God's Relationship to Us and Ours to Him

Introduction: The Question of Justification and Its Context

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, May 14, 2006, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now may I urge you to follow with me as I read a portion of the Word of God to which we will be making reference in the message, Romans chapter 1, verses 14 through 25. Paul's letter to the church at Rome, beginning at verse 14 of chapter 1. I am debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

0:48 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first. And also...

1:09 And also to the Greek, for therein, that is, in the gospel is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith, as it is written, but the righteous shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hinder or suppress or hold down the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known of God is manifest in them, for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, so that they are without excuse. Because that...

2:09 Knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, neither give thanks, but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves, for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Now let us again pray and ask the help of God. The help of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of the Word.

3:17 Once again, our Father, we come acknowledging that our minds and hearts are utterly incapable of understanding and receiving your Word aright, apart from the present operation of the Holy Spirit within us. We pray that the one who seeks to open the Word may be conscious of that help being given in all the areas in which, he needs it, that each one sitting before you and under that Word may be conscious as well, that they are not dealing with a man spinning out his notions, but dealing with you, the God who speaks in and through the Scriptures. Come to us then and meet with us, we plead, in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Foundational Context of Justification: God's Nature and Relationship to Us

4:14 How can sinful man be just or right? Or to make the question more personal, how can I, a sinner in Adam, a sinner from my conception in my mother's womb, a sinner in thought and word and deed each day of my existence, how can I obtain a standing before God in the court of heaven in which not one sin, will be charged against me? A standing in which just the opposite is true, a standing in which I will be treated as though I had not sinned in Adam, was not conceived and born in sin, did not violate the Word of God once in thought, word and deed, but had perfectly kept the law, throughout the entirety of my whole existence as a human being? The answer to this question is to be found in the provision of God's redemptive grace called justification.

5:41 And so we come today to our third study in this wonderful doctrine, having sought to highlight the importance of the doctrine in our first message, last week I began to address what I'm calling the context of the doctrine of justification, underscoring the fact that God's truth hangs together in relationship to all the other truths that God has revealed. And if we are to understand and experience the wonder of justifying grace, there are other related truths which we must understand, without which the doctrine of justification will have little meaning to any one of us. You are all sitting comfortably in those cushioned pews, but the pews are not hanging on air. Those pews rest upon concrete planks reinforced with steel. In turn, they all rest upon the perimeter, the foundation that's beneath these walls.

7:00 That foundation, in turn, rests upon well-laid concrete footings. And the footings rest upon the earth, which in turn is being upheld in space by the almighty power of God. Now, there's two ways to have you go kerplunk on your backside. On to the metal planking.

7:30 Or further, all the way down into the slab that is beneath us on the lower level. Some madman might come in here with a sledgehammer and begin to whack away at the supports that hold the pews, and you would go down kerplunk on the floor. But there's a more subtle way that someone who wanted to see you go kerplunk on the floor all the way down to the lower level could accomplish his nefarious plan, and that would be to inject some unusual chemical into these perimeter walls that would cause the concrete blocks of which those walls are made, or I can't remember, they may have been poured concrete, in either way, to cause the substance of those concrete walls to begin to disintegrate without any sign of the disintegration going on, unfortunately. Until it was complete. And then one Lord's Day we come and we all sit and suddenly there's a rumble! And the planking beneath you and the pews crumbles and down we all go.

8:46 You see, you don't sit on that comfortable pew in isolation from some related elements in the structure of this building. And so it is with the doctrine of justification. If we are to sit on that comfortable pew, if we are to sit comfortably in the marvelous provision of redemptive grace called justification, if that biblical doctrine is to be maintained in our hearts with spiritual life and vigor, if it is to be continually preached in due proportion from this pulpit, it can only be when its supported truths are maintained in their integrity. And it is not likely that you will ever allow some madman to come into this church and begin to openly deny with the sledgehammer of rationalistic religious thought those related truths by which alone justification is supported and sustained, your temptation will be to allow a subtle influence to be that kind of chemical that erodes, the perimeter wall. And someday, if the Lord tarries, someone will stand before Trinity Church and say, What a shame!

10:14 No longer is the truth of justification preached with vigor. No longer is it believed with spiritual energy and vitality by the rank and file of God's people. And so, with pastoral concern, and burden for the long-term usefulness of this assembly, I am taking the time to focus in with you upon the context of this doctrine. And I suggested last week that that context is comprised of three major categories of truth.

