A Just God and a Saviour

I'm going to read from the book
of Isaiah, chapter 45, verses 21 and 22. Now, this will be
to all of you a very important message. I'd like you to take
your Bibles and read along with me in the 45th chapter of Isaiah,
verse 21. And my subject today is entitled,
A Just God and a Savior. A Just God and a Savior. In Isaiah 45, verse 21, the Prophet
writes, "'Who hath declared this from ancient times? Have not
I the Lord? And there is no God beside me,
a just God and a Savior.' Now, underscore those words, a just
God and a Savior. Look unto me, and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. This is a phrase that we are
liable to overlook and not to understand the importance of
it, to fail to comprehend the depth of it, the fullness of
it, a just God and a Savior. I want to make three comments
about this phrase, a just God and a Savior, before I get into
the main body of the message. The first comment is this. This
phrase really sums up the whole Bible. A just God and a Savior. This phrase, this brief sentence,
sums up the theme of the entire Bible. God is just, he is holy,
he is righteous, he is pure. Isaiah said, holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of hosts. He is a holy God, a righteous
God, a just God. I am a just God. But also, he
says, I am a Savior, merciful, gracious, loving, forgiving,
a just God and a Savior. Now, Adam was cast out of the
garden of Eden because he had fallen, he had sinned against
God, he had rebelled against the law of God, and as God said
to him, in the day you eat, you shall surely die. And Adam was
cast out of the garden, but as he left the garden, cast out
by the justice of God. God is just. And as he left that
garden, cast out by the justice of God, he left with a promise
of mercy. He left with a promise that a
Savior would come. God said the seed of woman shall
destroy the power, the government, the head of the serpent. God
is a just God, punishing sin, holding evildoers responsible. As Adam left that garden, he
leaves by the justice of God, but he leaves with a promise.
There will be a Savior. I am a Savior. And then God Almighty
sent a flood and destroyed the world. God looked down upon the
earth, and the wickedness of man, the rebellion of man, the
evil of man covered the entire world, and God said, I'm going
to destroy the world. And He did. He sent a flood.
swept this world clean of its evil and righteousness and rebellion. But though we see the flood of
God's justice floating on that flood, is what? An art of mercy. A flood of justice, an art of
mercy. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. There you have both. I am a just
God, but I am a Savior. You see that? It's the theme
of the whole Bible. From Mount Sinai came the awful,
condemning, righteous, holy law of God. God Almighty says, Thou
shalt have no other God before me. Thou shalt not to take the
name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy. Thou shalt not steal, kill, commit
adultery, bear false witness, covet. Thou shalt not. It's clear
that God is holy, God is just, God is righteous. But as Moses
received that law and brought it to the people, he also brought
the design for the tabernacle, the design for the Holy of Holies,
wherein was a mercy seat covering the law of God, and on that mercy
seat the blood of atonement, the blood of mercy, the blood
of forgiveness. God is a just God, a righteous God, but he
is also a Savior. The cross of Calvary has a twofold
message. Do you see the twofold message
in the cross of Calvary? The twofold message at Calvary
that is preached to every thinking person is this. God is just,
and God is merciful. God is love. God is just. He will in no wise clear the
guilty, not even his own son. Christ Jesus the Lord was not
bearing his own sins, but our sins. But even bearing sin by
imputation, numbering him with the transgressors made him guilty,
and he had to come under the wrath and judgment and justice
of a righteous God. God's righteous. He will not
spare even his own servant. But at Calvary we see that God
is loving and gracious and merciful, and God will forgive sin. You
see the importance of that phrase, that we're so prone to overlook?
You've heard many sermons from verse 22 of Isaiah 45, look unto
me and be ye saved. How many have you heard from
that preceding verse? I'm a just God and a Savior,
therefore you look to me and be saved. If God is not a just
God, he cannot be a Savior. Here's the second name by way
of introducing the message. And this is the age-old question
that has occupied the thoughts of all men of all ages. who really know God, who do not
have a God of their imagination, but who know the God of the Bible,
the God of creation, the God of the universe, the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the age-old question
that has occupied the thoughts of all thinking men, men who
know God and who know themselves. What is that question? Here it
is. How can God be just and justify the ungodly? How can God be holy
and forgive the ungodly. How can God be righteous and
set you and me free? He's a just God and will not
clear the guilty. That's what the scripture says.
