All right, turn with me in your Bibles, if you wish, to the book of Romans, chapter 5, verse 6 through 11. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I appreciate the fact, or thank God for the fact that I'm able to be here. And I know there's some here that are older than I am, but not, they have more ability than I do. to be here, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to preach in the conference again this year. Romans chapter 5, verse 6 through 11, and I might also say to, I'm enjoying the food. At home, just my wife and me, we don't, we eat a lot of prepared food, soup and stuff like that. and so i've been enjoying yesterday my wife left a piece of meat on her table on her plate i said you're gonna eat that and she said no i just reached over and got it and ate it myself but uh i've enjoyed everything enjoyed the messages and uh appreciate this opportunity i love the subject of the blood of christ i love the subject of christ i shouldn't say but romans chapter 5 verse 6 through 11 But when we were yet without strength, in due time, now I want to emphasize something there, it's not part of my sermon. I want you to notice it says, when we were yet without strength. There used to be a fellow over in Alabama that, and there was a lady in the church over at Fayette, Alabama that used to tell about it. And he would talk about his salvation and he said, And I just came of my own free will. And he said it just about that way. I'll tell you what, if you want to see how powerful you are by your free will, change how tall you are. Change the color of your skin. If you've got a full head of hair like Brother Chamberlain? Count them. God does. I'm amazed sometimes at the inconsistency. I've had some discussions recently that the inconsistency of Arminianism and so He says, when we were yet without strength, I know what it is to lose strength. I've had a little, I didn't say anything about it last night, but I've had a little problem, found out about it the day before I left to come up here, found out about it more on the way up here than they called me from the doctor's office. My doctor, my cardiologist, put me on blood thinner not long ago. He said, your blood's a little thick. And so he gave me blood thinner. And after two weeks on it, I believe, they did a pro-time test. And he said, well, we're going to have to give you one more half a pill a week. I'm taking rat poison is what I'm taking. Warfarin is the active ingredient in some rat poisons. But the way it kills is thin in the blood. Well, I had a pro-time test Monday morning. And Monday afternoon, my general practitioner mistakenly had gotten a call from the lab and said, your blood is way too thin. And so they didn't even want me to come. I said, well, I'm going. I've been doing well, but I had noticed for about two weeks at my my strength I was working hard to try to build it up and it was getting weaker all the time Your blood gets too thin you lose a lot of strength But I wasn't without strength. I was still mowing my lawn and doing other things But this says when you were yet without strength In due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, but perventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by Let me make sure I'm getting my reading right. Much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more than being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, But we also joy in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. I want you to notice how many different things that have been preached on in this conference are in that one little passage. My text is Romans 5, 9. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Then Romans 3 24 I want to use that also. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now justification is by faith, justification is by grace, justification is by the blood of Christ and there are probably some other things that we could say about it. In the New Testament, as in this particular passage, blood is sometimes put for the whole work of Jesus Christ. But, you can't have the whole work of Jesus Christ without the blood. And so, even if I say that it refers to the whole work of Jesus Christ, the foundation of it is the blood of Jesus Christ. If He had not shed His blood, the rest of it wouldn't mean anything. And so, 1 Peter 1, 18 through 20 says, For as much as you know you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Now, upon this particular matter that I've referred to, John Gill wrote this. His blood is here put for the whole matter of justification. Romans 5, 9. His blood is here put for the whole matter of justification. The shedding of that being the finishing part of it. That our justification before God proceeds upon the fact of a satisfaction made to the law and justice of God, and that was made by shedding of His blood. So, even though we may say that it speaks of much more, there is no ground for believing anything about salvation that's not based on the blood. that the entirety of our salvation is here intended and all that Christ did is included, is seen in the context as well as in the Romans 5 and 9. In verse 8, Paul simply declares that Christ died for us. How did He die for us? He shed His blood. The life of the flesh is in the blood. And in verse 9, Paul tells us that we were not only justified by the blood of Christ, but that we will be saved from wrath through Him. Romans 5.10, For if when we were enemies, We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. It's no wonder that David proclaimed, O Lord, how manifold is Thy works. How manifold. Salvation