TPW 31 Fatal Ignorance of God's Righteousness

ThornCrown Network iconThornCrown Network

0 views

0 comments

00:24
That's why Paul says in verse 1, my prayer to God is that they would be saved, because ignorance of God's righteousness is spiritually fatal.
00:35
To the
00:50
Protestant Witness, this is Pastor Patrick Hines here at Birdwell Heights Presbyterian Church. I'm excited to upload another podcast.
00:58
We are blessed at our church here, there's a fellow in our congregation who is an expert on the history of Presbyterianism, and he has done extensive research and is also a filmmaker, and has filmed a wonderful documentary that he's been showing to the adult
01:17
Sunday school class during the Sunday school hour before church on Sundays for the last several weeks.
01:23
And part of what this guy does is he does a lot of work looking for old, out of print, rare books by Presbyterians, and he found a fellow named
01:34
Samuel Blair. And Samuel Blair wrote a number of important treatises,
01:40
I've actually been helping transcribe one on predestination, it's just outstanding.
01:45
Anyway, he lived in the mid -1700s, and this fellow from our church also self -published a number of copies of a sermon that Samuel Blair preached in 1754.
01:57
And it's a marvelous sermon on Romans 10, 3, and 4 about the righteousness of God.
02:03
They being ignorant of God's righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
02:11
That great, great passage there. And so I started reading through this little paperback of this sermon that hasn't been published or seen the light of day since it was preached in 1754.
02:21
And it was so excellent. I was just in my office just shouting Amen. So I pulled up my manuscript of the sermon that I preached on Romans 10, because I preached all the way through the
02:30
Book of Romans a couple years ago, and compared my own findings with his and just right there together.
02:38
So I took my manuscript, edited it, tried to make it a little bit better, did a little more studying on the passage, and included a lengthy quotation from Samuel Blair's sermon on Romans 10, 3 and 4.
02:49
But I preached through Romans 10, 1 through 4 in this sermon this past Sunday morning. We did communion, and two of my older children made their professions of faith and are now communicant members of the church.
03:00
We had a covenant baptism. The family in the church recently had a baby, got to baptize their baby, covenant baptism.
03:07
And then a young man who has come to know Christ in our church made a profession of faith and baptized him.
03:15
So I was telling the congregation, you know, we do communion on the first Lord's Day of each month.
03:20
We take the Lord's Supper together. And I told them, this is a really unusual and glorious day, because you get to see two covenant children, two of my older kids have made professions of faith.
03:31
They were baptized as infants, making their profession of faith to become communicant members. And then a covenant baptism of an infant, and then an adult that's come to know
03:39
Christ has made their profession of faith. So we got everything in one service. And it was, what a great
03:44
Lord's Day. And then we have a fellowship meal afterwards, and we actually had to recently do a significant expansion to our fellowship hall.
03:53
So we usually have, you know, well over 110, 120 people stay for lunch.
03:58
And it's great. We stay until about three. It's one of the reasons we don't do an evening service on the first Sunday of the month, because people stay so long chatting, hanging out, talking, and just enjoying the blessedness of Christian fellowship.
04:09
And it's such a wonderful, wonderful time. But I preach this sermon on fatal ignorance of God's righteousness.
04:17
Because Romans 10, 1 through 4, particularly verses 3 and 4, is so critical, so important.
04:24
I mean, it is the heart and the soul of the Christian faith. What is the righteousness by which alone we enter heaven.
04:33
And if people aren't trusting only in Christ to get them all the way into heaven, not just for justification, but getting them all the way into heaven.
04:41
Because justification is what gets us into heaven. Trusting only in that God -righteousness, the righteousness of God, instead of seeking to establish our own righteousness.
04:53
It's such an important text of Scripture. And it was glorious to be able to get back to that again.
04:59
And to just hammer the gospel and then take communion after it's just reverberating in our ears.
05:04
So it's pretty amazing. God loves us and has blessed us. And we get to live our lives this way under His grace and with the gospel in our hearts singing
05:13
His praises. And, you know, it really helps me, especially dealing with all this revoice stuff. I'm deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply concerned about it.
05:21
And I'm wondering what the endgame is going to be as far as how this is handled in my church here and how our presbytery is going to handle it and what's going on with it.
05:30
So I've been concerned about that, but God has helped me to not worry, but to trust
05:36
Him with it. So fatal ignorance of God's righteousness. There is nothing more important than this topic, and I hope that you will find this edifying.
05:47
Let's pray together, please. Merciful Heavenly Father, we thank
05:52
You for breathing forth to us the words of eternal life. We confess that without divine revelation, without verbal revelation from You, we would not know how to be saved.
06:04
We would most certainly be self -deceived in our own righteousness, trusting in ourselves like fools.
06:11
Help us to see that only Christ's righteousness has the merit necessary to meet
06:19
Your requirements and that to be Christians, to have eternal life, to have our sins forgiven, we must be relying solely, completely, and only upon Him and His righteousness.
06:31
We ask in His name. Amen. Please take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 10.
06:40
Romans chapter 10. This will be the last of the detour off of Luke.
