Let's open up our Bibles to the Book
of Romans, Book of Romans, Chapter 3.
Whenever I speak at a place, the first
time I try never to miss speaking on
this topic that Martin Lloyd-Jones called the
Acropolis of the Christian Faith.
Acropolis is a strong, major, main city of
any civilization.
It's the strong tower, the high hill.
The passage we're going to study is possibly
the greatest passage in the entire Bible.
It's found in Romans, Chapter 3, Verse 23.
For all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God, being justified as a
gift by His grace through the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly
as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in
the forbearance of God He passed over the
sins previously committed.
For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness
at the present time, so that He would
be just and the justifier of the one
who has faith in Jesus.
Where then is boasting?
It is excluded.
By what kind of law?
Of works?
No.
But by a law of faith.
Possibly if I had to lose every portion
of Scripture and keep just one, this would
be the one that I kept.
It is the very heart of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.
To understand this passage is to understand something
of the Gospel.
To not understand this passage is for the
cross to have very little meaning for you.
So we'll take a look at this.
For all have sinned.
There is no fear of sin among men
today because we do not realize that sin
in itself is not the horrid thing, but
the one against whom we sin.
As the Puritans would always say, He is
not an inferior prince of a small village,
but He is the Lord of glory against
whom you have sinned.
You see, we must know the attributes of
God.
We must know who He is and we
must clearly communicate that to the world or
they'll never understand how sinful sin truly is.
For all have sinned.
What does it mean to sin according to
the Westminster Confession?
It is, of course, to not be conformed
to the holy character and will of God,
to violate His law, to deviate from it.
You see, prior to becoming a Christian, it
is not that you are pretty much a
kind of a good person who every once
in a while deviates from God's law.
Prior to becoming a Christian, the only thing
you have ever done is sinned.
Every act, every thought, every deed prior to
your Christianity is sin.
Now, even some Christians would take me to
task on that, saying that's not really true,
when in fact it is, and I'll show
you how.
Even if an atheist were to sell everything
that he had, to buy a special potion
to save an enemy of his, and then
buying that potion, walked 600 miles on broken
glass through a snowstorm, and took that potion
to his enemy to save his life, even
if an atheist did that, it would still
be sin.
Why?
Because the atheist has not done it unto
the glory of God.
Whether you eat or drink or anything you
do, you do it unto the glory of
God.
You see, sin is not sin simply because
we do it against men and it hurts
men.
Sin is sin because of its relationship to
God.
Now, having no concern for God or to
bring honor to God, you have sinned even
if you have done a good deed to
men.
All have sinned.
All.
And fallen short of the glory of God.
To fall short of the glory of God
does not mean what contemporary Christianity would have
you believe.
Some say it means that, well, God had
this tremendous glorious purpose for man, and we
have fallen short of that.
Well, that is true in some degree, but
the emphasis here is not that.
To fall short of the glory of God
means that we were made to glorify God
and we have not done that.
It says, although they knew God, they did
not honor Him as God or give thanks.
You were made to honor and to worship
and to please and to bring joy, good
pleasure to God.
And that is the reason why men are
miserable.
I make wooden bows and arrows, and you
can shoot an arrow very fast out of
one of my bows, but you cannot play
a hymn with one of my bows in
the same way you cannot shoot an arrow
with a guitar string.
Things are made to have a certain purpose,
and if they do not perform according to
that purpose, they are miserable and wretched.
Men were made for the glory of God,
to glorify Him, to worship Him.
We find our meaning in giving ourselves totally
to Him.
Not only does that have something to do
with the sinner without Christ, but it has
something to do with the people of God.
If you were to go into a Christian
bookstore today, you would find that over half
the bookstore is filled with books written about
how empty we are.
We are the most wealthy, most prosperous, most
protected Christians in the history of Christianity, and
yet we are the most empty.
And why is that?
For the same reason Jesus Christ was not
empty.
He said, I have food to eat that
you know not of.
My food is to do the will of
my Father who sent me.
The reason why Christians are so empty today
is because not only are they convinced, but
they are being preached to with words that
tell them that they are to get their
best life now, that they are to live
their lives for themselves, that Jesus is all
about us and doing things for us.
It is almost as though God has been
made into not only a Santa Claus, but
the cosmic servant of man.
He exists for us.
And that is not true.
We exist for Him.
And until we give our lives for Him
and live for Him, we are miserable.
There was an old Christian mystic who used
to say, every conversation where Jesus Christ is
not the principal theme is an absurdity.
We were made for Him, for Christ.
But all of us have sinned.
We have violated every law God has ever
given.
And none of us have lived for His
glory, but for our own.
It is an amazing thing.
You think about that.
You know, there is a lot of people
today, I have heard evangelists say, begin their
preaching by saying, you know, most of you
think that God is an angry God, but
God is not an angry God.
That is a lie.
It is a lie.
The Bible says God is angry every day.
You see how in an attempt to bring
carnal men to God, we teach them about
a God that is not even the God
of the Bible?
