Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3392
“Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1.
WE desire this evening not to preach upon this text as a mere matter of Doctrine. You all believe and understand the Gospel of Justification by Faith, but we want to preach upon it tonight as a matter of experience, as a thing realized, felt, enjoyed and understood in the soul. I trust there are many here who not only know that men may be saved and justified by faith, but who can say in their own experience, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and who are now, at the present moment, walking and living in the actual enjoyment of that peace!
Wishing to speak of the text, then, in this sense, I shall ask you to accompany me not only with your ears and with the attention which you usually give so generously, but also with the eyes of your self-examination, asking yourselves, as we proceed, step by step, “Do I know that? Have I received that? Have I been taught of God in this matter? Have I been led into that Truth of God?” And our hope will be that some person to whom these things have hitherto been merely external and, therefore, valueless, may be led by God to get hold of them, so that they may be matters of soul, heart and conscience—so that they may enjoy them and find themselves where once they feared they would never be, namely, in a state of reconciliation with God—happily enjoying peace with the Most High.
Our first thought shall be some plain, earnest talk concerning—
I. A Few Preliminary Discoveries Which a Man Makes Before He Gets Peace with God
These, I do not think, are by any means foreign to the text, or merely imported to it, but belong rightfully to it. You see that Paul, before he came to this justification by faith, had been speaking about sin. It would not have been possible for him to have given an intelligent definition ofjustification without mentioning that men are sinners, without informing them that they had broken God’s holy Law and that the Law, by and of itself, could never restore them to the favor of God. Now, some of these things of which I am going to speak are absolutely necessary, if not to my sermon, yet certainly to your spiritually understanding even so much as one jot or tittle of what it is to be justified by faith!
Well, then, what are these things? The first discovery that a man is led by the Spirit of God to make before he is justified is that it is important to be justified in the sight of God. Many people do not know this. You shall step into a shop this evening and find a man at the counter, and you say to him, “Well, do you never go to a place of worship?” “No,” he would say, “but I am quite as good as those who do.” “How so?” “Well, I am a great deal better than some of them.” “How is that?” “Well, I never failed in business. I never duped people in a limited liability company. I never told lies. I am no thief. I am not a drunk—I am as honest as the days are long in the middle of June—and that is more than you can say of some of your religious, people.” Now, that man has got a hold of one part of a good man’s character. There are two parts, but he can only see one, namely, that man is to be just to man. He sees that, but he does not see that man is to be also just to God. And yet if that man were really to think a little while, he would see that the highest obligations of a creature must be not to his fellow creatures, but to his Creator—and that however just a man may be to another man, yet if he is altogether unjust to God, he cannot escape without the severest penalty! But oh, the most of men think that so long as they keep the laws of the land, so long as they give to their fellow men their due, it matters not though God’s day should be a subject of scorn, God’s will be used as men will and God’s Law trodden under their feet! Now, I think that everyone here who will but put his fingers to his brow for a moment and think, that he will see that even though a manmay go before the bar of his country and say before any judge or jury, “I have in nothing injured my fellow man. I am just before men,” yet it does not make the man’s character perfect. Unless he is also able to say, “And I am also just before the Presence of the God who made me and whose servant I am,” he has only kept one half—and that the less important of God’s Law for him.
It cannot help being—it must be important to the highest degree that you and I should stand on good terms with the great God unto whom we shall so soon return in the Great Day when He shall say, “Return you children of men.” We must then render up our souls to Him who created us. Well, you can surely go as far as that with me—that it is necessary. You do feel, do you not, a desire in your heart to be just before your Maker? I am thankful that you can go so far.