06:49
We'll be getting back to Luke's Gospel next Sunday. Romans chapter 10, verses 1 through 4.
06:57
And I've called this morning's message, Fatal Ignorance of God's Saving Righteousness.
07:03
Romans chapter 10, verses 1 through 4. This is God's Word. Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.
07:14
For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
07:29
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
07:36
And God bless the reading of His infallible Word. This past week I was handed a very special gift by a member of our congregation.
07:44
A small book which contains the manuscript of a marvelous sermon preached 264 years ago by the
07:51
Reverend Mr. Samuel Blair. It was preached in 1754 on this passage. And it's so encouraging to read someone who's been dead for so long going through the same text, and I pulled up my manuscript, my sermon manuscript from this passage from a long time ago when we went through Romans.
08:10
And when someone hands me a book and I yell amen more than three times, it's probably going to alter what I'm preaching on that Sunday.
08:16
It's a marvelous book, and there's a bunch of copies of it out there. It's a short paperback. It's also got the
08:21
Westminster Shorter Catechism in it. But Samuel Blair was one of those rare individuals.
08:28
I'm thankful he's been discovered, and I hope that all his works will come back into print because they are absolute jewels of truth.
08:35
Just wonderful, wonderful stuff. Satan's greatest masterpieces are not the false religions of men outside the true faith.
08:46
Satan's greatest and most effective masterpieces are the false religions which closely mimic the true faith.
08:54
Christian counterfeits are Satan's deadliest creations. But every form of spirituality that stands opposed to the one truth all has one thing in common, something that unites them all.
09:08
And here it is. In the final analysis, men save themselves by what they do.
09:14
In the end, it is the righteousness or works or decisions of men that are decisive in the salvation equation.
09:22
To make the issue before us clear, at the end of the day, when it boils down to the heart and soul of religious ideas before us, and whether or not man's eternal destiny will be blessed or cursed, here is what the war is between the truth and all that opposes it.
09:38
You ready? Self -righteousness versus the righteousness of God. That's the difference between the truth and all of its competitors.
09:50
Self -righteousness versus the righteousness of God. Upon what legal grounds are sinners saved and brought into heaven to be with God in the blessed fellowship and communion with him forever?
10:02
Will it be our goodness, our righteousness, our works, or will it be the righteousness of another, of God?
10:09
There's a very important concept communicated through the word of God in general, but particularly in this passage of scripture before us this morning.
10:15
The concept is this, folks, and you've got to get this because I promise you, the world that you've grown up in and the world that all of our kids are growing up in does not get this.
10:24
The concept is this. Zeal that is not based upon truth is worth nothing. Zeal that is not based on truth is worth nothing before God.
10:35
One of the saddest things that we see in the world is the publication of books promoting false gospels and false religions and the zealots of those false religions who crisscross the globe speaking and wearing themselves out, proselytizing converts to their false religion, and the incredible amounts of time and energy and money that are poured into the dissemination of false religious ideas.
10:57
Jesus himself very sharply rebuked such people, namely the Pharisees and the scribes.
11:03
In Matthew 23, 15, Jesus said, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
11:18
Warm and gentle Jesus. Traveling land and sea in order to make converts would require planning and money and courage and self -sacrifice, analysis of the area and how to reach it.
11:30
Lots of hard work. But notice that Jesus does not commend them for their zeal. And here's the primary point of this morning's message.
11:39
Truth is more important than zeal or sincerity. The most important question facing anyone in life is how can
11:45
I, a sinner, be right with God? How can I live and die in the comfort of knowing that my sins are forgiven and that my person is accepted as righteous in the sight of God?
11:55
Every false answer to those questions leads to eternal damnation. And therefore, zeal for every false answer to those questions is worthless in the sight of God.
12:06
No matter how much zeal someone has for their religious beliefs, if those religious beliefs are not true, what is the worth of the zeal?
12:14
It's a common belief in our relativistic postmodern age that detests disagreement.
12:20
It detests arguments and especially theological debates. That as long as one is sincere and nice based on whatever your standard of niceness is, you're okay.
12:31
As long as you're nice and you're sincere and you're spiritual in some way, you're alright. God's word has a much different message for us in our passage this morning.
12:41
I hope you heard it. Listen to it as we walk through it. Look at verse 1. I've given you an outline there. Listen closely to this
12:47
God -inspired truth. Verse 1, Paul says about Israel, Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.
12:58
Stop right there. Although Paul spent all of Romans 9 explaining the absolute sovereignty of God and salvation, that it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, and that therefore he has mercy on whom he wills and whom he wills he hardens.
13:14
Paul, nevertheless, sees no incompatibility between that absolute sovereignty of God and human salvation on God's part and the need to pray for people's salvation.
13:25
There's no incompatibility at all. It does not occur to him ever to think, well, what's the point of praying?
13:31
God's already decided it. He's already picked everyone he's going to save. Your prayers can't change anything. That is a lie.
13:36
That's not true. Because the names of the elect are not part of God's revealed truth in Scripture.
13:41
We pray for the salvation of the people that we know. Our prayers are a very powerful part of the execution of God's plan in this world to glorify himself.
