Acts 16 verse 30, he brought
them out and he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now if a man wants wealth, he
seeks it. If a man wants fame, he seeks
it. If a man sets his heart on something
that he thinks is important, He'll make use of any means to
attain that object. He seeks it. And the principle
is correct and it's commendable. It's also true in spiritual things. If a man wants a right relationship
with God, he'll seek it. If a man wants forgiveness of
sins, he'll seek it. If a man wants eternal life,
he'll seek it. The Scripture says, Lay hold
on eternal life. That's a commandment. God hath
commanded all men everywhere to repent. The Scriptures over
and over again tell us to seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Now, ministers are forever calling
on people to repent. and to believe and to receive
eternal life. Perhaps there's somebody here
this morning, either in this congregation now or who will
be listening on the broadcast later, who will say to me, All
right, preacher, I want eternal life. I want the forgiveness
of sins. I want salvation. I'll listen to you now. shed
some light on the subject. Tell me what to do to be saved. There you are with your Bible
open. There you are claiming to represent
God and to be His ambassador. As Paul said in the stead of
Christ, beseeching men to be reconciled to God, all right,
tell me what to do. Well, before I do, let me ask
you a question. You say that you want eternal
life. You say that you want forgiveness
of sin. You say that you want redemption. If I mark out the way of life
for you, will you walk in it? Now, if you have no intentions
of walking therein, there's no need for me to waste my time
or yours pointing out the way of life. Let me ask you this. If I point to the source of life,
to the fountain of life, Will you drink of it? Will you receive
it? If I point to the one who can
cleanse you, and redeem you, and forgive you, and save you,
will you look to him? As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth on him not heareth about him, not thinketh
about him, but believeth on him. might not perish but have eternal
life. If I tell you what you want to
know, you say that you want salvation, you want forgiveness of sin,
you want eternal life, and I say that I know how you can attain
that object. If I tell you, will you listen,
and will you act, and will you walk in the way of the Lord? All right, assuming that your
answer is yes, I proceed with three three things that you must
know in order to be saved. The first is found in Matthew
9, verse 10. In the ninth chapter of Matthew,
verse 10, the Scripture says, now listen carefully to it, the
Scripture says, It came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house,
behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and
his disciples. And when the Pharisees, the religious
people saw it, the church members, the preachers, the rabbis, the
scribes, the teachers, these moral people, these law-abiding
people, these pious people, these religious people, when they saw
it, when they saw him doing what? When they saw him sitting down
to eat with publicans and sinners, When they saw him sitting down
to eat with publicans and sinners, they said to his disciples, Why
does your master eat with publicans and sinners? And Jesus heard
that, and he said to them, Now this is the Lord speaking. This
is the Son of God, the Lord of glory. This is the prophet of
whom Moses wrote. This is the final authority on
all things. But the Lord Jesus said unto
them, They that behold They that be well. They that be sufficient
in themselves. They that be complete. Do not
need a doctor. The people who need doctors are
the people who are sick. S-I-C-K, sick. That's the people
who need help. That's the people who need the
doctor. That's the one who needs the physician, the one who's
sick. Now watch verse 13. But go ye and learn what that
means. The first thing that a man has
to learn, must learn, it's imperative. It is absolutely essential. You go learn what that means. I will have mercy, not sacrifice. I am not come to call the righteous. Who's going to heaven, brother
Mahan? Well, who do you think is going to heaven? But I think
good people are going to heaven. Well, you're wrong. The good
people are going to hell. That's where they're going. It's
sinners who are going to heaven. That's what the Lord Jesus said
here, I didn't come to call the righteous. Now, we know that
no man's righteous, but some folks think they are. We know
there's none that doeth good, no, not one, but some think they
do. We know there's none who seeketh after God, but some think
they do. And Christ said, I didn't come
to call those people, I came to call sinners to repentance.
