Justified

Now I would like you to turn please in your Bible to 1st Peter and chapter 3. The first letter of Peter and chapter 3. 1st Peter chapter 3 and verse 18. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient. When once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water.

The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. We do trust God will bless to us this further reading of his own good word. And I would like as the Lord gives help to pick up on things that my dear brother Mr. Rogers has been speaking of and to show you that the things of which he has been speaking God has already demonstrated in the history of this world.

That God is a righteous God, he is a long-suffering God, but eventually long-suffering patience comes to an end. Eventually that wrath which is treasured up reaches a limit. You will find it often through the Old Testament scriptures, even when he was dealing with his ancient people Israel and when he was dealing also with Gentile nations.

God would wait, he would wait for example until the cup of the Amorites was full and then God would judge. And one of the things we have to know from the Word of God is to do with a character of God and that is although judgment is his strange work, God is a God of judgment. The Bible opens with God making preparation for judgment.

You begin to read of the account of creation in Genesis chapter 1 and you're only six or seven verses into your Bible when you find that God made preparation for judgment. He separated the waters that were below the expanse of heaven and he put the expanse of heaven between waters that were above it and waters below it. So that if we had been there on the earth's surface at that time we would have seen him gather the waters upon the earth into one place and call them seas.

There was then an expanse which he called heaven, that is the atmospheric heaven and above that there was water. He put an expanse between the water that was below the firmament and the water that was above the firmament. What was God doing? He was making preparation for judgment because some 1,500 years later in the days of Noah when eventually divine patience once again was exhausted then God opened the windows of heaven and the water that he had put there in Genesis 1 verses 6 and 7 then came crashing down at the same time as the fountains of the deep broke up and as Peter eloquently puts it the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.

May I say it very reverently but say it for clarity when we're speaking of a God of judgment God has a track record as far as this world is concerned. One of the things that men love to scoff at and sneer at is the whole history that the Bible records of the judgment of the world that then was in the days of Noah. They like to make Noah and his ark if anything an object of comedy even the books that we buy for our children, carry on buying them but make sure they understand that Mr. Noah wasn't out for a nice little day trip on the ark.

Our local shopping mall in the north of Scotland has a big clock and at 12 o'clock when the hour strikes then the monkey slides down the giraffe's neck and something else pulls on the elephant's tail and it rings a little bell and Mr. Noah waves and that would suit the devil's purpose perfectly for men and women to think that Noah and the ark were just a picture of comedy. But my friends tonight understand this it is the history of cataclysmic divine judgment upon this world and that very forbearance that long-suffering of which we have been hearing. Long-suffering in the days of Noah.

Long-suffering while the ark was being prepared. It was with a view to leading men to repentance. The ark was never intended to be something in which everybody could go.

If men had repented there would have been no need of that cataclysmic flood. But the very preparation of it should have been a warning to men that God meant business. It was being prepared according to divine command.

And when ultimately the flood came and we're talking for round figures some 4,500 years ago now and the evidence for it by the way lives in and on and under the world all around. But when that flood came, are you listening now? The population of this world almost certainly was greater than it is today. Almost certainly the population of the world four and a half thousand years ago was probably between seven and eight thousand million people.

And God moved in judgment and eight, eight souls were saved. The evidence is there. Not that we especially need evidence even if it wasn't there.

The Word of God declares it. But I want you to understand tonight that the things we've been hearing about, the long-suffering of God leading men to repentance, the fact that men stand before God accused by their own selves. Their own active consciences are the greatest witness that testifies against ungodly men.

And you tonight if you are still in your sins are facing the definite wrath and judgment of a God who has already demonstrated in the history of this world that he is a God of judgment and a God of cataclysmic judgment at that. Eight souls saved out of a population greater than is in the world today. But Peter tells us that that was only a figure.

It was a real event. It truly happened. But Peter says that the outpouring of divine judgment upon a rebellious and a wicked world was was a figure.

It was an illustration. We know that because he tells us then that baptism, the baptism of a Christian is a like figure. So Peter's telling us there are two figures in this passage.

There are two illustrations and they are like each other. And these two illustrations though they are real in themselves are actually portraying something even bigger. So you say well if this cataclysmic judgment that ended the world that then was and brought in a whole new order of things, if that was so monumental and so massive what could be bigger than it for it to only be a picture of something? Well the greater thing that the flood was a picture of the greater thing that believers baptism is a picture of, that greater thing is the fact that Christ also suffered for sins.

The just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. That is the greatest demonstration of divine judgment this world has ever seen. The flood was huge, the flood was massive, the flood took out the world population bigger than we have today.

But bigger than that, far bigger than that was the momentous day when the Son of God became the sin-bearer at the place called Calvary. The flood was real but it was only an illustration of Calvary. Believers baptism is real and it illustrates the same thing.