13:52
God's word tells us always to remember this precious truth. James 5 .16 The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
14:02
But hasn't God decreed everything? He has. Isn't everything going to happen exactly the way he decreed it? Yes. Including your prayers.
14:10
They're part of the way God does this. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, the
14:16
Scripture says. And he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.
14:22
God used the prayers of Elijah to stop the rain. And then verse 18 of James 5.
14:28
And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit. Your prayers and the burdens you feel are part of God's sovereign decree and plan.
14:37
And when you feel a burden to pray for someone, when you pray for someone's salvation, you should pray with confidence because that burden to pray and the words you prayed were decreed by God before he ever created anything.
14:49
The sovereignty of God doesn't destroy prayer. It's the only motivation to do it.
14:55
Notice how plain Paul is in Romans 10 .1. He says he is praying to God for Israel that they may be saved.
15:02
In our day, people would probably be offended that we pray for their salvation. Paul was not politically correct when it came to issues like this, though.
15:12
Our loyalty, if we are Christians, is to Christ and his blessed gospel, not to the approval of men. One of the reasons the
15:18
Israelites despised Paul was that very thing. He thought they were all lost if they didn't know
15:24
Christ. Many people that we witness to in our day mock us for trying. They want to save us from hellfire and the eternal barbecue pit.
15:33
Aren't they sweet? Paul was sharing his heart in verse 1 as he's guided by the Holy Spirit.
15:38
He prayed for the salvation of lost people, even though he believed and taught that God had already unconditionally elected by name, individually, from all eternity, who he's going to save.
15:48
Always remember, folks, why God told us that. Why has
15:53
God told us that he's sovereign? Why has he told us that he has an elect people that he's determined to save, that he elected by name and loved from all eternity?
16:01
Why has he told us that? Number one, to destroy human boasting of any kind in salvation so that we would know it's really grace alone.
16:11
Grace alone means unconditional election. And two, to be the anchor to our often weary, sad, and spiritually dry souls.
16:21
I can tell you, I know we can parade people up here to give their testimonies. I used to hate the sovereignty of God.
16:28
I read Romans 9 70 times and slammed this Bible shut and pushed it across the table and walked out of the room and said,
16:35
God, I don't even know who you are. That which was once repulsive is now the very lifeblood of our hearts.
16:42
Knowing that God is sovereign. You know when you find out what your theology is made of? When you suffer.
16:48
You find out what your theology is, what's your understanding of God and his grace and his sovereignty, what it's really made of, if it's really true when you go through the tragedies, when you go through the really hard things.
16:59
God gave us this blessed truth to destroy human boasting and to anchor us when we go through the darkness.
17:07
Aren't you thankful to know that Philippians 1 6 is true? He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
17:17
Isn't it encouraging to you to know that God will finish what he started? If he began it, he will carry you all the way to heaven.
17:24
God is tenacious and unrelenting in his love and faithfulness to his adopted children. And we need not doubt that he will succeed in fully glorifying his grace by saving even the likes of us.
17:37
That's why God told us about the doctrine of unconditional election in his word. In the meantime, we must believe that God is able to save everyone we see and know and have a burden for in our lives.
17:49
Folks, as long as the list of names of God's elect is known only to God, we must be of the mindset that everyone we know is one of God's elect.
18:00
You know where I learned to think that way? John Calvin taught me that. We should be of the mind as to think everyone we know is elect and that's why we know them.
18:11
Why else would there be other people in our lives as Christians? That's the correct attitude to have. That's the attitude of Paul displayed here.
18:18
He didn't write off anybody. He never thought anyone was too far gone to be saved. He didn't see anyone that way.
18:24
Remember, this was the man who stood giving his hearty approval to the martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 7.
18:31
If anyone was too far gone, it was him. He knew that the sin and stubborn hard -heartedness of men was no match for the powerful, effectual call of Christ and his gospel.
18:42
And so, for the Christians here, let verse 1 be a theme for you personally. Especially those of you that are just now, just now entering into the season of life, now you have covenant children.
18:54
Now you have these souls that you answer to God for. Now you have something that you're going to be assaulting the heavens for day and night, however long that child's alive,
19:01
I promise you. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for fill in the blank is that they may be saved.
19:09
And pray believing and knowing that your God is able to do it. He is able to save. No matter who you pray for or how hard -hearted they may be or seem, no matter what kinds of sin have had them in the vice grip of death,
19:21
Jesus Christ in the light of his gospel can dispel the darkness. Amen? An ancient prophecy concerning the coming of Christ and what he would do in this world is found in Isaiah 61.
19:32
And this is actually the next passage we're going to be looking at in Luke 4. When Jesus stands up at the synagogue in Nazareth and is given the scroll of Isaiah, this is the passage that he reads.
19:42
And I want you to listen to this. Imagine Jesus standing up in a synagogue and reading this. The spirit of the
19:48
Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.
19:54
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the
20:04
Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the
20:20
Lord that he may be glorified. Isn't that so encouraging? Let us pray for all who do not know
20:27
Jesus that God would make them trees of righteousness, the planting of the
20:33
Lord that he may be glorified. He is able. He is able. Point number two, look at verses two and three in Romans 10 there.
