What I'd like for us to think about
this morning is a matter of being righteous
before God.
A question is raised in the scriptures found
in Job chapter 9.
Job asked the question, how can a man
be made righteous before God?
That's a searching question.
Everyone at some point in his life needs
to ask that question.
If you've never been confronted with that question,
I'd like for you to think about it
this morning.
How can I be righteous before God?
That's where it really counts.
I think the passage we're going to read
will serve, because of the experience of the
man that wrote these words, it will serve
the purpose of reminding us of one that
made a search.
He made many blunders.
He had many misconceptions, but you know God
divinely and sovereignly sees to it that those
who seek after him, they find him.
I'm reminded of what it says in the
book of Jeremiah, those that seek me and
seek me with their whole heart, they find
me.
Half-heartedness won't get it, as far as
seeking after God.
There has to be that seriousness of purpose.
God knows the heart.
You can even deceive yourself, and certainly others
can deceive you.
And certainly the master deceiver, Satan, you haven't
got a chance with him.
So let us read this passage, and then
we'll make some comments.
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God
for Israel is that they might be saved.
For I bear them witness that they have
a zeal for God, but not according to
knowledge.
For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and
going about to establish their own righteousness, have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth.
For Moses described it, that righteousness which is
of the law, that the man who doeth
those things shall live by them.
But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh
on this wise.
Say not in thine heart who shall ascend
into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down
from above?
Or who shall descend into the deep, that
is, to bring Christ again from the dead?
But what saith it?
The word is near thee even in thy
mouth and in thy heart.
That is the word of faith which we
preach.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.
For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him
shall not be ashamed.
For there is no difference between the Jew
and the Greek, for the same Lord over
all is rich unto all that call upon
him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved.
I just quoted one question that was raised
in the book of Job.
I haven't counted this member that I'm going
to quote.
I haven't counted, but there are reportedly 300
questions raised in the book of Job.
I would have to say that the one
that's raised there in that second verse of
the ninth chapter has to be one of
the most important.
Poor Job, a man that was acquainted with
a lot of unpleasant circumstances in his life,
I think those circumstances served to just prepare
the ground and send the heart searching for
some relief in an area in which all
of us, without exception, have needs.
We need some answers to questions that deal
with these matters that are eternal, these matters
that are spiritual and divine.
So he says, How can a man be
made righteous before God?
By what means?
There must be some means, and I haven't
discovered it.
That's what Job is saying, I haven't discovered
it.
I know that in the process of life,
sometimes it seems so important to be accepted
by your fellow man.
Peer pressure, especially among young people today, seems
more important, at least to the natural man,
that I find acceptance with my fellow man
than it does to find acceptance with God.
That seems all important to the natural man.
Spiritual things to the natural man, of course,
are foolishness, things that we talk about this
morning.
The man that's unsaved, the man that has
a mind that is blinded by Satan, these
things seem so foolish and so silly.
But to the natural man, it does seem
so important to be sure that you have
a right relationship with your fellow man.
Try to keep it on a level whereby
things are pleasant, and certainly it serves an
advantage sometimes to be sure that you are
rightly related to your fellow man.
I know the wisdom books in the scriptures,
and I refer to the book of Proverbs.
It tells us that the fear of man
can bring a snare, and it is without
question.
It's dreadful to be fearful of man.
I know this.
The Word of God tells us that God
does not give to his people a spirit
of fear.
So if you're afraid of other men, and
you're afraid of what they'll do to you,
God didn't give it to you.
It didn't come from God.
There is a certain air of fearlessness that
is associated with fearing God.
And that same book, that wisdom book, the
book of Proverbs, tells us that the beginning
of wisdom, that fear and reverence for God,
is the beginning of true wisdom.
You want deliverance from fear, anxiety?
Then have a holy, divine respect and reverence
for God.
He will dispel that fear of man, because
ultimately all men will stand in the presence
of God.
Every man shall give an account unto God
for what he's done in the course of
this life.
He may have never raised in his own
mind, in his own heart, this question that
Job is raised for.
How can a man be made righteous before
God?
He hasn't confirmed himself with that.
Well, that's sad, because the Spirit of God
is in the world to convict or convince
men of sin and of righteousness and judgment.
Indeed, it should be one of those serious
considerations in the heart of every man.
In connection with all those questions that are
raised in the book of Job, the third
verse of that ninth chapter says that if
God put a thousand questions to men, think
of the intelligentsia of our day.
Think of all of those learned people that
are in the world today.
And there are at least a thousand, and
I believe it could be ten times that
many or more, questions that God could put
to men, no matter how brilliant they may
be, no matter how knowledgeable they might be
of the things of this world, and they'd
come up empty.
They wouldn't be able to answer those questions.
Those questions would be profound.
