so holy that He cannot let sin go unpunished
even when He finds it on His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. When He was crucified and made
the scapegoat, made the sacrifice for the sin of God's people,
the holy wrath of God had to fall upon His Son. God is holy. There's no debate about that. It's not up for debate. There's
no question about that. The God of the Bible is holy.
The second thing we want to consider is this. What is the chief attribute
of man? My friend, the chief attribute
of man is sin. Do you remember the scripture
we read just a minute ago? How can he be clean that's born
of a woman? Behold, even to the moon, and
it shineth not. Yea, the stars are not pure in
his sight. How much less man, that is a
worm, and the Son of Man, which is a worm. The heavens are not
clean in his sight. How much more abominable and
filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like the water." It's
recorded in Job 15. Man was not created a sinner.
Adam was not created a sinner. Adam was created holy. and upright
before God. Adam had fellowship and communion
with God, but Adam rebelled against God. Adam became a sinner, and
through disobedience and through sin unto God, he became a sinful,
depraved creature before a holy God. Wherefore the Scriptures
declare, By one man, sin entered into this world, and death by
sin. So death passed upon all men
in whom all sinned. By one man's disobedience, many
were made sinners." You say, well, how did something that
happened so long ago in the garden affect me? Well, Adam stood as
a representative man. When he stood, we stood. When
he fell, we fell. When he became guilty before
God, all his race stand guilty as charged before God. Well,
how sinful is man? Listen to what the Scripture
says, Genesis 6 verse 5, "...every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart are only evil continually." We are so sinful that we love
darkness rather than light. Men everywhere are so sinful
that by nature we are children of wrath even as others. So sinful
that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. My friend, this is what we are
by birth, by nature, by practice, and by choice. So sinful that
all our righteousness are nothing. but sinful and smelly ragged
before the presence of a holy God. God said, there's smoke
in my nose. So sinful that we are spiritually
dead in sin without God, without Christ, without hope. God calls
us aliens and enemies, haters of God, workers of iniquity. Pretty bad, isn't it? So sinful
that God declares that there is none righteous, no, not one. He said there is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Therefore, because of our condition,
because of our nature before God, the creature The sinful
creature, the guilty man, has absolutely no ability to put
away sin. No ability to put away sin. None whatsoever. No ability to
make himself righteous before God. No ability to seek after
God. He said, there is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh. No ability to satisfy a thrice
holy God. Man is just not in trouble. My
friend, we are totally depraved and guilty before God. And to
deny this, John said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves
and the truth's not in us. To deny this is to call Almighty
God a liar. These two things are indisputable
facts. God is holy and men everywhere
stand guilty before God. Now, here's the third question.
How is a guilty sinner justified before a holy God? Now, that's
the question of questions, and it's a question that nobody's
asking today. How is a sinner justified before
a holy God? How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? We must find the answer from
the Scripture, not from the books of men, not from the philosophy
of this world. We must find the answer from
the Scripture. And the Bible does give us the
answer how God can be holy and yet justify the ungodly. And
listen to the scripture in Romans chapter 8 verse 32. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, that is all the elect of God,
all those predestinated to be conformed to the image of his
Son, all those whom he foreknew in eternity, he spared not his
own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect. Now here it is, it is God that
justifies. Who justifies the elect? Who justified the ungodly? God did. How did he do it? God
delivered up His Son. Romans 8 verse 34 declares, Who
is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us. What does it mean to
be justified before God? To be justified is to be without
sin, without guilt, just as if I never sinned. unblameable,
unreprovable in God's sight. To be justified is to have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. To be justified is to
be free from the curse of the law. And my friend, in Christ
we have this freedom. He delivered us from the curse
of the law being made a curse for us. To be justified before
God is to be reconciled to God through the blood, through the
substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it's evident
throughout the scripture we're not justified by our words. Job
said, In Job chapter 9, he said, If I justify myself, my own words
shall condemn me. If I say I'm perfect, it shall
prove me perverse. So we're not justified by what
we say, neither are we justified by what we do. We're not justified
by the law. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in God's sight. We're not justified by
our words or by the law, or we're not justified by our works. not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. And
my friend, we're not justified by our puny religious efforts. Our Lord said to those self-righteous
Pharisees, you are they would justify yourselves before men,
but God knoweth your hearts. That which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination in the sight of God. So we're not justified by what
we do, my friend. The only way we're justified
is through the merit, the blood, and the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, if you have your Bible,
turn over to Romans chapter 3. And in closing, let's consider
these verses. Romans chapter 3. Verse 23 and
24. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. All have sinned and come short
of the holiness of God, being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here's two things. Here we
see the cause of justification. He said it's freely by His grace. For by grace are you saved, sovereign,
effectual, justified, redeeming grace. That's the cause of justification. It's all found in God through
the merits of Christ. That's the cause of justification.
And also in verse 24 we see the source of justification. justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. The source of justification is
His substitutionary sacrifice that He made on the behalf of
His people. Now, read verse 25 and 26, "...whom God set forth,"
God set him forth, "...to be a propitiation, an atoning victim
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness, for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth
in the Lord Jesus Christ." God ordained and God set forth Jesus
Christ to be the atoning victim. That's what propitiation means,
mercy seek. God in Christ can be just and
the justifier because the Lord Jesus Christ fully paid the sin
debt of God's elect and imputed to every believer
a perfect, satisfying, justifying righteousness before God. In
Romans 4 we read, Blessed is the man to whom God would impute
righteousness without works. Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin. By the virtue of what Christ
did on the cross, his people and his elect will be glorified
and stand before God holy, unblameable, not guilty. Now many believe
that Christ died to make salvation a possibility, a possibility
for all, if we'll just do our part. My friend, that's not what's
taught in the Bible. The Lord Jesus Christ was not
making salvation a possibility for all, the Lord Jesus Christ
was saving His people from their sin when He died. He literally
accomplished the salvation of all of God's elect. He obtained
eternal redemption for His people. This is the only way an unjust
man can be just with God. And dear friend, we can trust
the Savior who accomplished a salvation like that. How can he be clean
that's born of a woman? How can a guilty sinner stand
before God justified one way? The Lord Jesus Christ, His blood,
His sacrifice. If you would like a copy of today's
message, you write to me and I'll send it to you at no charge. My address is Church 6088 Zebulon
Highway, Pikeville, Kentucky, 41501.