How many times have I heard evangelists and
preachers on television say, now the first thing
you need to know is God is not
an angry God.
And yet the Bible says He is angry
with the wicked every day.
And He has right to be.
We have violated His law.
We have shunned His glory.
We have turned the punies of things into
idols.
The illustration I often use is, imagine the
glory of God standing there in the days
of creation, and God commands the stars to
take orbit and move in the place that
He has set for them.
And they all bow down and say, Yes,
Lord.
God commanded the planets to move in certain
directions, and they all bowed down and said,
Yes, Lord.
God commanded the seas to stay put.
They said, Yes, Lord.
He told mountains to be lifted up and
valleys to be cast down, and they all
obeyed Him.
And then God looks at you and says,
Come, and you say, No.
You deserve hell.
That is what the Bible teaches.
You deserve hell.
You deserve condemnation.
As a matter of fact, let me put
it this way.
In sin, men are so vile and so
wretched, their crimes so heinous, before not only
a holy God, but a holy heaven.
Let me share with you something.
The last thing you will hear when you
take your first step into hell is all
of creation standing to its feet and applauding
God because He has rid the earth of
you.
That is how wicked, holy creatures see you.
I never heard of such a thing.
Of course you have not.
But it is what the Bible teaches.
We are really not convinced that men are
evil.
Let me ask you a question.
How did Hitler become Hitler?
Have you ever thought about that?
Here is a better question.
Why wasn't Hitler worse than he was?
Here is an even better question.
Why are you not as wicked as Hitler?
Were you born with some moral spark?
Were you better than him?
The only reason you do not make Hitler
look like a choir boy is because the
common grace of God restrains you in your
sin.
And if he were to pull back from
you, you would make Hitler ashamed.
See, we really don't believe men are evil.
You see atrocities in the newspaper and you
say, well, I just can't imagine.
You can't imagine?
You could do worse.
But were it not for the grace of
God.
That is why this gospel is offensive.
And that is why you don't see much
power of the gospel revealed today.
That is why churches use church growth methods
and manipulation to make their churches grow.
Because there is no power in their gospel,
and there is no power in the gospel
because they are not preaching it.
Because you can't preach the gospel if you
are worried about offending carnal men.
Because the gospel is offensive.
It was offensive to me, and that offense
is the very thing that cut my heart
and saved me.
Now, let me share with you something before
we go on.
It is very, very important.
You need to understand.
It is the hatred of God.
We always hear about the love of God,
but when was the last time you heard
about the hatred of God?
Have you ever heard someone say, God loves
the sinner and hates the sin?
Have you ever heard that?
It is an absolutely beautiful statement.
The problem is it is wrong.
It is heresy.
The book of Psalms chapter 5 says that
God hates all those who do wrong.
It says in Malachi that Esau hated.
It says that.
And hate is a synonym really for wrath.
It says God hates people.
It says it all over the Bible.
Now, if you want to preach something else,
go ahead and preach something else, but don't
call it biblical.
I had a lady one time say, I
don't believe that.
God is love.
He can't hate.
And I said, Madam, God is love, therefore
He must hate.
She says, I don't understand.
I said, Listen.
Well, I'll ask you the question.
Do you love children?
Do you love babies?
I love babies.
I wish I had a whole bunch more
babies.
Do you love babies?
Then you must hate abortion.
Do you love Jews?
Do you love Israel?
Well, if you tell me that you love
Israel, then you tell me at the same
time that you're apathetic with regard to the
Holocaust and don't think it's really that big
a deal, you've got a serious problem.
See, if you love Jews, you're going to
hate the Holocaust.
So see, if you love, you've got to
hate.
Not in this neutral, pseudo-tolerant culture of
ours.
If you actually love something, you must hate
something.
If God loves with a passion that is
beyond description all that is holy, all that
is righteous, all that is beautiful, all that
is true, all that is good, He hates
the opposite of that.
And that holy hatred is manifested against men
by means of His wrath.
You walk up to a sinner and you
just tell him, God loves you so much.
Well, there is a real sense in which
God loves His creature, but you also maybe
ought to tell him, did you know that
the wrath of God abides on you?
Because that's what Jesus said, that everyone who
did not believe in Him, the wrath of
God abides upon them.
The pastor read that this morning.
Now, knowing that, let's go for a minute,
let's keep going.
Now, having sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God, verse 24, speaking of Christians,
true believers in Jesus Christ, people who have
truly been regenerated, truly converted, it says being
justified.
Now, what does it mean to be justified?
I was sharing this with a lady this
morning who was struggling with victory over guilt
and things, and what does it mean to
be justified?
Some people say, well, it's just as if
I'd never sinned.
No, that's not what it means.
Well, it means forgiven.
No, it means more than that.
What does it mean?
It means it is a forensic or a
legal term.
It is a forensic or legal term.
It means the moment that a person believes
in Jesus Christ, the moment they believe, God
Almighty legally declares them to be right with
Him.
Okay?
Legally declares that person to be right with
Him.
And who is that person?
