Job 9 verse 20, listen to what Job says, if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn
me.
If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
So the first thing I want to point out about justification in the Bible is that the Bible
is real clear that we cannot justify ourselves, or we cannot be justified through our own
righteousness or through our own works.
And this is what Bildad is basically saying, he's saying, well look, everybody's a sinner,
how can a man be justified before God, since we're all sinners, or how can he that is born
of a woman be clean, there's none righteous, no not one, is what the Bible says in Romans
3.10.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
But the next verse after Romans 3.23 that we so often quote, 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.
So that is one thought, because being justified is a continuation of Romans 3.23.
So it's 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.
And it's interesting because Job uses the term redeemer about the Lord in the book of
Job.
He calls God his redeemer, he says, I know that my redeemer liveth in the famous scripture.
And so Job is not trying to justify himself, or declare himself righteous, or say that
he is perfect in the sense that he is without sin.
He calls Christ his redeemer, and he says, if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall
condemn me.
And we know that what Job spoke was right, according to God.
Now think about how many people today, with their own mouth, are condemning themselves
by justifying themselves, or declaring themselves righteous, based upon their own goodness,
and their own merits, and their own works.
Now Jesus Christ said in Matthew chapter 12, for by thy words thou shalt be justified,
and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
And Job said here in 920, if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me.
And Jesus said, by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be
condemned.
Therefore people who say things, and go to Matthew chapter 7, let me show you the best
example of this.
People who say things with their mouth to try to justify themselves before God, in regard
to salvation, will be condemned by that which has come out of their own mouth.
Look at Matthew chapter 7 for a perfect example of this.
It says in verse 21 of Matthew 7, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in
thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works, and then while
I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me that work iniquity.
Now in verse 22 there, are these people trying to justify themselves, or what?
Or are they looking to Jesus Christ to be justified?
Are they looking to the blood of Christ?
Are they looking to the death, burial, and resurrection?
Are they saying, hey, we believe salvation is by faith alone?
Not at all.
Because when they stand before God, and they want to be justified, they're saying, look
what I've done.
I've prophesied in your name, in thy name we've cast out devils, in thy name we've done
many wonderful works.
What are they trusting?
Their own works.
Things that they've done.
They're not even bringing up the Lord, and the fact that he's the redeemer, and the fact
that Jesus Christ shed his blood, or anything of that kind.
But what's so funny about this, is that people will literally point to this.
I literally think that I get an email about this scripture every week of my life, and
you know what it proves?
Well, I get a lot of emails, though.
But out of all the tons of emails that I get, I get an email about this scripture.
Pastor Anderson, what do you do with that scripture, if you believe salvation is by
faith alone?
What do you do with this scripture, if you just believe on Jesus Christ and you're saved
eternally?
What do you do with that?
And that should just illustrate for you, my friend, how blinded the unsaved are, to where
they can't even comprehend scripture at all.
I mean, they can just look at scripture, and it just has no meaning to them, it just goes
over there.
How could anyone look at this scripture and say, this proves that faith alone doesn't
save you?
Are they out of their minds?
These people aren't even mentioning faith.
But what are they mentioning?
Works.
And yet unsaved people all day long will point to this scripture and say, see, you have to
do works.
Are we reading the same passage?
The people who are trusting in their works are the ones who are damned here.
And they'll say, well, but yeah, but it says there in verse 23, you know, you have to do
the will, or I'm sorry, in verse 21, it says you have to do the will of the Father.
Yeah, except look up what the will of the Father is.
Every time Jesus talked about the will of the Father, he said, this is the will of the
Father, that everyone that seeeth the Son and believeth on him might have everlasting
life and he shall raise him up at the last day.
That's the will of the Father, that they would believe on Christ and be saved.
But these people are doing it in their own righteousness.
Now, a lot of people will point to this scripture, bizarrely, unsaved people will point to this
scripture and say, well, see right there, it's not just enough to call Jesus Lord.
You got to do the works.
But that's not what this says.
This says not everyone that says to Jesus, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of
heaven.
And then he gives examples about people that are trusting in their own works.
So let me tell you this, whenever you preach that salvation's by faith alone, people will
always come at you with this straw man argument that says, oh, so just praying a prayer, say
saves you.
Praying a prayer saves you.
That's what they'll always hit you with.
When you didn't even met, you said faith and they just say, oh, just pray a prayer.
No, we didn't say praying a prayer saves you.
We said faith in Jesus Christ saves you.
Because when the Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved, it says how then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed.
So you could pray that prayer all day long and unless you believe in your heart on the
Lord Jesus Christ, you're not saved just because you prayed that prayer.
Because the Bible says with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation.
And so it's the faith in Jesus Christ that saves us.
That's what even leads us to legitimately call upon the name of the Lord.
But what if somebody just calls Jesus Lord, Lord without believing on him for salvation?
He said not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord, okay, is going to enter into the
kingdom of heaven.
Because we have to believe on him and call upon the name of the Lord.
Now when you look at the word believe in scripture, it's often associated with the word trust.
Because sometimes people misunderstand the word believe.
Sometimes people try to intentionally twist the word believe.
Some people will say believe means do works, just because they're just trying to teach
works salvation.
I've had people say that.
If you go back to the Greek, believe means an obedient faith, you know, obeying all the
commandments.
No, that's works.
And I'll prove that a little bit later in the sermon.
But faith in the Bible, putting our faith in Christ, believing on Christ is where we
basically put our trust in Christ, meaning that we're relying on Jesus Christ to take
us to heaven.