But also the scripture says, Come unto me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. God will justify
the ungodly. How? Now, the book of Job is
the oldest book in the Bible. The oldest book in the Bible
is not Genesis. The Bible is not The books of the Bible are
not placed in the order in which they were written. For example,
over in the New Testament, the first book that Paul wrote was
not the book of Romans. It was the book of 1 Thessalonians.
They were just put in different order. And the oldest book in
the Bible is the book of Job. And this ancient man, this ancient
man with his friends, pondered this question. And three times
it's mentioned here in Job. Job 9, verse 2. Job talked about
man's wickedness and the fact that God would punish sin, and
Job, in chapter 9, verse 2, says, I know that soul. I know that
soul. God will not hold him guiltless,
that taketh his name in vain. God will punish the guilty. The
soul that sinneth it shall surely die. I know that soul, Job said. But here's the question. How
can man be just with God? And then in Job 15, 14, Bildad
asks this question, what is man that he should be clean? And
he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
God puts no trust in his saints. Why, the heavens are not clean
in God's sight. How much more abominable and
filthy is man that drinketh iniquity like the water? How can man be
just with God? That's the question. You need
to know the answer to that question. Do you ever think about it? Listen
to Job again in chapter 25, verse 4. How can man be justified with
God? How can he be clean that's born
of a woman? We need to find the answer to
this question. The oldest book in the Bible
and the scripture said of Job, a righteous, upright man, surrounded
by his friends, and this is the question that they're pondering.
How can man, who drinks iniquity like the water, How can man be
just with God? How can he be clean and holy
and righteous that is born of a woman? The third thing now. This is the heart of the gospel.
The answer to this question, how can God be just and justify
the ungodly, is the very heart of the gospel. It's the very
essence of the gospel. Paul tells us that in Romans
3. It's why Christ came to this earth. He didn't come to be an
example. He didn't come only to be an
example or a martyr. Our Lord came to accomplish a
purpose, and that purpose is found in Romans 3, 25 and 26.
Listen, talking about the Savior, and Paul said, Christ is set
forward. Christ is seen. Christ is revealed
as a propitiation. That word is sacrifice or mercy
seeking. Christ is set forth as a mercy
seat to declare God's righteousness. God is holy. God is righteous. That God might be just and justify
the ungodly, or justify them that believe on Christ. Now,
you take Romans 3 and go back to verse 19. Verse 19 says this,
What the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world become guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty before God. I don't care who it is.
If it's that drunk down there in the gutter, or that priest
up there in the monastery. I don't care if it's the prisoner
down there in death row, or the warden who's sitting in his chair,
watching his watch to see what time the man goes to the chair.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All are
guilty, guilty, guilty before God Almighty. That's what it
says. And verse 20 says, and by the law, by the deeds of the
law, no flesh is going to be justified in God's eyes. No flesh. Now you may justify yourselves
to people around you, and even to yourself, but not to God.
And then he goes on, verse 21, says, but there is a righteousness
without the law, which is revealed, which is manifest. And that righteousness
is to those who believe, not to those that work for it or
earn it or buy it. but it's to those who believe
on Christ. And that righteousness comes to us through the obedience
and death of his Son, whom God has set forth, whom God has sent
to be a propitiation, to be a sacrifice, to be a sin offering, that God
might be just and justify the ungodly. That's the gospel. Mercy and truth. Mercy and truth. Righteousness and peace. are
met together, they have kissed one another in a beautiful, satisfied
union. Righteousness and peace, and
mercy and truth. Where? At Calvary. This is where it happened. This
is where God Almighty revealed himself as a just God and a Savior. Oh, the love that drew salvation's
plan! Oh, the grace that brought it
down to man! Oh, the mighty that God did stand
at Calvary. Mercy there was great, and grace
was free. But pardon, pardon there was
multiplied to me, and there my burdened soul found liberty at
Calvary. God says, I'm a just God. I will
not clear the guilty. But I'm a Savior, I'm going to
forgive. Well, Lord, how can you be both?
I can send my Son in the likeness of sinful flesh down here to
this earth as a propitiation, as a sacrifice, as a substitute,
as a mercy seat. And my Son can bear all the sins
of all who believe. He can bear all the wrath of
an infinite, everlasting, holy God because of who he is. He
can give to my people a perfect righteousness. He can give to
my people a perfect holiness. And he can satisfy the infinite
law of a holy God in his death, in his sacrifice. and through
him and because of him and what he did and who he is, I can be
just and justify the ungodly. In closing, let me point out
three other things. First of all, to whom are we
to look for salvation? Our God says, I'm a just God.