20:42
Paul says in Romans 10 too, for I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge for not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own.
20:57
They did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. Zeal without knowledge of the truth is a very dangerous thing.
21:06
Paul bore witness to the incredible zeal of his countrymen, the Israelites. Their zeal for the Old Testament law knew no bounds, but they had missed its primary point and its primary message.
21:16
The Israelites were, as so many today, ignorant of God's righteousness.
21:22
And instead we're doing what so many are doing today, seeking to establish their own righteousness.
21:30
See what he's saying? There's only one righteousness that can gain us the favor of God and bring us into heaven.
21:36
It's the righteousness of Christ. And if we are seeking to establish our own righteousness, we're ignorant of the truth.
21:43
We don't know God. That's how serious this is. Samuel Blair. Samuel Blair, in that sermon that hasn't seen the light of day in two and a half centuries, said this.
21:57
They were ignorant of God's righteousness. It will give light to this whole text rightly to understand what the apostle means here by God's righteousness.
22:05
It is not to be understood of the moral perfection of his being, whereby he is a holy and righteous God. The Jews were not ignorant of that.
22:12
They knew that God was a holy and just God. But the phrase, the righteousness of God, is to be understood of that righteousness, which
22:21
God has appointed for the justification of a condemned sinner, which he distinguishes from the righteousness of the law.
22:30
For nothing can be available to the justification of a condemned sinner, but a perfect conformity unto and fulfillment of the law, both in its precept and penalty, so answering the demands and charges which the law says against the sinner.
22:45
Thus, the merit of Jesus Christ is called righteousness in both these respects, as it obtains that end for us when received by faith, which a personal righteousness of our own would have done, and as it is properly righteousness in itself, being an obedience yielded to the law of God."
23:04
As long as people see themselves as fairly good, who just need a little help from God, they will be fatally ignorant of God's righteousness.
23:15
As long as people do not see their need for someone else's righteousness, namely the righteousness of Jesus, they are ignorant of the gospel, ignorant of the truth, and are in as much spiritual danger as the most hard -hearted atheist or priest of Satan alive.
23:34
You see, the difference between an almost Christian and a Christian is an eternity of agony versus an eternity of blessedness.
23:44
This is essential. This is no reformed distinctive. This is essential to being a
23:49
Christian. This is essential to understanding the truth. The righteousness by which sinners must be justified is a pure and free gift.
23:57
It is achieved and accomplished entirely outside of us. Remember how Paul described it in Romans 5 .17?
24:03
For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one,
24:12
Jesus Christ. If you do not know what Paul means by this gift of righteousness by which a sinner is justified, it doesn't matter how much zeal you have for any religion, even for one that claims to be
24:25
Christianity, until you recognize that the only righteousness that can stand before the holy
24:31
God of the universe is that righteousness achieved and performed by Christ alone, you, like the
24:37
Jews Paul was seeking to evangelize, are ignorant of God's righteousness. And my friends, this is what all false religions and all false forms of pseudo -Christianity get wrong.
24:49
All of them are ignorant of God's righteousness and instead are always finding some way to establish their own righteousness.
24:58
Chapter 16 of session six of the Counter -Reformation Council of Trent of the
25:03
Roman Catholic religion said this about justification. Quote, we must believe that nothing further is wanting to the justified to prevent their being accounted to have by those very works which have been done in God fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life.
25:20
Ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own. You just heard it.
25:28
An entire religion built upon what the apostle Paul called scubalon, dumb, rubbish, excrement, fully satisfied the divine law by the works done with the help of grace and to have truly merited eternal life.
25:49
If so, however, that they depart in grace. Gotta add that qualifier there at the end. In the anathemas and the curses pronounced upon heretics there in session six, canon 22 of the
26:00
Roman Catholic Council of Trent says, quote, if anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God, which is what we would say, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified or that the said justified by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of eternal life, let him be anathema.
26:29
Hear what they're saying? So unless you are seeking to establish your own righteousness by your works that you do with the help of grace, you're going to hell.
26:38
Folks, that is 180 degrees opposite of the truth. That is the exact opposite of the truth. That is the exact opposite of what the scripture is saying here in Romans 10, 3 and 4.
26:48
As Paul says in verse 3, look at it again. They being ignorant of God's righteousness and doing what?
26:55
Seeking to establish their own. Seeking to get to heaven by their own works, by their own progress in the
27:02
Christian faith, by putting sin to death, by pursuing holiness, by whatever it is that they're doing. They're ignorant of God's righteousness.
27:09
And that's true of anyone whether they're, no matter what the label is or where they go to church. That's what all false religions do.
27:17
They don't know. They are ignorant. That's what the Greek term there means, ignorant of God's righteousness.
27:23
They're ignorant of the gift of righteousness procured by Christ, which is reckoned or imputed to the account of the believing sinner, such that they are seen as righteous in God's sight.
27:33
Anyone who trusts in their good works, yes, even the good works that are done from faith, supposedly by the grace of God, that person is ignorant of the righteousness of God.
27:43
And the Jews at the time Paul wrote this, just as so many are deceived today, were seeking to establish their own righteousness.