10:52 We looked at the first last Lord's Day. The doctrine of justification is what it is because the God of the Bible, is who He is. And in particular, it is only when confidence and understanding of who God is in His infinite, eternal, unchangeable holiness, justice, and truth, that this doctrine will be maintained in the hearts of the people of God. This morning, having addressed this first, first, dimension of truth that forms the context of justification, namely the nature of God in Himself, we come to the second facet or element in the context of justification, and it is this, what God is in relationship to us and we to Him. The first facet or element of the context of justification is what God is, in Himself. In Himself, He is infinitely, unchangeably holy, infinitely, unchangeable just, infinite and unchangeably true.

12:19 However, justification arises also from the fact that God is who He is in relationship to us and we, to Him. Not only what He is in Himself, but what He is in relationship to us and we to Him. And as time permits, I want to focus upon three aspects of what God is to us. What He is to us as our Creator, what He is to us as our Lawgiver, and what He is to us as our Judge.

13:02 And I want to make it personal, and so my headings are, God is your Creator, and you owe your existence to Him. God is your Lawgiver, and you owe implicit obedience to Him. God is your Judge, and you will give personal account to Him. And when those three realities of God's relationship to us, and ours to Him, grip us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, break into the theater of our consciousness, then this question will be the most burning question we've ever asked. How can I be just with this God, who made me, who placed me under solemn obligation to obey Him, and before whom I shall stand in the presence of God? I shall stand in the day of judgment. How can I be just with Him?

God as Creator: Our Existence Owed to Him

14:07 How can I be right with Him? So we then take up these three in that order. God is your Creator. You owe your existence to Him.

14:19 It's accurate to say that the entire weight of all that is revealed in the Bible rests upon the foundation of the first three chapters of the Bible. When you think of your Bible, think of it like an inverted pyramid. And right down here at the point, the first three chapters of Genesis, everything else in the way of history, and biography, and prophecy, and poetry, and the account of the coming of Christ, His life, His teaching, His death, His resurrection, the descent of the Spirit, the apostolic witness recorded in the book of Acts, all of the epistles culminating in the book of the Revelation, which shows the ultimate triumph of the Lamb, all of this rests down upon the point of Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3. And the devil knows this. And for that reason, he has continually attacked the clear teaching of those first three chapters of Genesis. If what is clearly revealed in those chapters is denied, ignored, or erodes from the present conscious conviction of the people of God,

15:48 all else in the Bible will eventually be denied, ignored, or eroded, including this amazing provision of redemptive grace called justification. To state it as bluntly and simply as I know how, justification cannot long stand as a burning religious conviction or an intelligently grasped doctrine apart from the biblical doctrine of creation. According to Genesis 1, 26 and 27, you and I are God's unique, creatures of us alone it is said in the language of Genesis 1, 26 and 27, that we are image of God. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that God, that creeps upon the earth. And God created man, that is Adam, mankind in his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female,

17:15 created he them. According to this passage, you and I as human beings are God's unique and crowning work of his sovereign, wise and powerful creative activity. Granted, you and I are not created by the immediate hand of God as were Adam and Eve. Adam made from the red clay of the earth and Eve created from the rib of Adam.

17:45 Yet according to numerous passages in the scriptures, it is God who takes the mother's egg and the father's sperm as his raw materials and sovereignly, wisely and powerfully creates human beings in the womb of their mothers. Listen to the language of Psalm 139, verses 13 through 15, clearly establishing that God does indeed create us though he uses these means in his creative activity. For you did form my inward parts. You did cover me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks unto you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and that my soul knows right well.

18:45 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. And here the Psalmist likens his mother's womb to a subterranean cavern where God out of sight from men formed him and shaped him and molded him. Job expresses the same sentiment several times in Job 10 and verse 11. Listen to the language of the old distressed and suffering patriarch.

19:24 He knows who he is. Job chapter 10 and verse 11. I'm sorry I have the wrong reference. You clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews.

19:43 You have granted me life. You clothed me with skin and flesh. You knit me together with bones and with sinews. That's the reason I've got Psalms instead of Job.

20:04 Job 10 and verse 11. You have clothed me with skin and flesh. You knit me together with bones and sinews. Verse 8.

