Job's two questions - resurrection and justification
ID
jsb026
Sprache
EN
Gesamtlänge
00:39:22
Anzahl
1
Bibelstellen
n.a.
Beschreibung
Job's two questions - resurrection and justification
Automatisches Transkript:
…
In short section, first of all, in chapter 3, beginning in verse 19, Romans chapter 3, verse 19.
Now we know that such things, sir, as the law says, it is best for them who are under the law,
that every mask may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall be no flesh to justify in his sight.
For by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophet,
being the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe.
For there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,
to declare his righteousness through the remission of sins of our past through the forbearance of God,
to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
And the second passage in chapter 5 of the same epistle, Romans chapter 5, beginning at verse 1.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulations worth of patience,
and patience, experience, and experience, hope.
And hope makes us not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet per a venture for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Now we shall be thinking this evening about what I might call Job's two questions.
Job is the name of one of the books of the Old Testament, which contains a very remarkable story,
and we shall turn to this book in order to find these two questions.
The first is in chapter 14, and in verse 14. Job chapter 14, verse 14.
And the first few words of the verse only.
If a man die, shall he live again?
If a man die, shall he live again?
And the second question, a particular form in which we shall read it, not asked by Job,
but very close to a question which he did ask, chapter 25, verse 4.
Chapter 25, verse 4.
How then can man be justified with God?
How then can man be justified with God?
Now these two questions come to us from literally hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
It would be all just true to say these questions come to us from thousands of years ago.
And yet they're very up-to-date questions indeed.
And as we come to think about this first one, if a man die, shall he live again?
I think I can illustrate this question by referencing the two persons,
one of them whose name fills our newspapers, a name well known to everyone.
The other one, merely a personal acquaintance of my own.
But these two people will illustrate how important today are the questions which Job asked so long ago.
First of all, if a man die, shall he live again?
Now the first name is Bertrand Russell, sometimes called Lord Russell.
His name fills our newspapers because of his part in the campaign for nuclear disarmament
and the way he encourages people to sit down in awful places and make a general use of themselves
and get themselves into court and that kind of thing.
Now in the book in which Bertrand Russell, who of course primarily was a mathematician,
who became a philosopher, in one of his books he gives what he calls his philosophical autobiography.
Now this will be in most cases far too difficult for me and probably for you as well.
But he does tell us why it was that he first began to take an interest in philosophy.
And it was because he wanted to inquire whether reason would give any support to religion.
Whether he would find anything in the thoughts of the greatest thinkers that the world has known
which would give him any authority to believe in God and religion.
And he tells the sad story of how he didn't find what he was seeking.
How the more he went into the deep questions which philosophers discuss,
first of all he began to doubt the freedom of man's will,
secondly he began to doubt the reality of a future life,
and in the end he came to disbelieve in the existence of God.
He realised, and this is the point of course for which I tell you this little bit of the story of Bertrand Russell,
he realised that the question, if a man dies, shall he live again,
is absolutely vital to the reality of the Christian faith.
If we accept the Christian faith we are bound to face the question of a future life.
Now the other one is also in some sense a typical, a topical story.
We've all been very greatly shocked in the newspapers lately now
with the account of this great aeroplane, a Boeing 707,
in the continental jet which crashed just off the Idlewild aerodrome in New York.
Now it's only a few months ago that I was flying in a Boeing 707, most people do,
these days there's nothing very special about that,
but it just happened that I got my most wonderful sight of Greenland's icy mountains
from a height of 7 miles and flying about 8 miles a minute.
And as we were in a situation which is absolutely typical of the day in which we live,
and it wonders, and it marvels, my friend and I sitting there looking down on Greenland's icy mountains
and brilliant sunshine, the blue sea, the white mountains,
and the gleaming icebergs breaking away and floating south from the shore,
it happened that we at that very moment were talking about Job's question.
Thousands of years old and yet vital and real and urgent and important in the year
as it was then, just towards the end of the year 1961.
Because my friend was explaining to me how it was that he could not be a Christian.
And the principal reason for which he could not be a Christian was that
he found it impossible to believe in any form of a future life.
Now I won't bore you with the particular kind of reasons that he had for not believing in a future life,
and therefore of course he was quite right that not believing in a future life,
it was impossible for him to be a Christian.
But I won't bore you with telling you why he didn't believe.
But after he had explained this, and after a few seconds' silence,
I said to him, I would like to ask you a very direct and simple question.
And that is, are you conscious of a kind of tension inside you?
There is a kind of upper level of your thought in which you have persuaded yourself
that there are reasons for not believing in a future life.