The person who has broken His law, the
person who has not glorified Him, the person
who is atrocity, the person who deserves judgment,
the person who deserves wrath.
The moment that person believes in Jesus Christ,
God legally declares that person right with Him.
Now, the word legal is extremely important.
Why?
Some people believe that the moment that a
person believes in Jesus, God makes them righteous.
Okay?
Makes them righteous.
He does not make them righteous.
He declares them righteous.
And there is an important difference.
If the moment you believed in Jesus, He
made you righteous, that means you would never
sin again.
Do you see that?
I am not righteous in that sense.
God, when He saved me, although He is
changing me, He did not make me righteous
the moment He saved me because I still
sin.
I am still susceptible to sin.
I still commit error, moral failure, on and
on.
So the moment a believer believes in Christ
and is saved, God does not make them
righteous so as that they never sin again.
He declares them legally before His throne to
be righteous.
It is a legal standing before God.
The moment a person believes in Jesus Christ,
even though they have sinned, even though they
have broken God's law, God declares them to
be legally right forever with Him.
Do you understand that?
Okay.
It is a legal term.
It is very, very important.
Now, let's go on.
Being justified as a gift by His grace.
Now here is something that I want you
to understand.
Take all religions, except for a few eastern
religions that do not even consider themselves religions.
You take the major religions, what are they
all dealing with?
How can a man be right with God?
Do you realize that?
It doesn't matter.
Judaism, Muslim faith.
It doesn't matter what you got out there.
They all have one thing in common.
And what is that?
How can a man be right with God?
Now that is proof right there that the
Bible is true.
Isn't it amazing that even people who never
heard anything about the Bible or Christianity still
have this sense that they are not right
with God?
Isn't that amazing?
All the religions that have ever been invented
outside of Christianity deal with the fact that
man is not right with God.
How can he be right with God?
That proves the Bible to be true.
That God has written His law in the
hearts of all men and all men have
a conscience and all men know their guilt.
Because all religions are designed to remove that
guilt and make someone right with God.
Now, I've said that's what all religions have
in common.
But now we're going to divide all religions
into two groups.
All religions and Christianity.
Because all religions outside of Christianity say that
a man can be made right with God
by what he does.
By his works.
But see, their greatest problem in saying that
is they don't know God.
Because none of those religions would say that
a man could live perfectly before God.
But they all think that you can live
well enough before God so that He doesn't
condemn you.
And they don't realize that God is so
righteous that one moral infraction is enough to
disqualify you.
Just ask Adam and Eve.
Alright?
All the religions of the world have one
thing in common.
It's that they believe that a man can
be made right with God through what that
man does.
Christianity over here comes over with something completely
different.
Look what it says.
Being justified as a gift by His grace.
It is not through what is earned in
Christianity by the beneficiary.
It is not of works.
It is a gift.
It is by grace.
Now, a reporter interviews a Muslim and says,
if you died right now, where would you
go?
The Muslim says, I would go to heaven
or paradise.
The interviewer says, why do you say that?
The Muslim says, well, I am a righteous
man.
I've read the Koran.
I've made the pilgrimages.
I've done the prayers.
I've given alms to the poor.
I'm a righteous man.
Okay, I understand that.
The reporter asks the Jewish man, if you
died right now, where would you go?
I would go to heaven.
Why would you go to heaven?
I am a righteous man.
I love the law of God.
I've kept the law of God.
I've kept the traditions of the fathers.
I am a righteous man.
The reporter, being a secular, worldly man, says,
okay, I understand that.
You deserve to go, just like your Muslim
friend.
Then he comes to the Christian.
He says, if you died right now, where
would you go?
The Christian smiles and says, I would go
to heaven.
He says, well, why?
The Christian says, well, I was born in
sin.
And in sin, my mother conceived me.
I have broken every law and I have
not served the purpose for which I was
made.
And the reporter stops him and says, hold
on, buddy.
I mean, I can understand the other two.
They're going to heaven because they deserve to
go there.
You're telling me with a great confidence you're
going to heaven, but also at the same
time, you're telling me that you deserve absolute
condemnation.
How are you going to heaven?
And the Christian says, because I'm going to
heaven upon the virtue and the merit of
another, Jesus Christ my Lord.
All other religions are self-glorification and trying
to put God in debt.
I'm going to heaven, self-glorification, because I'm
a good man and because God owes me.
I've done enough.
He's got to pay me heaven.
Christianity is, I have done nothing but deserved
condemnation, but Jesus Christ my Lord has shed
His own blood for myself.
Who's glorified in that?
Jesus Christ.
And God is no man's debtor.
God has done it all.
Now, here's something that's very, very interesting.
Being justified as a gift.
The word gift here is the same word
in Greek that's used when the Scripture says
they hated Him without cause.
Speaking of the Messiah, of Jesus, they hated
Him without cause.
Did anyone ever have a cause to hate
Jesus?
Did Jesus ever sin against anyone, give them
reason for hating Him?
Of course not.
That's absolutely absurd.
They hated Him without a cause.
It's the same word here.
It says that you were justified without a
cause.
