I invite your attention back
to Job chapter 9 and verse 2. The question found in verse 2,
how should a man be just with God, has been called the question
of questions, the question of all questions. Taken by itself,
it addresses the most profound of truths. I know men believe
that they have the answer But Job was a man after God's own
heart, a man whom God said was a righteous and good man who
hated that which was evil and loved that which was good. And
he asked this question, How can a man be just with God? How should a man be just with
God? The very words have a kind of
an ominous ring to them because they suggest that the
answer does not exist in the realm of human ability to grasp. How shall a man be just with
God? Now, these words are not spoken
as a general question. They do not pop up in a vacuum. They are not found in a frequently
asked questions chapter of theology for dummies. This question is
not asked for the purpose of acquiring information. This question
is an answer to some statements made by a man named Bildad the
Shuhite who had come to speak to Job in his time of trouble. Now this Bildad the Shuhite was
one of the forgers of lies and the physicians of no value who
came to Job in the days of his great suffering to explain to
Job why he was in such a terrible fix. He and the others that came with
him were very religious men who had more than a passing knowledge
of Scripture. They had some Bible. They knew
some of the Bible. If you take all that they said
and all that Bildad the Shuhite said and sum it up into a synopsis
of their thinking, they told Job basically two things. to give an explanation of why
Job was suffering so. They had an answer, you see.
They told him that he was suffering because he had done some specific
wrong thing or some specific sin because God would not allow
such suffering to come upon a righteous man. That's what they told him. You know, there must be something
wrong in your life for God to treat you this way, because God
wouldn't treat a good man, a righteous man, this way at all. Secondly,
they told him that if he would straighten up and fly right,
God would turn his suffering into joy. If you just straighten
up, Joe, get this thing right, God will bring you back to joy.
Let me show you that. Look at verses 3 through 6 of
chapter 8. Doth God pervert judgment, says Bildad the Shuhite? Or doth
the Almighty pervert justice? He's looking at this man laying
there, scraping the balls that he's been given, having lost
his family, his children, all his possessions, and all alone
except for an odious wife who tells him he ought to curse God
and die. And he says, You know, this is going on here. You reckon
God's wrong about this? You reckon God's perverted justice
that this has happened to you for no reason at all? He said,
If your children have sinned against Him, and He hath cast
them away from their transgression, if thou wouldst seek unto God
betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty, if thou wert
pure and upright, surely now He would awake for thee, and
make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. If you just pray,
pray through, seek righteousness, seek God, you know, all this
stuff would end today. All this stuff would end today.
Look at verses 20 through 22. Behold, God will not cast away
a perfect man, neither will he help evildoers. Till he hath
filled thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing.
They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame, and the dwelling
place of the wicked shall come to naught. He said, You know, if this is happening to you,
you are not perfect. This kind of stuff happens to
evil doers. Evil doers. Now these things
form a kind of mantra of the self-righteous and reveal that
natural men know nothing about God or the righteousness that
he accepts because there is only one that he accepts. Now the disciples stepped into
this quicksand and there was a And there is a part of every
man that looks at suffering and somewhere inside, though we don't
like to admit it and it embarrasses us when it pops up, sometimes
somewhere inside we wonder if the sufferer has done some horrible
thing to deserve such treatment. Yeah, you do. You think it. So
do I. I'm ashamed of it. I'm embarrassed
by the fact. But that just shows you the old
self-righteous human nature that still resides in me, sad as it is. But everybody thinks
that way. Look at the disciples in John
chapter 9, just for a moment, holding your place there at Job.
In John chapter 9, it says, And Jesus passed by and saw a man
which was blind from his birth. This man was born blind and he's
still blind. And listen to what the disciples
say. And his disciples asked him, Master, who did sin? This man or his parents that
he was born blind? Somebody sinned and got this
fellow in this awful trouble. Did he sin? Or did his parents
sin? They were saying, you know, if
they hadn't and he hadn't, he wouldn't have been born blind.
That's what people say. Why did I do to deserve this?