27:50
And because of this, they mock at and fail to submit to the righteousness of God.
27:58
N .C. Wright calls the biblical gospel, quote, a cold piece of fiction, a cold piece of business, end quote.
28:06
The idea that Christ did this for us, that we're justified by this imputed righteousness, that's a cold piece of business.
28:15
Mocking at it. To submit to the righteousness of God means simply this. You understand that nothing you do, even nothing you do with the help of God's grace could ever gain you
28:26
God's favor, nor could it ever play any role at all in getting you into heaven. Notice how
28:32
Paul wraps up the passage. Look at verse four, point number three. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
28:42
The summation of Paul's point in this passage, really beginning all the way back in Romans 9 .30 is this.
28:48
The Jews' pursuit of righteousness based upon their own works, their own goodness and obedience to God's law is wrong because Christ gives righteousness not by works, but only by faith.
29:00
Remember how Paul said it earlier? Look at Romans 9 .30. What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith, but Israel pursuing the law of righteousness has not attained to the law of righteousness.
29:15
Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
29:24
In Romans 10 .4 here, the phrase the law is referring to the written mosaic law of the Old Testament.
29:30
So in what sense then is Christ the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes?
29:35
This is really a roundabout way of saying the very same thing that Paul said earlier in Romans 3 .20
29:40
and 21. Therefore by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. The law can't give us righteousness.
29:48
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Paul goes on, by the law is the knowledge of sin, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
30:01
Righteousness, the righteousness by which we enter heaven and are justified, declared righteous at the final judgment, does not and cannot come from a person's law keeping.
30:12
In whole or in part, I said to Samuel Blair in that wonderful sermon, it's not some of him and some of me, it's all and only
30:21
Christ's righteousness and any attempt to mix them, and Paul would say, you're ignorant, you're ignorant of God's righteousness and are seeking to establish your own.
30:29
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness in that sense. And Paul has argued very strongly that the
30:35
Old Testament scriptures teach justification by faith alone, citing Genesis 15 .6
30:41
and also referring to Psalm 32 and the justification of David by faith alone and not by works. The word translated end in Romans 10 .4
30:49
does primarily indicate a temporal disjunction. Paul consistently emphasizes discontinuity between Jesus and the law when it comes to being justified before God.
31:00
As Paul clearly argues in many other places, specifically in Galatians 3 .21 and following, the law, listen, the law is not opposed to the promise of the gospel, but the law is opposed to the gracious nature of justification.
31:14
Always remember this folks, you need to understand this. The biblical doctrine of justification is often caricatured by false teachers, namely federal visionists,
31:23
Rome, Constantinople, et cetera. It's caricatured as though we're setting the law of God against the grace of God.
31:32
We're not doing that. What the biblical doctrine of justification opposes is this. Justification by law keeping versus justification by faith apart from law keeping.
31:43
The law is consistent with the promises of God as long as you understand its function. Why was the law given to us?
31:48
It was added because of transgressions and to do what? To be our schoolmaster, our tutor, to drive us to Christ so that we will be justified by faith and not by the works of the law.
31:59
The law is consistent with God's promises, but justification was never intended to be by our keeping of the law.
32:05
Nevertheless, the law is a good thing. The law is just and holy and righteous, but when it comes to justification, to getting into heaven, the law is absolutely worthless to us.
32:18
It's worthless to us. What does Paul say in Romans 4 .15? The law brings about wrath. Remember Pilgrim?
32:25
Remember Christian and Pilgrim's Progress? He walks down the road of legality for a short time and finds himself walking up Mount Sinai and the hill is so steep it starts to actually turn back on him and there's fire and lightning and everyone that tries to go up that way gets killed and then he ends up coming back and getting back on the path.
32:42
It's righteousness that's given to us as a gift and nothing else by which we are justified.
32:49
No flesh, no human being will ever be justified before God in any sense by their own law keeping.
32:54
And folks, it's not being mean or nasty or being a doctrinal hatchet man to recognize that when people get this wrong they're not
33:06
Christians. I don't care how many short term missions trips they've done. I don't care how many good deeds they've done or how much of the
33:14
Bible they can recite to you. If you get this wrong and what your confidence is resting on you're not a
33:21
Christian and that's not bigoted or mean or nasty. That's loving. That's the truth.
33:27
The law is the mirror we hold up to our souls and see the wretched miserable mess that we are in the sight of God.
33:34
And unless a person has been convicted of their sins by the Holy Spirit of God. Folks, listen. Unless the Holy Spirit does that nothing
33:41
I'm saying right now to you is going to have any effect on you at all. I might as well blow spitballs at a
33:47
Sherman tank. Won't even dent the fender. The Spirit of God opens your heart and shows you a glimpse of what you really are and who
33:55
God really is. You'll be down on your knees with Isaiah, I promise you. Woe is me, I am undone.
34:01
I have no hope but in the blood and righteousness of Christ. When I was in seminary one of the first courses
34:08
I took required us to read the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, which is a massive work.
34:13
And we were told to read it and to take notes and to write down things and to keep quotations and that was a very useful exercise.
