This morning, we're going to
open our Bibles to the book of Matthew, the fifth chapter, the
twentieth verse. My subject is Righteous Before
God. Now, everyone ought to be interested
in this subject, Righteous Before God. In Matthew 5.20, the scripture
says, For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God. Now you think
about that a moment. Except your righteousness, your
holiness exceed, not equal, come up to, but exceed the righteousness
of the most moral religious men of the day of Christ our Lord
and the apostles, except your righteousness exceed theirs,
you're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, who's
speaking these words? The speaker is the Lord of glory
himself. This is no ordinary man. This
is no ordinary preacher. The speaker is the Messiah, the
Lord of heaven and earth, who was made flesh and dwelt among
us. Jesus Christ our Lord, God Almighty,
God in human flesh, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth." He said, I am the
truth. You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Our
speaker here is the Lord himself. Now to whom is he speaking? I
know this portion of Scripture is called the Sermon on the Mount,
and it is said that Jesus went into the mountain. And when he
was set, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth
and taught them, saying, The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
here to his disciples. That's the ones to whom he said,
Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed
are the peacemakers, blessed are they that hunger and thirst
after righteousness. And all of these three chapters
in Matthew, he's speaking to his disciples. Now read it again,
verse 1. It says, He went up into a mountain,
And seeing the multitude, and seeing the multitude, he went
up into the mountain. And when he was set, his disciples
came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them. And
he's speaking here to his disciples, to those who followed him, not
to men in general. You see, the Sermon on the Mount
is not the way to be saved. It is the way of those who are
saved. It is the attribute, the character of those who are saved.
He spoke to his disciples. Now, what's his subject? The
Lord of Glory is speaking, and he's speaking to those who are
following him, who are listening to him, who are his disciples. And his subject, what it is,
holiness. Holiness, that's his subject.
Righteousness, that righteousness which makes a man God's child,
that's the righteousness he's talking about. That righteousness
with which God is well pleased, that righteousness with which
God is pleased, not that righteousness that appeals to the flesh or
appeals to men or which a man can fulfill, but the holiness
and righteousness he's talking about is that righteousness which
a man has that opens the kingdom of God for him, enables him to
have communion with God, fellowship with God, to come into the presence
of a holy God, that righteousness which makes a man accepted of
God, that righteousness which equips a man for heaven. Heaven,
my friend, is a holy place, not just a special place, it's a
holy place. It's prepared by a holy God for
a holy people. Heaven is a place wherein dwelleth
righteousness, the righteousness we're talking about here, the
pure, perfect, immaculate, immutable holiness of God. Who shall stand
in his presence? He that hath clean hand and a
pure heart, nothing, nothing less than that. You see, God
can require no more than perfection. He can accept no less than perfection,
not being God. God cannot accept men on a scale
from one to ten. It's ten, that's all. It's holiness,
righteousness, truth. And this is what our Lord's talking
about. The speaker is the Lord of glory. And the people to whom
he's talking are his disciples. And he said, except your righteousness,
your holiness exceeds the righteousness of the most moral, religious
man who ever lived. You won't even enter the kingdom
of heaven. And the righteousness of which he speaks, that righteousness
which is his subject, is that holiness and righteousness that
pleases God, that's accepted of God, that opens heaven's door. Heaven, that holy place. That
place wherein entereth nothing that worketh or maketh alive.
Now then, no man has this righteousness by nature. No man. We're born
in sin. No man has this righteousness
by works. No man has this righteousness
by the deeds of the Lord. Some thought they did. And unfortunately,
some today think they do. You see these Pharisees and scribes
of whom the Lord speaks here? They tried to accomplish this
righteousness by endeavoring to keep the law or the Ten Commandments. And that's the reason the Lord
said in verse 17, now watch verse 17, two or three verses just
before our text. He said to his disciples, think
not that I am come to destroy the law. Don't you think for
a moment that I've come to destroy the law or to lessen the demands
of the law. or to do away with the law, or
even to ignore the law. He says, till heaven and earth,
verse 18, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot, not one
tittle, shall pass from the God's holy law till all of it be fulfilled. No, sir, I didn't come to lessen
the law. I didn't come to destroy the
law. I didn't come to do away with the law. The law will not
pass away till every bit of it be fulfilled. And those who would
live by the law, and those who would be saved by the law, and
those who would establish a righteousness on the basis of the moral law,
they must fulfill every jot and every tittle, all of the law. To seek righteousness by the
law is to be required to have two things, to never sin and
never know sin. Now that's just how strict the
law is. If we're going to be saved, if we're going to establish
a holiness, a righteousness before God, based on the law, we must
never know sin and we must never commit sin. But the scripture
says to offend in one point is to be guilty of the whole law.
That's what Christ said in verse 19, while whosoever shall break
one of the least commandments, one of the least commandments,
and teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of God.
