-Transcript-
00:38 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome.
00:40 Great to have you here today. Hopefully you’re having a wonderful day, a wonderful week. Maybe you got a cup of Joe.
00:47 Maybe you’re like me and you’re drinking decaf now, mostly decaf or half-calf. Even that kind of gets you wound up, but whatever it is or tea, maybe you got some tea, some iced tea, hot tea. Welcome to the cafe.
01:01 It’s great to have you here today. Amen. Maybe I’ll at some point do a introduction on why we chose this theme, but generally speaking, it’s just a comfortable idea to imagine ourselves together in a cafe studying God’s Word because we really don’t need to be on guard when we study God’s Word.
01:20 We should just go ahead and let the Word reign within us. Let the Word speak to us as we study it. God is a wonderful God, and I guess what I’m saying is God is trustworthy.
01:32 He’s trustworthy. You can trust God. You can trust His Word and His ways.
01:38 I would never ask you to trust me and my ways, but I would ask you to trust God, and I would testify that when you trust God, you have faith in God. He will bless and He’ll move, and that’s the idea behind KJV Cafe. I’m so glad you’re here again.
01:50 Today we’re in a multi-part series looking at the justice of God, and yes, we have a just God that will enact great wrath on this world, and yes, we have a just God that will judge all those that have rejected His free gift of salvation, but today we’re actually looking at the justice of God in the good light, the justice of God that allows man to be saved, and as we were looking at last time, and as I’ll kind of summarize here, God does not allow us to win ourselves to Him.
02:25 He doesn’t allow us to say, okay, God, I read the Bible 30 times, and I ran a marathon in a Christian t-shirt. Now do I have entry into your heaven? No, God doesn’t allow us to have works of any kind allow us to make us whole or reconcile with Him.
02:44 God’s plan is much greater and much deeper than that, and the justice of God is allowing, giving us the opportunity, us as Gentiles, us as people in this world, Amen, that are not of His chosen people, which we know are the Israelites, that God allows us to be saved by Jesus Christ.
03:05 It’s by grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus Christ alone that we’re saved, amen, and when we see here in Matthew 12, if you go through Matthew 12, we see that Jesus Christ is to show judgment to the Gentiles.
03:22 Matthew 12:18, behold, my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, and whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles,
03:29 and Matthew 12 is paraphrasing Isaiah, Isaiah 42:1, behold, my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, and whom mysoul delighteth, I put my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles, and so there you have the prophet Isaiah giving that prophecy about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
03:51 Here you have in Matthew, it mentioned again, helps us understand that in the New Testament times, they had the Old Testament scriptures, the scrolls, and they were able to quote them, which they did quite often,
04:01 and here we have a greater truth, that man is not under the law or works, and Matthew 12 starts with the disciples and Jesus in the cornfield, and the Pharisees accuse them of eating corn on the Sabbath day,
04:16 and then Jesus is going to heal the withered man in the temple, and they say, hey, you can’t do this, this is the Sabbath day, and Jesus rebukes them in many different ways.
04:30 He says that he’s greater than the temple, which means that he is greater than the law, right? He also asks them if one of their sheep were to fall into a pit, would they not pull it out?
04:43 And I would say that that’s an example of like their money, their riches, you know, if they had, the sheep might have been a commodity to them, it might have been a way for work or for something important.
04:54 Would they not pull it out? Of course they would, and so he’s pointing out their hypocrisy, but most importantly, Christ is showing us that we are not justified by works, that we’re justified by faith in Him, and we see the Pharisees who are they? They’re experts in the law, right?
05:12 So they’re experts in the law, and they would have benefited a lot by being justified by works.
05:18 If man was justified by works, then the Pharisees would have been the cream of the crop, Amen. They would have been the top dog, amen? They would have been the big man on campus because they had great works that they would say, or they had knowledge of the Bible, the Old Testament, what we call the books by Moses.
05:47 I don’t know, I’m trying to get too technical here, okay? You can tell I didn’t go to seminary, Amen. All right, here we go. So what does this all mean? It means that we are not under the law, we are under grace, Amen. And it’s such an important truth.
05:57 And maybe, you know, you’ve been thinking you’d like to be a Christian. Maybe you’re listening to this and you’re not a Christian, and you wonder, what would you have to do to be a Christian?
06:08 I mean, do you have to join a church? Do you have to give money? Do you have to, you know, swear some kind of oath to a group? Do you have to have relatives in the church?
06:18 The answer is no to all those things. In fact, you don’t even have to be perfect or follow a bunch of laws.
06:26 You don’t have to follow the law. All you have to do is believe on Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And what that means is understanding that there’s a sin debt within all of us that we cannot pay, including you, that there is sin in your life.
06:43 And that sin came from the beginning of mankind from Adam and Eve when they sinned in the Garden of Eden. And ever since then, it’s been passed on from generation to generation. And we all have sin in our life.
06:53 And sin to a holy God is a reproach. He cannot be around it. He cannot stand it.
06:58 And he needs it dealt with because he is a holy God. And so the way that that sin is dealt with is through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary. Because Jesus Christ had no sin, and He was born perfect of a virgin, and he lived this life perfect for 33 and a half years.
07:18 He was literally God in the flesh. And he went to that cross at Calvary to die on the cross, not for anything that he had done, but to pay that sin debt for you. And for me, and for all mankind that would believe.
07:31 And so he already did it, past tense, it’s been done. That’s why you’ll hear preachers talk about the finished work on the cross. It’s already complete.
07:41 Christ has already died for your sins. So when you say, okay, I believe that, I know myself. And some people will say, I’m a pretty good person.