20:14 Your hands have framed me and fashioned me. Yes, God took the dust, the red earth of the ground and formed Adam. But Job says your hands have framed and fashioned me too, together round about. But you do destroy me.

20:34 And so the uniform testimony of the word of God is that you and I have come into existence by God's creative will, wisdom and power. Now if God is your creator and mine, then man as a creature is one whose identity, purpose, responsibilities and destiny are not for the creature to determine, but for the creator to reveal to him in terms of the creator's mind and will. You see, if you and I are only the product of eons of time plus chance operating on some bit of matter that appeared out of nowhere by some unnamed power back tens and thousands of millions of years ago, then you see the ability to understand who we are is utterly shattered. If you could find that primeval pool of slime from whence you emerged and were able to stand before it and say, oh pool of slime, tell me, who am I? What is my fundamental identity? What is my responsibility as a rational, thinking,

22:00 acting, willing, feeling creature here upon this great ball of something or other that also got here in some way or another? The tragedy is that for a hundred and fifty years evolutionary humbug posing as scientific fact has well nigh swept away this essential element which is vital for people to relate to the doctrine of justification. If God has not created me and if God has no design and purpose and will with respect to me, why be concerned whether I'm just or right with God? For you see, if I have emerged out of the slime, then somewhere along the line I decided that I needed the concept of a being bigger than myself. And so I, with my fellow human beings, I conceive of the idea of a God, someone or something higher and bigger than myself. But you see, if I've made God, I can then shape him into any shape I want him to be.

23:15 When I choose to, I can discover that's exactly what has happened in the fabric of our own current society. God is irrelevant. Why? Because man has been told, you may God is the product of your own thoughts in the whole evolutionary scheme of things.

23:39 Therefore, when we preach God in Christ is made a way that you can be right with God, people say, what's the big deal? As a friend of mine said, he was driving somewhere with an unconverted person who saw written on a rock somewhere, Christ is the answer. And this unconverted man turned to my friend and said, what's the question? What's the question?

24:04 The question is, how can man be right with God? But if man's made God, why be concerned about a God? You just discard him. Think of yourself as totally undetached from any obligations to a creator.

24:21 Think of your appetites and your passions and your capacities as something that simply emerged in the evolutionary scheme of things and you may do with them what you will. It's very interesting. And here we come back to Romans 1. When the Apostle Paul is determined to lay out this marvelous doctrine of justification, the way man can have a righteousness of God, a righteousness which God has provided, a righteousness of which God will approve, where does he start? He starts with the wrath of God revealed from heaven. Yes. But revealed from heaven upon men who are created by God justifies to the being and the Godness of God.

25:27 Did you see the emphasis in creation in that passage I read? Go back to it with me. Romans 1.18 The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known of God that is about God is manifest in them for God manifested unto them.

25:52 And what did God reveal and how did God reveal it? For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, creation, even His everlasting power and divinity that they may be without excuse. Culminating in verse 25 they exchange the truth of God, the truth about God as Creator of His world and their Creator for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. What has provoked the wrath of God a refusal to embrace the implications of God as Creator of God of themselves and of the world around them. Creation, verse 20 things made, verse 20 creature and Creator in verse 25. The Apostle Paul does the same thing when evangelizing the pagan philosophers at Athens. I ask you to turn with me briefly to Acts chapter 17.

27:15 Paul's heart is stirred when he sees the rampant idolatry in the city of Athens. He goes to a place where philosophers stand around and head-knock one with another and listen to the thinking of their fellow creatures. The Apostle Paul stood in the midst, verse 22, and said, You men of Athens, in all things I perceive you are very religious. As I passed along and observed the objects of your worship I found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God.

27:50 What therefore you worship in ignorance this I set forth to you, the God that made the world and all things therein. He being Lord of heaven and earth dwells not in temples made with hands. Then he goes on to say He not only made the world and all things in it. He goes on in verse 29 being then the offspring of God we ought not to think of the Godhead like unto gold or silver.

28:22 And he tells them that they are God's creatures. And in him, verse 28, we live and move and have our very being. Our being derives from God. Our existence in its sustained present state is because of the imminent act and work of God.

28:47 If God is creator and reveals himself in general and special revelation our duty as his creatures is to know him to love him and to worship him as he is revealed and all else is idolatry. And you see the doctrine of justification is answering this question how can man be just with God? But if man is not God's creature if man is not answerable to God then the question is irrelevant. How can man be just with God?

