alone in love he said to me come on to me and i'll lead you home to live with me eternally Saved by his power divine, Saved to new lives sublime, Life now is sweet and my joy is complete, For I'm saved, saved, saved. Amen. Thank you for your good participation in the song service. You may be seated. And this time again before Brother Van Gelderen preaches, his wife's going to come. I appreciate Mary Lynn and her ministry with us this week and as well as her brother. So we're thankful for you guys and look forward to what the Lord's going to do in our hearts tonight. Oh, to taste the goodness of the Lord, satisfying hunger in my heart. Oh, to feed on manna from above, strength divine the spirit shall impart. Oh, to know the presence of the Lord, Oh, to taste, to hear, to feel, to see. Oh, to know the presence of the Lord, knowing Christ in full reality. Oh, to hear the cadence of His voice speaking peace within my inner man. Oh, to hear the tender chords of love sounding out the guidance of His plan. Oh, to know the presence of the Lord Oh, to taste, to hear, to feel, to see. Oh, to know the presence of the Lord, knowing Christ in full reality. Oh, to feel the comfort of His Church, graciously uphold Oh, to sense the everlasting arms, reassuring me to trust. Oh, to see the glory of the Lord Shining forth in splendor and in might Oh, to see the high and lofty One Now exalted greatly in our sight Oh, to know the presence of the Lord ♪ O to taste, to hear, to feel, to see ♪ ♪ O to know the presence of the Lord ♪ ♪ Knowing Christ ♪ ♪ Knowing Christ ♪ ♪ Knowing Christ ♪ And it is my heart's desire to know the presence of the Lord. Galatians chapter 2 in your Bibles tonight. Word of God, Book of Galatians Chapter 2. We looked at a verse in this chapter a few nights ago. This will be a different verse and a tremendous truth here we'll see here in just a moment. What a delight to be back here at the Free Baptist Church in Lonehead, Scotland. And I can't believe we're to Wednesday. This afternoon I was thinking, wow, we were just rolling along and all of a sudden it's about over. And I just am amazed. And I want to thank everyone for your kindness to us on Sunday with the cake. and the special gifts, that was just very, very special. My wife was deeply touched, I was as well. And we appreciate it and appreciate your thoughtfulness and your kindness. And it's been just a delight to see all of you and to see what the Lord is doing and to sense the hunger to see God and to see God work. I've certainly enjoyed the fellowship with Pastor Shore and his dear wife. And I'm just thrilled with how the Lord has led them over the years. We've known them now for a while. and it's just a delight to see what the Lord is doing and to catch that heartbeat for Jesus. And I'll tell you, in our day and age, that's just an absolute precious blessing when you have that. And so it's a blessing to have been here again, and we praise the Lord for this privilege. Well, tonight, let's take our Bibles and let's look at Galatians 2 at verse 16, an amazing verse of scripture. Two nights ago, we looked at verse 20. But we go up a few verses earlier in verse 16, and it's a verse that has a lot of repetition in it. And, you know, sometimes in school, teachers will, on purpose, repeat something and repeat it and repeat it. Why? Because they want you to get it. And so the Apostle Paul here, under inspiration, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, is repeating a number of truths three times each in one verse. And thus, you have one of the longer verses in the chapter. So let's look at it tonight. Galatians chapter 2, verse 16. The inspired Word of God says, 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. Now, there's a number of truths that we're gonna see that are repeated here, but I want us to initially see that the word justified is a key word. The whole verse revolves around that word, and it occurred three times in this one verse of Scripture. I wanna speak tonight on the subject, justified in God's sight. What an amazing possibility. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for your goodness. I thank you, Lord, for these dear folk and for this church, and for these that have come to this service tonight. Now, Lord, you know the need of every heart. And I pray, Lord, for that heart who needs to be justified. Lord, that you'd open their eyes to what that means. May they be justified tonight. Lord, I pray for the children here tonight. There may be some who do not know yet what it means to be justified. Lord, open their eyes. Lord, strengthen us all with truth. We thank you that truth sets free. And equip us, Lord, in our own witness to others in this whole matter of being justified in God's sight. So I plead the blood of Jesus once again, protect us from the attack of the evil one who seeks to hinder. Lord, knock out the hindrances, knock out the lies, knock out the deceptions, those strongholds that hinder people from really seeing the glorious light of the gospel. And so Lord Jesus, I claim our position in you at the throne, I claim the mighty, it is finished. Lord through your blood that was shed and Lord in your name We exercise your authority over the powers of