You gave God no cause to justify you.
You did not give God any cause to
declare you right.
As a matter of fact, you gave God
cause to do just the opposite, condemn you.
But He says, justified as a gift by
His grace through the redemption.
It's a marvelous word.
Frightful word.
Because of the price that was paid.
To be redeemed means to be bought with
a price from slavery.
From slavery.
To be bought with a price as a
captive.
And the Bible says that you, if you
are a Christian, you were bought with a
price.
And you were not bought with the blood
of bulls and goats.
You were not bought with coffers of gold
from heaven.
You were bought with the precious blood of
God's own Son.
Why do we live for Him?
You know, there are many self-centered reasons
to live for God.
And preachers are full of them.
The Gospel in preaching today is so humanistic.
We tell people, you need to trust in
Jesus.
You don't want to go to that nasty
old hell, do you?
So my motivation for trusting in Jesus is
to save my own skin?
You need to follow Jesus.
You don't want to get to heaven and
not have any rewards, do you?
There's no virtue in that.
It's like men sitting around a cafe talking
about how they're going to rob a bank
and get something for nothing.
You need to believe in Jesus because He's
worthy.
You need to serve Him because He's worthy.
I would submit this to you.
When I'm with a person who has very
little assurance of salvation, I've done this many,
many times.
There's a girl that was seeking assurance of
salvation.
She kept calling on the Lord.
She was not sure that she was saved,
that God had saved her.
And I shared with her this.
I said, look, you need to repent of
your sins whether He saves you or not
because He's worthy.
You need to believe in Him whether He
saves you or not because He's worthy.
And you need to serve Him all the
days of your life whether He casts you
in hell or not because He's worthy.
It wasn't a little bit after that that
she gained assurance.
Because I want to tell you something.
A person who comes to God out of
a sincere heart and says, God, I'm going
to repent of my sins whether You save
me or not because You're worthy.
And I'm going to believe in Your Son
whether You save me or not because He's
worthy.
And I'm going to serve You all the
days of my life whether You save me
or not because You're worthy.
It won't be long.
God grants that person assurance.
I'm going to do it even if I
get nothing.
How many Puritans do we hear down through
the ages and early Baptists that used to
say that type of thing would wrestle with
whether or not God had saved them and
come to the conclusion, God, You are so
worthy that I should serve You whether You
save me or not.
It's a little bit different gospel than the
one you'll hear today, isn't it?
But it's a strong one and it's mighty
to save.
He says, justified as a gift by His
grace through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus.
You know what God's doing?
He's going to spend your entire life teaching
you just this one thing in Christ Jesus.
The longest sentence in the whole Bible is
in Ephesians 1.
Paul almost goes wild.
I mean, he just can't put the period.
It was at 11 times, like 14 verses,
in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Him,
in Him, in Christ, in Him, in the
Beloved.
You see, every ounce and inkling of your
salvation is in Christ.
None of it is you.
If it was 99.99999% Christ and
0.00001% you, you'd go to hell.
It is all Christ.
A young boy said one time, he goes,
that's right, Jesus is all we need.
And I said, young man, Jesus is all
we have.
Apart from Him, you have nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
It's Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.
Now, he goes on and he says, redemption
which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed
publicly as a propitiation.
Martin Lloyd-Jones used the word placard.
God placarded Him publicly, billboarded Him.
In the crucifixion, God purposed that it be
the most public possible.
Christ could have put away sin in a
dark room somewhere, but He was hung on
a cross.
He was hung on a cross in the
most significant religious city in the history of
the world at a crossroads outside of that
city for all the world and principalities and
powers to see.
You see, the cross of Jesus Christ is
not an accident.
It's not plan B as I heard a
very popular radio preacher a few years ago
say.
He actually said this, if those Jews had
accepted Jesus and not crucified Him, the millennial
kingdom would have started and we'd all be
walking around in glory.
If Jesus Christ hadn't died on that cross,
we'd all be in hell.
The cross wasn't plan B.
It was plan A.
And it wasn't even plan B with regard
to the fall of Adam.
A lot of people say the cross was
necessary because of the fall.
No.
The fall was necessary so that there could
be a cross because it is only through
the cross of Jesus Christ that the full
revelation of God comes to men.
The cross is everything.
Absolutely everything.
And God did it.
God ordained it that His Son would die
delivered up by the hands of wicked men,
but according to the foreknowledge, the ordination, the
election of God.
God did it.
And He did it with purpose and on
purpose.
He goes on and says, whom God displayed
publicly.
Now we've got to ask ourselves, why publicly?
Because God is going to reveal something through
the cross.
It's going to be something quite different than
what you think.
I want you to hold this in your
mind.
I know that you see the cross as
the means through which God justified men.
That men were justified through the cross.
And that is true, but I'm going to
give you something bigger.
The cross is the means through which God
justified Himself.
Another word for that synonym would be vindicated
Himself, proved Himself right.
Now, let's go on.
It says, whom God displayed publicly as a
propitiation.
Now, possibly the most important word in the
entire Bible.