God as Lawgiver: Our Implicit Obedience Owed to Him

29:19 How can man be just with God? And so if this doctrine is to be maintained in its vigor in our hearts then we must come to grips with this fundamental truth God is my creator and I owe my existence to him. I must think in that category and think in that category constantly and pervasively. But secondly, God is not only your creator and you and I owe our existence to him but God is your lawgiver and you owe implicit obedience to him.

30:00 According to Genesis 1.28 no sooner does God create the man and the woman but first of all he blesses them. And in what that blessing particularly consisted I'm not sure. It's a debated issue.

30:17 Verse 28 of Genesis 1 God blessed them and having blessed them having pronounced good will upon them God said unto them notice, imperatives be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And then in chapter 2 when God zooms in upon his precepts to Adam before the creation of Eve we read in verse 8 of Genesis 2 the Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man. And then he says to the man verse 15 the Lord God took the man put him into the garden of Eden to dress it, to keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden you may freely eat but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat it for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. You see no sooner does God create man but God begins to reveal his will in terms of non-negotiable imperatives. He doesn't sit down with Adam and say let's find a rock over here and you and I can look around and we can together begin to analyze and discuss

31:45 this lovely world that's all around you and how you should function in it and what would be the best way for you to glory. No, no. God blessed them and God said be fruitful multiply subdue replenish don't touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why?

32:07 Because man as God's creature is also obligated as the subject to God the law giver. God is our law giver. And we owe implicit obedience to him. And you see this all the way through the scriptures when God brings his people out of Egypt and takes them to himself in special covenantal commitments in the old covenant.

32:37 I am the Lord your God which brought you out of Egypt. Therefore and then God begins to bark out the commands you shall have no other God before me. You shall worship me only in the way of my revealed will. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

32:59 You shall remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. You shall honor father and mother. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery.

33:09 You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet.

33:17 God takes his role as commander towards man his subject. And you see the doctrine of justification will never exist long in the hearts and minds of people except in the context where they understand God is my law giver and I owe implicit obedience to him and it is because I owe it to him and have not rendered it to him that I stand guilty of treason against the high court of heaven. Can I be right? How can I be just with this God in the court of heaven when as a creature who owes implicit obedience to him I have done nothing but throw into his face a whole pattern of disobedience and rebellion. Then you see when I hear that this God the offended God the law giver who could crush has in wisdom and mercy and grace provided a way whereby all of my disobediences can be justly pardoned and I can justly be credited with a record and a standing as though I had perfectly obeyed then the doctrine becomes the thing that causes the joy bells of the heart

34:45 to ring and causes the mouth of the soul to sing. God is your law giver and you owe implicit obedience to him. And again you see we live in a climate where the concept of God as law giver has been eroded and the average American if he thinks of God at all he thinks of him as a kind of benign unprincipled soft non-controlling father or grandfather. That's the concept.

35:21 I want you to listen to some very perceptive words written by Dr. Packer close to 50 years ago. Modern man like many pre-Christian pagans likes to think of himself as a son of God by creation born into the divine family and an object of God's endless paternal care. The thought appeals for its both flattering and comforting.

35:53 It seems to give us a claim on God's love straight away. Protestants of today whose habit it is to take pride in being modern are accordingly disinclined to take seriously the uniform biblical insistence that God's dealings with man are regulated by law and that God's universal relation to mankind is not that of a father but of a law giver and a judge. They grant that the thought meant much to Paul because of his rabbinic conditioning and to the reformers because legal concepts so dominated the Renaissance culture of their day. But these Protestants say forensic imagery that is imagery pertaining to the court to a judge to a law giver is really quite out of place for expressing the nature of the personal paternal relationship which binds God to his human creatures. The law courts they say is a poor metaphor for the father's house. Paul was not at his best when talking about justification. We in our advanced state of enlightenment can now see that God's dealings with his creatures are not strictly speaking legal at all.

37:02 Thus modern Protestantism really denies the validity of all the forensic terms in which the Bible explains to us our relationship to God. The modern Protestant therefore is a person who is not in a relationship with God but who is in a relationship with God. The Protestant therefore is willing to see man as a wandering child a lost prodigal needing to find a way home to his heavenly father. But generally speaking he is not willing to see him as a guilty criminal arraigned before the judge of all the earth.

