1889 Sermon #2 on Righteousness- Continued.
By A.T. Jones
Now, Romans 5:6-8-10,
Rom 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
Rom 5:7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Rom 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (((Praise God!!!!!!!))))
Christ died for you because you are ungodly, and he died for the ungodly, and you can be counted righteous right now if you will believe it.
Christ's death reconciled the world unto God but it never saved any or ever can. His death met the penalty of the law, but we are saved by Christ's life.
Read Romans 4:25.
Rom 4:25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
By his death then we have reconciliation, by his life justification, and by the second coming we have salvation--all these being necessary to complete the plan of salvation.
The law of God shows a man to be ungodly--and as by the law is the knowledge of sin which is ungodliness (we will call it now sin). So turn to Prov. 28:13
Pro 28:13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
(mercy being treating one better than he deserves).
Remember, believe this fully; our habit has been to confess our sins and then doubt the forgiveness and carry them all away with us, obtaining no peace because we doubted.
"God never appointed us to wrath."-1 Thess. 5:9.
1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ
He shows the laws to save us from them,
the knowledge of them being a token of his love, that there is Jesus to take them all from us.
He calls us to obtain salvation.
So do not take the knowledge of your sins as a token of his wrath. "Whoso confesses his sins shall be saved."--Rom. 4:6-7.
Rom 4:6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
Rom 4:7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
Now 1 John 1:9, 5:17, "If we confess our sins he will forgive and cleanse us from all our sins."
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jn 5:17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
Believe this fully and go free.
How many go to the soul confessing and never believe they are forgiven?
To believe part of the word and not all is infidelity. "Man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord."
To confess a sin and not believe in its forgiveness is infidelity.
Don't wait for feeling--that has nothing to do with faith.
How can anyone know how he ought to feel when sins are forgiven? If you trust to feeling you are like a wave of the sea tossed by the winds to and fro. Often revivalists tell mourners how he felt when he was forgiven, and they try to feel as he did and fail, as no two can ever feel just alike and so no one can tell if converted.
Faith does not rest on evidence.
If it rests on the reasonableness of a thing, it rests on reason and not faith. If it rests on the confidence we have in the person, and that person contradicts himself, then where is faith? If one says, I will do some great thing, and I believe him; if he comes again and says something that uproots all he previously said, what am I to do? Now let me prove this: Abraham was justified by faith and it was counted to him for righteousness. Read the account of it, Gen. 15:5 and onward.
Gen 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
Gen 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
Sometime after that Isaac was born and growing up Abraham was told to offer him up, directly against the promise. Where did his faith come in? By believing the promise independent of appearances.
That was faith furnishing its own evidence. Abraham believed it until all came right because God had promised it would. Now turn to Romans 4:16-22;
Rom 4:16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
Rom 4:17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Rom 4:18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
Rom 4:19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb:
Rom 4:20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
Rom 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
Rom 4:22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Abraham against hope believed in hope, his faith furnishing the hope, confidence and evidence.
Never let our feelings, then, have any control over our faith.
Feelings belong to Satan. Relegate them to him. "The just shall live by faith." Brethren, let us live that way.
When we believe it puts Christ in place of the sin and when Satan comes to attack us he finds only Christ, and then we have the victory over Satan, not delivering us from temptation, but giving us power to conquer temptation, and gaining the victory so that particular temptation never comes again. We are conquerors there forever. If you want feeling about this, praise the Lord because he ever pardons your sin and because you believe his promise, and there will be feeling enough within you to be satisfactory.
Look for God, and he will put a song in your mouth. Now, do you believe my opening text, that we are justified freely. Often we sin and feel so ashamed and bad over it we wait a few days to get a little better before we go to the Lord for forgiveness. We try to make ourselves good first. There is a tendency in every soul to this. That is justification by works the same as fasting or punishing oneself first. This is the root of monkery and all the penances in the Catholic church. Then, if we do not want to be papists, let us quit. We have done no better, but the sin has lost the horror before us, and we are better in our own eyes, and then confess only our surface sin, so the Holy Spirit shows us again the sin that was covered up. Now the only way to get rid of it is to confess it at once, because the Lord shows us a sin just as it is, and right then, so that he can forgive it fully and completely.
When we try to catch up our sin by doing better, we are putting on more and more of the filthy rags spoken of by Isaiah, which is our own righteousness. Let us read Revelation 3:11-18. Let us trust the Lord and believe his promises.
Rev 3:11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
Rev 3:13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
Rev 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Rev 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Rev 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
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