That's what people say. Or I must have done something
good because nothing's happening to me. Jesus answers, neither
this man sinned nor his parents. And he's not talking about they
weren't sinners. He's saying no thing they did
or him caused his condition. but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. God's going to make him see,
and the reason he's blind is so God can make him see. It didn't
have anything to do with that, but the first response to someone
who's suffering is often this. Back in our minds, sad to say,
there must be something wrong there. There must be something
wrong for God to do that. It happens. This week, I wasn't
feeling that good and I was kind of mulling over some things,
you know, and this thought came to my mind, I wonder what I did. I'm a believer in God's grace,
but I said, I wonder what I did. And immediately after that, I
started thinking, I wonder what I could do to undo it. God help me. I'm
still a self-righteous idiot. And as angry as we get at Job's
false friends, we ought also to seek angry vengeance against
our own self-righteousness. We are not personally righteous. And we should not be in the business
of using the Scripture as the proverbial blunt instrument to
bludgeon those who we have decided by warped perception have done
some horrible thing. That's what Job's friends did. They're going to tell him why
he was in such a fix. The fact is, he was in such a
fix because God was blessing him. He said, Pity me, the hand
of the Lord hath touched me, but I'm going to see my Redeemer.
I'm going to see my Redeemer. Now in our text, Job answers
his accuser's religious formula for self-salvation, and that's
what that is. You read it. It's a religious formula for
self-salvation and deliverance from horrible things that come
your way. He answers him with a rhetorical
question or a question that requires no answer because the answer
is the question itself. He does not deny what Bildad
the Shuhayt has said in this sense that God will not punish
the righteous and God will not forgive or overlook the evildoers. He said, that's right, you're
right. That's the clear declaration of Scripture. God will not. But what he's saying, that's
the truth. He said, but let me ask you this, let me ask you
this, or let me say this. He says, how should a man be just with God?
You say, that's what I have to be. If I did that, I would undo
all this problem. How should a man be just with
God? He is saying, what you say I
must do, no man can do. What you say I must do, no man
can do. The emphasis is on the word how,
not the word man, which simply means man cannot undo his estate
in any fashion. Man cannot become what he is
not. In Job 14, verse 4, it says, Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Not one. In Jeremiah, it speaks
of an Ethiopian's inability to change his skin, and a leopard's
inability to change his spot, and the sinner's inability to
change his estate before God, to put forth some kind of argument
concerning our merit, which is basically what we're saying is,
What did I do to deserve this? Or, I must have done something
good. because everything is going well,
something nice has happened to me. To put forth some kind of
argument of your merit before God is a waste of time. It is utterly and completely
futile. Look back at our text at verse 3. If a man will contend
with God, the man cannot answer God one for a thousand. So Job
says, How should a man be just with God? If I do bring forth
some kind of argument that I've been a good man, he's got a thousand
things to tell me that's wrong with me. He's got a thousand
things. If man could come up with one
good thing about himself, God could answer with a thousand
vile things about him. And all you've got to do is the
math there. No contest. No one has ever contended with
God and had a favorable result. Look at verse 4. God is wise
in heart and mighty in strength. Who hath hardened himself against
God and hath prospered? Nobody, nobody. In the matter of acceptable righteousness,
man simply has nothing to offer, nothing to offer, no ground upon
which to stand, no foundation upon which to build, no checking
account from which he can draw. It is far better for man just
to admit and confess the truth Man cannot be just with God. Man cannot be just with God.
Left to himself with the equipment that he is born with into this
world, and even with the ersatz experience and expertise he thinks
he has experimentally acquired in his life, Man cannot in any
way, shape or form move one iota closer to acceptance before God
as He is born in this world. And you can let the practitioners
of religion bring forth their valueless argument for personal
merit, earning the recognition and blessing of God, Let them
lurch like buzzards at bedsides of the suffering, accusing the
afflicted of some heinous crime, being the source of their malady.