34:19
If you've not read any of Calvin's Institutes you need to do that. In the opening pages of the
34:26
Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin wrote these words I still remember reading them the first time they are more needed today than perhaps they have ever been, especially in the church.
34:36
In the church. Calvin said this, quote Again it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.
34:53
For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy. This pride is innate in all of us unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity.
35:09
Moreover, we are not thus convinced if we look merely to ourselves and not also to the Lord who is the sole standard by which this judgment must be measured.
35:19
For before all of us are inclined by nature, because all of us are inclined by nature to hypocrisy a kind of empty image of righteousness in place of righteousness itself abundantly satisfies us.
35:35
You hear what he's saying? Until someone meets God, until they see a glimpse of His holiness a little bit of righteousness yeah,
35:43
I'm perfectly satisfied with that. Yeah, I go to church, I was baptized I take communion, I don't do anything that bad.
35:50
Yeah, that's fine. That satisfies me. I sleep like a baby. If I die, all is well. Calvin continues
35:58
And because nothing appears within or around us that has not been contaminated by great immorality what is a little less than vile pleases us as a thing most pure.
36:10
Hear what he's saying? Because sin has ruined everything in your existence. Something that's just a little less than vile will think
36:17
That's the picture of righteousness. Calvin says Just so an eye to which nothing is shown but black objects judges something dirty white or even rather darkly modeled to be whiteness itself.
36:34
Hear what he's saying? Indeed, what can discern still more clearly from the bodily senses how much we are deluded in estimating the powers of the soul.
36:44
For if in broad daylight we either look down upon the ground or survey whatever meets our view round about, we seem to ourselves endowed with the strongest and keenest sight.
36:56
Yet when we look up into the sun and gaze straight at it that power of sight which was particularly strong on earth is at once blunted and confused by a great brilliance.
37:09
Can you picture doing that? It's a bright sunny day just like today. You look at the ground. My eyes are fine. I can see just fine.
37:15
But you turn and look directly into the sun. What is every one of us going to do? Calvin says
37:23
So it happens in estimating our spiritual goods. As long as we don't look at anything beyond the earth, being quite content with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue we flatter ourselves most sweetly and fancy ourselves all but demigods.
37:39
Suppose we but once again to raise our thoughts to God and to ponder His nature and how completely perfect are
37:46
His righteousness wisdom and power. Then listen, then what masquerading earlier as righteousness was pleasing in us will soon grow filthy in its consummate wickedness.
38:00
What you used to think was good about you, you will see it for the hypocritical evil that it is.
38:06
Calvin says What wonderfully impressed us under the name of wisdom will stink in its very foolishness.
38:14
What wore the face of power will prove itself the most miserable weakness. That is, what in us seems perfection itself corresponds ill to the purity of God.
38:25
And listen in closing Hence that dread and wonder with which scripture commonly represents the saints as stricken and overcome whenever they felt the presence of God thus it comes about that we see men who in God's absence normally remain firm and constant.
38:44
Does anyone here feel like God's about to kill you? I don't. Does anyone here feel like God is a huge threat to you right now and about to cast you off into hell?
38:54
I don't. Listen to Calvin. Thus it comes about that we see men who in God's absence normally remain firm and constant but who when
39:04
God manifests His glory are so shaken and struck dumb as to be laid low by the dread of death are in fact overwhelmed by it and almost annihilated."
39:19
End quote. And then he cites these passages, Judges 13 -22
39:25
And Manoah, that's Samson's father, said to his wife, we shall surely die because we have seen
39:30
God. Folks, what I'm doing as a pastor, as a preacher, what you're supposed to do for others is warn them about this before it happens.
39:39
You have an appointment with this being and you may think he's no threat to you now but when you stand before him dressed in the tattered filth of your own pretenses of righteousness this will be what comes out of your mouth.
39:53
We shall surely die because we've seen God. Isaiah 6 -5, Isaiah says, Woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the
40:05
King, the Lord of hosts. When Ezekiel was called, Ezekiel 1 -28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day so was the appearance of the brightness all around it.
40:15
This was the appearance of the lightness of the glory of the Lord. So when I saw it I fell on my face and I heard a voice of one speaking.
40:24
Judges 6, Now Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the angel of the
40:32
Lord face to face. And the Lord said to him, Peace be with you. Do not fear. You shall not die.
40:40
Genesis 18 -27, Then Abraham answered and said, Indeed now I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the
40:48
Lord. Were God to draw near in this room and even the slightest fraction and semblance of his glory everyone in this room would become very, very, very interested in exactly what
41:00
Romans 10 -1 -4 is talking about. Not even unfallen angels are bold enough to look at God.
41:10
Isaiah 6 -2, Above it stood Seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face.
41:16
With two he covered his feet. And with two he flew. For Christians only
41:22
Jesus Christ's righteousness will satisfy the need that the Holy Spirit of God has shown them.
41:29
Unregenerate people who do not know the Holy God will always be happy with rituals, pictures, icons, statues, priests, incense, bells, smells, and all forms of synergistic
41:40
God does his part, I do my part methods of salvation. But when God closes in on one of his own, they will have that moment of what the great
41:50
Martin Luther called Anfechtungen. You know what that word means? It means spiritual despair.