Propitiation.
In ancient Castellano, we use the word propitio,
which means mercy.
Propitio.
Sed propitio a me, amo.
Be merciful to me, Master.
Propitio.
So what is a propitiation?
A sacrifice that enables mercy.
A sacrifice that makes mercy possible.
Now, I want you to understand something.
And some of you have heard this sermon
probably a few times, but I do this
everywhere because so few people truly understand the
cross.
Do you want to know what the greatest
problem in the Bible is?
What the whole Bible is written about?
It's called the divine dilemma.
It's what everything is about.
It's the greatest problem in all the Bible.
This is it.
If God is just, He cannot forgive you.
And if He does, He becomes an abomination.
If God is just, He cannot forgive you.
You say, well, I don't know why not.
I know you don't know why not because
of the culture you live in where there's
no justice.
If God is just, He cannot forgive you.
It's wrong.
And let me give you a text.
Just listen to this.
It's in Proverbs 17, 15.
He who justifies the wicked and he who
condemns the righteous, both of them alike, are
an abomination to God.
What is an abomination?
The worst thing you can be to God.
Synonyms would be something putrid, horrid, disgusting, loathsome.
So what he says here, he who justifies
the wicked is an abomination to God.
Now, anyone who justifies a wicked person is
an abomination, a horrid, disgusting thing to God.
But here's the problem.
In Romans that we've been studying, what does
it say?
God justified who?
The wicked.
Romans 3 is rejoicing in the fact that
God has justified the wicked.
Proverbs 17, 15 says anyone who justifies the
wicked is an abomination to God.
Do you see the problem?
That's the greatest problem in all the Bible.
If God is just, He cannot forgive wicked
men.
There it is.
Let me give you an illustration because I
can see that some of you are going,
well, why not?
Well, don't you complain all the time about
the corruption of judges?
My, they let the criminals go.
Those judges are just as wicked as the
criminals who stand before them.
Haven't you said that before?
You have.
Someone murders your entire family, is caught by
the police, is taken before the judge.
The judge looks down on the man who's
murdered your entire family, and he says, I'm
really loving, so I'm going to let you
go.
Goodbye.
Have a good day.
I forgive you.
What are you going to do?
The first thing you're going to do is
scream out for justice.
Then you're going to write the newspapers.
You're going to call the media.
You're going to write congressmen.
You're going to say, there's a judge on
the bench that's more wicked than the many
forgives.
Because a judge does justice.
Judges don't forgive.
They do justice.
And if they forgive the wicked, all the
righteous people in the community jump up and
are angry.
Why?
Because they ought to be.
Because it's an abomination.
And that's what God says it is.
Anyone who forgives the wicked and justifies them
and declares them to be right when they're
not right is loathsome, abomination.
So the question comes back, if God is
the just God who does right in all
the earth, then how can He justify the
wicked?
There's only one way.
He must first satisfy the demands of justice
with His own life.
Justice has demands.
They must be satisfied before the unrighteous can
be declared.
Now, I've heard a lot of people say
this in such a way that's wrong.
It's almost like they say there's this rule
that's even above God.
God's got to satisfy justice before He can
forgive men.
No.
God's got to satisfy His own justice.
It's His own justice.
There's no inconsistency in God like there is
in us.
Remember?
There's no shadow.
There's no turning.
God is perfectly consistent, absolute perfection in all
His attributes.
Have you ever heard someone say, God could
have been just with you, but instead of
being just, He was loving?
You realize what they're saying?
God's love is wicked.
It's unjust.
You can't do that.
God has to be loving and just at
the same time.
So what does He do?
He satisfies His justice by paying the price
for all our crimes.
For all our crimes.
Now, how does He do that?
How does He do that?
Now, here's something that is probably of all
the things I think about, all the things
I dwell on, all the things I teach
on, this is the most important thing to
me by far.
How does a cross satisfy the justice of
God?
How does a man dying on a tree
with nails in his hands and a Roman
spear through his side and a crown of
thorns on his head, how does that in
any way pay for our sins?
Most people do not understand this.
I was in Romania several years ago and
I was kind of in a Germanic seminary,
a brethren seminary, and I was looking for
something to read during one of my free
times there.
And I found this book on the cross
of Christ.
And if you read a lot, you can
pretty much kind of thumb through a book
and kind of figure out where the author
is at.
You know where to look.
And so I started reading through this book.
I got to the important point.
And this is what he said.
God looked down from heaven and saw the
punishment and the suffering that men inflicted upon
Jesus Christ and He counted that as payment
for our sin.
That's heresy.
That's false teaching.
It's blasphemy.
Did you notice what was wrong there in
that statement?
Men afflicted Jesus and God counted that as
payment for our sin.
That's not what happened.
How was justice satisfied?
It wasn't simply because Romans whipped Jesus or
they put a crown of thorns on His
head or they nailed His hands to a
tree or they put a spear in His
side.
That in no way satisfies justice by itself.