37:38 The Bible doctrine of justification however is the answer to the question of the convicted law breaker. How can I get right with God's law? How can I be just with God? Those who refuse to see their situation in these terms will not therefore take much interest in the doctrine.

37:59 Nobody can raise much interest in the answer to a question which so far as he is concerned never arises. Thus modern Protestantism by its refusal to think of man's relationship with God in the basic biblical terms has not been knocked away the foundation of the gospel of justification making it seem simply irrelevant to man's basic Dr. Packer's right. Until the reality that God is my law giver grips me and takes hold of me and I begin to take seriously what has the law giver said is his will for me and what has he said as we shall see momentarily is the consequence if I do not embrace that will and follow that will all of which come to us in legal terms of God as law giver and this we shall now see God as judge but we must not only come to grips with the fact that God is my creator and I owe my existence to him God is my law giver and I owe implicit obedience to him but thirdly God is my judge and I will give

God as Judge: Our Personal Account to Him

39:27 an account to him God is my judge and I will give an account to him as our creator and law giver God takes very seriously his obligations to himself to uphold the sanctity of his law as it applies to man in our me-ism generation we need to back off and say wait a minute forget me for a minute and think about God what obligations does God have to himself to maintain his own integrity well he has the obligation that having said to man this do and you shall live this fail to do and you shall die he has an obligation to abide and to uphold the integrity of his own character and as law giver he has spoken and he has said cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them the wages of sin is death be sure your sin will find you out thou art of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity your sins have separated between you and your God and on

40:56 and on we could go as creator and law giver is committed to uphold the integrity of his own character therefore with his eye of perfect omniscience he scrutinizes the thoughts the words the deeds the motives of all men with a view to justly punishing every deviation of the righteous requirement Proverbs 15 3 says the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good his eyes are in every place Romans 2 16 Paul says it was part of his gospel to proclaim that in the last day God shall judge the secrets of men's hearts according to my gospel where motives churn and where thoughts are born God scrutinizes with perfect knowledge all of the inner motions of the thoughts and the secrets of the heart that's why our Lord Jesus said in Luke 12 beware of hypocrisy play acting appearing to be something you're not for he says there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed

42:24 and done in secret shall be shouted from the house tops he said in Matthew 12 36 every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment for by your words you shall be justified and by your words you will be condemned 2 Corinthians 5 10 we shall all be made holy to the poor and to the heart of the world they shall be scraped and tormented by our cry of dust we shall be thrown into hell and to earth and to heaven and to heaven to the sky and to the From the deepest recesses where thoughts are born in the heart, even before they are fully framed in the mind. That's why David said, you understand my thought from afar, long before it has even been fully framed in my mind, let alone spoken on my lips. God knows it. God sees it.

43:53 Every thought, every motive, every desire, every word, every deed. And he is committed that what his eye of omniscience detects and records, his arm of omnipotence will punish with perfect justice. I tell you, you begin to take that seriously. And how can you do anything other than tremble and cry out with the Philippian jailer, Sirs, what must I do?

44:24 What must I do to be right with this God? I don't want to meet God with an infallible.

44:32 Every thought, every motive, every deed, every desire, every step, every single deviation. I want to meet this holy God. With that record fully laid out, the image of Revelation 20 is frightening. John says, He saw a great white throne, him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth.

44:58 And the heaven fled away, and the books were opened, and the dead were judged out of the books according to their deeds. The local police pull a man over. He's guilty of some misdemeanor. They say, we'll take him down to the headquarters and we'll book him.

45:18 The charge will be written. God says, every charge written. Think of it. Think of it.

45:27 From your very. Involvement in the sin of Adam. To the first motions of the deceit and manipulation that you engaged in as a little child. The lies you told.

45:41 The selfishness you manifested. Every single deed and word and motive and desire.

45:52 With an infallible. From a holy. Who says the soul that sins it shall die. Or does everything cry out within you saying, Oh God, how can I be right with you?

46:10 Is there a way that the entire record can be blotted out? Face not only a blotted record, but a record that says in every demand of the law, I have fully kept it in my representative, the Lord Jesus, who fulfilled all righteousness. You see, this is how Paul seeks to bring people to appreciate. The doctrine of justification, go back to the opening chapters of Romans with me, he has no sooner said that in the gospel is revealed a righteousness of God from faith to faith than he tells that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven and then notice how many times the judgment of God is mentioned in those first several chapters. Verse 32. Verse 32 of chapter 1. Who knowing the righteous judgment of God that they who practice such things are worthy of death.