Those questions would have the kind of depth
to them that deal with issues that are
eternal.
But these men couldn't give you the answers
to those questions.
The only source of information and understanding of
these things is found with God.
They'd be confounded.
It would be a disarming thing.
So often men don't like to at least
confess ignorance about anything.
Some of them, you call them know-it
-alls.
They know everything about this world, and yet
they can possess such ignorance concerning the things
of God.
Better to have just a little grasp and
understanding of the things of God and have
the answer to this question that Job has
raised concerning, How might I be righteous with
God than to know everything about this world
that we live in?
I'm not speaking in a demeaning way about
the knowledge that you can acquire about this
world.
It's nice to know things, but I'm just
using that in a comparable sense.
You know a lot about this world.
What do you know about God?
What do you know about the Lord Jesus?
What do you know about the righteousness of
God?
What do you know about the state of
your own soul?
How do you think you stand before God
this morning?
Your relationship with God?
Are you satisfied with it?
Remember, he could put some pretty probing questions
to you concerning matters that would stump you.
But I can assure you at the very
outset, this question that is being raised, divinely
raised, and is recorded upon the pages of
Scripture, God doesn't want you to be in
the dark about how to be righteous with
God.
I think Paul has settled this question.
How could a man be just before God?
I think about Romans 5.1. Therefore, being
justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, being in continuous action, the man that
puts his faith in Christ, he is made
righteous in the sight of God.
And you know God marvelously and divinely, that
word being justified has the thought of continuous
action.
Moment by moment, day by day, every day
until I see him face to face, God,
by the wonderful divine process, the action of
God in which he makes me righteous by
faith in his Son, he keeps me righteous.
I can't keep myself righteous.
There is, of course, those practical aspects of
sanctification.
Positionally, so secure in Christ.
The Word of God tells us that we
are already counted in that divine wisdom of
God as seated in heavenly places in Christ.
So secure as to our position of being
in Christ.
Being righteous in the sight of God.
I think of 2 Corinthians 5.
He that knew no sin.
That is, the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Sinless.
The Lamb of God.
God's wonderful divine sacrifice.
His only begotten Son is to be made
a sacrifice for sin.
He that knew no sin is the only
one that qualified.
He's the only one that met with the
divine requirements as to that perfect sacrifice.
The only sacrifice that would truly satisfy God's
justice and God's righteousness.
That righteous sacrifice.
Jesus Christ knew no sin.
He was made sin for us.
He took our place.
He was our substitute.
He hung upon Calvary's cross, not for his
own sin, but for our sins.
It was my sin that he died for
upon the cross of Calvary.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us.
And do you know as a result of
that, that scripture says, He that knew no
sin, but was made sin for us, that
we might be made the righteousness of God
in him.
Those that are in Christ, they're justified.
They're made righteous.
That answers the question, doesn't it?
Job and his dilemma, how to be made
righteous.
While he was in a fog about the
whole thing, he didn't understand it.
And here the Apostle Paul, writing to us,
and we were this wonderful book, the word
of God before us.
Read these things and we can thank God
that the Spirit of God has enlightened our
hearts and minds to this wonderful divine truth.
And now we're justified.
We're made righteous and fit for the presence
of God.
You know, if we weren't so restrained and
sometimes we weren't given to being so reserved,
we'd just jump up and say, Hallelujah, praise
the Lord!
I'm made righteous for the presence of God.
I'm saved.
I'm on my way to heaven.
My wonderful God has made provision for me
and my dilemma of being a poor sinner,
lost in this world, with no hope.
With no hope.
We're Gentiles.
I presume everyone in this room is a
Gentile.
There's a Jew here.
There's no difference, brother.
God's no respecter of persons.
Jew, Gentile, all alike, we're all sinners.
You know, it wasn't until long ago, the
brother that deals primarily in the area of
evangelism among Jewish people, reminded me that there's
one important thing.
I say this for the benefit of you
that witness.
That you must understand in dealing with Jewish
people, they don't think they're lost.
They're God's covenant people.
They're God's people.
They're not lost.
Gentiles are lost.
And you know, later on in visiting and
witnessing to a Jewish gentleman that I'd known
for a long time in the hospital, I
pressed home that truth that all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God.
Even Jews, even God's chosen people, they're sinners.
They're defiled.
They're not fit for the presence of God.
And since there's no longer any animal sacrifice
being offered in the temple, and so many
are not even Orthodox and don't even go
along with that, there is one that has
made a sacrifice for sin.
And that person is the Messiah.
God's wonderful Son has offered Himself as a
sacrifice for their sin.
Do you know, I think the Spirit of
God so sovereignly bore witness to the fact
that that truth is needed when you witness
to all men, but especially to those that
are Jews in the world today.
