The scripture which I've chosen
for my message today declares the greatest story ever told. Now that's the title of this
message, the greatest story ever told. I say it's the best news
that you'll ever hear. And it's the most wonderful blessing.
It contains the most wonderful blessing that you can possibly
receive. But you know this greatest story
ever told, in Romans chapter 3. If you'll take your Bibles
and turn to Romans chapter 3. This greatest story ever told,
this best news you ever heard, this richest blessing you can
receive begins with bad news. That's where it starts, with
very bad news. The worst news you ever heard.
The worst. The very worst. Listen to it.
Romans 3.19. Now we know. This is something
we know. We know that what things soever
the law of God says, it says to us, all of us who are under
the law, subject to the law, and it says, it says, let every
mouth be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. That's the worst news you ever
heard. The whole world is guilty before God. The whole world is
accursed under the curse of the law. You know, that's the worst
news that a fellow on trial in a courtroom can hear the jury
say. Guilty! But this is worse than
that because this is guilty before God. Guilty before God. I tell you, David defines this
guilt. He tells us what this guilt is
in Psalm 51. They call this psalm the psalm
of repentance. And David is telling us exactly
what this guilt, this awful, awful guilt is before God, with
which we're charged. First of all, he says it's transgression. We're transgressors. We're trespassers. Transgressors in acts, in deeds,
in thoughts, in words. We're transgressors. Transgressors. Secondly, it's personal. He says,
Forgive my transgressions and wash my iniquity, my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. It's
personal. These sins are our sins. We can't
blame somebody else. We can't blame our heritage or
our ancestry or our parents or our environment. The guilt is
inside of us. It didn't come from the outside.
It came from the inside. It's personal. It's my guilt.
Wash my iniquity, my filth. My sin. And thirdly, he says
it's against God. Against God. He says, against
thee and thee only have I sinned. We don't owe too many apologies
to people, but I'll tell you, we owe an apology to God. Against
God. That's our sins against God.
And then he says it's without excuse. I don't have any alibi. He says, you're just. God, you're
just. when you condemn me, you're righteous
when you judge me. I'm guilty. I'm a transgressor. My guilt is personal. It's against
you, and you, I'm without excuse, and you're just when you damn
me, and clear when you charge me, because it's born in me.
It's born in me. He said, I was shapen in iniquity,
in sin my mother conceived me, I was brought forth from the
womb speaking lies." Now, that's the problem. What the law says,
it says to everybody who's under the law. And it says, guilty
before God. And then verse 20, the bad news
continues. In the next verse, therefore,
because we're in the condition that we're in by nature and by
birth and by choice and by practice, The bad news continues in the
next verse, and it says, Therefore, by the deeds of the law, and
by the works of religion, and by the morality and doing of
the flesh, nobody will be justified in God's sight. Nobody. Nobody. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. One day, the Lord's disciples
asked him this question. They said, Lord, who can be saved? Who then can be saved? And you know what Christ replied?
With men it's impossible. And that's what Paul's saying
here because we're guilty before God. We're guilty before God,
therefore salvation is impossible by the deeds of the flesh and
the works of the law. That's what verse 20 is declaring.
He said, with men it's impossible. But thank God, with God, all
things are possible. God can save us, we can't save
ourselves. Look at that verse 20 again.
Because we're guilty before God, therefore, guilt and sin being
our nature and our state, by observing laws and doing good
deeds, we cannot be acquitted, we cannot be declared not guilty,
we cannot be made holy, not in His sight. Now, we may justify
ourselves in the sight of people, And our Lord charged us with
that. He said, You are they which justify yourselves before men. But that which you approve of
and that which you brag about is an abomination to God. So
we may justify ourselves before men, but not before God, not
in His sight, because God looks on the heart. Guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. What does that mean? For by the
law is the knowledge of sin. Well, it means this. The law
reveals my sin. The law condemns me. The law
pronounces me guilty. The law exposes my sin. And therefore,
it can't possibly justify me. The law which charges me and
condemns me cannot justify me. But look at verse 21. Now here's
where the good news begins. Verse 21. Here begins the greatest
story ever told. Now that's bad news. Guilty before
God. Therefore salvation impossible
with men. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified before God because by the law is the
knowledge of sin. But now wait a minute. Listen.
