of all the people that are spoken about in the Bible, I feel closer to this man Job than I do to any others. I read about Abraham and I wish I had his faith. I would love to hear David sing of God's majesty. Reading the words of his songs is such a blessing. I wish I hated sin as badly as did Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. I wish I was as strong in the truth as was the Apostle Paul, but I feel so close and so near. to this man, Job. When I think about Job, I think about his many trials and his many afflictions. He had an abundance of them. But none of his sufferings could compare with his controversy with the Lord. See, I believe Job was a believer. But sometimes God did things and said things that he just could not grip. You ever been that way? Me too. Like Job, our conflicts with the Lord overshadow all our afflictions. Troubles and trials in this life are just normal. Most people don't believe that, but it's the truth. The difficulties we face in this uncertain life are normal. Like Job, we're often made to weep at our felt absence of a fit mediator. He said, neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us. I want to speak to you this morning, if the Lord will help me, a message that I have titled, Every sinner needs a day's work. There are three or four things I want you to see from this verse of scripture. First of all, I want to talk to you from the end about the qualities of a worthy arbitrator. There must be an understood need of a daysman. If you don't know you need one, you don't need one. You may not understand everything about him, but you better understand this, that there needs to be somebody to stand between me and God and plead my case. We must recognize the separation between our souls and our God. You see, our God is as holy as the word holy can possibly be in everything He does. You and I are just as sinful as we can be in everything we do. We may not look outwardly and call that sin, but our attitude and our motivation and the condition of our heart affects everything we do. We're totally depraved and God is infinitely holy. We're going to have a relationship. Somebody's got to tie us together. This needed daisman must be acceptable to both parties. I don't understand why in the world that anybody would not love the Lord Jesus Christ. I really don't. But will God accept him? He has to be perfectly righteous in every way to be pleasing to God. He must Be tender and merciful to weary sinners to be pleasing to them. Both parties must be agreeable to leave their case in the care of this respected and honorable days man. God says, I trust you. And the center says, I trust you. Is it so with you? He must be completely amenable to the perfect justice of the Father. When the Father says, the soul that sinneth shall die, the daysman says, agreed. And he must also be completely trusted by this fallen, guilty sinner who's in desperate need of mercy. This daysman must be a fit and neutral person. You can't find neutral people around too much. They're hard to find. He may have feelings for either party or for both parties, but he must be completely neutral in his judgment. Judges in courts do not sit on cases where they're involved with the people in the trial, or at least they're not supposed to. That's just the custom of our laws. But this daysman has to be able to do that. He has to be able to have consideration and sympathy with the sinner and absolute resolution with the holiness of God. He's a holy person. must be appalled to favor either of these diversities. He can't side with God. God's holy. He can't side with humanity. They're sinful. He must be neutral. He approaches his task in complete isolation from either one of them. Men condemned Him to the cross. Men nailed Him to the cross. Men persecuted Him before they crucified Him. And God the Father looked upon it all. It was his design. He must be committed to bringing out a peaceful settlement. There must be a agreement at the end of this encounter in which the days man must come to peace with both God and man. The Holy Father must think well of the arbitrator's decision. And he did because he said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And the neediest sinner must also be satisfied with his pursuit. Because if God ever gives you life and ever changes your heart, you will stand before Almighty God and before all the world and confess with an honest soul, I am a sinner and worthy of damnation. God will make you take sides against yourself. There's only one. Only the Lord Jesus Christ meets all these demands. He's the only one that can meet the Father's demands. He's the only one that can meet the sinner's demands. Now there are some legal issues between these two parties that must be resolved. Here are two equal but opposite grounds of argument. There are the demands of the father for absolute justice. When the Hebrews came to Mount Sinai, he told them, you build a fence around this mountain, because if any person or any animal touches it, While God's up there talking with Moses, they're gonna die. But there's also the desire of hearts that have been awakened for fervent, perfect mercy. Do you desire mercy? You'd be surprised how few people do. Justice must always be performed by this perfect arbitrator. No matter the verdict, no matter the decision of the court, it must be perfect. Do you think earthly judges make perfect judgments? Of course not. We have laws today that protect the rights of the criminal, in such a way that justice cannot be exercised. The Old Testament law is the only legal system that ever existed that had perfect justice. Broke the law, you died. People all over this country don't believe the death penalty is an incentive to clear crime. I'll tell you one thing. The death penalty does. Everybody they execute is not going to do anything else. Now, you can like it or not like it. That's the truth. No matter its impact on the parties, in judgment, it must be perfect. If God is wrong, then God must apologize. If humanity is wrong, And that must pay the price that God decreed, the soul that sinneth shall surely die. I don't know about you, but it leaves me in a deep pit. Because God is holy and he cannot be flawed. Sinners are putrid, but they need to be made clean and they can't do it. They can't do it. Fervent mercy must be done whatever the verdict. God has predestinated mercy for His chosen people. He decreed before time began. He decreed before the first molecule of this universe was put into place that there would be a company of people who would be the recipients of his mercy and grace. He did that. But mercy is only possible within the bounds of holy justice. Our court systems every day, they turn people loose that are guilty. The law says y'all have 50 years for something. I give them 10 years, and if they serve three years, they turn them loose. I don't know how you feel about that, but I can tell you one thing, it's not justice. The other day I heard on the news where somebody had gotten released, they'd been found guilty, The sentence was such that they had spent more time in jail than their portion of the sentence would be before they'd be probated, and they turned them loose right on the spot. And the family who had been robbed sat there in the courtroom and watched it and heard the judge say, this is justice? Not the judge of heaven. Fervent mercy has to be done. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both. You see, this daysman has to touch both parties. Has to. Let's think about the courtroom drama that's involved here. He, he, he must hear The honest claims of all the plaintiffs. You say, he must hear us. Oh yes, he must hear you. But see, the problem with humanity is all they want God to, all they want the days man to do is hear them. But the true days man must also hear God. And God's decree is you're guilty. Hold your finger there. I want you to turn over to Romans chapter 3 and read with me. I don't usually read a lot of Scripture, but I want to read this. Romans chapter 3 verse 1. He says, What advantage then hath the Jew, or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. But what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Do you know how many multiplied thousands of people live in this county and have no belief? God forbid, yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who taketh vengeance? I speak as a man. God forbid, for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not, rather, as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, Let us do evil, that good may come, whose damnation is just. What then? Are we better than they? No, and no wise. We have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of Asp is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursings and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified 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 prophets. I just read your condemnation. and mine. Now, the defendant's plea in this court is always, I am innocent. I mean, a man takes a gun, loads it, and shoots 12 people, dog dead in the street. And the police arrest him and take him to jail. And the next day he's indicted in the court. And I'll guarantee you that he'll stand up before the court and he'll say, I'm innocent. I'm innocent. Why do you think the cops shoot those people? And please don't deceive yourself and think it's an accident. There is no justice in a system where the sinner pleads, I'm innocent. And somebody believes it. They claim that their nature made them to be sinners and rightly so. Psalm 51, four says against thee, the only have I sinned and done this evil in that site that thou might be justified when thou speakest and be clear when our judges behold, I was shaping an iniquity and in sin, did my mother conceive me? Hmm. They claim to be no worse than anybody else. And usually they aren't. Psalm 73, 5 says, they are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore, pride compasses them about as a chain. Violence cover them as a garment. That's our nature. They claim to have done a lot of good things, and they may have. I was coming down the road the other day, and some young fellow was out there, and a lady had a flat tire, and he was changing a flat tire for her. And I thought, that's nice of that young fella to do that. Deep in his heart, there's an evil thought that somehow he's gonna get rewarded for that. Either by that person whose tire is flat or by that poor God in heaven who's just waiting to pass out boxes of juicy fruits to everybody when they get there. They argue that they're very religious, and they may be. Paul told the people in Athens, and Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, you men of Athens, I perceive that in all things, you're too superstitious or you're too religious. Where as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with its inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you." They all promised that they will immediately be even better than they have been. And they may be, but they're still flawed. Like a little child, you tell him to leave that statue alone. And right after he breaks it, if you're one of those antiques from another generation and you get a switch or a belt, he'll start crying. I promise you I'll never do it again. And he may not, but he's still guilty. The verdict of the court is unswerving, for it decrees guilty as charged. Such must be the consequence of a valid examination. You see, judges are fallible because they don't know all the information. And people that sit on juries are flawed because they don't know all the information. And lawyers are flawed just because they're lawyers, but also because they don't have the information. The condemned sinner's only response should be, Lord, be merciful. Old John Jasper, the old black preacher who was freed from slavery, he had a dream one night and he dreamed that he got to heaven. As he was standing at the gate, knocking on the gate, a voice came over the wall and said, John Jasper, what right have you got to be here? John Jasper cried up to the gate, I ain't got no rights. I ain't here by rights, I's here by grace. That's the sinner's only hope. The reply of the plaintiff is that I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but the soul that sins, it must die. Arbitrator's only possible decree is so let it be. Death is certain. The plaintiff's merciful plan for the sinners to be delivered from their plight of condemnation, as found in Romans 3.24. being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation or a covering through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed 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. That's our only hope. plan of the plaintiff is enacted. A fit substitute must go to the cross and be condemned as the surety of the elect. An old songwriter wrote, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow. There's another thing I think we need to see here and that's the success of this competent days. The plaintiff God is fully satisfied with his verdict. First Peter or second Peter 117 says for he received from God the father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved son whom I'm well pleased. God's pleased with our daismen. The daismen, the Lord Jesus Christ, is perfectly content with the verdict that's been issued because when Jesus, therefore, received the vinegar in John 19.30, He said, it is finished. It's done. When I falter and stammer and stumble in my weakness and frailty and flesh, the Lord of glory still cries before the Father, it is finished. Wow. And I'll tell you something else. The defendant, the guilty sinner in this case, is fully satisfied with the result. Psalm 1715 says, as for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. And the verdict that they all rejoice in is this simply, case dismissed. The law has been satisfied in the atonement of Christ our Lord. The mercy of God has been imputed to the chosen sinner. All is well. The books are balanced. God is holy. Christ is exalted. The sinner is pardoned. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both. But he has. He has. We all, like Job, need a worthy daysman plead our case with the father. Years ago, I read this story and I never forgot it. Back in the 1800s, there was a man who preached in London, England named Joseph Parker. He was a great orator. He was a great preacher. And a man and his wife from the United States went to England to spend a month and they got a ticket to go and hear Joseph Parker preach. And they said when they left the church that morning after they'd heard this man preach, that tears were flowing down their faces and they walked out into the street and they said, oh my God, what a preacher, what a preacher. A couple of weeks later, before they went home, they got a ticket to go and hear a man, humble man, uneducated man, unordained man, by the name of Charles Adams Spurgeon, speak at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and they heard him exalt the majesty and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they left the church building with tears streaming from their faces. And as they walked down the steps of the church to the street, they could only cry out this one thought, what a Savior. Glory to God, what a Savior. I tell you, when we look on the mediatorial work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be completely satisfied in His glory. We mortals come to this court of God bankrupt and condemned and ruined, but we leave God's court perfectly forgiven as heirs of heaven and join heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. God has maintained justice. And in the process, he has gained greater praise because of his sovereign and abundant mercy. I pray that God will move some of you here this morning to call upon this worthy days man. Neither is there any days man betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both. All what I tell you there is. There is. His name is King Jesus. To him be glory.