This is the first thing that a man has to learn, that a woman
has to learn, that a young person has to learn, and it's the most
difficult lesson and even harder to admit. It's the most difficult
lesson to learn, and it's even harder to admit. I am a great
sinner. That's so hard to learn. The
flesh rebels against it. The flesh rebels against it and
resists it. The flesh seeks to justify itself. The flesh seeks to find what
is good about it, not what is bad about it. The most difficult
lesson to learn, and even harder to admit, and yet the most important
lesson that we must learn when we start this thing of seeking
the Lord, is that all whom God saves come to faith by way of
repentance. All who come to grace come by
way of guilt. Judgment always precedes justification. God always wounds before He heals. God always strips a man before
He clothes him. God always kills a man before
He makes him alive. If there's one little finger
of self-righteousness still wiggling, God will not justify. Isaiah was made to cry, O woe
is me, I am a man of unclean limbs. Can you say that? You wouldn't dare say it. Your
flesh wouldn't let you say it. Job cried, I hate myself, and
not too many folks here today who hate themselves. I abhor
myself, I repent in sackcloth and ashes, I will not speak again,"
he said. The publican cried, O God, be
merciful to me. And the actual translation is,
the sinner, not a sinner, The sinner. The chief sinner. The greatest sinner. The most
ungodly sinner. The most wretched sinner. The
sinner farthest away from God. Out of all sinners, the worst
sinner. That's what he said. God be merciful
to me, the sinner! And Christ said he went home
justified. The Apostle Peter standing one
day beside the Lord Jesus Christ, having seen our Master perform
a great miracle, cried, depart from me, I am a sinful
man." Now you don't get folks to say that today. You wonder
where Peter got the grace that God gave him, where Peter received
the faith God gave him, why God used a man like the Apostle Peter. Well, if we could ever talk the
language of that man, maybe God would give us some grace. But
how many people here this morning would bow their heads in prayer
and say, Lord, depart from me. You've got no business in my
presence. I've got no business in your
presence, because I am a sinful man. The Apostle Paul in Romans
7, turn over there with me just a moment. Listen to this. We
call him a man of God, and compared to other men, he is a man of
God. He's a man chosen of God, ordained
of God, sent of God, blessed of God, used of God, but he calls
himself, in verse 24, not a man of God, he calls himself a wretched
man. Oh, wretched man that I am. We have these testimony meetings
in churches all over the tri-state, and people stand up and talk
about what they've given up for Jesus. and how they pray that
people will pray that they might keep on keeping on. The Apostle
Paul would certainly destroy one of those testimony meetings
if he got up and said, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death? Look back at verse 18. I know
that in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Anything good about you? You
just gave your offering. That's good, isn't it? You just
dressed up and left home and came to church. You barely made
it, but you did it, didn't you? You're going to be here tonight.
You're going to do all these things. That's good, isn't it?
Apart from Christ and his offering, that's enough sin in what you've
done this morning to send you to hell. Did you know that? I
know people don't understand that, but it's so. I know that
in me, that is, in my flesh, in anything that the flesh thinks
or does or says, there dwelleth no good thing. You go learn what
that means, Christ said. You go learn what that means.