Right now. Verse 21. But now, but now the
righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the Word of God and by the prophets of God. Did
you hear that? But now, right now, this very
day at this time, right now, the righteousness of God, the
holiness of God, I'm not talking about His own essential holiness,
but there is a holiness which God has ordained There is a righteousness
which God has provided. There's a righteousness which
Almighty God has seen fit to perfect for sinners like you
and me. He's saying, but now there's
grace for the guilty, but now there's mercy for the miserable,
but now there's holiness for the unholy, but now there's salvation
for sinners, and it's without the law. It's ours freely. It had to be without the law
because we can't obey the law. We never have been able to. We
are not now. And we cannot perfectly obey
God's law, so it has to be free. It has to be provided. It has
to be outside ourselves. It has to be God-given. But he
says it's true right now. Grace for the guilty, mercy for
the miserable, salvation for sinners. The righteousness of
God is manifested. Manifested. And it's witnessed. It's witnessed. Now, you remember
this throughout the Scriptures. It's said over and over again,
let every word be established by the mouth of two or three
witnesses. Even Christ our Lord said, if I bear witness only
of myself, if I'm the only witness, my witness is not true. But He
said, the Father bore witness of me, The Scriptures bear witness
of me. The works that I do bear witness
of me. And John the Baptist bore witness of me. So here, this
righteousness of God, which is available, which is provided,
which is manifested, is witnessed by whom? By the prophets, by
the Word of God, by all who have gone before. It's declared by
many witnesses. God spoke to the people. by his
prophets, and they bore witness to this righteousness. All right,
look at verse 22. And this righteousness is the
holiness of God without the law, that is, without my obedience
to the law. I can't keep God's law perfectly. It has to be perfect
to be accepted. The Lord God can't accept anything
that's not perfect. The reason he accepted Christ,
he said, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Christ
was a man who perfectly obeyed God and was perfect in the sight
of God. But I can't do that. You can't
either. So this righteousness is the holiness of God, which
is accomplished by Christ. It's accomplished by the faithful
life of Jesus Christ. May I illustrate that for you
in this way? Our Lord And Jesus Christ is
our Lord. He's God. God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto Himself. Without controversy, this is
the mystery of godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh. John 1 says, "...in the beginning
was the Word." Verse 14 said, "...the Word was made flesh."
John 1, 1 says, "...and the Word was with God, and dwelt among
us, and the Word was God." And we beheld His glory, the only
begotten of the Father." Jesus Christ is God, but He became
a man. He was born of a woman. He was
not born of a man. He wasn't conceived by a man.
He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, that He might not partake
of the sin of Adam, a sinful nature. He's God in human flesh. He's the Virgin Son. And Jesus
Christ, from the day He was born, was without sin. He had no sinful
nature. But all through his life, he
was under the law. Under the law of the home, under
the law of the state, under the law of his country, under the
law of magistrates, under the law of the synagogue, under the
law of God, under the Mosaic law, under the Levitical law.
He was circumcised when he was eight days old and named Jesus.
He came to the temple when he was an infant. His mother brought
her sacrifices. He came to the temple when he
was 12 to do obedience to Moses' law. And then he stood one day
in the river Jordan. He came to John to be baptized
of John. And John looked at him and he
said, I bore witness, this is the Son of God. The Father said
to me, upon whom you see the Spirit descending in the form
of a dove, that's the Son of God. He said, I bore witness
to that. And John said to him, Lord, I
have need to be baptized of thee. comest thou to me?" And our Lord
replied, listen, suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh
us to fulfill all righteousness. You see Christ in the fullness
of time was made of a woman, made under the law, that he might
obey it in our place instead. and give to us a perfect righteousness. And from His birth to His death,
all that He did on this earth was for our salvation, to fulfill
our righteousness and all perfect obedience and holiness for us,
so that we have now the righteousness of God is manifest, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God,
which is by the faithfulness and obedience of Jesus Christ
our Lord. Now listen to Romans 5, listen
carefully, verse 19. For by one man's disobedience,
Adam, by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. So
by the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ, shall the many
be made righteous. How important is that verse?