Justice was satisfied because when Jesus hung on
that tree, He bore our sin and in
bearing our sin, He became the curse and
in bearing the curse, His Father broke fellowship
with Him, turned away from Him and then
His Father poured out all of His holy
hatred upon His own Son and crushed Him.
That's what satisfies justice.
It's not what men did to Jesus.
It's what God the Father did to His
only begotten Son.
I have heard preachers say that the Father
looked down upon His Son and saw that
He was suffering so much that He could
not bear to look at His suffering so
He turned away.
Really?
Well, Jesus had another interpretation to that.
My God, My God, why have You forsaken
Me, abandoned Me?
You see, when we say God is holy
and man is not and then in our
little tracts we got that separation or divide
between God and man, someone had to die
abandoned of God.
Someone had to die forsaken of God.
Someone had to die like that criminal.
Out of God's favor.
God turning away.
God cannot look upon any sin or any
wickedness.
His eyes are too pure and too holy
and His Son became the curse.
Cursed is every man who does not abide
by all the things written in the book
of the law so as to perform them.
And then the Bible says, and Jesus Christ,
He became a curse for us to redeem
us from the curse of the law.
All the filth of His people, all the
guilt of His people, He carried.
The Father turned away from His Son who
had become sin.
You know, the Son always dwelt in the
bosom of the Father.
Always perfect fellowship.
Always perfect communion.
And on that tree He bore our filth
and the Father turned away from Him.
And then all the holy, just hatred of
God against the filth and wickedness and criminality
of men.
Every full force of it was thrown down
upon God's only Son.
Have you never read, And it pleased the
Lord to crush Him?
God crushed His only begotten Son on that
tree.
Do you remember Abraham?
He takes Isaac up to the mount.
He takes the knife, probably puts his hand
on the head of the boy to either
thrust the knife into his heart or to
thrust it into his neck and slaughter him
like a lamb.
And as he slams the knife down on
the chest of the boy, his hand is
stayed by God.
Do you think the story ends there?
And God takes the knife out of Abraham's
hand and God lays His hand on His
only begotten Son and God slaughters Him.
Do you see why the cross that's preached
today has no power?
Because it's not being preached.
God hates sin.
Sinner, you laugh at sin.
You care not to come to Christ.
Let me share with you something.
You want to know how much God hates
sin?
When God's own Son bore sin, God slaughtered
His own Son.
What do you think He'll do to you?
Tremble where you're at.
If you're wise, you'll tremble.
He became the worm, the serpent lifted up
in the wilderness, the scapegoat, bearing the sins
of the people to wander in the desert
and die.
Thus, the writer of Hebrews says, He died
outside the gates of the city.
He died a propitiation.
A sacrifice that satisfies the demands of God's
justice so that a righteous and holy God
can declare right men like us who are
not right.
It says, whom God displayed publicly as a
propitiation in His blood.
His blood.
The shedding of blood.
Someone must die.
A sacrifice must be made.
Blood must be shed.
But it wasn't the blood of bulls and
goats.
It was the blood of God's own Son.
Now, let's continue on.
Why?
Now listen very carefully.
We're always thinking the why of the cross
has primarily to do with us.
To save us.
To do us good.
To redeem us.
So that we can go to heaven.
So that we can have our sins forgiven.
All about us.
Everything is about us.
Well, He died for us and to save
us.
But you need to see a bigger picture.
He tells us why.
Verse 25.
This was to demonstrate His righteousness.
Why was Christ crucified publicly for the whole
world to see?
To demonstrate that God is righteous.
You know, you turn on the television today.
All over that television.
Secular channels.
ABC, NBC, CBS, everywhere.
Cable.
They're going to tell you God is love.
You hear it all the time.
You go to any channel anywhere that's talking
about God and they'll tell you God is
love.
Tell me when was the last time you
heard one of those boys say God is
righteous.
God is righteous.
God is holy.
Never.
But the Bible says that Christ died on
that tree and God ordained it so.
It was in order to demonstrate that God
is righteous.
Now why would God have to prove that
or demonstrate it?
Why would God have to just come and
prove that He really is righteous like He
says He is?
Why would He have to do that?
He's going to give us the answer.
Because in the forbearance of God, He passed
over the sins previously committed.
What does that mean?
It means this.
Adam sins.
He should have died.
He should have died that day.
He should have died that moment.
He shouldn't have got a promise.
He should have just died.
But in God's forbearance, in His patience, His
mercy, God passed over His sin.
Not only passed over the sin, but gave
Him a promise of salvation.
Then Abraham.
He calls Abraham.
Abraham didn't believe God.
He lied about his wife and put her
in jeopardy.
Abraham.
In Israel.
I mean, He should have killed Abraham.
He should have killed Noah.
Let's go back even further.
Look at Noah.
Someone says, well, God's been righteous.
He destroyed the world with the flood.
No, He didn't.
He didn't destroy Noah.
He should have destroyed Noah.
Noah should have died too.
It's like Satan standing back there going, hey
God, what's going on?
Have you changed?
Adam?
He was supposed to die.
Noah?
A righteous man in his generation?
He sinned.