I didn't come down here to take to glory a bunch of people who
are righteous in themselves. I came to lift the beggar from
the dunghill. I came to call the sinner out
of darkness. I came to lift men out of their
degradation and depravity and wretchedness and wash them in
my precious cleansing blood and take them to glory. I came to
cause sinners. And if you will follow the ministry
of our Lord, you will find him turning his back on the righteous
and lifting the sinner. Now you look, in John chapter
3 there was a religious man called Nicodemus. who came to the Lord
Jesus Christ and wanted to talk with him about the things of
God. And the Lord Jesus just turned
him off, just cut him off with these words, ìYou must be born
again.î Nicodemus said, ìI donít understand that. Can I enter
the second time into my motherís womb and be born?î Christ said,
ìNicodemus, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which
is born of the Spirit is Spirit.î If you don't understand earthly
things, how can you understand heavenly things? But in the next
chapter, there was a woman who had been married five times and
was living in adultery with a man who was not her husband. And
the Lord Jesus Christ sat down on a well when the sun was burning
down at noontime and waited on her. until finally she came to
that well and he began to talk to her about her need and pointed
out her sin and her guilt and pointed to himself and he says,
I am the water of life, I am the Messiah, you believe on me
and I'll give you eternal life. And God saved her. A few verses
over there is a young man who came to Christ who was a very
wealthy young man, also a very moral young man, a very religious
young man. And he came to the Lord Jesus
and wanted to know what good thing he could do to earn eternal
life. That's what he asked him. What
good thing should I do to earn eternal life? And Christ said,
Your problem is your wealth, your possessions. You think more
of them than you do God. You go sell what you have and
give it to the poor, and you come take up your cross and follow
me. And the young man turned and walked off, and Christ watched
him walk off. But just a few verses later,
he walked under a tree one day, and up in that tree was a publican,
was a tax collector, was a man who was just an out-and-out cheat,
that's what he was. He made his living stealing from
his own nation. He was a tax collector for the
Roman government, being a Jew. And he cheated his own people
out of their living, and he was sitting up in that tree watching
the Lord Jesus as he walked under. And Christ walked under and looked
up and said, Zacchaeus, you come on down from there. I'm going
to your house to have dinner." And Zacchaeus came down out of
that tree, and the Lord Jesus Christ didn't talk to him about
selling his possessions. He didn't talk to him about being
born again. He talked to him about salvation,
and he redeemed his soul. He cast seven devils out of Mary
Magdalene. You could go on through the Scripture
and find how that our Lord Jesus Christ stooped by the woman taken
in the act of adultery and rode upon the ground, and then stood
up and looked around and said, Where are your accusers? Doth
no man accuse thee? She said, No man, Lord. He said,
Neither do I. Go and sin no more. All the way
through the ministry of our Lord, it's one story. I came to call
sinners, sinners, sinners. And religious, moral Pharisees
never found anything from the lips of Christ or the hand of
Christ but condemnation. The first thing a man's got to
find out before he'll be saved, he's got to find out that he
is a sinner. My friends, you and I were with
Adam when he said, I'll be God. In the Garden of Eden, We were
in his loins. When Adam chose to dethrone God,
when Adam chose to follow Satan, when Adam decided that he would
be his own boss, you and I were there. The human race did its
best to dethrone God, and you and I are charged with that sin.
Turn to Romans 5, and let me show you that. In Romans 5, in
verse 12, listen to this. by one man. Wherefore, as by
one man sin entered into this world," that's Adam, and death
by sin, spiritual death, physical death, the second death, and
so death passed upon the whole human race, all men. Right then, in that hour, by
one man's sin, by one man's act of rebellion, death passed upon
all men. Now, what's the next line? And
I challenge you Bible scholars and Bible students to look this
up. The correct translation of those
next few verses is, ìFor that all sinned.î S-I-N-N-E-D. The word ìhaveî is not in the
original. And I challenge you to prove
me wrong. When Adam sinned, I sinned. When Adam fell, I fell. When
Adam died, I died. all sin. Right then, the whole
human race in one man, the whole human race in one act of rebellion,
the whole human race in one act of treason, said, We will not
have this man reign over us. We will be like God. That's what
God's got against the human race. The human race hates God. And
I'll tell you, when those voices When those voices out yonder
in Jerusalem two thousand years ago cried, Crucify Him! My voice was heard in the midst
of them, and so were yours. When those voices cried, Give
us forever! Crucify Jesus! His blood be on
us and our children! We were in that gang when they
crucified the Lord of Glory. You with wicked hands have taken
the Lord's Son, crucified and slain him on a cross. Almighty
God has something against this human race, and the charges against
this race are treason, rebellion, and seeking to murder the Son
of God. I have broken God's law. I do
break God's law, and I will break God's law. Let me ask you to
turn with me to Matthew 22. Now, I know the flesh doesn't
like this. I know the flesh rebels against
this. The old Pharisees did. They cried,
We'd be not sinners! We'd be not sinners. The old
Pharisee in the temple cried, God, I thank you I'm not like
other men. I'm not even like this publican.