And I want to ask if you're aware of a kind of tension between that idea and a deeper level,
a deeper voice, a still, quiet voice that all the time tells you that there is a future life,
and that in the end you've got to reckon with the fact that there is a future life.
And he said quite simply, oh yes, I'm quite aware of that.
There is. I don't think much about it nowadays.
It doesn't trouble me because I just put it out of my mind.
But there is, at a deeper level, that voice which is said to me, yes, there is a future life,
but I just try to forget it.
Now this really brings me to the most important point.
Some people might expect a teacher, when considering a subject like this,
to bring some kind of a special proof, a kind of unanswerable proof,
that there is such a thing as a future life, and convince your mind and lead you from point to point
so that you might reasonably come to the conclusion that you can believe in a future life.
Now I'm not going to do that.
No. The great point at which I wish to end this evening is that quiet voice deep down inside you,
deep down in your heart, that might listen for years to the arguments of men
who have tried to persuade you that there is no future life,
and that you won't have to meet God when this life is done,
there is a little voice inside which the holy scriptures call presence,
and that voice assures you that it is true that there is a future life.
It is true that though a man die, yet he shall live again,
and it is true that in that future life, every one of us shall have to answer to God.
You know that it is true.
Now in saying what I have said, I don't want you to think that there is anything unreasonable
about believing in a future life.
One of the great things that impresses me more strongly is this,
that there is nothing at all in our Christian faith which is hostile to reason.
Reason is a faculty that God has given us, and it is adequate in many cases
to make our way about the ordinary affairs of life,
and it is right and just that we should understand that things which are true will fit in with it.
There is nothing hostile to reason in the belief in a future life,
but of course a great fact is concerning the future life,
and concerning our responsibility to God,
and all the other great things that belong to the spiritual realm of which the Holy Scriptures speak,
our reason would never find them.
Our reason would never reach them.
Man by searching cannot find God.
But when God is willing to reveal himself and to reveal his truth
about this as about every other important question of our relation to God,
then we find that in the truth that God reveals, though we could never reach it by reason,
there is nothing there that is hostile to our reason.
In fact it's a very striking thing that 400 years before Christ,
I've mentioned a philosopher, one of the greatest thinkers who ever lived, Plato,
400 years before Christ he set down the reasons for which on the ground of logic alone
he did believe in a future life and in what he called the immortality of the soul.
And when once we've realized that it is upon the word of God that we rely
to reveal the truth about the answer to the question,
if a man die, shall he live again?
Well, once we understand that only God can reveal the truth about the answer to this question,
then we find that there is, as a matter of fact, nothing at all
which is difficult for us to believe because it is hostile to our reason.
If we take the complete Christian form of the answer to the question,
if a man die, shall he live again, to wit, the resurrection,
then we shall rise again from the dead and have to be with God.
And the most complete form is the resurrection of the Christian,
then the Christian at the word of the Lord shall rise from the dead
and shall go to meet the Lord and to go to be with him in heaven.
Then we only have to turn to one of the letters of the New Testament,
the epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 15,
to find how rationally the great apostle reasons about this question
in the sense that once it has been revealed that this is so,
then there's nothing at all that is hostile to our other experience.
In fact, when he finds people willing to say,
how are the dead raised and with what body do they come,
he points them to that tiny seed,
which there's absolutely no signs beforehand
of the marvellous things that can happen to it.
And it is dropped into the ground and it dies.
And unless you've seen that thing happen before, you think it is done for.
But we find that a plant springs up.
And in the language of that passage of scripture,
when we see that plant,
we see that God has given to that tiny seed a body as it has pleased him,
to every seed his own body.
You see, the point is that you can take that tiny seed
and think of all these processes of reason and proof that could be conceived.
You could line them all up,
from Plato and Aristotle in the ancient world,
to Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in the modern world,
and none of them could tell you what can happen to that seed
by a reasonable process.
But there, the annual miracle,
being performed a thousand times in the experience of all of us
who are here in the room,
it is put down into the ground and it dies.
And God gives it a new body as it pleases him.
And on that new body there is absolutely no promise
in the seed that is put into the ground.
And the great apostle says,
if it is true that God gives in his own time and in his own way
a new body to that seed which is falling to the ground and dies,
why should you think it difficult to believe that God can raise the dead
and can raise the Christian in a new body and in a new life
and suitable for the very life of heaven and for the home of God.
But let us be quite sure that in answer to this question,
if a man die, shall he live again,
Job's question in chapter 14,
if a man die, shall he live again,
we have the plain answer of the Holy Scripture.
And I should be absolutely failing in my responsibility
of presenting to you the truth about these things
if I fail to show you and to quote to you
exactly some of those things that the Holy Scriptures teach
in answer to this question.