is a multifaceted matter. Brother Brown has been teaching the last two years. He has taught in the school in Thailand on various aspects of salvation. He got a big piece of cut glass, but it represented a diamond. You know, I've seen diamonds where they were found. that were worth millions of dollars. Boy, you look at them in their rough state, uncut. They just look like another piece of rock. No beauty. I'd sure like to find one. Because I could get a good diamond cutter to cut it and make a bunch of different stones out of it. But a diamond, the beauty of it is in the facets of it. And salvation is a multifaceted matter. I was preaching a series of sermons on God's great salvation in Illinois. And a fellow came out and he said, Brother Kemp said, don't you think this is a little too doctrinal for... I preached on election, predestination, justification, imputation, and about 20 different sermons. And I said, well, let's just see how the Lord uses it. By the end of that series, we had baptized about 8 or 10 people. God used that sermon, or those sermons, to show them what a great salvation we had. And one of those facets, one of the very foundational facets, one thing that you'll find in almost any Baptist confession and several others that you'll always find, you may not find one on some aspects of salvation, such say let's say imputation, but you'll always find justification. And I used to, as a young preacher, I used to read that. Now, why does every confession of faith have justification in it? Because it's so important. And justification by the blood of Christ is important. In Ephesians chapter 2 verse 7, Paul said that into the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. If I understand that verse, it implies that it'll take all of eternity for us to fully comprehend. How long is eternity? I don't believe we're going to... You remember, how many of you were once Arminian and you came to the doctrines of grace like I did? Do you remember how you rejoiced when you discovered it? I was preaching through the epistles of Paul. And I got under conviction because I was playing hopscotch. Like John 6, 37. Here's the way I would read it. All the Father gave me shall come unto me. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. That's eternal security! And they'd forget about the first part of it. But all the ages to come, we're going to be learning new things about this great salvation that God has graciously made us a partaker of. Isn't that amazing? That such a worm as I should enjoy such a great salvation. I want to talk to you about justification by blood. Now, first thing I want to discuss is the necessity of justification. The necessity of justification. You see, we needed to be justified. We must be justified if we're to stand before God. Because by nature, we were all children of wrath. Now I've run into some people that I even call brethren who say, well I was never under the wrath of God because I have always been justified. My Bible says in Ephesians 2.3 among whom also we all had our conversation or manner of life in times past in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the man, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Paul is contrasting the elect with the non-elect, but he says there are some ways in which we were like them. We were all, by nature, the children of wrath. All unbelievers are under the abiding wrath of God. In John chapter 3 verse 36, John deals with this, and I want to point out while you're turning there, if you want to turn there, I don't turn a lot of times. I like to listen while the preacher reads the scripture instead of thumbing through my Bible trying to find it. So I don't follow every verse. My wife's got the Bible on an iPad and she follows it, and so I look on hers. But anyway, all unbelievers, in John 3, 36, that word abide. The wrath of God abideth on him. That word is a Greek word that is, I grew up on a farm. We raised our own chickens. We'd set, we'd have old satin hen, we called them. Someone asked Abraham Lincoln one time, said when I, they were kind of fussing him, said, when a hen cackles, is she lying or laying? Talking about the grammar of the thing. He said, I'm not so much concerned, no, is she sitting or sitting? He said, I'm not so much concerned about that, is where she cackled, is she lying or laying? He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." And that word has the idea of an old hen hovering over the eggs to hatch them. She's right there. If she put all of her weight on them, she might break some of them. But she hovers to heat them so that they'll hatch. And that wrath of God is hovering over you and it's but the mere grace of God that you are, if you're lost, it's but the mere grace of God that you are not now in hell. That's why you need justification by blood. We were all by nature condemned. I had a Baptist preacher tell me one time, I've never been condemned. Of course, the logical thing was he believed in eternal justification. But the fact is that we were all by nature condemned before God. Let me ask you this, and you don't have to raise your hand. Have you ever been an unbeliever? Have you ever been an unbeliever? He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already. Let me say to you this morning, if you're here and you've never trusted Christ, you're as condemned as the most wicked reprobate. He that believeth not the Son is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. I've heard it preached. And to be honest, I must tell you that I've preached that one must reject Christ before