I tithe, and I fast, and I give to the poor, and I give alms,
and I go to church, and I mind my own business, and I pay my
bills, and I do all these things, and I'm not like other men. And
Christ said he went home condemned and damned. But a fellow over
there in the corner wouldn't even lift his eyes to heaven,
but smote upon his breast and cried, O God, I'm the chief of
sinners. Will you be merciful to me? And
our Lord said he went home justified. What does God have to do to show
us something? Knock us in the head with a two-by-four?
There it is, plain as the nose on your face. At the cross of
Calvary there was high priests, there were chief priests, there
were Pharisees, there were religious men, there were scribes, there
were lawyers, there were religious teachers and rabbis, and God
saying, none of them but a dying thief. But a dying thief. Our Lord Jesus
Christ chose as his companion to enter with him into the presence
of the Father that day a thief, an outcast that these sorry outcasts
had cast out. He wasn't worthy to live in their
awful society. They nailed him to a cross, and
God saved him. Look at Matthew 22. You want
to look squarely at God's law? You want to look God's law right
in the face? You want to look squarely at
God's law, and I challenge you, when you do, you come away boasting
of your goodness and your holiness and your righteousness. I dare
you. Look at Matthew 22. And then verse 35, a lawyer asks
him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is
the great commandment in the law? Okay, you just hold it right
there now. Some churches say, well, you
ain't supposed to go to the picture show, and you're not supposed
to drink, and you're not supposed to play cards. That's the great
offense. You're supposed to wear your
clothes, your sleeves so long, and your hair so long, and you're
supposed to do all these things. That's the great commandment.
Let's see what the Lord says. And you know, when we get to
preaching all that stuff, People get to thinking they're pretty
righteous and pretty holy. They don't watch television,
and they don't read the ugly books, and they don't do these
things. They must be pretty holy. Well, let's see what the Master
answered to that question. What is the greatest law? What
is the escape? And the Lord Jesus said, Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. all thy heart." Not just on Sunday
morning at 11 o'clock. With all thy heart. Listen to
him. And with all thy soul. And with all thy mind. This is
the first and great commandment. Oh boy, where are you on that? I'm way back in the caboose.
I don't know about you. I wish I did love God with just
some of my heart. I wish I loved him with just
some of my soul. I wish I thought I loved him
with just a portion of my mind. Loved him. Do you love God with
all your heart? Now come on, and listen to the
next one. And the second is likened to
this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There she is, boy. Take a good look at it. Look
it square in the face. And on these two commandments
hang all the law, every law God ever wrote, every law God ever
gave. All the prophets hang on these
two commandments. Sinners, sinners. The Apostle
Paul took a look at that law. Turn back with me to Romans 7. The Apostle Paul took a look
at that law one day. He took a good look at it. And in Romans 7, he says, verse
18, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. To will is present with me. I
wish I did love God with all my heart. I wish I did love my
neighbor as myself. To will is present with me. How
to perform that which is good, that which is good, I don't find
it in me. The good that I would, I do not. The evil which I would not, that's
what I do. Now if I do that, I would not. It's not I that do it, it's sin
that dwells in me. Does sin dwell in you? Here's
the giant of God here talking about sin dwelling in him, and
I hear people in this generation talking about they don't have
any sin. Would they not sinners? Paul says, sin dwells in me. It lives in me. It's a permanent
residence. I find a law that when I would
do good, evil is present with me. I delight in the law of God. If you sage, you do, after the
inward man. But I see another law in my members,
warring, oh, what a conflict, battling, engaging in a death,
in a death struggle against the law of my mind, and bringing
me into captivity of the law of sin. Oh, wretched man that
I am. David, listen to David, Psalm
51, and I'm picking some of God's choicest servants here to show
you their attitude toward themselves and their sin. David cried, O
God, Psalm 51, O God, have mercy on me. How long has it been since
you prayed like that? According to thy lovingkindness,
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, O God, blot
out my transgressions. wash me thoroughly from mine
iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. I acknowledge my transgressions,
my friend, that's the first step, I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is ever before me against
thee, and thee only have I sinned. A man that cannot say, I have
sinned, cannot say, I am saved. A woman who cannot say, I am
a sinner, cannot say, I am a child of God. It's not the language of the
Word of God. Daniel says, my comeliness in
the presence of God melts into corruption. Turn to Matthew 15. My friends, our hearts, our hearts
are the very seat of sin. and evil. Matthew 15. The Lord
Jesus Christ had been rebuking these Pharisees. They had certain
things that they could do and they couldn't do, and one of
them happened to be that they had to wash their hands always
before they eat. Had certain things they could
eat, you know, and certain things they could drink, and the Lord
Jesus Christ offended them. He picked corn on the Sabbath
day, and he walked a little further than he's supposed to on the
Sabbath day, and he didn't wash his hands before he ate. And
these Pharisees began to find fault, and the Lord Jesus Christ
said to them, It's not that which goes into the mouth that defiles
a man. That's not your problem. That's
not your problem. It's that which comes out of
the heart that defiles a man. And the disciples took him aside
and they said, we don't understand, what were you talking about?