Just one of the least commandments. You see what he's saying? Our
Lord is saying, accept your righteousness, your holiness. Exceed that, that
finest, that most impeccable righteousness that any moral,
religious man can produce. That goodness, that morality.
Accept your righteousness, exceed that. You're not going to enter
the kingdom of heaven. For there are many who sought
to establish a righteousness and a holiness before God by
their works and by their deeds and by obedience to the law.
And Christ said, I didn't come to destroy the law. I don't think
that for a moment. I didn't come to lessen its demands.
I didn't come to put away the law. Till heaven and earth pass
away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law till
it all be fulfilled. And I say unto you, whosoever
shall break one of the least commandments, one that you count
insignificant, Somebody said, I never lie unless I have to.
Or I never have stolen anything except to eat when I was hungry. Or I never have, you know, we
talk about white lies and we talk about little sins. Christ
said the least commandment. To offend in one point is to
be guilty of the whole law. So those who would live under
the law, those who would seek a holiness and a righteousness
based on the Ten Commandments, on outward morality, do you not
hear the law? Don't you hear what it says?
Now, we don't have the time to cover every verse in Matthew
5, but I want you to go on and read the rest of that chapter
and read what our Lord says. He says, he's quoting the law.
This is the way people interpret the law. He said, you have heard
it said by them of old times. You've heard it said by the teachers
of old. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill. And to kill
is to be guilty of murder. But I say unto you, this is what
the law is saying. This is what the holy law of
God is saying. Not only thou shalt not kill.
But to have a thought of anger and wrath is to be guilty already
of murder. He said, if you say unto your
brother, thou fool, you're in danger of hell fire. You see,
that's murder in the thought. That's murder in the attitude.
And that's where the law reaches. The holy law of God doesn't just
reach to my actions, it reaches to my attitude. It doesn't just
make demands on the outward man, it makes demands on the inward
man. It doesn't require just obedience outwardly, it requires
obedience inwardly. For you see, God doesn't look
on the outward countenance. Now you say, well, I've never
murdered anyone. No, and everybody would agree with you. There are
no witnesses to the fact you've ever murdered anybody. But there's
an all-seeing, omnipotent, omniscient witness who knows your thoughts.
And you would like to have murdered somebody. You've had thoughts
of murder. You've had thoughts of hatred.
You've had thoughts of bigotry and malice, and God looks on
the heart. And it's the heart, that's the
seat of affection. Out of the heart proceeds evil
thoughts. My son, give me your heart. Keep
your heart out of the issues of life. You see that? And then
Christ said, you've heard it said by them of old times, thou
shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, to lust,
to desire, is to commit adultery. You see the thought. You say,
I've never committed adultery. Have you ever thought about it?
Have you ever considered it? Has it ever entered your mind?
Guilty. The law of God says guilty. But
the law of God doesn't only charge us outwardly, it charges us inwardly. And he just keeps going. He says,
Thou shalt not swear. Thou shalt not swear by heaven
or earth or anything on the earth. Anything more than yes or no
is sinful. Anything. Now we're given to
emphasize in what we say. We use strong words, and yes,
you know, we precede it with a few strong words. Anything
less, anything more than yes or no is evil. We say, I swear
to God that's true, or I swear on my mother's grave that's true,
or I swear it's the truth. That's evil. That's evil. And
it's promoted from a heart that is given to exaggeration and
given to emphasis. And your word is not sufficient,
so you have to add something to it. Go on. He said, you've
heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
When the Bible teaches that, it is teaching proper judgment
and proper punishment according to sin. That's what the Bible's
teaching. It's teaching that if a man steals
a watermelon, you don't put him in the electric chair. And if
a man murders his neighbor, you don't give him six weeks With
suspended sentence an eye for an eye tooth for tooth in other
words the crime merits the punishment That's suitable to the crime,
but our Lord said the law says this If your enemy smites you
on the cheek turn the other cheek If he asked you for your coat
give him the overcoat too if he compels you by force to walk
with him a mile Go to with it. I couldn't do that for you. That's
what I'm saying. You can't do what the law demands You can't. There's no flesh that can establish
a righteousness before God by this law. There's no way that
a human being, in the church, out of the church, in the pulpit,
in the pew, in the world, I don't care man, woman, boy or girl,
old or young, can come up to this perfect requirement of God's
law. That's the reason I say men are
fools to try to establish a righteousness before God or claim to be good.
You can say I'm a good person compared to the criminals. Maybe,
maybe you can. I'm a good person compared to
this person. But before God, before God's
law, we're sinners. We've thought sin, we've imagined
sin, we've dreamed sin, we've anticipated sin, we've been restrained. There are a lot of things that
restrain us. You take that old tiger over there in the cage.
He's a good tiger as long as he's in the cage. But you let
him out of the cage and you'll see what his real nature is.