The Lord Jesus Christ himself said,
the time is coming when all that are in the graves
shall hear his voice and they shall come forth,
some for the resurrection of life
and some for the resurrection of judgment.
Now these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ
and these are the answer that he gave
and that it recorded in the Holy Scriptures
to this tremendous question.
If we die, are we done for?
No, if we die, we shall be raised again,
some of us shall be raised again to the resurrection of life
and some of us shall be raised again to the resurrection of judgment.
One of the most solemn pages in the whole of the Scripture
is the story of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some have thought, some have called it a parable,
but there is absolutely nothing to indicate that it was a parable.
It was merely that the very Lord of life and death,
the master of the grave,
was telling a story, two biographies,
in a manner that no one else could tell
because what are all human biographies
tell the story of a man's birth and his life
and his dreams and his death
and that's the end of the story.
The Lord Jesus Christ, when he told the story
of the rich man and the poor man
who were so poor that they had to feed upon the crumbs
that fell from the rich man's table,
the Lord Jesus Christ didn't stop the story of death
but he went on to the life that is beyond
to show the great difference between these two men,
not because one was rich and one was poor,
but one had faith, the faith that saves,
and one had ignored and forgotten God
because the Lord Jesus Christ said,
the rich man died and was buried and in hell,
he lifted up his eyes being in torment.
Do I enjoy repeating these words?
Not a bit of it, but there, as sure as anything is,
they're the words of the scripture
and they're the words of the Lord Jesus
and they cause to impinge upon us
in our minds and our hearts and our consciences
the reality of the fact that poor men die,
poor women die, yet he or she shall live again
to have to do with God.
We're asked to read the story of the other man
who was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom
and there he was carried to the form of delights.
Some of these things, I repeat, are not pleasant hearing,
but they're the words of the scripture
and they're the warnings that the Saviour himself has given us
so that we may realize how tremendously urgent
and important is the answer to the question
if a man die, shall he live again?
The Lord Jesus has answered that question
and if once we realize that it is true
that death is not the end of all,
that we shall be raised from the dead
and we shall have to face the fact
that every one of us shall give account to God
of the deeds done in the body,
then we shall never rest
until we have the answer to the other question
that Job asked and his friends asked
and that I've read to you from the twenty-fifth chapter
of his book, the question which says
how then can man be justified with God?
If it is true, if it is certain
that death doesn't end all,
if God through the Saviour has told us
that we shall be raised again,
that we shall come to have to do with God,
then the most urgent question
that could possibly ask is this question
how then can man be justified with God?
Now, the very reason why I read this passage
from the Epistles of the Romans
is because it is the great letter
which finds its place in the New Testament
because it is in great detail
and in great power
it is the answer given in the New Testament
to this question asked long before
how then can man be justified with God?
The full answer to that question
is given in that letter.
Now, out of all that was written
and even out of the two passages that I've read
there are three great statements made
as to how a man can be justified with God.
You realise what it means, don't you?
We all realise what it means to ask the question
how can a man be justified with God?
One of the ways in which it's put in our day
by many preachers of the Gospel
perhaps it's the golden sound
that really brings home to us what it means
how can a man be right with God?
If I'm assured and if my heart and conscience
tells me that it is certainly true
that I must meet God on the other side of death
I must give account to God
of the deeds done in the body
then nothing can exceed the importance
of finding out how I can be right with God
and not only how I can be right with God
but how I can know that I'm right with God
and that's what the question means
how then can man be justified with God?
Now the first great statement from the epistle to the Romans
that answers that question is the statement
that it is true of the Christian and of no one else
it is only when you have quite definitely become a Christian
it is only when you have quite definitely said
Christ for me
it is only when you have taken the steps
of repentance toward God
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
that this becomes true
that on the Christian
this letter says in answer to that question
that he is justified freely
by God's grace
now that is a very wonderful statement
because it tells us
that away we are at the back of all things
that it is in the heart of the God
who made the worlds
and the God who is my creator
and your creator
and the God who is going to be our judge
away at the back of all things
is the wonderful fact of his grace
and his loving kindness toward us
is it not the greatest possible news
that God is disposed to be gracious toward us?