And the Lord Jesus Christ said in verse 16, look at it, are
you also yet without understanding? You who put righteousness in
religion, in meats and drinks, are you without understanding?
You who make the clothing of righteousness to be the clothing
which men and women wear on their skin, are you without understanding?
You who put such great significance upon what you eat and what you
drink and how you walk, are you without understanding? Listen,
do you not yet understand that whatever goes into my mouth goes
into my belly, my digestive system, and then it's cast out into the
draft? But those things which come out of the mouth, not what
I put in, it's what comes out of the mouth, come from the heart. And they defile you, for out
of the heart proceeds evil thoughts. And do you know the thought of
foolishness is sin? For their thought of foolishness
is sin. That's what scripture says. To
him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is
sin. Out of the heart proceeds evil
thoughts. Out of the heart proceeds murders.
That's where it starts. It starts in the heart. Christ
said to hate a man in your heart is to be guilty already of murder. Murder. There's some people who
wouldn't die, go to a movie, but oh, they'll hold a grudge
for ten years. They got hell in their hearts.
They'd do them good, they'd go to a good movie. There's some people who wouldn't
watch a television set, but they're the worst gossipers in the community. Hate in the heart, malice in
the heart. There's some people who are so
religious and so righteous, and yet they hate the races on this
earth. Something wrong with that. Listen to it. Out of your heart
comes murder, adulteries, lust, fornication, thefts. False witness, blasphemy, that's
what comes out of your heart. Fanfault with God's purpose,
fanfault with God's sovereignty, fanfault with God's providence.
These are the things that defile a man, the Lord of Glory says. These are the things, and we've
all got an abundance of them, and we are defiled. The first thing that a man's
got to learn if he would be saved, he's got to learn that he's lost
anyway. Just that simple. I'm a wretched,
rotten, filthy, guilty sinner. In the searchlight of God's law,
in the searchlight of God's holiness, I am as defiled as hell itself. And I need help. All right, the
second thing that a man must learn. Turn to the book of Job.
The book of Job, chapter 9. Are you listening to me? Can
you take your place before God as a sinner? All right, the second
thing I must learn, that I cannot save myself. Can't do it. Can't justify myself. There's
no need for you to give me a bunch of laws to live by. There's no
need for you to give me a bunch of rules to keep for acceptance. There's no reason for you to
give me a bunch of ceremonies to observe. The creature has
failed under every dispensation. Job said, Job 10 verse 20, If
I justify myself, my own mouth would condemn me. If I go to
telling you how good I am, how holy I am, my own mouth would
send me to hell for lying. If I shall say I am perfect,
My own mouth would prove me what? Perverse. Not very flattering to call anybody
perverse, is it? But that's what your mouth's
calling you when you go to bargain on yourself. If I say I'm good,
I'm holy, my own mouth will prove me perverse. Adam had to find
out he couldn't clothe himself, God ripped off his fig leaf apron
and killed an animal and clothed him with the skin of the innocent.
The Apostle Paul had to find out he couldn't justify himself.