he's condemned. I was in a conversation this past week before I came over here with a fellow, and he said, you must reject Christ to be condemned. Well, that presupposes one, that you've heard of Christ. to that you have made a decision to reject him. And only then are you condemned. The Bible doesn't teach that. Men, women, boys and girls who have never heard of Christ are condemned. Scripture does not teach, but rather teaches that all who have not believed are condemned. You will never find a verse of Scripture that says that if you reject Christ, you're condemned. But it says a number of places, one way or the other, that if you've not believed on Christ, you're condemned. I've preached to people in Thailand who had never heard of Christ. I preached to them that they were condemned. I had a friend in the ABA whose mother was a hardship. He said she came to his church services one time. She was staying with him for a while, and he preached. He called on people to believe in Christ, and they went home, and she said, I wish you hadn't done that. He said, well, why, Mama? She said, well, there may have been some people there that have never rejected Christ. And so they're all right. But when you put them on the spot and tell them that they have to believe or they're condemned, then you make them responsible, and they'll go to hell, because you preached that they ought to believe. Well, play around with that all you want to, but I'm going to tell you something. The Bible clearly teaches that if you've not believed, you are condemned, whether you've ever heard the gospel before today or not. By nature of men, By nature men love darkness and will not come to Christ to be justified by His blood. John 3.19 says, this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Men by nature love darkness. They love darkness. I've been around some people. I've worked in some public places. I've worked at a paper mill. And I think paper mills, and if there's any of you here who work at a paper mill and you disagree with this, that's all right. You won't be the first person to disagree with something I've said. I have never worked in an environment that was more vulgar. than when I worked at the paper mill. Curse, vulgar, amazing. And they enjoyed that. They laughed about it. There were times when we would have a shutdown and we'd have to stay on the job, but we didn't have anything to do. The guys would all get in the paper shack where the paper testers worked because it was heated if it was wintertime. And it was cool if it was summertime because sometimes it was 110 in that paper mill. And I'd go in there and finally I'd just get up and I'd go somewhere where it was hotter but nicer. I'd go somewhere and lay down and take a nap. The fact is Men love darkness, because their deeds are evil. John 5, 47, and ye will not come to me. Brother Gerald Huffman translated that, and you will not will to come to me. It's not just a matter of you will not come, but you will not will to come to me, that you might have life. Condemnation and justification are exact opposites, and no one can be justified and condemned at the same time. They're not compatible. They're opposites. How does the blood of Christ justify? A negative look at this matter. We're not justified by the works of the law in addition to the blood. Amazing how many people want to make Christ PLUS something. Always wanting to add to God's plan of salvation. But knowing, Paul said in Galatians 2.16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ. that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. One who has truly been justified by the blood of Christ knows in his own heart that he was not justified by the works of the law. I've had people tell me, well, I'm just doing the best I can. I keep the Ten Commandments. It doesn't take me about five minutes to show them they don't. But the fact is, justification is not by law but by grace. It's by the blood of Christ. One who's truly been justified by the blood of Christ knows that. He knows he's not justified by the works of the law. It's evident that no one is justified by the law because the scriptures are clear on the fact that the just shall live by faith. And that faith must be in the blood of Jesus Christ. Galatians 3, 11 and 12. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. For the just shall live by faith, and the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. Those who seek justification by the law have no benefit from Jesus Christ and are actually standing off from grace. Relations 5.4 Christ has become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, you're fallen from grace. And that fallen means to stand off from grace. If you're seeking justification by the law, you're standing off from grace. Those, now positive look at this matter. What is justified by the blood when he looks to the finished work of Christ by faith? Romans 5 and 9 again. Much more than being now justified by the blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. What is justified by the blood when the law brings him to look to Christ? His blood. The grand purpose of the law. The grand purpose of the law. was to bring us to Christ. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. All who believe in Christ and in His finished work are justified. You know, let me ask you a question. How many of you used a mirror this morning to comb your hair? I didn't. I used a brush. I looked in a mirror and saw what needed to be done. Can you imagine me having a mirror up here combing my hair? The mirror shows you your need. The law is like a mirror. You look into it and you see your need of Christ. It's our schoolmaster. to bring us to Christ. You see, Paul says in Romans 10, verse 4, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. The blessings of justification are by the blood of Christ. We're saved from the wrath to come by being justified by the blood of Christ. Romans 5, 9 again. Much more than being justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Saved from wrath through the finished work of Jesus Christ, through the blood of Jesus Christ. Those who have believed in Christ are justified by the blood of Christ and shall never come into condemnation. Never! there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." You know, I like T-bone steak. When I get one that is really good, I don't want to swallow it too fast. I chew it around and roll it around in my mouth, get all of the taste I can out of it before I swallow it. that's where this verse is there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus no condemnation those who have believed in Christ are justified by the blood of Christ shall never come into condemnation John 5.24 says Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. One who has believed on Christ, and he has shed blood, receives the Holy Spirit. Galatians 3, 1 and 2, O foolish Galatians, Who hath bewitched you? I like the literal translation of that word, bewitched. Who has hoodooed you? Who has hoodooed you? Someone reminds me of a New Orleans witch doctor. I forget what they call them, but they hoodooed people. Oh foolish Galatians, who has hoodooed you? that ye should not obey the truth, for whose eyes Jesus Christ has evidently been set forth, been evidently set forth, crucified among you. This only would I learn of you, receive you the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Did you receive the Holy Spirit through the works of the law? No, through faith in Jesus Christ. Because we've been justified by the blood of Christ, we can come before God and worship Him in the very beauty of holiness. Psalm 29 verse 2 says, Give unto the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Because we have been justified by the blood of Christ, we can rest in the fact that divine justice has been satisfied fully by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. He has shed blood. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. For by my knowledge, shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities." Because of the justifying blood of Christ, some of the worst sinners in the world can have it said of them, and such were some of you, but. Such were some of you, I love God's buts. Such were some of you, but. Turn to I Corinthians 6, 9-11. He said, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you're washed, you're sanctified, you're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Some people who think certain sins are unpardonable, and I know there's an unpardonable sin, but what they think is not right, because you see, Let me just go through here and deal with these. Because of the justifying blood of Christ, one who was once a fornicator can say, I am now washed. I am now sanctified and justified. Because of the justifying blood of Christ, one who was once an idolater can say, I'm now washed, sanctified, justified. Because of the justifying blood of Christ, One who was once an adulterer can say, I am now washed, I am sanctified and justified. Because of the justifying blood of Christ, one who was once effeminate can now say, I am now washed, sanctified and justified. Because of the justifying blood of Christ, One who was once an abuser of himself with mankind, which is another way of saying a sodomite. Or a homosexual. You know, we ought to use Bible language to describe Bible things. The Bible never refers to a homosexual as a gay person. It calls them sodomites. abusers of themselves with mankind. Doing that which is unseemly, unnatural. But notice the category of the different things. So this person who's an abuser of himself with mankind, this sodomite, this homosexual, who's repented of his sins, who has trusted in Jesus Christ and His shed blood and is now justified can say, I'm now washed. I'm now sanctified. I'm now justified. Because of the justifying blood of Christ, one who was once a covetous person can say, I'm now washed, sanctified and justified. One who was once a drunkard can say, I'm now washed, sanctified and justified. The one who was a reviler, one who was prone to vicious gossip, a railer, can say I'm now washed, sanctified, justified. Because of the justifying blood of Christ, one who was once an extortioner, can now say, I am now washed, sanctified, and justified. The justifying blood of Christ has put those who are justified in a position that God will never receive a charge against them. Romans 8 verse 32 and 33, He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Isaiah 54, 17 says, No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. In conclusion, what blessings we enjoy because of the blood of Jesus Christ, justified by His blood. We could say, we know the Bible says without shedding of blood is no remission. Let me also say, and I don't believe I'm doing damage to the Scriptures, without the shedding of blood there is no justification. There is no redemption. All of these other things. God gave His Son, and His Son gave His blood, and through Him and His finished work we are justified. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect because it is God who justifies. And you can't unjustify someone God has justified, brethren.