They are purveyors of poison, who reek with the putrescence
of presumed and presumptuous piety. They are forgers of lies. They don't just lie. They work
on it. They put it in the forge. They
smelt it, and they form it. They are forgers of lies. And they are physicians who can't help you. They are
physicians of no value. And the only answer to their
malignant musings is this. How should a man be just with
God? How should a man be just with
God? Our conclusion will always be the same if we would pause
for a moment and consider ourselves And I say for a moment because
don't consider yourself any longer than that. It's a dark place
to be. But we'll come to this conclusion. I cannot be just with God. I
can't. Nothing in me. I of all men am
most miserable, for I am nothing, and I have nothing, and I can
produce nothing, that will alter my helpless estate whatsoever. Not even in the least. Look over
at Job 25. Job 25. Look at verse 4. How then can
man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon it hides
its face, it shineth not. Yea, the stars are not pure in
God's sight. How much less man that is a maggot,
a worm, the son of man which is a worm. The stars and the
moon aren't pure in his sight. How much less pure is man who
is a worm and a maggot on a dunghill. Isaiah the prophet, the one called
of God to preach and teach and prophesy to the Israelites, said,
Our righteousnesses are as filthy, minstreless rags. And we do all fade as a leaf,
and our iniquities drive us away like the wind. Job is saying here, not asking,
he's saying, you tell me what I've got to do to straighten
out my existence. And I'm telling you, what you
say I've got to do, I cannot do. I cannot do. But what if this weren't a statement
of declaration? What if this weren't a rhetorical
question? I don't think we do harm necessarily
to the context to just look at it by itself without its surrounding
words and say, ìHow can a man be just with God?î Thatís a good
question and itís a question you better know the answer to
or youíll perish in your sin. What if we could approach it
as a question? Is there an answer then? Iíll tell you who wants
to know. I do. I want to know if there
is some way in this world that a man born a woman who cannot
of himself and in himself and from himself and by himself be
just with God. I want to know if there is a
way that that can take place. Because if I can't do it myself, then I have no hope. in me at
all. I'd like to know. I'd like to
know. How should man be just with God? If this question can be answered
in the affirmative, that a man somehow can be just with God, it would truly be good news, wouldn't it? Glad tidings of good things. That would be good news. How should a man be just with
God? The question suggests, first
off, that there is a problem between men and God. How can a man be just with God? Things are not as rosy as religion
would paint them. The question suggests that God
is not for man at all. He is not, after all, waiting
with bated breath to do something nice for somebody. He is not,
after all, waiting to show you how to live in a manner that
will result in you having a good standing with Him. Scripture
declares that He's angry with the wicked every day. That's
what Scripture says. Scripture says, Jacob have I
loved, and Esau have I hated. Scripture says, His soul hateth
the workers of violence and iniquity. Knowing what I am, there is no reason naturally
to presume that he's not angry with me. Not naturally. I am, according to Scripture,
Ephesians chapter 2, by nature a child of wrath, even as others. in time, by His grace, find that
I am an object of His grace and mercy. But if that's the case, I know
this, it will have nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me. I know
that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. as I am born into
this world. I do nothing, I think nothing,
and am nothing that is not worthy of a just eternal damnation. That's what all I am is worthy
of. How can I be justified with God? The question also suggests that
if such a miraculous wonder might be possible, God could only do
it. If I can't do it, then God would have to do it
if it gets done. He would have to do it Himself
and do it for Himself. God, if He does it, can't change
because God doesn't change. He must remain perfectly just,
and being perfectly just, God must punish my sin. My sin has
to be punished. It would not be just for me to
escape punishment, because I'm a sinner and a transgressor. And the law says to the sinner,
you must die. Justice says to the sinner, you
must be punished. And that doesn't change. God
would be unjust if He let the guilty go free. Do you realize
that? If He let the guilty go free,
perhaps you as a believer say, well, I am guilty. No, you're
not. You can't be. You can't be guilty. Because
if you're guilty, God won't let you go free. That's an edict. That's a principle. Look over
at Proverbs chapter 17. Look at verse 15. He that justifieth
the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are
an abomination to the Lord. To justify the wicked is an abomination
to the Lord. To condemn the just, is an abomination to the Lord.
You say, well, what about Calvary? Wasn't Christ innocent? In His person, yes. But before
God, absolutely not. He was made to be sin. So when
God punished His Son, He was punishing Him as a guilty one.