darkness that would seek to hinder tonight and trust you that that not be allowed So Lord meet with us tonight We thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen In 1947, there was a rumor that spread all across the United States of America. It went from coast to coast. I mean, it spread fast. The rumor was that the Ford Motor Company was going to give a Ford, a car, in exchange for every copper penny dated 1943. Now, it's 1947, this rumor spreads. I mean, the Ford offices were jammed with phone calls, telegrams, inquiries, trying to find out, is this really true? If we give you a copper penny, 1943, will we get a Ford, a car? And it was an explosive rumor. Well, Of course, it turned out to be a joke because in 1943, because of the war, they didn't make pennies of copper. There was over a million pennies made of zinc coated steel. And so it was a rumor. And there's another rumor that has spread not just throughout the United States, but around the world. In fact, it's been around for centuries. I've had the privilege of preaching in 20 countries so far. in every country I've gone to, whether it's Africa or Asia or Europe, in every country I've gone to, this rumor is there. And there are people who don't know it's a rumor. They actually think it's the truth. But it's not the truth, it is a rumor. The rumor has it that if you're good enough, that if your good works and your good deeds outweigh your bad works and your bad deeds, that you'll somehow make it to heaven. Friends, I want us to understand tonight that is a rumor. It is not the truth. But there is a way to make it to God's heaven. It revolves around this word justified. I want to ask you tonight, have you been justified in God's sight? Now, what does it mean to be justified in God's sight? And how can you and I be justified? Declared righteous. in God's sight. Well, tonight I want us to look at this verse of scripture. We're going to note five truths. Each of these five truths are stated three times in this one verse. That's amazing. The first truth is that the law demands good works. Notice what it says. knowing that a man is not justified by thee." Look at this phrase, works of the law. And that phrase is repeated two more times in this one verse. So just think of the phrase, the works of the law. In other words, there are some works that go along with law. The law demands good works. Now the law is summarized in the greatest commandment. Jesus made that clear in the New Testament. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And he said the second commandment is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. It's expanded into the ten commandments. That would be like the major outline. And then you have the whole Torah, the first five books of the Bible that fill in those details. And then you have in the book of Psalms the entire word of God being referred to as God's law. And so the law demands works. When the Bible says, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, it means you're not to take God's name in vain. When the Bible says, thou shalt not covet, it means you're not to covet. And when the Bible says, thou shalt not bear false witness, it means you're not to lie. And so the law demands good works. Well, then if the law demands good works, Couldn't you get to heaven by being good? Second truth, no one perfectly keeps the law. Now look at the verse. It says, knowing that a man, a human being, is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we believe in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. So it says, we are not justified by the works of the law. Then the last phrase says, for by the works of the law shall no flesh, again referring to humanity, be justified. Okay, so the law demands good works, perfectly keeps the law. Now I want you to see something. If you got your Bible, turn to chapter 3. Here's an amazing statement to prove our point here, that the law, nobody perfectly keeps it. Here's how we know. To keep the law demands perfection. Look at chapter 3 and verse 10. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. In other words, if you're going to try to get to heaven by keeping the law, God says you're under a curse. Why? Because it says, cursed is everyone who doesn't continue in all. The wording there continues, not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. I was in a meeting once in the state of Illinois. And after the service, I met a lady that one of the church ladies had brought to the service. And so she was not from that church. She was there visiting. And I said, well, ma'am, Let me ask you, if you were to die right now, or let's say 10 years from now, are you 100% sure that all your sins are forgiven and that you have eternal life in heaven? And she said, oh, yes, I'm going to heaven. I said, well, ma'am, what are you depending on to get to heaven? Here's what she said. Oh, I keep the 10 commandments. And then she broke eye contact and looked at the floor and said, well, not all of them. I said, well, ma'am, let me show you a verse. And I opened my Bible to Galatians 3 verse 10, the verse I just read. I said, look at this. It says, for as many as are of the works of the law. I said, that's describing you. You just said you thought you were going to heaven because you keep the Ten Commandments. And then you admitted that you don't keep all of them. So here's what it says about you. This is what exactly I said to her. Here's what it says about you. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the Curse. And she goes, stop it. What do you mean? I said, well, look what it says. Word is written, cursed is everyone who continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law of the world. You just told me you're depending on the Ten Commandments to get to heaven, and you already told me you don't keep them all. And this says, cursed is everyone is everyone who continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. You see the law demands perfection but none of us perfectly keep the law. She was But we continue to talk that night about what the Bible says about justified, and before the night was over, she placed her faith in Jesus and she was justified the Bible way. But see, no one perfectly keeps the law. The Bible says in James 2 verse 10, that whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty It's kind of like a chain. If you break one link, you've broken the entire chain. And if you've broken God's law once, you've broken God's law, the standard of perfection is no longer met. Now here's what Jesus said. He said, you be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Do you realize the standard for heaven is perfection? That's what Jesus said. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. The standard is perfection. You know why? The standard for heaven is God. You know, if God let sin into heaven, heaven's not gonna be heaven. So the standard for heaven is God, which means the standard for heaven is absolute perfection. Now we got a problem because the Bible says How many of you have never in your life lied? Would you raise your hand? Okay, that means everybody's admitted they've lied. Which means we don't meet the standard. Isn't that amazing? You see... None of us perfectly keep the law. To break the law is sin. If you take God's name in vain, that's sin. If you are dishonest, that's sin. If we covet, that's sin. And on and on it goes. All of those would be examples, and there are many others, of breaking the law. And the Bible says in verse 10 of chapter three that there's a curse. In other words, there's a judgment. You see, God's a perfect God. He's a just God. And justice means that sin must be judged. The Bible says in Genesis 18, 25, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? You know, there's a lot of judges in various places today who don't always do right. I remember that man that I mentioned to you the other night, George Minsik, who was a part of Al Capone's gang. He said they had every judge paid off within, I forget the radius, around Chicago, Illinois. He said they had them all paid off except for two. There's a lot of judges that don't do right, but God is one judge who always does right. And justice demands that sin be judged. So, so far, it's not looking too good. Because the first truth is that the law demands good works, okay? That sounds like there's hope, but the problem is, secondly, we saw no one perfectly keeps the law. That brings us to a third truth. Justification in God's sight is not based on you keeping the law. Now that's a wonderful thing because we don't keep it. You see, to be justified in God's sight, it's not your righteousness based on your keeping the law. Look at what it says again there in verse 16 of Galatians 2. It says here, 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, now 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. Three times, no, not. No, it doesn't work that way. You are not justified in God's sight by your own righteousness through your attempts to keep the law. Well, then how does it work for truth? To be justified in God's sight is to have God's righteousness legally credited over to you. Now this is a great truth. The Bible says here, 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. In other words, the word justified in modern times means to have the right margin of your paper in line. But that's not the Bible word justified. The Bible word justified literally means to be declared righteous in God's sight. Well, how can that be? You see, there is a provision through what Jesus did on the cross for you and I to be declared righteous, to be legally righteous, to somehow have the righteousness of Jesus credited over to our account. Now, let me give an example. Let's suppose you're in debt a million pounds. Try to imagine being in debt a million pounds. Would that be beyond your ability to pay? And if not, just jack it up to a billion. You get the point. So here's this debt that's beyond your ability to pay. Well, let's suppose a multi-multi-billionaire comes along, doesn't know you, but here's your story. Man, this person is so in debt, they're never going to get out of it. They've ruined themselves. They've dug a hole, they'll never get out of it. You know, I got the extra. I can help out. And he writes a check, and he pays off your debt. Completely. Now, that'd be wonderful, wouldn't it? But you'd have a zero balance. You still wouldn't have