That's this righteousness of God. By the disobedience of one
man, the many, many, many, many who came from his loins, who
came from Adam, that's all of us, were made sinners. So, by
the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ, the many, Jew and Gentile,
male, female, old and young, bond and free, who believed,
are made righteous by His perfect life and by His substitutionary
death. For He was made sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made this righteousness of God
in Him. Do you see that? What the law
saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth
may be stopped and all this world become guilty. Therefore by the
deeds of religion no flesh can be justified in His sight. But
now Good news! The righteousness of God is revealed,
being witnessed by all the prophets that went before us. Even the
righteousness of God, which is by the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ. Well, who's it for? To whom is
this righteousness given? For whom is it intended? It's
unto all and upon all them that believe Him. Do you believe Him? Paul said, Wherefore, sirs, I
believe God, that it shall be exactly as he told me. Abraham believed God. That's
right back in Genesis chapter 15, when God took him out under
the stars and said, Count them. He said, I can't. He said, So
shall your seed be of all nations. And Abraham believed God, and
it was counted to him for righteousness. Now, this is not written for
his sake alone. for the sake of Abraham alone,
that righteousness was imputed to him, but for our sakes also,
to whom this same righteousness, the righteousness of God, the
very holiness of Abraham, whom God called my friend." God said,
Abraham's my friend. I speak face to face and mouth
to mouth with Abraham. He's my friend. Why was he God's
friend? He believed God. He believed
God. And this righteousness was imputed
to him, but it wasn't written for his sake alone. It was written
for us, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on the name of
the Son of God. And the next verse says, for
there's no difference. There's no difference. That's
in the Word of God several times. There is no difference. All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's no difference
between the Jew and the Gentile. There's no difference between
male and female, old or young, learned or ignorant, prisoner
or guard, bond or free. All have sinned, come short of
the glory of God. But here's the results of faith,
believing God. Listen, verse 24. So being justified
freely. What does justified mean? Not
guilty. We started this message off guilty
before God. Justified means not guilty before
God. Not guilty in His sight. So we're
justified. How? Freely. By grace. Not by works. We're justified
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He redeemed
us. He redeemed us. He brought us
back. Now here's the very heart of
this greatest story ever told. It's found here in verse 25 and
26. The heart of this. This is the centerpiece. This
is the heart of it. Being justified, sanctified,
redeemed, righteous, freely by His grace, through the redemption,
through the life, through the blood, through the obedience,
through the sacrifice of my substitute, Jesus Christ, whom, whom God
has set forth, God set forth. He said, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me because He sent me, He anointed me, He ordained me,
He set me forth. God, from the beginning, has
set forth His Son, the man Christ Jesus, called the Christ, called
the Messiah, called the desire of all nations. He has set him
forth openly, publicly, conspicuously, and the first announcement is
in Genesis 3, 15, after Adam and Eve fell. God said this to
the serpent. He said, I'll put enmity between
thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, the woman's
seed. The virgin son, you'll bruise
his heel, but he'll crush your head. That's the first announcement.
God set forth in that dark day, Christ the light. In that day
of death, Christ the light and the life. In that day of helplessness,
Christ our hope. That's right. And then God set
him forth in prophecy all throughout the scriptures. A prophet like
Moses, a priest like Melchizedek, a king like David, a serpent
lifted up, a rock smitten, a Passover lamb. He set him forth in prophecy,
in picture, openly, publicly, conspicuously throughout the
whole Old Testament. That rock was Christ. When Moses
smote that rock and the water came out and gave refreshing
water to all that multitude of people, that rock was Christ.