And that's the way some of you are. You're held in by the restraint
and the bars of matrimony or religion or reputation or your
job or something like that. What you would be if all those
things were taken away? Some of us who were in the service
in World War II, we saw what men and women are really like
9,000 miles away from home. with the bars of church membership
and the bars of matrimony and the bars of respectability and
the bars of reputation all lifted. Nobody knew them. Nobody's going
to report. And that's what they're all like.
That's what man is by nature. That's what the law says. And
men who seek holiness by the law, they're either blind to
their sins or they're blind to the real holiness of the law.
Now, Christ said, you've heard it said by them of old times,
you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies. Love your
enemies. Pray for them which despitefully
use you. Pray for them. If your enemy
hunger, feed him. If your enemy's naked clothing,
pray for him. Don't have any hatred at all.
My friends, what we've done, we've missed this thing. We don't
know what sin is, and we don't know what the law says. Or we
wouldn't try to establish a righteousness before God based on the law and
our obedience unto it. Our Lord said to the Pharisees,
and this offended them, they got on him for eating without
washing his hands. That was one of their ceremonies,
one of their traditions, one of their customs to wash your
hands before you ate. And he didn't, and his disciples
didn't, and they said, you don't wash your hands before you eat.
He said, now you listen, it's not that which goes into the
mouth that defiles a man, it's that which comes from his heart.
And you see, these men were offended by that. Why? Because they thought
that righteousness consisted in outward things. They didn't
do this, and didn't do that, and didn't do the other, and
they thought that made them holy. Christ said, out of the heart
proceeds evil thoughts. Out of the heart proceeds murders.
Out of the heart proceeds blasphemy. Out of the heart proceeds fornication. Out of the heart comes these
things. And this is that which defiles a man, not to eat with
unwashing hands. And in Luke 16, 15, he said,
year they that justify yourselves before men. But God knows your
hearts. And that which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God. Oh, how we need to look
at that verse. How we need to study it. Are
we justifying ourselves before men? What is the basis of our
conduct and behavior? Is it to seek the approval of
men? Or are we seeking a righteousness and a holiness before the Lord
God? There is a difference. And the
Pharisees had a form of righteousness. Listen to this Pharisee in the
temple. Christ said the Pharisee went into the temple to pray,
and he lifted his eyes to heaven. And he said, Lord, I thank you. I'm not like other men. I fast
twice a week, and I pray, and I give alms to the poor. And
I don't commit adultery, and I'm not unjust, and I'm not an
extortioner, and I'm not even like that fellow over there.
And our Lord said he went home damned and condemned because
God looked at his heart. God didn't pay any attention
to what he said, not any attention to what he did, because our Lord,
God saw his heart. He saw his heart. And God called
these men hypocrites. Hypocrites. They say and do not.
They claim and are not. Christ called them whited sepulchers.
He said on the outside you're whitewashed and you appear beautiful
to men, but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones. All
of the creeping, crawling, vile insects of hell are in your heart,
and you know they're there. And while you claim this outward
respectability and outward morality and outward righteousness, your
very insides are exposed to the all-seeing eye of God, and God
condemns you for what you are inside. You better have a righteousness
better than that outward righteousness. He called them not only hypocrites
and whited sepulchers and a generation of snakes, but he called them
clean cups on the outside. I wonder if you go in a restaurant
and the waitress brings you a cup and it's just as pretty and shiny
and clean on the outside, but on the inside, my goodness alive,
it looks like it's been used for a year and never been washed.
Would you drink out of it? Of course not. And Christ said,
these men are clean cups on the outside, but on the inside, full
of extortion and excess. He said, thou whited sepulcher,
thou hypocrite, cleanse first that which is within, and the
outside will be clean. This was Paul's charge against
Israel in Romans 10. He said, I bear them record.
They have a zeal for God. They have an enthusiasm for religion,
but not according to knowledge. They're ignorant of God's righteousness,
God's holiness, and they're going about to establish a holiness
of their own, a righteousness of their own. They're going about
to establish something that doesn't even exist. They're going about
to establish something on the basis of a law which cannot save,
which wasn't given to save. They're going about to establish
an outward morality that God doesn't even look upon. In fact,
He looks upon it and condemns it. And it comes down to Isaiah
64, verse 6. Listen to this. Isaiah said,
we're all. We're all as an unclean thing. Our righteousnesses are filthy
rags. We all do fade as the leaf. Our
iniquities like the wind have taken us away. Every man in the
Old Testament who saw God saw his sin. Every man I don't care
how morally was how? Influentially was how important
he was how religious he would listen to Isaiah Isaiah said
in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord I Lifted
up his train filled the temple and the cherubims and seraphims
cried. Holy. Holy. Holy Holy Lord God of hosts
and he said I cried. Oh, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean
lips And I dwell in the midst of a people of uncleanliness."