He'll not compromise his justice. He'll not compromise his righteousness.
He's not going to put his tongue in his and stroke his beard and
look down at the world and say, well, they're doing the best
they can, I guess I'll overlook the rest. No, sir, God's a just
God. He's a just God. But he's a Savior.
He's a merciful Savior. Therefore he can say, look to
me, all the ends of the earth, and be saved. My friend, notice,
it's not look to the law. A lot of preachers preach the
law as a Savior. You do this and you do that and
you do the other, and God will save you. The only thing that
I can see in the law is my sin. When I look at the law carefully,
the only thing I can see in the law is condemnation. The only
thing I can see in the law is a perfect rule which I cannot
keep. That's right, and you can't either.
Job said, if I say that I am perfect, my mouth would prove
me perverse. If I say, if I justify myself,
my own mouth would condemn me. You people, Paul said, who want
to be under the law, you tell me, don't you hear the law? Don't you know what the law says?
The law says, cursed is everyone that continueth not in every
jot and tittle, every point of the law. To offend in one point
is to be guilty of the whole law. Don't you know what the
law says? Don't you know what it requires? Why do you want
to be under the law? I want to be under God's grace
and mercy. Then notice it doesn't say, look
to your church and be you saved. God says in Isaiah 1, every church
member, every preacher, every deacon, every church officer
ought to read Isaiah 1 at least once a week, the first chapter
of Isaiah. In that chapter, God looks down on this religious
world and he says, I'm full of your burnt offerings, I'm weary
of your feasts and your ceremonies. I'm fed up with your assemblies
and your Sabbaths and your holy days, our iniquity. Our Lord
said, you call me Lord with your lips and your hearts are far
from me. I'm fed up with all this ritualism
and ceremonialism and fundamentalism and orthodoxy. It's full of iniquity,
God said. Come, let us reason together.
Let's reason about sin and mercy and grace and sacrifice and the
shedding of blood. Though your sins be a scarlet,
I'll make them quiet as snow. Don't look to your church or
to your rituals or to your religion, and it doesn't say look to your
works of charity. The scripture says, not by works
of righteousness which we've done, but by his mercy he saved
us. How much just God! And your righteousnesses,
measured by my holiness, are filthy garments, they're filthy
rags. I can find no pleasure in these
things, God says. It's by grace that we are saved.
Notice this. Salvation is not by looking to
the law. It's not by looking to your church
membership or your religion or your good works. And my friend,
it's not even by looking to your faith. It's not even by looking
to your faith. The heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked. Who can know it? I trust that
I have faith in Christ. Faith is the arm that embraces
Christ, and faith is the hand that reaches forth to Christ,
but it's Christ that saves. It's not look to your faith,
it's look to me. Look unto me. Look to Christ,
our covenant surety. Eternal mercies, eternal grace
are in an eternal Savior. Christ is the Lamb slain before
the foundation of this world. He is not an afterthought. Christ is foreordained. Christ
is the only Savior. He is the one Savior. Abraham
saw my day, he said, and was glad. Moses, he said, wrote of
me. Isaiah said, by his stripes we
are healed. He is the one Redeemer. Look
to Christ, not only our covenant charity, but we look to Christ,
our representative in the flesh. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Look to Christ,
our federal head, our representative, who came down here to this earth
and was identified with us and numbered with us and obeyed the
law for us and imputed unto us a perfect righteousness. He did
what we couldn't do. Paul wrote what the law could
not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. The law wasn't weak,
nothing weak about God's law. The flesh was weak. And what
the law could never do, the law could never give you a perfect
righteousness because of your flesh. God sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh condemns sin in the flesh. In
other words, Christ obeyed the law as a man, tempted, tried,
tested in every point, and yet without sin. And when he did
that, he was me. I was in him. He was representing
me. I look to Christ, not only my
covenant surety, my representative in the flesh, but I look to him
as slain lamb. I look to Calvary, where he has
endured my sin and my wrath and my judgment and my hell in my
place. That's what Isaiah is saying
when he says, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, by stripes we are healed. Christ died in our place. And then we look to Christ, our
risen Lord, risen for our justification. We look to Christ, our Mediator.