He said, I was born of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews,
a Pharisee, as touching the law blameless, but these things I
count dumb. that I may win Christ and be
found in him, not having mine own righteousness. My friend,
don't give me laws to live by and rules to abide by and say,
Do this and be saved. I know that the creature has
failed under every dispensation. The angels kept not their first
estate. The angels were surrounded by
their presence and glory of God in heaven, but they fell. Adam
and Eve, God created them holy and upright and put them in a
perfect setting, in a perfect environment, and they fell. Noah and his family were miraculously
delivered from a horrible flood. They were the only ones who were
saved. They came off that ark, planted a vineyard, got drunk
and committed incest. Israel left Egypt amid the very
presence of God's power in dividing a sea, bringing water from a
rock, and raining bread from heaven, only to wind up worshiping
idols in a wilderness. Solomon had all the wisdom and
wealth that a son of Adam could ever possess, and yet he built
altars to heathen gods to please his wives. The disciples walked
with the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The disciples lived and slept
and ate in the presence of Christ. And yet after three and a half
years, one of them sold him, another denied he knew him, and
every one of them walked off and left him. Don't put me in a certain environment
and say, stay there and be saved. Don't give me rules and laws
because I know the flesh cannot keep them to the satisfaction
of a holy God. Without Christ, I'll perish. Turn to Mark chapter 10. Now
you listen to this, Mark the tenth chapter. Christ said it's easier for a
camel, verse 25, Mark 10, to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. They
were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who
then can be saved? And the Lord Jesus answered,
looking upon them, and said, With men it is impossible. Go to your legalist and tell
him that the Lord Jesus said when they asked him who could
be saved, go to the legalist and tell him Christ said with
men it's impossible. Go to the baptizers for salvation
and tell them what he said, with men it's impossible. Go to the
ritualist and tell him he said, with men it's impossible. Go
to the moralist and tell him he said, with men it's impossible. You're wasting your time. You're
pursuing an object you'll never attain. You're seeking a goal
you'll never reach. You're trying for a pot of gold
at the end of a rainbow that doesn't exist. With men, it's
impossible! Watch it now, but not with God. Salvation's not impossible with
God, for with God all things are possible. He's able. He's
able to make the lame to walk and the blind to see. He's able
to make the dead to live. He's able to make the fallen
to rise. He's able to make the guilty
an object of His grace. Salvation's of the Lord. So that's
the second thing I had to find out. I had to find out, first
of all, I'm a sinner. I'm going to face that and admit
it. You can call it what you want to. You can call it antinomianism. You can call it liberalism. You
can call it any ism you want to. That's your business. But
I just know what I am. I know what God says I am. I
know what my heart tells me I am. I know what the Holy Spirit shows
me I am. I know what the law of God, the
mirror of repentance, tells me what I am. And I'm going to be
honest with God. You can lie to God if you want
to, but he looks not on the outward countenance, God looks on the
heart. God looks on the heart. And I'm a sinner, and I know
that I cannot justify myself. Now, the third thing I've got
to learn is this, that God Almighty will be reconciled in the person
of his Son. I want you to turn with me to
Romans chapter 5. Now, this thing of salvation,
this thing of salvation begins not with a sinner, This thing
of salvation begins with God. It begins with God. Salvation,
eternal life, forgiveness begins with God. Christ is the gift
of God's grace. Salvation is a gift of God's
grace. It says in Romans 5, verse 6,
When we were without strength, without strength in due time,
Christ died. For whom? For the ungodly. You know my name's in the Bible?
Yes, it is. It's in the Bible. My name's
right in the Bible, and my name is written in the Bible in a
sentence which tells me Christ died for me. You say, really? Yes, sir, it is right here. Christ
died for the ungodly. I'm all ungodly and Christ died
for me. It's right there. Read on. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet for adventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commended his love toward
us in that while we were what? Sinners. Christ died for sinners. He didn't die for preachers.
He didn't die for religious people. He didn't die for moral people.