is it not the greatest possible news
that God, the God who rules over all things
is a God whose heart is full of loving kindness
and tender mercy to us
who have so deeply sinned against him
you know there are thousands of people in the East
who believe that there are two Gods
there is a good God and an evil God
there is a God of light and a God of dark
and they are about balanced
there is no triumph really in the evil
they are about balanced with each other
but you see the real truth of the matter is
that the God who rules over all things
and in whose power, in whose hand is absolute power
over us and over all things
that his heart is full of loving kindness
and tender mercy toward us
and it is because of that
that the Lord Jesus Christ ever came to earth
and died upon the cross to be our saviour
and the first great news about this question
how can a man be justified with God
is that God desires above all things
to be gracious toward us
and to give us the blessing of his salvation
and his forgiveness
and the second great statement is
that we are justified by the blood of Jesus
you see in that first statement
justified freely by his grace
that little word freely has a most particular meaning
it doesn't only mean that you can have it for nothing
but it means that there is no cause
in the Christian himself or herself
for which God should be gracious to him
there is no reason in me or in you
that God should be gracious to us
there is only in me and in you
black sinfulness and forgetfulness of God
there's a reason there why God should punish us
there is a reason there
why God should bring us into judgment
but there is no reason there
why he should be gracious to us
but in God himself
in his great heart of love toward us
there is a reason
and that is that it is nature
it is his desire
it is his great love
that he desires to do us good
and since there is no reason in ourselves
why God should give us his blessing
he has found a reason
in the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ
has died for us
another acquaintance of mine
told me a very remarkable story
of one of the elements
which led him to be a Christian
he went to a mission
which is held in the church
to which he belonged
it was a mission
which was being held by the Dominican fathers
and it was a mission for men
and I don't think I've ever heard
a more graphic story
of how as they filed into the church
each man was given a lighted taper
and they went there
and they were in their seated ranks
in this great church
and there was no light at all
except the light of these
dozens and hundreds of flickering tapers
and the preacher first of all
told them about their sins
and how they'd forgotten God
and how because of their sins
they would die
and he told them how their lives
were like the flickering flames
of these tapers
and at any minute they might be out
and he told us how strong men
were shielding the flame
lest it should blow out
as an emblem of how easily
their life could depart
and they would there be
to God
and the preacher told them
about the fact that their sins
would bring them into hell
and he dangled them there
he made them feel the very flames
of that place
of which the scripture speaks so solemnly
and after he told them of these things
all right and true, sad, solemn
tremendous in their truth
all true that we have sinned against God
all true that the holy scripture speak
about the fact that there is
salvation at the end of the pathway
of those who forget God
but then he began to make a mistake
he began to tell them how
that by doing the works
of the church
they could lift themselves
from the jaws of hell
to the gates of heaven
at the very moment the preacher was saying this
his eyes lighted
upon the great crucifix there
and a voice seemed to say
if it be true
that by doing the works of the church
I could raise myself
from the jaws of hell to the gates of heaven
why did the
son of God die
upon the cross
and it was right wasn't it
if we are to be
justified it is
the holy scripture say
not by works of righteousness
that we have done
but by the blood of Jesus
it is because Jesus
the spotless son of God
gave his life
in sacrifice upon the cross
it is because
he his own self
bore our sins
in his own body on the tree
there was none other
good enough to pay the price
of sin he only
could unlock the gates of heaven
and let us in
and all this is wrapped up
in these few words of holy scripture
that say if we are to be justified
with God it is by
the blood of Jesus
and the third
great statement that the scripture
in Romans the passage we read
makes in answer to this question
how then can a man
be justified with God
is this therefore
it says I read it too
therefore being
justified by faith
we have peace
with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ and here is the
crux of the matter if it be
true and indeed it is
true
that if a man die
he shall live again
if it be true and indeed it is true
that every one of us
shall give account of himself to God
if it is true and indeed
it is true that we can be
justified freely
by the grace of God
and justified through the blood of
Jesus in other words through
that holy sacrifice of his
upon the cross then the great
crux of the matter is
for you and me whether we
are amongst the people
whose faith
is in the law of Jesus Christ
now
what does it mean
to say that we have faith
in the law of Jesus Christ
what does it mean to say
that the Christian
is justified
by faith
we have heard that he is justified by
grace we have read that
he was justified by the blood of Jesus
what does it mean to say
that the Christian is justified
by faith
you know it all seems
to me that the best
possible kind of example
of what it means to say
that the Christian is justified by faith
is
the example
of what we do
regarding the physician
or the lawyer
let's take the physician
because the law of Jesus Christ speaks
of himself in this manner when he
says they
that are whole need not
a physician but
they that are sick
and in these words the law of Jesus Christ
speaks to us who are
sick with the
dreadful sickness of our
sins and we have got
the symptoms of that disease
we are blind we are helpless