Well, what about us? Oh, our sins have been put away
if we're the children of God. And when we're accepted before
God, we're not accepted as sinners, we're accepted as not guilty,
righteous folk. That's how we're accepted. We're
accepted because we're righteous. So He, on the cross, did not
punish the innocent. And when He saved us, He did
not let the wicked go free. He punished Christ as the guilty
one and lets us go free as the righteous one. So He kept His
Word. That's the principle. God must
be just. Sin must be punished. The law
has its satisfaction of death. The only way for God to remain
just and punish my sin at the same time, justify me, He must
do it Himself. He must do it. I can't figure
out how to do that, can you? It is clear that I cannot cut
him up with a plan so God Himself must satisfy His own law or be
punished for my sin and die the death that is due me. If I thought
in those kind of things, well, somebody ought to shoot me in
the head for a sinner to come up with something like that.
Well, you know, I'm a sinner. I know I've rebelled against
God, but I think God ought to die for me. Well, that's blasphemy,
isn't it? We couldn't come up with that.
For me to even suggest such a thing of my own accord that it is a
reasonable plan conceived in a reasonable and logical mind
is nothing short of blasphemy. No rebel born in sin conceived
in iniquity who drinks iniquity like water can even vaguely presume
to think that such a thing as God dying for me is reasonable. Gordon Bayless, an English preacher,
used to say, this is a very logical book, but not to us. But not to us. If the judge of
all the earth, the one God who always does what is right, conceived such a thing, he'd
have to do it in the secret chambers of his own will and purpose.
according to the good pleasure of His will. Nothing in me could
cause it. What in me could make God want
to save me? Well, you know, you've got talents.
You can use them for Jesus. Forget it. Why would God save me? Because that's what He conceived, intended, and did. You want to give me another explanation?
He loved me. Why? Because he did. There is no explanation to that.
None whatsoever. What grace is this? We have but
to return to the Garden of Eden. When our Daddy sinned against
the Creator, His Creator, when He transgressed the law concerning
the eating of the fruit, and that's the law under which we
all are condemned, not the Mosaic law. It came 400 and some years
later, well, probably seven or eight centuries later. We are guilty of Adam's transgression. Guilty. God had said to Adam,
you must die. And my friend, Adam's got to
die. God don't lie, God don't change,
God don't say something just to be said something. When God
says something, it's sealed in eternity and time and it goes
on forever. God has said he must die, so
Adam's got to die. Adam's got to die. So how will
his death ensue? How will that take place? He's
got to die. He sinned against God. God said,
ìIn the day you eat of that fruit, you shall surely die. Dying you
shall die. Youíre going to die if you eat
of that fruit.î And he willfully did eat of that fruit, Scripture
says. Now he got to die. He has got to die. How will he
die? Will fire descend from heaven
and consume that vile duo? Our God is a consuming fire,
Scripture says that. Will he thrust them through with
a dart? Will he open up the earth and swallow them into the very
bowels of hell? Justice demands vengeance here.
This creature has openly rebelled against God. This creature has
stuck his finger in the eye of God. This creature has tried
to jerk God off his throne and set himself in his place. Vengeance
cries, kill him! Justice Christ! He must be punished! The law said he must die! How will God execute the judgment
of this vile rebel? Wonder of wonders, he kills a
beast. He kills a beast, and with its skin covers his sinful
pair. He spares their life by substitution. And that's the heart of the Gospel.
How can a man be just with God? Substitution. Another dies in
the room instead. Blood is shed. Death satisfies
the law. Blood satisfies justice. Spares their life. Another dies. God got justice that day. God's law was honored that day. The law got death and Adam and
Eve lived. And this divine action was just
a picture, a story, true, but still a story to tell another
story, an allegorical happening that really happened but meant
something else. You see, the blood of bulls and
goats cannot take away sin. Those slain beasts did not remove
their sin. It atoned for them under the
old covenant. It got a covering for them. The blood of bulls and goats
cannot satisfy justice or honor God's law. Beginning with that sacrifice
there in the garden and progressing through the Old Testament history,
tens of thousands of lambs and bullocks and goats will be slain. And together they will point
a crimson coagulate finger to the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, He is
God incarnate. And He voluntarily came down
here and took upon Himself the seat of Abraham, the seat of
those chosen by God from all eternity. And He executed this
wondrous plan of substitution that He and His Father and the
Spirit came up with before the world was. He and his Father
purposed from eternity, and he as God-man died in the room instead
of all whom he chose from eternity. And every one of them were sinners
and transgressors. And who they were made death
their only possible end. God said to you, Lamar, you owe me a death, bud. You
got to die. You got to. You deserve it. You
deserve 10,000 hells. How did He kill you? He slew
His Son. That's amazing, isn't it? Utterly amazing. How did we die? Christ died. That's how we died. He died voluntarily. He was made
to be sin for them that they were made the righteousness of
God in Him. By His death, by His blood, He satisfied justice.