Paul said, Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is Christ that died. Yea, rather, is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God. Where is Christ Jesus
now? Do you know? You know where he was before
the world. He made the world. by him all things were created
that are in heaven, earth, and seas, and all deep places. He
made everything. We know where he was 2,000 years ago, he was
on the cross. Where is he now? He is at the right hand of God,
interceding for us. There is one Mediator between
God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus. So we look
to Christ, our Mediator. We look to Christ, our coming
King, who shall change these vile bodies and bring them out
of the grave. and making them like unto his
glorious body. Now, what's this? The results
of looking to Christ. The scripture says, Look unto
me, a just God and a Savior. You look to me, like the children
of Israel looked to the brazen serpent in the wilderness. As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life. You look to me, God and
be saved. Now, my friends, I've never found
it necessary to depart from Bible language. I know this is a new day and
a new generation and all of this thing that we've been snowed
with, but I've never found it necessary to depart from the
word of God, from Bible language. I like the word saved, people
who are being saved, people who are saved by the Christ used
it. He said, The Son of Man is come
to seek and to save that which is lost. The angel, in announcing
the birth of Christ, said, Thou shalt call his name Jesus. He
shall save his people from their sin. Peter used it. He said, There is none of the
name unto heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Paul used it to the Philippian jailer. He said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And I'm going to use
it. Why? Because God is the same. yesterday,
today and forever, because sin is just as sinful, and it's still
sin, because man is just as lost, and because death is just as
real, and because hell is just as terrible, and because judgment
is just as certain, and because eternity is just as long, and
because salvation is just as necessary. Look unto me and be
ye saved. What is it to be saved? Let me
give it to you briefly. First of all, to be saved is
to be justified, completely justified, in Christ Jesus. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, no judgment,
no charge, no damnation, no guilt, no judgment, because all sin
has been put away. He bore our sins in his body
on the tree, and he cast them behind his back. He said, I remember
them no more. To be saved is not only to be
justified, but it is to have a perfect righteousness. He hath
made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God. Everyone who is in Christ is
holy, unreprovable, unblameable. That's what scripture says. Everyone
who is in Christ will be presented by Christ in the presence of
God Almighty without sin. because all of our sins have
been laid on Christ and they have all been paid for and they
have all been put away. To be justified, to be saved,
is to have a perfect standing before God Almighty. We are not
holy in ourselves, but in Christ we are perfectly holy. What is
it to be saved? It is to become a new creature.
I think Ruth summed up the attitude, the conduct and the prospect
of every believer when she said to Naomi, Entreat me not to leave
thee. Whither thou goest, I will go. Whither thou lodgest, I will
lodge. Thy people shall be my people,
thy God shall be my God, and where thou diest, I will die,
and there I'll be found. That's a new creature in Christ.
And he can look at his Master, and he can look at his Master's
disciples, and he can look at his Master's people, and he can
say, Where you go, I go. Where you lodge, I lodge. Your
people are my people. Your God is my God. And where
you die, that's where I die, in Christ, in faith, in hope,
in trust. What is it to be saved? It is
to be a son of God. Beloved, it doth not yet appear
what we shall be, but when he shall appear, we shall be like
him. are we sons of God? Right now. We are not going to
be sons of God, we are sons of God. We are heirs of Christ and
joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. I heard the voice of
Jesus say, Come to me and rest. Lay down, thou weary one, lay
down thy head upon my breast. I came to Jesus as I was, weary
and worn and sad. And I found in him a resting
place, and he that made me glad. I shall not try to justify myself,
because if I did, my own mouth would prove me perverse. I shall
not try to justify myself before the sons of men, because Christ
our Lord said, God looks on the heart, and that which is highly
esteemed among men is an abomination to God. But I will lift my eyes
to Calvary, and I will say, Lord, through the blood of thy Son,
justify me and put away my sin. For in Christ Thou can be a just
God and a Savior. Now these messages can be obtained
if you write to the address given to you at the end of the broadcast
on cassette tape. If you write to me, we'll be
happy to send you the tape. There's a small charge. We have
to have this. And so you write. The address
will be presented to you until next week at the same time. I
bid you a very pleasant and good day.

A Just God and a Saviour

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A Just God and a Saviour

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