What does it illustrate? Noah, the Bible says so beautifully, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. We don't know why, we're not told why, we're simply told that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And Noah was going to be used of God as an illustration of a man who on the grounds of divine grace alone was going to be delivered from well-deserved judgment and he was going to be born through the judgment in safety by being in the ark that was designed by God himself.

Noah who found grace in the sight of God, Noah was transported from one world that was destroyed and that perished under the judgment of God, he was transported from one world to a new world and he was wonderfully preserved through the whole outpouring of divine wrath and divine judgment. What he could not possibly have borne personally, he survived because he was found in the ark that was divinely designed to be able to bear that wrath and that judgment. He was brought through and he came through the waters of judgment and he finished up in a whole new order of things, a whole new world and it was all by the grace of God.

And my friends that's at the core of the very message that we preach. That sinners richly deserving the judgment of God can know what it is by grace and by divine grace alone to be safely brought through from judgment to a whole new order of things whereby the guilty sinner stands justified in the sight of a righteous God. And that transition that no one knew was but a picture of the transition that a sinner can know tonight from death unto life, from judgment unto justification, from darkness unto light, from bondage unto liberty.

The whole glorious truth of the salvation which God has provided and which Christ has provided in his own blood, that salvation can be yours as a guilty sinner tonight, as the free gift of God if you repent and believe the gospel. Christ also hath once suffered for sins. The only man who had no sins, the only one who could not sin and yet that was at the very key of him being the sin-bearer.

If a man was going to be the sin-bearer who could righteously give God the grounds to move out in mercy toward the repentant sinner that man must be without sin and he was, he is, he is the Son of God. And there at Calvary the Lord Jesus Christ in his sacrifice and what it meant to God, that sacrifice gave God the ground he needed to move out in righteousness. No expense to his own righteousness, God could move out in mercy toward the penitent sinner.

He couldn't do that before. In fact the only way that people had been delivered from divine wrath, immediate divine wrath, whenever they sinned in days past, the only way they were delivered from it was because God made gracious provision that through the Old Testament sacrificial system the blood of ignorant animals would provide an atonement for them. The word atonement comes from the word to cover.

We know from the writings to the Hebrews in the New Testament it was not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins but they could at least provide a temporary covering. That covering averted the gaze of a righteous God from the heinousness of the guilt of that sin. Were it not for that covering divine judgment must swiftly fall.

And all through the Old Testament days when men sinned and when they brought a suitable sacrifice and its blood was shed and atonement was made, sins were covered up, covered up, covered up, covered up until there was a vast mountain of sins and yet the blood of those bulls and goats could never possibly take them away. Sometimes we sing a hymn it says this, not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or purge away one's stain. Wasn't possible but all those sacrifices were looking forward to a day when in due time Christ would die for the ungodly.

That's Romans 5 and verse 6. But now listen, you might be thinking tonight from what you've heard and the verses we've quoted, you might be thinking well I'm a sinner, Christ has died for sinners, I'm okay. But listen Romans 5 verse 6, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Who's that? Who are the ungodly? Everybody ever born of Adam.

Everyone that came from Adam's stock, ungodly, for there is none righteous, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Christ died to provide a means for all to be saved. Praise God for that.

Christ died for the ungodly. But two verses later Paul says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He's writing to the Roman Christians.

Christ died for us he said, for you in Rome, for me writing to you. Yes Christ died for the ungodly, but he said Christ died for us, so there's a difference isn't there? Christ died so that God could righteously offer full and free salvation to all. But Paul says he died for us.

There's a difference between the biblical truths of propitiation, that is where Christ provided in his sacrifice a ground upon which God could move out in mercy to sinners. There's a difference between propitiation and substitution whereby I can say Christ died for me. It's here in this verse, Christ also hath once suffered for sins.

That's propitiation. The just for the unjust, that's substitution. What does it mean in practice? It means this, the fact that Christ has died and that he has given his life as sacrifice at Calvary means that you can be saved from the judgment of God that you richly deserve.

But until and unless you repent and believe the gospel, you'll never be able to say Christ died for me. You see the difference? In propitiation he made salvation available for all. It's a bit like that great night of Passover when the blood of the Lamb was shed, but the shed blood by itself would never have preserved that family in the Israelite home.

Blood shed in Scripture is always for the eye of God. Blood shed is for the satisfaction of divine claims, but only when that shed blood is applied by faith does it become of any value to the needy sinner. Can you see that tonight my dear friends? Christ has died.

He has given his life a sacrifice in agony and blood so that you the sinner can be saved. But if that's not met with repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ on your part, you will never be saved. It's not because Christ couldn't provide it.