47:21 Chapter 2. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. Look at 2.5.

47:32 But after your hardened and impenitent heart you treasure up wrath in the day of wrath. And revelation. Revelation of the righteous judgment of God. 2.23.

47:47 You who glory in the law through your transgression of the law, do you dishonor God?

47:54 No, it's 2B. 2.16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my gospel.

48:02 Chapter 3 and verse 6. God forbid, for how then shall God judge the world? 3.19.

48:10 We know that whatsoever. Whatever things the law says, it speaks to them that are under the law. That every mouth may be stopped and all the world be brought under the judgment of God. Judgment.

48:21 Judgment. Judgment. Judgment. What's he saying?

48:24 He's saying you Romans, you'll never appreciate the marvelous truth of a righteousness that is from God. Provided by God. That meets the scrutiny of God. Until you take seriously his judgment.

48:40 Against every deviation from his holy law. Dear people, unless this truth grips us, justification will just be more preacher's blow. More talk. More God talk.

49:00 More Bible talk. Instead of that marvelous, wonderful, gracious provision of the offended God. By which his law knows. No longer is our enemy, but our friend.

49:15 Because there is one who died under the curse of that law. And who in his life fully kept that law. And there is a righteousness of God comprised of the threads of the obedience of Jesus unto death. And of his dying under the anathema of God.

49:37 And that robe with all the threads that are woven. And the life and death of Jesus becomes my covering for all of my sins. I say unless this aspect of biblical truth lives in our hearts. The context in which justification is understood and appreciated will not exist.

Application 1: Christian Education and Training of Children

50:06 We must. We must maintain a vigorous faith in the reality. The reality of who God is in himself as holy, just and true. And what he is in relationship to us and we to him.

50:22 He is our creator and we owe our existence to him. He is our law giver. And we owe implicit obedience to him. He is our judge.

50:34 And we will stand before him. Now in the light of this fact, there are several closing applications I want to make. It has been my pattern over the years. The week before our benevolence offering to preach on some aspect of biblical truth relative to Christian education.

50:54 The necessity of rearing children in the light of the word of God. And since this has such relevance, I chose not to bring a separate message. But here is my first line of application. These things have great relevance with respect to the education and training of our children.

51:12 Why should parents go to the labor and expense of seeking under God to provide a framework in their homes or in a cooperative endeavor such as Trinity Christian School to provide an alternate education? Here is the reason. Because they know to place those children in the local public school is to place them in a setting where these foundational truths are not only ignored, flatly denied. Not allowed to speak of them, let alone to inculcate them.

51:51 And so in place of the reality of a true and living God who exists in the mystery of his three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Who is infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably holy.

52:09 If there is some God out there that you want to believe in, well you believe in him. If he is alive. Well, if he is the Christian God watered down in shape that we can all feel comfortable with him. If he is just some idea.

52:24 And that is perfectly fine because you see, we believe in separation of church and state. And we would do nothing to affirm there is but one true and living God. Who is infinitely, unchangeably holy. Infinitely, unchangeably just.

52:45 And in place of the reality that God is creator, the assumption in all of the curriculum that the curricula that is made available in the public school system assumes the humbug of evolution as scientific fact and philosophical framework for the interpretation of all of life. And so feminism. And homosexuality. And the desirability of being broad-minded about every form of perversion is set forth as a virtue to these children.

53:27 Why? It's part of the evolutionary process. We've grown out of the silly notion that there are fixed roles for men and women. We've grown out of the silly notion that there are fixed standards for sexual activity.

53:43 We've grown out of the notion that there is such a thing as perversion. Why? Because there's no creator God. No law-giving God.

53:54 And therefore it's all up to you. You would not want to bruise the ego and damage the self-esteem of any of our precious little children by telling them they are sinners. Sinners from conception. Sinners by temperament.

54:16 Sinners by nature. And you would never dare to assert that God has provided means to keep. There's sinnerhood in check until he changes it on the inside. And it's called the rod of correction.

54:32 You see why? Devout Christian parents cannot place their children in that framework. They believe before God that home and school and church should speak with one voice. And that that three-fold cord with the blessing of God the Holy Spirit.