41:58
Luther said that's what the law did to him. Looked into the face of the holiness of God and the law and said all
42:04
I could think was Anfechtungen. I am dead, damned, going to hell.
42:11
Terror, despair, hopelessness in the face of our spiritual bankruptcy and the holiness of God. If you have not experienced at least to some degree that sense of Anfechtungen, that sense of despair in yourself, that moment when you recognize that the tattered filth of your own pretended righteousness has as much of a chance of getting you into heaven as a spider's web does of stopping an avalanche.
42:34
To quote Jonathan Edwards, you are in grave danger. If you haven't come to the place where in your own heart you know without question that your works cannot possibly be the grounds of your acceptance with God, then you are in grave danger.
42:48
If you're not in the place right now where you hate your sin and your faith rests upon Christ alone for your salvation, you are in grave danger.
42:58
Listen to God speaking, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
43:07
That's why Paul says in verse 1, My prayer to God is that they would be saved.
43:13
Because ignorance of God's righteousness is spiritually fatal. There is no recovery.
43:19
You die ignorant of the only righteousness by which you can enter heaven. It's a loss for which there's no recovery.
43:28
And we just had the 500th anniversary of the Great Protestant Reformation and it grieves me to tears how ignorant most of non -Catholicism and non -Eastern
43:39
Orthodoxy are of the Gospel. I'm not going to call it Protestantism anymore. Even in my own journaling and writing and thinking,
43:47
I just call it non -Catholicism. Why do I not call it Protestantism anymore? Because it's not protesting anything.
43:54
The convictions aren't there strong enough to protest anything. I really do believe that the age in which we live is very dark.
44:02
In some ways, it's even darker than the church in Europe before the Reformation. Back then, few people had
44:08
Bibles or ever even read them. Today, we have open Bibles but lots of misinterpretations.
44:14
Today, we have open Bibles but even many conservatives have embraced a form of skepticism that says it's arrogant to think you understand what the
44:22
Bible teaches. And it's arrogant to denounce error for what it is. And certainly, many professing conservative people who would identify themselves as Christians today get righteously indignant when we openly criticize
44:35
Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or any of man's religions.
44:40
Folks, when the ostensibly Protestant Bible -answer man converts to Eastern Orthodoxy, you know that the ship of fools called
44:52
Evangelicalism sunk to the bottom of the ocean a long time ago. He did that with very, very, very little protest from anybody.
45:02
I chimed in on some of the internet chatter on Hank Hanegraaff when that happened and I had acid thrown in my face from both sides.
45:11
Even the non -Catholics and the non -Eastern Orthodox, again, they're not Protestants because they don't have enough convictions to protest anything, who have commented on that really seem to have no passion for the truth, no passion to protect the honor of Jesus Christ.
45:23
That's what breaks my heart. Where's your zeal to protect the honor of Jesus and the all -sufficiency of what he did?
45:29
Isn't that the very lifeblood of your soul? Wouldn't you be willing to give your life for that? So many people said, this is a direct quote, we need to respect our brother's decision and wish him well.
45:40
Others said, this is a good call for all of us to read church history a bit more. And then one lonely, godly man, someone else, said, how about we all go home and read
45:50
Romans instead? And I just said, amen. Click. I did a little math.
45:57
I did a little math for you. I took our church directory and counted the children of our church. And it just keeps growing.
46:05
Most are covenant children right now, but a few are now communicant members. But there's 62 of them, folks.
46:12
We're a small church. 62 children. And then based on the families in our church,
46:17
I made this calculation. If each child in our church one day has the same number of children that their parents have, how many children will there be in one generation from now?
46:26
Just one generation. If all these little kids grow up and get married and have the same number of kids that their parents have, there will be 300.
46:32
300. If that continues for one more generation after that, each of those grows up and have the same number of children their parents have.
46:41
You know how many we're going to have in two generations? 13 ,548. I have a question.
46:49
Where are they going to go to church? If we don't have another Reformation in our day, where are they going to go to church?
46:57
They're not going to fit in here if we won't stand up and preach and teach and defend in every possible way.
47:04
If we won't defend the church against the vandals and the Visigoths that are climbing over the walls with all this gay marriage and all this side -B total nonsense going on with Revoice and all this other total silliness, where are they going to go to church?
47:20
Do you see why the session here has a vision to grow this church and to plant churches? We want to maximize this land block that we've got here and make the best use of it that we can.
47:29
Those plans out there, I pray every day that we would see that happen. That God would fill this place up the rest of the way.
47:34
We have three young men studying for the ministry now. You think we can plant churches and give them the same mindset?
47:39
Maybe they'll plant some of their own and disciple men in -house to do it? If we are not zealous in planning, praying, and working to build up our own local church, build up the next generation, and make them grounded in the
47:52
Word of God so they're not swept into the arms of the world and in the doctrines of the faith, especially the pure gospel of Christ and a free justification by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ's cross and imputed righteousness alone.
48:04
If we don't promote that and evangelize with it and teach it to the rising generations, where are those 13 ,548 great -grandchildren going to go to church?
48:15
Now many people think, who me? Me evangelize people? Me defend the faith? Yes, you!