It's not because somehow you've been excluded from divine mercy. It's because you have not and will not repent and appropriate by faith the finished work of Christ for yourself. Christ has died to settle the sin question and for those who believe we can say yes he died for me the just for the unjust and it was in order that he might bring us to God.

Propitiation, substitution, reconciliation he can bring us to God. That's what you need tonight. By nature, by works, you are alienated from God.

You're at a vast distance from God and your sins are the cause. That's the greatest need that any person in this room has tonight is to know what it is to have their sins righteously forgiven. Not overlooked, not swept under the carpet, not atoned for.

Oh thank God. I know that in Romans 5 11 in the good King James Version we have the word atonement but it is a mistranslation. The word should be reconciliation.

The word atonement isn't there in the in the New Testament Scriptures. Neither incidentally is the word pardon. God isn't offering you a pardon tonight.

I know a hymn book speak a lot about it but don't take your theology from your hymn book now. The words atonement and pardon are not found in the New Testament. They're there all through the Old Testament because in Old Testament days sins were being covered covered covered against the day when the one perfect sacrifice of Christ would enable the remission of sins that are past says Paul to the Romans in chapter 3. It would be in the work of Christ that that great mountain of sins covered up would finally and totally be disposed of righteously.

No for the Christian tonight, for the repentant sinner tonight, God doesn't say atonement. Neither does God say pardon. Pardon is only the removal of the sentence.

A pardoned criminal simply has his sentence revoked but he still did the crime. He's still guilty. No no pardon isn't in the New Testament at all.

This is the language now of the Roman Epistle from which our brother has read. There is a righteousness which is apart from the law. A righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ.

It is unto all, that's propitiation. It is upon all who believe that substitution and it is a righteousness that comes from God because of the propitiation that Christ has made in his blood so that God might remain just. You listening now? God remains just and yet can be the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

That's the New Testament truth. Not atonement that only covers the sin. Not pardon that only takes away the sentence.

Justification. Meaning that a repentant sinner can stand before God and there is not and there will never ever be for eternity a question raised again against them in the matter of sins. Dealt with 100% because Christ also has suffered for sins.

The just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. And if we can this evening in these closing moments of this meeting, if we can have some kind of visualization in our mind of the enormity of a divine judgment that would overwhelm the world. That would destroy all except eight people.

The entire population. Totally shatter the world that then was. But there were a few who found grace in the eyes of the Lord and safely secured in the place of God's preparing.

They were brought from the old world under judgment into a new world and a new order of things. All on the grounds of grace alone. If you can visualize anything of that because it was a physical literal event then understand it was still only a picture of a far greater outpouring of divine wrath and judgment upon his own blessed son at Calvary of whom it could be said prophetically, all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.

A place of such suffering that Jonah who again was a picture of Christ in his death. Drawn down deep deep into an alien environment where all light was excluded. Where the pressure was enormous.

Drawn down into the depths of that cold world where he said the weeds wrapped themselves around my head. Some of the most terrifying words that you could find. Still drawn down deeper he says until I was at the very place where the bars of the mountains were.

A man who couldn't cry for help there was none to pity there was none to comfort there was none to understand. A man utterly abandoned in the darkness and the desolation of an awful cold watery grave and that was only a picture. Only a picture of the enormity of the sufferings of body soul and mind that the Lord Jesus went through to rescue a sinner like you and a sinner like me.

And tonight in the glorious gospel of the grace of God we can say Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. Yes there are pictures in the Bible Noah and Jonah and others but nothing can meet the reality that you have to face tonight. For everything that Christ bore in order that you might be saved if you neglect and reject God's salvation then you will suffer those things yourself.

That's what substitution means. He bore it all for me. If he had not borne it for me I would need to bear it myself.

But what God condensed into awful waves and billows of judgment in those dark hours on Calvary. My friend if you bear it for yourself it will take eternity to exhaust the judgment of a righteous God upon you the unrepentant sinner. This is real and it's from that very judgment that you need to be saved tonight and it was to save you from that judgment that Christ died at Calvary.

And tonight God doesn't ask you to give him your heart. God doesn't invite you to ask you to invite Jesus into your life. God commands that you repent.

God commands that you repent. That you take your place as a guilty sinner before God and you confess those sins and you repent of them and by faith you lean your whole weight upon Christ as the only Savior of sinners and God says if you do that he'll save your soul. If you tonight are sitting in this meeting and you're not saved I wouldn't trade places with you for all the money in the world.

I've been preaching by the grace of God for a few years now and every time I preach I love to tell people this. It's a wonderful thing to be saved. It's a wonderful thing to know that being justified by faith I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and you can have that peace tonight as well you know.

You can know sins forgiven. You can know with absolute assurance that the coast is clear between you and a God of judgment. You could be saved tonight and we trust that for the honor and the glory of God you would repent and believe the gospel.

May God bless this word shall we pray.