to please God we are without
strength in his sight
that when we are sick
with the sickness of our sins
then we only
need the touch of the great
physician to put us right
what do we do when it's a
question of getting
put right by the doctor
for the ordinary aches
and pains and diseases
that afflict us in this mortal life
you might very well hear
two people discussing a certain
general practitioner
and you might
find that one of them said
well I believe in him
I think he's a first class
doctor and I think he's a
particularly good at dealing with
pneumonia
but if a person gets that particular complaint
that they've been discussing
then the real test
as to whether they have
faith in that particular man
the real test especially
it was true before we all had to be registered
with a particular man
if a person really had that faith
in a particular man his faith
would lead him to the action of going along
and telling the man how
sick he was and putting the case
into his hands. Now that act
is the act
which is a picture
of what the Bible calls faith
it's no good for us to be able to
say I believe in God
it's no good for us even to
be able to say I believe that God
loves me and that Jesus is the
saviour. That's the way
that we can act
in the act
of a saving faith
is to go to him
the great physician
the Lord Jesus Christ
and confess to him
how deeply we are sick
with the sickness of our sins
confess to him how deeply
we have sinned against God
that's what the Bible calls repentance
and then when it goes on
after repentance to speak about
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
then that faith is the faith
of those who put
the case into his hands
remembering what he said
him that cometh unto me
I will no wise cast out
in fact all the scriptures
seem to ransack all
the human situations in which
good and blessing can come to us
to give us pictures of what it means
to have this saving faith
the saving faith is one
but sometimes the holy scriptures call it
coming to him
sometimes they call it receiving him
sometimes they call it
believing in him
that it is all these things
it is coming to him
it is receiving him
it is believing in him
it is confessing him
but what they really mean
is that we come to him
each one individually for ourselves
and we confess to him
our sins
and we ask him to receive us
and to be our saviour
and to be our lord
we begin
our talk this evening
with the first question that I read from
Job the question which says
if a man die shall he
live again
you know these questions that we have thought of
been thinking of this evening
they remind us of the fact
that this life
that we live
this life in which we enjoy
the right sunshine
that shines upon us
and it waxes to the noon day of life
and it wanes again
and this life that we live
is like the day that rises and falls
it soon passes by
it soon passes from
youth to manhood
and from youth to womanhood
and it soon declines
like the setting sun
and the moment comes when
it is appointed unto men
once to die
this the judgment
you know Job knew the answer to both
these questions
because he uttered some of the most
triumphant words that a man has ever uttered
when in answer
to these questions he said
though after my skin
worms destroy this body
yet in my flesh
shall I see God
I know that
my redeemer liveth
and though after my skin
worms destroy this body
yet in my flesh
I shall see God
I wonder if
all of us who are here
are prepared
for the answers to these
two questions
that if we die we shall live again
we shall have to do with God
and if we are ready
by being justified
through faith in the law
of Jesus Christ and therefore
we know that we have peace with God
there is I believe
a French play
which deals
with
an ocean scene
a huge
ocean going liner and somehow
or other in the stages contrived
the deck
and the rail
and the evening sun
sparkling in the waters
and there is the
gentle heave and motion
a delightful scene
and here leaning on the rail
and looking out are two
young people
honeymooners
now I've been to a wedding today
and these two young honeymooners are off
none of us know where
on their honeymoon
now these two young people were honeymooners
we aren't
told what they were
saying to each other
that of course is a secret
but it was bound to be something
about their
expectation of their
future life together
and there they are
wrapped up in each other's company
in the lovely scene
and the rise and fall of the swell
and just as they do this
there is a movement and they part
from each other and
there is revealed between them
a life buoy and on the life
belt the name of the ship
the Titanic
and there is a tremendous shock to the audience
because everybody knows that
whatever they thought about their life together
that great ship
on its maiden voyage
struck a iceberg and heaved up
to an angle of 45 degrees
and slid down into the icy
waters with hundreds and hundreds
of people being lost
and it's probable that they never enjoyed
their life together because
their life in this world ended
and they have to
meet God. Be assured
that the brief day
of your life
will soon be ended
and then there will never
be two questions more
important than these questions
that we've been considering tonight
you'll never regret
realizing at this moment that
they are supreme in their importance
for you both in this life
and that which is to come
if a man die, shall he
live again? Indeed he shall
the day is coming
when all within the grave shall hear
the voice of the Son of God and they
shall come forth, some
to the resurrection of life
and some to the resurrection of
judgment. If you have for yourself
realized the answer
to the second question
and you know what it is to be justified by faith
in the law of Jesus Christ
then you can be assured by the word
of the living God himself
you can be assured that your part
will be in the resurrection of life
and your life
will be in that golden
city into which
only those can enter whose names are
written in the Lamb's book of life
and there they need no
sun to shine for the glory
of God lights it and the Lamb
is the lump thereof and the pure
water of life clear of
crystal flows ever
when the soul is gone. …