When this man saw God's holiness, he saw his sinfulness, and the
sinfulness and wickedness were all about him. Job, Job was an
outwardly moral man. He was a law-abiding citizen.
He was a respected man. He was a religious man. He prayed
for his sons and daughters. He said, I'm going to pray for
them lest they not pray for themselves. I'm going to offer a sacrifice
for them lest they forget. And even God told Satan that
Job was a man who shunned evil. And yet when Job saw the holiness
of God, he said, Lord, I've heard of you, and now I see your faith. Wherefore I hate myself. I repent
in sackcloth and ashes. I've spoken once, twice, I'll
never speak again. Woe is me. Daniel, praying Daniel,
suffering Daniel, Daniel of the lion's He said, when I saw the
Lord, my beauty melted into corruption. Corruption, mind you, corruption. That's what Daniel said of his
righteousness, corruption. And this, it brings me back to
my text. Our Lord said, therefore, therefore, except your righteousness,
your holiness, shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of God. Now
let's work on that a little bit. First of all, their righteousness
was their own. It was established by their works,
by their fasting, praying, obedience, abstinence, and all these things.
Our righteousness as believers is Christ. Christ is our righteousness. Listen to these scriptures. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. 2
Corinthians 5.21, He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Wherefore by one
man sin entered the world and death by sin so death passed
upon all men For all sin, but by one man's disobedience We
became sinners by the obedience of one we were made righteous
Their righteousness was their own their own ours is Christ. He was our representative He
obeyed the law for us. He imputed us. He imparted to
us. He gave to us. He reckoned us
a perfect righteousness based on his obedience. Now their righteousness,
the scribes and Pharisees, was by their own works. Their works
was theirs. Ours is Christ's work. He fulfilled
the law. You see, a man told me one time,
he said, Preacher, until I started listening to you on Channel 13,
I didn't know why Christ came into the world. I know he came
and died, but I didn't know why he lived on this earth 33 and
a half years as a man in the flesh. Why was he tempted? Why
was he tested? Why didn't he just come from
heaven as a full-grown man down across, going back to heaven,
get the job done? Our Lord was made under the law.
You see, God's law demands obedience. God's law must be honored. God
gave the law to man, and man must keep the law. God requires
obedience to the law of man, and man must obey that law. And
Christ came down here in subjection to the law of the home, the law
of the land, the law of Israel, the ceremonial law, and the law
of God, the moral law. And he kept them all in every
jot and tittle. He said, I came not to destroy
the law, but to fulfill it. Fulfill it. And see, he not only
died on the cross and satisfied justice, but in his daily life,
in his walk and talk and thoughts, he knew no sin. He never seen
what was those two things while ago? I mentioned to you that
we had to have before the law never no sin and never do sin
Christ knew no sin and the father said this is my son in whom I'm
well pleased and he did that for us he represented us and
Then notice this their righteousness was their own based on their
own works. Their righteousness was imperfect
as All flesh is imperfect There's no perfection in the flesh But
ours is a perfect righteousness. It's perfect in Christ. He has
made unto us wisdom, perfect wisdom. Righteousness, perfect
righteousness. Holiness, perfect holiness. Redemption,
perfect redemption. For the Father said of Christ,
this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Now something
else about the Pharisees' righteousness. It was their hope. For they're
going to stand someday before the Lord of glory and say, We
preached in your name. We prophesied. We cast out devils. We did many wonderful works.
That's our righteousness. That's our hope. We did. We went
to church. We served. We taught Sunday school.
We fasted. We prayed. We gave alms. We gave
our time. That's our hope. He shall say,
depart from me. I never knew you. I never knew
you. That's their hope. That's their righteousness. God
can't accept it. God's a holy God. You see, I
don't care how good your righteousness is, it's a flesh righteousness. And in the flesh, well, it's
no good thing. It's filthy rag. God cannot accept anything less
than perfection. And you can present the best
deeds a man's ever done, the best words a man's ever spoken.
the most gifts a man's ever given. God can't be satisfied with it
because it's imperfect. God's perfect. God's holy. Now
if Christ comes and stands in our place and he says, Father,
you see these wounds? I was wounded for their transgression.
Father, you see, here's my record. It's perfect. Here's my thoughts. They're perfect. Here's my works. They're perfect. And I did that
for those people who believe in me. And here they are, now,
they have a righteousness, it's my righteousness, not theirs,
mine. That's the reason he said, except
your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees. Now watch Colossians 1, 21, 22.
And you that were one time alienated, enemies, enemies in your mind
by wicked work, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of
his flesh, To present you holy, unblameable, unreprovable in
God's sight. Christ is our righteousness,
and Christ's righteousness far exceeds the righteousness of
any religious moral reformer who ever lived, because Christ's
righteousness is God's righteousness.