So for example, if a person said, I believe in Jesus, you know, in the sense that Jesus
exists, but if they said, but I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person, because
I've been baptized, because I go to church, that person's not believing on Christ.
They're believing on themselves.
They're believing on their own works.
They're trying to be justified in their own righteousness.
See to believe on Christ, and if you would flip over to Ephesians chapter one, I think
is probably the best place to illustrate this, Ephesians chapter one.
Look at Ephesians chapter one verse 13.
It says, in whom ye also trusted, and a lot of people will say, oh, the word trusted's
in italics, you know, it's not part, look, ignore the italics, okay, because the King
James Bible is properly translated, it's the word of God, and the word trusted has not
been added, it's taken from verse 12, it's just Greek and English are different, so it
ends up in italics, you know, you shouldn't get hung up on that.
It says in verse 12 that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in
Christ, in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of
your salvation, in whom also that after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise.
So notice that according to this scripture, believing on Christ and trusting in Christ
are the same thing.
Do you see how they're used interchangeably?
Trusting in Christ, believing in Christ, believing on Christ, okay.
So for example, if I said, I believe in Jesus, now I could mean that as, I believe Jesus
existed, okay, or if I say I believe in Jesus, I could mean, my faith is in Jesus, I'm trusting
Jesus to get me to heaven, I'm relying on Jesus.
So the word believe can mean both of those things, okay.
So which one is salvation according to the Bible?
Is it enough to just believe that Jesus existed?
Or do we have to believe in Christ in the sense that our trust is in Christ, we're relying
on Christ?
That's what that means.
So for example, if I said, you know, Brother Romero, I believe in you, am I saying I believe
he exists?
No.
I'm saying I have faith in you, I'm trusting you, I'm, excuse me, I'm relying upon you,
okay.
You know, let's say, let's say I had to be gone for some reason, and Brother Romero was
going to fill in and preach for me, I said, I believe in you.
What am I saying?
You know, I'm relying on him, he's going to have to come through, he's going to need to
do a good job.
That's what I'm saying, I'm putting some trust in him.
And so that's what the faith that the Bible talks about is referring to.
You know, for example, if somebody said, I believe in aliens, they're basically just
saying that they believe that they exist.
They're not saying that they're trusting in aliens or relying on aliens.
So we have to be careful that we don't misunderstand that.
So here's the thing.
A lot of people, and I'm taking the time to explain this because it's important, a lot
of people will say that they believe in Jesus, but what they mean by that is that they believe
that a guy named Jesus existed, and that a guy named Jesus was crucified, okay.
That in many ways is a historical fact.
It's funny because some people will just say, oh, I don't even believe Jesus ever even
existed.
Well, you know, there's been more written about Jesus than any other human being that's
ever lived.
So for a guy who never really existed, that's amazing that he has more written about him
than anyone else who's ever lived.
Okay.
Obviously he really existed.
That's considered even by the world to be a historical fact that there was a guy named
Jesus who existed.
And that's what the Bible is referring to, you know, by just people, you know, believing
in Jesus Christ.
They're not saying they just believe he existed.
I mean, everybody who lived around Jesus's day believed he existed because they could
see him, they could look right at him, right?
So when it's said you've got to believe on the Son of Man, you've got to believe in Jesus
Christ, it's talking about putting your faith in him to get you to heaven.
So if you're trusting something else to get you to heaven, you may believe Jesus exists,
but you're not trusting in what he did to save you, okay, then you're not saved.
And that's what's going on with those people in Matthew 7.
They believe Jesus existed, or at least they paid lip service to that because they prophesied
in his name.
In his name, they cast out devils.
In his name, they did many wonderful works, but it's obvious that they weren't trusting
in Christ because of the fact that they're giving a listing of all their works to get
them to heaven.
I mean, think about it.
What if you were standing right now at the gates of heaven and God said, you know, you're
not coming in.
He's saying to you, depart from me, I never knew you.
Would you be listing off your works to him right now?
Think about it.
Would any Bible-believing Baptist, would any saved, born-again Christian say to God, but
God, wait a minute, what do you mean?
What about all those works I did for you?
Would anyone at Faithful Word Baptist Church ever say that?
But yet people will try to pin this scripture on us, like this is about you guys, but you
know what?
It's really about them.
Because they're the ones trusting in works.
They're the ones who'd be saying, but God, you know, I did all these works.
It's funny that, you know, that Left Behind movie, the Kirk Cameron and Everybody Disappears
and everything like that.
Now I saw a trailer for it, okay, because when we were putting together the movie After
the Tribulation, you know, we were taking little snippets from the trailers and stuff,
and I saw a trailer for it and there's this preacher and he can't figure out why he's
left behind.
And he's like, I preached for you, I did all these works for you, you know.
But that's kind of, that's what these people are saying.
But here's the thing, that has nothing to do with whether or not you go to heaven.
And I've heard people try to look at Matthew 7 and say, well, these people must have believed
in Jesus because they prophesied in his name, so that proves that believing is not enough.
Wrong.
They believed he existed, but they did not believe in him.
They did not have their faith in him.
They're not trusting him.
Look, in order to be saved, you must have all of your faith and trust in Jesus Christ
to save you.
His death, his burial, his resurrection.
Not your own works.
You can't say, well, I believe in Jesus, but I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person.
Wrong.
Then you're not going.
You're not saved because being a good person will, saying that and justifying yourself
will condemn you before God.
When you try to justify yourself, your very words will condemn you.