07:48 But then you start going through the law, which God gave us to show us that we’re not perfect. And the law has tons of in there. You really want to dive in.
07:55 You can look at God’s law. If you even look upon a person with lust, you’ve committed adultery. Have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen anything? And then even Paul writes that he didn’t know he’d been breaking the law until he understood what coveting means.
08:09 And I was talking to our kids last night about coveting, and we’re talking about a proverb that was mentioning the word envy. And so we’re talking about envy and coveting. And our kids could understand that they were full of envy and coveting for prize eggs and all these other things, five and six years old.
08:27 And the teenager too, he understood it. Amen. We can bring up examples, not to single them out.
08:32 We bring up examples of everyone in the family. The point is, what we understand is we’re all guilty under the law. And so we can’t keep God’s law.
08:39 And so God’s justice brought Jesus Christ to save us from that law, because He fulfilled the law. Because again, He didn’t need to go to the cross. He’s God in the flesh.
08:50 He didn’t need to go to the cross. And you say, well, Brother Clark, he was arrested and they plotted against him and put him on the cross. Look, when they came to the Garden of Gethsemane, read this in the Bible, they asked His name.
09:00 And when He spoke, they all fell down. Now, what does that speak of? That speaks of the power of His word. Amen.
09:04 He’s God in the flesh. He could blink. He could have a thought and legions of angels could come and rescue Him.
09:11 He could do whatever he wants. He’s God. He didn’t have to die.
09:15 And we need to understand that, that Christ didn’t have to die, but he willingly died for the sins of all mankind. And think about this. I mean, this is God’s will, Father God’s will.
09:26 And Father God says, okay, this people’s rebellious and they’re stiff-necked and they won’t believe in me and they’re hypocritical and all these things. And I’m going to send my son to die for them.
09:37 And my beloved Son, my only begotten, I’m going to send Him to die for them.
09:39 And many of them will still live in sin, will still be nasty and awful, will still blaspheme me. And yet God still did that. What kind of loving God is that? That’s a justice and a judgment that’s hard to fathom.
09:51 Think of what you want to do to your enemies. Think of what you want to do to those that would blaspheme your child, that would hurt, harass, scheme against, and want to murder your child. Think about what you would do to those people.
10:04 Now think about if you had all the power that God has and what does God do? He says, I love them. I will send My Son. I will give My only Begotten.
10:13 And we see a picture of that in the Old Testament with Abraham and Isaac and the offering there. And then there’s that ram, which is a young lamb, a picture of Jesus Christ.
10:23 And I could go on and on about this, but let me tell you, friend, if you haven’t been saved, what is stopping you? What is holding you up? What question could I answer or someone else answer to help you believe on Christ? Because it is the most important thing you’ll ever do.
10:39 Eternity hangs in the balance of this one question. Do you believe in Jesus Christ or not? And if you don’t, I pray that you pray to God and ask Him to show Himself to you.
10:51 And I believe, I know God has all power and that God is more than willing to do that, to show himself to you, to help you understand who He is through reading his word and studying His word.
11:02 So, accept Christ today. Give your heart and your life to Christ. Believe that Jesus Christ died for you on the cross.
11:09 I can’t force you to do it. God won’t force you to do it. You have free will.
11:15 And so please believe on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And when you do that, you are now justified by faith. You now have a faith that has produced a result.
11:27 The Bible says that your name will be written down in the Lamb’s book of life, never to be blotted out, never to be erased, that you will be in heaven for an eternity with Jesus, with the believers, with the saints of God, that you will not go to hell, that you will not face judgment for what you did on earth.
11:44 You will only face judgment in terms of getting rewards for what you did for the Lord. To believe on Christ and to have faith in Christ is the most beautiful thing that you can do, because it transforms you from living spiritually dead in this world to being alive and never dying again.
12:01 The Bible tells us that there’s no sting in death. There’s no sting to death when you’re a believer, because you’re with the Lord. Amen.
12:10 To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What a great idea this is. What a great principle this is, that we can believe on Christ Jesus and we can have eternal life.
12:21 That’s why it’s called the gospel, good tidings, or good news. The idea is this is good for us, that God’s judgment and His justice is good for those that would simply believe. And that is it.
12:34 That’s what it comes down to. How many people will end up in hell kicking themselves, absolutely furious with themselves for an eternity, that they simply wouldn’t believe. They will believe in crazy stuff, but they won’t believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
12:50 They will see the bird and they will see the nest the bird makes. And they’ll say, how is that possible? How does a bird have an instinct to make that nest? Or do you want to take the example of a bird?
12:59 How does the bird know what to eat before it migrates? Read about bird migration. It eats certain foods and all these things before it migrates.
13:09 Who gave that bird those instincts? You know, think about these things. Look at the solar system. Look at how all the planets align in the stars.
13:16 Look at the tides. You know, look at the trees. Take your pick of what you want in nature, and it will testify to an intelligent creator named God, the Father, Jesus Christ, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which you’ll have living within you if you’ll believe on Jesus Christ.
13:33 I hope that that helps spur your interest. If you’ve been on the fence, please believe on Jesus Christ before it’s too late. Understand that we are justified by faith alone.
13:45 That is what pleases God. The Bible says it’s impossible to please God without faith, and we simply need to believe. And the Bible says that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
13:56 So to improve your faith or increase your faith, simply read and study the word of God, and that faith will grow. God will bless. God’s not a liar.
14:07 God does not change. He will save you like he saved me and many others if you believe on Him. Thank you so much for listening.
14:12 Tune in next time to learn more about God’s justice. Take care, God bless, and amen.