He didn't die for legalists. He died for sinners. He died
for sinners. Verse 10 says, When we were enemies,
we were reconciled at God. How? Here it is, by the death
of His Son. Turn to Romans 8, verse 3. Listen
to this. Romans 8, verse 3. What the law
could not do. Now, the law can show you the
character of God, and the law can show you your sins, and the
law can show you your guilt, but the law cannot save you. What the law couldn't do, this
is what the law can't do, and nobody can preach a law that
can save you. The law couldn't do it. Why?
Because it was weak through the flesh. The law wasn't weak, the
law is as strong as God, but the flesh was weak, and what
the law couldn't do, it was impossible for the law to save because of
the weakness of the flesh, God did. Sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh. Christ came down here in the
fullness of time made of a woman born under the law to redeem
them that were born under the law. He honored the law. He satisfied
the law. He glorified the law. He kept
the law. He said, I didn't come to destroy
the law. I didn't come to take the edge off the law. I didn't
come to fix it so that you could be saved without keeping the
law. I came to fulfill it! To fulfill it. And then he went
to the cross, and he died on that cross. And God says in 1
Corinthians 1, verse 30, listen to it. 1 Corinthians 1, verse
30, But of him are you in Christ Jesus. Of God are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us. Wisdom? Oh, how ignorant
we are. But Christ is our wisdom. I'm
ignorant. Oh, so ignorant. I mourn over
it, grieve over it, cry over it, but Christ is my wisdom.
And he's my righteousness. I'm a sinner. I'm a guilty sinner. But Christ is my righteousness
and my sanctification. I'm not holy. You're not holy. Sometimes catch yourself in the
time when you're having one of your temper tantrums or one of
your times of finding fault with somebody else and times when
you're not loving others and not loving God and then tell
me how sanctified you are. But Christ is my sanctification. And Christ is my redemption.
He's my redemption. But according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. That's all I know
about it. You ask me what is the way of
life? I've tried to show you this morning.
What must I do to be saved? Take my place before God. Not
before people. I'm talking about before God
as a sinner. I have nothing, I am nothing, I know nothing,
I need all things. I'm a guilty sinner without strength,
without hope, without help, without God. And secondly, I can't do
a thing in this world about it. I may change for a day, but the
day after that is another time. I may, like these angels, live
for a time in God's holy presence, but then I'd fall. I may, like
Noah, float on an ark rejoicing that I'm saved, and another time
fall. I may, like Solomon and David
and the Apostle Peter and all the rest of them, experience
that time when I fall. I cannot justify myself. If I
justify myself, my own mouth would damn me. If I say I'm perfect,
and I have to be perfect to be saved. My own mouth had proved
me perverse, but God hath in Christ reconciled the world to
himself." In Christ. Christ came down here and did
for me what I couldn't do for myself. He came down here as
my representative, as my redeemer. He came down here as my kinsman
to justify me. And by his perfect obedience
and by his death on the cross, turn to Isaiah 53. And I'll let
you go, but I want to read this right here. This is what I'm
going to preach on tonight. Isaiah 53. Verse 5, here it is. But he was wounded for my transgressions,
and he was bruised for my iniquities. And the chastisement of my peace,
Isaiah 53, verse 5, the chastisement of my peace was upon him, and
with his stripes I am healed. That's the way of salvation.
With his stripes I am healed. Our Father, break down the rebellion
in these old natural hearts. How hard it is to say, I am the
sinner. How hard it is for the flesh
to admit the guilt and filth and corruption and lack of holiness
that live within us. How difficult, and yet how essential. I have not come to call the righteous
but sinners, our Master said. And O Lord, show us our inability
our complete inability, and then show us our Redeemer, the Lord
Jesus, who died on the cross to save us from our sins, and
bring us to rejoice in Him. O Lord, lead us in paths of holiness
and paths of righteousness. Let others see Christ in us.
Give us love for Thee and love for one another. By this shall
all men know You are my disciples, if You love one another. Help
us to walk in honesty and integrity before men, that they may see
our good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven. But
we know that Christ is our works, and Christ is our righteousness,
and Christ is our whole. In his name we pray, amen.