anything. But at least you wouldn't have the debt. So let's say he gets to thinking, you know, if all I do is pay off their debt, they're not going to have anything to live on. You know, I got the extra and so he writes a second check to the positive for a billion pounds and puts that into your account. Now that would be a transaction. So let's make the analogy. You and I have a debt called sin. We can't pay it off. Do you know that if you were perfect from today forward, which none of us will be, but if you could somehow be perfect from today on, I have a question for you. Have you sinned before today? Yeah. You know what that means? You've already blown it. You see, even if you were perfect from today on, if you've already sinned, you cannot ever meet God's standard of perfection on your own. So literally, we have a sin debt that is beyond our ability to pay. It is beyond us. We cannot ever meet the standard of perfection on our own. We've already blown it. But here's the good news. Jesus, God the Son, came into our world, born of a virgin, which is a miracle. lived a sinless life, went to the cross. And the Bible says all of our sins were laid on Him. And He died for our sins. And He rose again conquering sin, death, and hell. And He offers salvation to those who will believe on Him. But here's what we need to understand. Because of what He did on the cross, He offers not only to pay your sin debt in full. He does offer that. But He doesn't leave you with a zero balance. Why? Because we've already seen God demands perfection. So it's gotta be more than just having our sins forgiven. And because of who he is and what he did, he offers to not only have our sin debt completely taken care of, he doesn't leave us with a zero balance, he offers to have his own righteousness legally credited into our account so that from that moment forward, when God the Father looks at us, instead of seeing us with our sin, he would see us with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I'm gonna tell you, friend, that's powerful. That's being justified in God's sight. You see, He paid the sin debt for us, but He also kept the law for us. And so there's the possibility where our sin is put on Him so that His righteousness could be put on us. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for He, God the Father, hath made Him God the Son to be sin for us. That's our sin being put on Him at the cross. so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, our sin was put on Him so that His righteousness could legally be put on us, and that is a credited righteousness. But when you have the righteousness of Jesus credited to you, the standard of perfection is met because He is perfect. You see, legal righteousness, justification righteousness, salvation righteousness, is Christ's righteousness credited to your account. That is the only righteousness that God the Father accepts. And so the Bible says in Romans 4 verse 5, but to him that worketh not, In other words, it doesn't depend on his own self-effort, because we don't meet the standard. We're not perfect. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. There's that credited righteousness that we're talking about. So the law demands good works, but no one perfectly keeps the law. But justification in God's sight is not based on your righteousness, on you keeping the law. Rather, this justification in God's sight is Christ's righteousness credited to you. And one final truth, this legal justification righteousness is received by faith. Look at what it says. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith. faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed, there's the verb form of the noun faith, in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Let's talk about faith here for a few minutes. It says here it's believing in Jesus. not just about Him, but in Him. In other words, your whole soul, your mind, your affections, and your will is involved in this. In your mind, you have to understand, you know, sin is the problem. I don't meet the standard because of sin. And hell is the consequence. I don't like to think about it, but God's a just God and so He can't just overlook sin. There is a judgment for sin. It is eternal separation from God forever in the lake of fire. That is what the Bible teaches. We do have to understand that that's why Christ came and He died for our sins. And He rose again and conquered sin, death, and hell, and offers salvation to all who will believe. Okay, so in your mind you need to understand that, and in your heart you need to agree with it. Wait a second, it's not just that everybody out there is a sinner. I've sinned. It's not just that everyone else deserves hell. Wow. I deserve it. I actually deserve hell. And it's not just that Christ died for everyone else. Jesus died for me. He died for my sins. You see, when you understand that, and you agree with that, that's necessary, but if you stop at that, you only believe about Jesus. You gotta go past the understanding, past that agreement, to that part of your soul called your will, where you make a choice to stop depending on yourself, and to transfer your dependence to Jesus alone. to actually save you. In other