He should have died in the flood also.
Abraham, your friend.
Boy, you've got a poor choice of friends.
God's standards starting to drop.
Oh, in Israel.
They're a winner, aren't they?
Bunch of idolaters.
You should have killed them before you ever
got them into the Promised Land.
Justice called for it.
David?
A man after your own heart?
Your son, David?
He was a murderer and an adulterer.
God, you've got some explaining to do.
If you're just, then how can you let
these people go?
Well, the cross was God's answer.
I can give a promised Adam.
I can call Abraham my friend.
I can save Noah from the flood.
I can call Israel out as my people.
And I can call David my son.
Because my true son died for them all.
Two thousand years ago, when Jesus Christ died
on that tree, it shut the devil's railings
about God's mercy.
Proved once and for all, God is just.
And the only way anyone is ever going
to get to heaven is by being absolutely
perfect.
Sit down on a plane with somebody and
open your Bible.
They kind of look at you and go,
what are you doing?
I'm reading my Bible.
They say, well, alright.
How do you get to heaven?
You look at them and you go, oh,
that's easy.
You just got to be absolutely morally perfect,
like God is morally perfect.
Keep reading your Bible.
And they go, no, really?
Really?
What are you talking about?
Oh, I'm sorry.
In order to go to heaven, you have
to be absolutely morally perfect without one sin,
stain, or blemish, or moral failure.
Hey!
Hold it!
Nobody's like that!
Oh, really?
Well, I guess there isn't a whole lot
of hope, is there?
To read my Bible.
You see, that's where you've got to take
people.
The only way you're going to go to
heaven is to be absolutely, not just forgiven.
You think you can go to heaven just
by being forgiven?
To go to heaven, you've got to be
absolutely, perfectly righteous.
There's only one way that's going to happen.
Jesus Christ shed His blood on that cross
and paid the price for your sin and
justifies you by His death.
But not only that, vindicates God's forgiving you.
You know, it's amazing.
I go to university and if I talk
on hell, someone always comes and goes, well,
you've got some explaining to do.
I mean, after talking about it.
I'm appalled that you would even think that
God would send someone to hell.
And I say, well, you know, the angels
also are appalled.
But it's something quite different.
They're appalled at the fact that God would
let anybody into heaven.
Because you see, if God had sent every
human being on the face of the earth
to hell, He would not have had to
explain anything.
Because everyone deserved to go to hell.
The fact that He's bringing people into heaven
is when the explanation has to start.
How can you do this?
They're all criminals.
They're all wicked.
They're all vile.
They've broken your law.
How can they come in here?
There's only one way.
Jesus Christ shed His blood for them on
that tree.
Now, I want to teach you something about
justification that's very, very important.
And it's this.
Look what it says.
It says, For the demonstration, I say, of
His righteousness at the present time, so that
He would be just and the justifier of
the one who has faith in Jesus.
The cross of Jesus Christ solves the problem.
God is both just in that He punished
sin and the justifier of wicked men in
that He paid with the blood of His
own Son.
Now, I want to talk to you about
justification for a moment.
You are not only saved by the death
of Jesus Christ, you are saved by the
life of Jesus Christ.
And when I say that, I know what
you're thinking.
Yes, the resurrection.
No, that's not what I'm thinking about.
Even though, yes, the resurrection is important, essential.
What I'm saying is this.
Jesus Christ not only died for you, Jesus
Christ lived a perfect life for you.
This is very important.
The entire time of His incarnation, He never
sinned once.
He lived absolutely, perfectly conformed to the will
of God.
When He was on the cross, all your
vile deeds, your sin, was imputed to Him.
Okay?
You understand what impute means?
It comes from the Latin word imputare, which
means to think or consider.
All your sins were placed upon Him or
imputed to Him.
He died on that cross.
He paid for your sins.
Now, when you believe in Jesus, you are
forgiven of your sins.
But not only that, you are legally declared
righteous, which means God takes that perfect life
of Jesus Christ and He imputes it to
you.
You are not only forgiven, but the perfect
life that Jesus Christ lived is imputed or
counted as yours.
So that as the Father always looked down
on the Son and said, this is My
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,
the Father looks down on the believer who
now is clothed in the imputed good works
and righteousness of Jesus Christ, looks down and
says, this is My beloved Son, this is
My beloved daughter in whom I am well
pleased.
You see, it's not just that you're forgiven,
but the perfect life that Jesus lived is
given to you.
A way of putting it would be like
this.
Joseph had a coat of many colors, which
he did not want to share with his
brothers, but we have one who is greater
than Joseph who bears a coat of righteousness
and he has given that coat to all
his brothers and for this reason he's not
ashamed to call them brothers.
So his justification means more than that you're
forgiven.
It means that you have literally been clothed
in the righteous life of Jesus Christ, the
righteous deeds, the perfection of Christ.
So that when the Father looks down at
you, he sees Christ, the righteousness of Christ.
That's the gift that's been given to you.
Now, it goes on and he says this,
verse 27, where then is boasting?
It is excluded.