That Passover Lamb is Christ. God set Him forth in prophecy,
in picture, in pattern, in type, in promise. But one day, He set
Him forth in person. He was in the world, and the
world knew Him not, and the world was made by Him. He came unto
His own, and His own received Him not. We saw Him and beheld
His glory. God set Him forth. One day, the
Word was made flesh. and dwelt among us, and lived
here for thirty-three and a half years, walking on this earth,
before he was crucified. God set him forth, now listen,
to be a propitiation, a propitiation. What is the word propitiation?
To reconcile, to appease, to put away sin. God set him forth
as a propitiation, as a mercy seat, as a sin offering, through
faith in his blood. to declare God's righteousness
for the remission of sins that have passed through the forbearance
of God. And you know, perhaps one of
the best pictures of Christ and most oft-used pictures of Christ
is a lamb. A lamb. He's called the Lamb
of God slain from the foundation of the world. And in Genesis
4, the lamb is typified. Abel came to worship God. and
slew a lamb, put the blood on the offering, on the altar. Cain
came, didn't bring a lamb, and God rejected his fruits and vegetables
and had respect to Abel's offering. There's the lamb typified. And
then the lamb was prophesied. Abraham, on the way up the mountain,
when his son Isaac asked him, where's the lamb? He said, my
son, God will provide himself a lamb. God will provide a lamb. And then the lamb's blood was
applied. Down there in Egypt, they put
the blood on the door. Slew a lamb, put the blood on
the door. And God said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over
you. And then in Isaiah 53, the lamb is personified. It's going
to be a man, a man who will grow up among us as a root out of
a dry ground, as a tender plant. And we see him, there's no beauty
we should desire him. He'll be despised of men. acquainted with grief, a man
of sorrows. But he'll be wounded for our transgressions, and he'll
be bruised for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace
will be upon him, and he'll be led as a lamb to the slaughter.
He opens not his mouth, but voluntarily, frailly dies for his people."
That's the lamb personified. And then one day, John the Baptist,
the last Old Testament prophet, stood with two of his friends,
and Jesus Christ walked by, and John the Baptist identified him.
He'd been typified, he'd been prophesied, he'd been blood applied,
he'd been personified, and now he's identified. And John said,
there he is, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the
world. And then he was crucified. Our Lamb was slain, his blood
was shed. And he, as our great high priest,
went not into the tabernacle made with hands, but into heaven
itself, not with the blood of animals, but with his own precious
blood. and put it on the mercy seat
of God, and put away all our sin. God set him forth to be
a propitiation, a mercy seat, a covering, a reconciler, an
appeaser. And then we have the Lamb glorified. John wrote on the Isle of Patmos,
and behold, in the midst of the throne stood a Lamb, stood a
Lamb in the middle of the throne. As it had been slain, And they
fell down before the Lamb, all the host of heaven fell down
before the Lamb, put their trophies at His feet and their crowns
at His feet. And they cried, they sung a new song. Thou art
worthy, for thou was slain, and thou hast redeemed us to God
by thy blood out of every tribe, kindred, nation, and tongue unto
heaven. O behold the Lamb of God. Let
me say in closing this message, the greatest story ever told,
I declare at this time, God's holiness, he will not change. Our sin, we can't change. But
Almighty God, that he might be just and justify and have a people
like his son, sent his son into the world to redeem a host of
people. And they will believe and they
will come. And then he said in verse 27, where is boasting then? Who's got anything to brag about?
It's excluded. By what law? By the law of, by
the work, law of works? No, sir. By the law of faith.
Therefore, verse 28, Paul says, I conclude, I conclude that a
man is justified by faith and not by the works of the law. There's a way. It's the way of
the cross, and it's the way of faith, and it's a sure way by
the grace of God. I have two messages on this tape.
This message here, the greatest story ever told, the greatest
to how God can be just and justify the ungodly, and the message
I preached last week. If you'd like to have this tape
with both messages, if you write to us, send two dollars. You
can get the address on the screen and write. We'll send it just
as quickly as possible and pray that it'll be a blessing to you.
Join us next Sunday. at this same time. Until then,
I bid you a very pleasant good day.