words, you have to go beyond believing about Jesus to believing in Him. You have to take your confidence out of yourself and place your confidence into Jesus to actually save you. In other words, it's not just asking Him to save you, it's trusting Him to do it. And that's crucial. That's a transaction. It's not just trusting God to help you through a crisis. God may do that in His mercy. It's trusting Him to save you from sin and hell, which is the crisis. That's what we're talking about when it says here we're to believe in Jesus. A number of years ago, I was in a meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the pastor said, hey, on Tuesday morning, we got a breakfast that some of the men go to, and some of them invite their coworkers and some of the men that they just know from the workplace or their neighborhood. And some of those men don't know the Lord, they're not saved, but we have a good time talking at this breakfast. And he said, would you like to come? I said, sure. So we got there. And when we got there, everybody was already seated, and there was two seats left. One was in the middle of the table. The pastor sat there. One was on the end of the table, so I sat there. And a man across the table introduced himself to me. He said, hello, my name is Cliff. And we got to talking. Now, Cliff was 80 years old. Sharp mind. And very religious man. and so I began to talk to him about salvation and you know Cliff you know Are you 100% sure that when you die, you're gonna be with Jesus? And, you know, what are you depending on? And we got this conversation going, and he was quite the character. He talked a lot. And so, he would philosophize for a while. When he would come up for air, I would jump in and say, you know, that's interesting, but, you know, the Bible says this. He says, well, you know, I think that's interesting the Bible says that, but, and he philosophized for another five minutes, and he'd come up for air, and I'd dive in again and say, well, you know, the Bible says, and I would just throw out what the Bible says, and he would say, well, and he'd philosophize for whatever. And that's how the conversation went. We didn't get that far. Then all of a sudden breakfast was over and everybody's leaving. He said, oh, he said, I sure wish I could, we could continue this conversation. Well, I was wishing I could as well, but the time was gone. And I said, well, I'll tell you what, if I could continue that conversation, much of what I would say to you, I have written in this little booklet. And I handed in this little booklet that I had written. And I said, will you read this? He took it. He said, oh, yes. He said, I will read that. And so we said goodbye. Well, that was in the morning. That night I came to the church service and a dear lady came up to me. She said, you know, I don't know if you knew it or not, but she said, I was your waitress today at the restaurant. She said, this was sitting on the table after all of you men left. She said, was that for me, or had you given that to one of those men? And I thought, that rascal? He left the booklet. I thought, well, maybe he was grabbing his hat. He is an older gentleman. Maybe he accidentally forgot it. So I mentioned it to the pastor. The pastor said, oh, I know, Cliff. He did not do that on purpose. He said, I guarantee you it was an accident. He said, we'll take it to his house. So we knocked on his door. Cliff opened the door and said, oh, come in. I said, hey, Cliff, remember this? He goes, oh, I forgot that on the table. Sure enough, that's what happened. So we all sat down, and so we started talking again. I said, now, Cliff, let me ask you. If you were to die right now or five years from now, are you 100% sure that all of your sins, past, present and even future are forgiven and that you have eternal life. Do you know that, Cliff? He said, oh, you know, I'm going to heaven. I said, well, Cliff, what are you depending on to get to heaven? And here's what he said. He said, well, I believe in Jesus Christ. Well, that certainly sounded good. So then I asked this, anything else? Here's what he said, oh, yes. You have to be good, too, in order to make it. I said, okay, so what you're telling me is that what you're depending on to get to heaven is your belief in God, your belief in Jesus, and dependence on your own good works to get there, being good. He said, yes, that is what I'm depending on. I said, now Cliff, I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but the Bible says in the book of Romans, and he actually had a Bible next to him, we're sitting in his living room, and he opened his Bible, so I waited for him to find it, to Romans chapter 3, verse 28. I said, now look at this, Cliff, it says, therefore we conclude that a man is justified, there's our word, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith with out the deeds of the law. I said, now Cliff, what you told me, when I asked you what you're dependent on to get to heaven, you said your belief in Jesus. I said, there's the faith part of it. And then you said, and you're being good, you're keeping the law. I said, look at what this says. This says you're justified by faith. And before I could read the next