48:22
Tag, you're it! I want to strongly encourage you to believe in hope against hope, against the darkness.
48:30
You know, the Christian church has overcome far greater odds than we are, than we're looking at today. Has thrived in far greater darkness.
48:37
Anyone here know anyone that's been turned into a human torch to light a corrupted emperor's garden parties?
48:43
I don't. We need to hope against hope and believe that God will bless faithfulness to the gospel and faithfulness to His Word.
48:52
Look at what God has done in history. It's time that we go to our knees and pray. We must preach and talk and pray.
48:59
We must be zealous for the truth all day, every day. We need to put aside the silly distractions and get calluses on our knees as our forefathers did in ages past.
49:09
Look at this room, folks. Lord willing, if we double the size of it, 13 ,548 of our great -grandchildren plus however many of us are still alive are not going to fit in this little room.
49:20
What do we need in order to fulfill the Great Commission? We need to pray that God would stir the hearts of young men and raise them up for gospel ministry, to give them a passion for evangelism, for apologetics, a passion for covenant children, to embrace and love life, to have a heart for those children, to pray for those children, to teach them the truth, to steer them aright, to train them up in the way they should go.
49:45
Not the way they want to go, but in the way they should go. A passion to teach those rising generations and an insatiable desire to see new churches planted, built, and then to see those churches planting churches.
49:57
And here's a little more math. If we do phase two of our building expansion project at some point in the next few years and that new room can hold about 275 people, how many similar sized churches will we need to accommodate those 13 ,548 kids and grandkids plus hopefully hundreds if not thousands more converts to Christ who hopefully will be having kids themselves?
50:20
How many will we need? Well, we're going to need about 50 churches to handle that many people. 50.
50:27
If before my lifetime is over, we planted five. And before those men are dead and gone, they've planted five of their own.
50:33
And before those men are dead and gone, they've planted five of their own. You know how many churches that would be? 125. And the total population of the
50:40
Tri -Cities is still 600 ,000. We've got a lot of work to do. Don't be complacent.
50:48
Don't think, well, we have this church. Here we are. When we die, the church dies, and I guess we'll see what happens.
50:54
We need to be thinking, no, there needs to be a gospel witness here and in many other places before we're done. Before we're dead and gone.
51:01
We need to pass that on to the rising generation. And I want to ask you, if there's doubt in your heart, how big is your
51:07
God? How big is your God? Please do pray for the growth of God's kingdom.
51:15
Jesus told us every time we pray, we're to pray thy kingdom come. We are to pray for the advancement of the gospel.
51:21
Not just for the things troubling me. Not just for my kids. Not just for all the stuff going on. Not just for all the sick people. Although we do need to pray for all those things.
51:28
But in addition to that, every time we bow our heads, we need to be praying for the advancement of the gospel in the world. Pray for the children of this church.
51:35
Pray for revival. Pray for renewed interest in the things of God. Pray that God would sweep through the cobwebs of our spiritually dry hearts and break the fallowed ground of our souls and rain down a renewed joy in Christ.
51:47
A renewed sense of purpose. A renewed sense of confidence in the gospel of Christ to convert and save sinners.
51:53
What will be our legacy when we pass the church on to the next generation? Will there be faithful men?
51:59
May God make us faithful and may he raise up an army of devoted, gospel -loving,
52:06
Christ -fearing, gospel -believing men and women who trust in and know the righteousness of God and are never seeking to establish their own.
52:16
And are doing everything in their power to make sure that the rising generation has that same knowledge.
52:24
And may God bless us as we seek to be faithful to him and advance his kingdom.
52:29
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, without your word, everyone here would be ignorant of the righteousness of God.
52:38
That righteousness that was achieved by Christ and given to us by faith alone. And all of us would be seeking to establish our own righteousness.
52:47
And all of us would still be in our sins and under God's just condemnation for them.
52:53
Lord, we bless and praise your name for showing us the folly of trusting in our own works.
52:59
Thank you for not leaving us in ignorance of the righteousness of God. And showing us that we must never seek to establish our own.
53:07
Our lives that we live in holiness and obedience, that's our gratitude to you. That's our thankfulness to you. That's not our acceptance before you.
53:15
That is not how we gain eternal life. It is Christ and Christ alone whom we remember.
53:22
We remember his suffering. We remember his crown of thorns. We remember the nail piercings, the scourging, the mockery that he was struck in the head with reeds, with people's hands and fists.
53:34
We remember him because he alone has achieved our salvation by his righteousness.
53:41
We pray that you would make that knowledge dispel the darkness of ignorance.
53:46
And to dispel any and all who would ever think that they could establish their own righteousness before you.
53:53
May they pronounce the same curse upon that that your word does. Repent and trust only in Jesus' righteousness.
54:03
We ask in his name. Amen. This is
54:14
Pastor Patrick Hines of Brittle Heights Presbyterian Church located at 108 Brittle Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
54:20
And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any
54:25
Sunday morning at 11am sharp where we open the word of God together, sing his praises and rejoice in the gospel of our risen
54:31
Lord. You can find us on the web at www .brittleheightspca .org
54:37
And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.