Remind them there's no difference.
We've all sinned.
We're all as an unrighteous thing before God.
And the only way we'll ever be accepted
into the presence of God and have a
standing that meets with that perfect, righteous, divine
standard that God demands is to be in
Christ.
You have to, by faith, receive Him.
You don't bring anything in your hand, not
by works of righteousness which we have done.
And I think the reason that we can
look at that and think about Paul's answer
to these questions is that he had such
a love for God's people, his people, the
Jews.
In the ninth chapter he said, I would
be a curse if all of these people
could have their eyes opened and see what
I see.
I would be willing to be made a
curse, my own soul, if only that blindness
that grips them, they could be delivered.
Do you know who keeps men and women
blinded to the truth of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, which is the power of God
and the salvation?
It says the God of this world blinds
the minds of those it will not believe.
Men stubbornly and rebelliously say, Oh, I'm all
right, I'll hang on to what I've got.
I'll take my chances.
You talk about the gospel.
You talk about Christ dying for our sins.
You talk about the righteousness of God, so
perfect and so pure, being put to a
man's account.
Well, I'll take what I've been depending upon
and someday I'll stand before God and I'll
take my chances.
I'll tell you, that's a tremendous gamble, because
you haven't got a chance.
Like most suckers that go to Las Vegas,
you haven't got a chance before God.
There's only one way.
The Lord Jesus said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life.
No man comes unto the Father but by
me, and Paul knew that.
He was convinced of this in his own
soul.
That man that persecuted the Church, and he
said, What I did, I did with zeal,
fervency.
Man, I didn't play about this thing.
I went with a big stick.
I persecuted the Church.
Those people that said they were Christians, I'll
beat it out of them.
I'll even put them to death if necessary.
They'll recant or else that fervency that Paul
possessed in his own soul.
He loved his people.
He loved the religion of the Jews.
And if you go to the book of
Philippians and you read in that fourth chapter,
third chapter, he begins to give us a
list of all of the things that he
put value upon.
He said he was a Hebrew of the
Hebrews.
He was a Pharisee.
As touching the law, he was blameless, and
yet he discovered something.
He said, All of these things that I
put value upon, one day I took them
and put them all in a bundle, tied
it up very neatly, and I took it
out to the garbage heap and I dropped
it right there.
That's where that belonged.
That is no good as far as attaining
to a righteousness that pleases God.
He said, I divested myself of any hope
of ever being made righteous except on one
basis, and one basis alone.
And yet he acknowledges my people, my people
the Jews, their ignorance of this way of
righteousness that God has provided.
There's ignorance there.
It's not justified.
You never justify ignorance.
Go to a court of law and you
say, I plead ignorance.
You can plead all you want to, mister.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Ignorance of the law, no excuse.
Do you think God's law is any less
strict?
Do you think God's laws are so flexible
and so pliable that you can just manipulate
God and do what you choose to do,
make whatever amendments you want to make, come
to some conclusion that is contrary to God's
word and not be rebuked for it?
There's ignorance here concerning the righteousness of God.
And there's something that follows where there's ignorance.
If you won't accept what is true from
the word of God, I can guarantee you
this morning if you're here and you will
not accept the truth of God's word, you
have gone about some way, somehow, and you
have sought to establish your own righteousness on
some other basis.
I'll guarantee you you've done that.
You may have unwittingly done it.
You may not even be aware of it.
But you are counting upon something else that
you have devised on your own.
I'm going to circumvent the gospel.
I'm going to circumvent the cross.
I'm not going to go that way.
I don't like that.
They're too strict.
They talk about Christ being the one way,
the only way.
They talk about the righteousness of God, and
there's only one way to have that righteousness
put to my account.
I don't like that.
I've always been a free spirit.
I've always been an independent thinker.
I'm going to do it my way.
And so they go about to establish their
own righteousness, having not submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of God.
But the Lord Jesus Christ is the righteousness
of God.
If you've got Christ, if you've received him,
you have the righteousness of God.
If you don't have Christ, you've got something
else.
You've got something else that will not stand
up before God.
You'd be better like Paul to take it
and put it in a neat little package
and take it somewhere and say, That's the
end of that.
I won't trust in that.
It's like the man that built his house
upon the sand.
Ultimately, and most certainly, it will be washed
away into oblivion.
Isn't it strange that men would deny themselves
the blessing of God as revealed in the
person of Jesus Christ?
They would not put themselves in the hands
of the one that God has said can
deliver you out of your dilemma.
Those are nail-scarred hands, the hands of
the Lord Jesus Christ, one that shed his
precious blood for the remission of sin.
And men will not entrust the eternal destiny
of their souls into those pierced hands.
But listen to this.
In their own feeble hands, they would entrust
the destiny of their souls.