I like that.
It's excluded.
Unless, of course, you want to boast in
Christ.
Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
You see, the Christian is the only person
on the face of the earth that can
say that they're going to heaven and not
be bragging about themselves.
Any other religion, any other person in any
other religion that tells you they're going to
heaven, they are very proud because they're saying
they're going to heaven based upon their own
merit and virtue.
But the Christian, though saying he's going to
heaven, boasts not in himself, but boasts in
Christ, his merit and his virtue.
Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to
the cross I cling.
And so, let him who boasts, boast in
the Lord.
The one thing that I want to stick
most in your mind tonight is this, your
sin, if you are not in Christ, if
you are not a Christian, your sin is
vile, it is heinous, and it will bring
eternal judgment upon you.
And that in your sin, apart from Christ,
on that day of judgment, you will be
seen as what you are.
All common grace will be removed from you
and you will be revealed as the monster
you are.
And you will be so vile and so
disgusting before all of holy heaven that every
creature in heaven and earth will stand up
and applaud God because He has sent you
to hell.
That's how vile men are.
But that Jesus Christ died for men such
as that.
He carried their sin, He was crushed under
the full weight of His Father's own wrath,
and when He died, He paid the price.
Those who repent of their sins and throw
themselves upon Christ, who trust in Christ, all
their sins are forgiven.
God says, their sins I will forgive, their
iniquities I will forgive, and their sins I
will remember no more.
But not only that, they are clothed in
the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Now, the Bible commands you to repent and
believe if you are not a believer.
If you are a believer, the Bible commands
you to love.
The Bible commands you to seek out this
Christ and to adore Him, to worship Him.
The one who honors the Son honors the
Father.
It is all about Jesus Christ.
I'll finish with a little story.
It's a little bit kind of emotional, but
it just provides for a good illustration.
And it's this.
It's this guy, a famous painter and his
son.
Just each inspired the other's works.
A famous painter and his son.
World War I broke out, and his son
had to go off to war.
It wasn't long after that that the father
received a note that his son had died
in war.
It tore him to pieces.
Then several months go by, and there's a
knock at the door, and he opens the
door, and there's a young soldier standing there
with a canvas under his arm.
The man says, can I help you, son?
And he said, well, sir, I'm the reason
your son died.
He pushed me out of the way, and
he took some shrapnel, and he died.
I can't repay you, sir.
But while we were in the foxhole, those
many months together, I've always wanted to learn
how to draw, and so your son taught
me how to draw.
And I know that you're a famous artist
and all that, but I drew this picture
of your son, and it's just because I
love him so much.
He gave his life for me.
He's the only reason I'm alive.
So the old man thanked him, went into
his gallery, moved all his priceless works of
art to one side or the other, and
put that picture right in the middle of
the gallery.
Then a few months later, the old man
dies.
Sotheby's and all the great auction companies are
brought in.
They're going to have a great auction.
And so all the people, art gatherers from
all over, from every nation come.
They're all excited about getting a chance to
purchase this man's art.
So the auctioneer starts it all with a
thrust of the gavel, and he says, the
first painting to be auctioned will be this.
And they pulled off the cloak, and it
was the painting that the boy had made,
the young soldier.
All the art critics and purchasers began to
laugh and scoff.
Some were even a little bit angry.
They said, look, enough of this tomfoolery.
We came here to buy some art, not
this thing, whatever it is.
Bring on the art.
Let the auction begin.
Well, the soldier just happened to be present
that day, and he heard the scoffing and
the laughing and everything else.
The auctioneer said, he'll give me $500 for
this.
People laughed, and he said, well, 300 of
people laughed.
The soldier stood up, and he said, sir,
I have a soldier's pay, and it's all
I have, something about $6.
And he said, sir, it's everything I have,
but I'll give it to you if you'll
just please give me that painting, because the
one in that painting means more to me
than absolutely everything on the face of this
earth.
He's the one who died to save me.
So the auctioneer struck down the gavel, and
he said, okay, the painting's sold for $6.
The boy goes up and gets the painting,
and people stand up and kind of laugh
and say, all right, now, let's get on
with the real stuff.
Let's get on with the auction.
The auctioneer slammed down the hammer one more
time, and he said, this auction is over.
And they said, what do you mean this
auction is over?
It hadn't even begun.
And he opens up a will and testament
from the old man.
It simply said this, the one who takes
my son gets it all.
Gets it all.
The point is this, it's only the son.
You know, I really don't like southern gospel
music very much at all.
I know in Alabama, that's probably a dangerous
place to say that.
I'm so sick of people singing about streets
of gold and gates of pearl, I could
care less about streets of gold and gates
of pearl.
I could care less about a mansion on
the hillside.
I could care less about all that other
stuff.
Heaven is heaven because Jesus Christ is there
in the fullness of His glory.
What do you want?
Do you want to be saved?
Snakes want to be saved.
My question is, do you want Jesus?
Do you want Jesus?
That's the question, isn't it?
Do you want Him?
Not for what He can give you, but
because of who He is.
Pastor.