54:57 And never forget that. With the blessing of God the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, those kids with all that blessing of the consistent three-fold cord of biblical perspectives in home and church and school will be some of the worst hellions this generation has seen. Some of us know that by bitter experience.

55:20 But, I hope you can see why it is that there is the willingness to undergo, the expenditure, the time, the effort. Why? Because parents are persuaded of these truths. And they want to see these children come to the place where they see in Christ their justifying righteousness.

55:50 And their only hope of life and salvation. To say with Paul, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. That I might be...

56:01 Be found in Him. Not having a righteousness of my own. But that which is through faith in Christ. And they know that they will not be brought there unless the reality of the character of God is brought to bear upon the consciousness of that child.

56:20 The reality of God's relationship to that child as Creator, Lawgiver and Judge. These are matters of life and death. Many of us share that belief. Burden and vision.

56:34 And that's why with delight we counted a privilege in this annual offering. To put our hand where our mouth is in terms of the affirmation of our shared vision. And the majority of the great bulk of that offering each year goes for tuition supplements. For parents who have the burden but don't have the wherewithal to pay the full price or even to contribute it all.

57:02 And... Discretionary decisions are made by the board.

Application 2: Ministry in the Church

57:06 And this offering is what God uses to keep the tuition price down below what it would ordinarily be and is in other Christian schools that offer this kind of education. And makes it available to others. So these have great relevance with respect to the education and training of our children. Secondly, These things have great relevance with respect to the ministry in our church.

57:32 Here is the idea of the church. Dear people I've lived long enough to see all kinds of movements and em 我是 see all kinds of movements and slippers coming and go. If I were to tell you some of the present things going on in the name of Evangelical and even reform religion you'd say, Pastor we know we all Gideon happy with this new marriage. I think maybe you're just know some of the stuff, I heard even this week unbelievable is going on.

58:01 If we mine can even drink a cup of 솔직히 unlock each of our mangoes and tub the fuck this one. That is going on in the name. and even reformed religion. And all of it is an effort to reach the world by becoming like the world.

58:14 Well, if we maintain with deep, vigorous conviction that we as a church are determined that God will be God among us, that He will be proclaimed as the God who is infinitely, unchangeably, and eternally holy, infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably just and true, as well as loving and merciful, then we'll not allow for the pews to collapse because of the erosion of the foundations.

58:59 May God grant that in this feel-good, touchy-feely age that we will want the vigorous proclamation of God in all His glorious attributes and in all of His relationships to men. And then certainly these things have great relevance with respect to our witness to the unconverted.

Application 3: Witness to the Unconverted

59:25 Paul begins with these issues in Romans. Paul began with these issues at Athens. And so we must do the same with modern pagans. We've got to, we've got to start with these foundational truths that form the context of the doctrine of justification until people realize God made me, God commands me, and God will judge me.

59:54 They will not be concerned. How can I be right with this God? And it is only in that context that we will, I trust, with God's blessing begin to hear the cry, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

60:16 What's the context of the doctrine of justification? It's the context of the God who is. And it's the context of the God who is related to us as He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. May God help us to internalize these realities, to pray them in, to pray that they will with vigor and power, once again, be preached among the churches, and that we may again hear that plaintive cry from sinners who see God for who He is, see themselves for what they are, and then find refuge in the only place the refuge can be found.

61:01 Jesus, Thy blood in righteousness, My beauty are, My glorious dress. Mids flaming worlds in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head. Let's pray.

Prayer

61:23 Our Father,

61:26 we so often feel we speak of things concerning which we know so little.

61:33 We have spoken of You as the God who is infinitely holy, just, and true, a purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. O God, give us a deeper impress upon the very depths of our soul, of what that means. We've reminded ourselves that we are Your creatures. We are bound to obey You.

62:01 We shall give an account to You in the last day. And we pray that these realities will afresh drive us out of ourselves and into Christ, that we may cling to Him and to the righteousness that He has effected by His life of obedience unto death, and by His death under Your curse in the darkened heavens there in Jerusalem. O Father, write these truths upon our hearts. Shake up those who sit here careless in their sins and give them no rest until they rest in Christ.

62:44 Hear us, we pray, and answer us as we plead for these mercies in Jesus' name. Amen.