In their own hands.
Perhaps they would even entrust others.
Perhaps they would even persuade others.
And that's what false teachers do today.
Those that deny the truth of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Those that deny this ground and this basis
for the righteousness of God and how it
can be imputed to a man and put
to his account.
They would even seek to win others to
that position that's contrary to the word of
God.
This opposition to the gospel.
It's in the world today.
That enmity to the gospel, it's in the
human heart.
That rebellion that's in the human heart, it's
there.
Our acquaintance with Adam has assured every one
of us that that fallen nature that we
possess, so contrary to the nature of God,
unless it is dealt with, you don't deal
with it.
You see, all that was lost in Adam
can be restored in the person of Christ.
God wants each one of his dear children
to be conformed to the image and likeness
of his son.
Everything that Adam possessed in God's likeness, in
his image, he lost it in the fall.
And now it can only be restored in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God's people, the Jews, Paul's people, the
ones that he loved, they were blind to
this and he wanted them to have their
eyes open.
A question could be raised, when will Messiah
come?
When will he come down?
Paul says, don't ask that question anymore, he's
already come.
Those that were denying the resurrection, how can
he be raised from the dead?
He's already been raised from the dead, passed
in.
He's already ascended back into heaven.
He's seated at the right hand of God.
You've raised new questions, but they've already been
answered.
You are behind time.
God has already acted, taken this wonderful divine
action that provides for us salvation.
These are searching questions.
The destiny of our own souls?
Do we have what satisfies God in view
when we hold out our hands and say,
Lord, I come not by any effort on
my part.
Anything that I would bring as a substitute
for the sacrifice that Jesus Christ had made
for my soul, I see it as nothing
but filthy rags.
I see it as something that indeed should
be a shame and reproach, even to my
understanding.
I do a discredit to all that he
has done for me personally upon the cross,
and even suggesting that I can do anything
to merit your favor.
I am dependent upon your sovereign divine grace
and your mercy and your goodness to me.
I humbly bow at the foot of the
cross, not trying to circumvent the cross.
I humbly and submissively bow at the foot
of that cross as a poor sinner, knowing
that I am unclean.
I am a sinner, and I need the
righteousness of God.
Nothing short of that divine righteousness.
And being made righteous is not a process.
It's a divine action in which God sovereignly,
divinely makes the poor sinner righteous because of
his identification with Christ.
And that is an unchangeable position.
And if you don't understand the difference between
relationship and fellowship, you can get stumped there.
And you may think every time you go
out and you sin that you've lost your
salvation.
So many teach that horrible doctrine today.
In Christ there is security, related divinely to
God eternally through faith in Christ.
The righteousness of God has been put to
my account, and nothing can take that away.
Fellowship and communion with God hangs by a
fragile thread.
Any time you let sin come into your
lives, fellowship with God is broken.
And God divinely and wonderfully makes a provision
for that.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us of our sins,
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And no Christian should tolerate any sin in
his life, should be dealt with and dealt
with promptly, any time that I sin.
Let me be quick, realizing wonderful relationship with
God demands that his people be a holy
people.
I confess and forsake that sin.
Fellowship and communion.
Beautiful, wonderful.
If you've raised any question in your mind
this morning as to where you stand with
God, you say, I really don't know.
I've wondered, I've pondered that question many times.
I've just wondered if I am right.
I'm wondering if I had to stand in
the presence of God in just a moment
of time, would I be acceptable?
You can settle that.
The provision is made in the word of
God through the person of Christ.
And God's not going to do anything else
to save your soul.
He's done all he's going to do.
You might put it this way.
Billy Sunday used to say, friend, the next
move's up to you.
The next move's up to you.
We become responsible when we hear the truth
of God's word.
We're held accountable.
And the word of God says they're all
without excuse.
Irregardless of whether you've heard a little or
a lot, there is no excuse.
May God give us the grace and the
mercy and the wisdom to see this morning
that there is a way whereby one can
be made righteous for the presence of God.
It's through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Shall we pray?
Our Father in heaven, we do bow in
Thy presence and thank Thee for Your love
and grace to us.
Thank Thee for the privilege of assembly this
morning.
We thank Thee for the word of God.
We thank Thee for the clarity and the
simplicity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
We thank Thee for this day of grace
in which we're still afforded this privilege of
preaching this wonderful, wonderful word.
We pray for all that are present in
this room and those who are out across
the face of the earth today that may
be very carefully considering this question.
Help them, we pray Thee divinely by Your
Spirit, to close in and to accept Christ
by faith.
For this we pray in His holy and
divine name.
Amen.
Now, Brother Bob.
And number 242.
242.
Jesus, I come.
We'll sing the first, second, and the fourth,
if you please.
Just three verses.
First, second, and the fourth.