We come at last to the end of this series of sermons on how God justifies poor sinners, and the danger of trying to add our filthy rags of so-called "good works" to Christ's perfect obedience and sacrifice for our sin.
Our Lord Jesus, the very One who offered Himself on the cross in our place, also warned of eternal hell-fire for those who would not trust in Him.
Man's religion is always about self-improvement and self-righteousness, trying to please God, and thinking wrongly that we can do so.
Jesus' Gospel teaching was entirely consistent with that of the Apostles, for they learned it from Him! He warned that whoever tries to be righteous will be doomed to everlasting judgment.
Jesus described in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican how God rejects everybody who comes to him with their own goodness. God is not impressed with our works, be they ever so extensive and pleasing to men!
But Jesus describes the penitent sinner who brings his crimes before God, and begs for mercy! Jesus promises that such poor sinners go home justified!
Sinners are declared perfectly righteous by God when they trust in His mercy! This is Jesus' Gospel message to the lost world!
But Jesus stressed the converse truth: those who preen in their own good deeds go home condemned as the unrighteous men they actually are.
In another place, Jesus warned that the good works we do to save ourselves, which are pleasing to men, are an abomination to God.
So the unrighteous man brings before God his so-called good deeds, and presumes wrongly that God will justify him. The penitent sinner brings only his sins before God, and pleads for mercy, and God justifies Him!
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...