He honored the Lord. He put away the sins of His people.
And they are righteous before God, and God has remained just.
He has not changed one iota. He has not let your sins slip
by. He has not covered them, folks.
He has put them away. We're not talking about atonement,
we're talking about propitiation and expiation and putting away
the sin of God's people. And when he looks at Lamar, he
said he's dead and his life is hid with Christ in God. How about that? How can a man
be just with God? if God is the justifier and remains
just in doing so. You see, we know that Jesus Christ
was God and man. We know that He was the God-man.
Don't try to figure that out. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God manifests in the flesh. Paul said it was without controversy
a great mystery, so don't try to explain that. He just is what
He is. fully man and fully God. He didn't
have a man side and a God side. He was both in one side. I don't know how that is. But
I don't think I need to know how it is. I just need to believe
it, and I do. But did you know that the death
of Jesus Christ, when He shed His blood on Calvary Street,
the Scripture says it was actually the blood of God The blood of God. In Acts chapter
20 and verse 28 it says, Take heed, Paul is talking to the
elders at Ephesus because he's going to Jerusalem to be bound.
He's already declared, I'm free from your blood because I'm not
shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. And he says,
ìTake ye therefore yourselves, and all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church
of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.î You say,
ìWell, that blood was the manís side.î Go ahead and makeÖ Itís
like us, you know, we have this principle of flesh in us, this
principle of spirit in us. Where is it at? Show me which
one is which. We have Christ living in us,
and we have the old man living in us. Which one is which? Would
you like to show me the Christ side and the old man side? You can't do it. You can't show
me, when you look at Jesus Christ, what part of Him is God and what
part of Him is man, because He's all God and all man. That's impossible. Absolutely. Unless you're God. And with God, nothing is impossible. God's people are righteous before
God because God's blood has purchased them. And He declares that He's
righteous to save them and just to justify them. Look over at
Romans chapter 3. All these are from me. We looked
at this a couple of weeks ago in our studies in Romans. Verse
24, being justified freely. That freely means without a cause.
And our Lord said, They hated me without a cause. The same
word is used here. Justified without a cause. What does that
mean? Nothing in you made God justify you. Nothing about you
could make God justify you. Yet you are freely, without any
cause, God declared you to be one who had never sinned. Well,
how in the world could He do that? How can a man be justified?
How can God do that? By His grace, through the redemption
that is in Jesus Christ, who God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the barbarics
of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness." God was just when he forgave
your sins by Jesus Christ because he got payment for those sins
by Jesus Christ. And He was right to do that.
I know we think, well, oh my soul, look at me. Don't look
at you, look at God. When God saved you, He declared.
And that was the right thing to do. I love that. You know, if it weren't true,
it would be blasphemy. To declare, I say, at this time
is righteousness, that He might be what? Just. and the justifier of him that
believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ. He did for us what we could not
do, what we would not do, what we had no idea how to do, what
could not be done by us, what we could not even possibly conceive. How should a man be just with
God? 2 Samuel 14, 14 says, For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the
ground, which cannot be gathered up again, neither does God respect any
person, yet doth He devise means that his banished be not expelled
from him. To God be the glory. I do stand
amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene. He took my sins
and my sorrows. He made them His very own. He
bore them away to Calvary, suffered and died alone. How marvelous,
how wonderful that He could love me so. How
can a man be just with God? It's God's business. God's doing,
God's honor, God's glory, God's person, God's work, and none
of ours. None of ours. Father, bless us
through our understanding, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.