phrase, he read it, stunned, without the deeds of the law. He was shocked. He looked up at me and he said, well, then what must I do to correct this? And I began to explain that you've got to place your dependence in Jesus alone because he's the Savior and he does all the saving. He forgives our sins. He credits his righteousness to our king. He gives us eternal life. You've got to believe in him, not just about him, Cliff. You already believe about him. You gotta believe in Him, but not anything else, because if you also depend on something else, then you're not really believing on Jesus. I said, now, Cliff, I'd like to illustrate this for you. I said, do you mind if I move some furniture around? He said, no, go ahead. So, he was sitting in one chair in the corner, and there was a sofa along that wall. So I'm just going to have us imagine this. Hopefully I can do this up here. And if you can imagine that this chair right here is the sofa. All right, so here's the sofa. And I said, now Cliff, I'm going to move this chair over here. So I move my chair over here. And I said, now Cliff. And I sat down in the first chair. I said, now, if I tell you I believe that this chair, I put my hand on his sofa. I said, if I tell you I believe this chair can hold me up, What would I have to do to prove it to you? And he said, sit up. I said, that's exactly right. If all I do is talk about it and tell you how much I believe it can hold me up, all I'm doing is believing about it. But to believe in it, yes, you're right. I'd have to sit up. I said, now what if I tell you, Cliff, I'm going to prove to you that I believe this second chair, the sofa over here, can hold me up. But when I go, to prove it to you, I do this. And in his house, the sofa had one of those armrests, so my legs were like this. But I was half on the sofa and half on the chair. I said, now Cliff, am I really trusting this chair to hold me up if I'm still hanging on to this one? And he said, with a smile, it depends on your percentages. I laughed. I said, well, let's suppose it's 50-50. He said, well, I get your point. I said, OK. So am I really depending on the second chair if I'm hanging on to the first chair? And he said, no. I said, you're right. I said, Cliff, this is a picture of you. You told me that Supposedly you believe in Jesus, but you also told me you're depending on your good works to get you to heaven. That's a split trust. And a split trust reveals a mistrust in either one of the single objects. Just like Sitting on two chairs means I don't trust either chair because I'm hanging on the other one. A split trust reveals a mistrust in Jesus alone. I said, Cliff, what you got to do is get off the chair of Cliff and place your dependence on Jesus alone to actually save you from sin and hell. And he saw it. He realized for the first time, here's a religious man, Went to church, all of that, for decades. And for the first time in his life, he understood, wait a second, I've had a split trust, which means I've mistrusted Jesus, which means he had never trusted him. You know what he did? Before that conversation was over, to God that you've sinned, that you deserve judgment, but knowing Jesus died for you and rose again, you can trust Him to do it. You can actually cast your dependence upon Him to save you. And that dear man bowed his head and admitted to God that he was a sinner that deserved hell, but knowing Jesus died for him and rose again, he trusted Jesus that day to save him from sin and hell. You know what? He came to the service that night. A few days later, I was on to another meeting. The pastor forwarded an email that Cliff had sent to him. And Cliff had said, you know what? I now know that I'm trusting Jesus alone. I now am born again. I now know that I'm saved and I know that Jesus is the only way. You know what? He was justified. And the reason he was justified is that he stopped depending on Cliff. Why? Cliff doesn't meet the standard, just as you and I don't. And he placed his dependence on Jesus to save him. Why? Jesus does meet the standard. He is perfectly righteous. And the moment Cliff placed his dependence on Jesus to save him from sin and hell, at that moment, his sins were forgiven, past, present, and future. And the righteousness of Jesus was legally put on Cliff's account. And at that moment, he received the eternal life of Jesus. Now friends, that's being justified in God's sight. Have you been justified in God's sight? Let's bow our heads for prayer. Thank you for your attention. And I just wanna ask a couple of questions before we close. And by the way, the reason I'm asking for heads to be bowed and eyes to be closed is nothing strange, nothing weird is going to happen. I want you to be able to answer the questions by raising your hand and not feel awkward about it. That's why heads are bowed and eyes are closed. I'm not going to point you out. I'm not going to make a scene. That's not my point. I just want to help you think through where you're at on this. I wonder who tonight would say, Preacher, I see it. Just like Clef, I see it. And I see that at best, I'm on both chairs, which means I've never trusted Jesus alone, which means I'm not justified. And I see tonight that I need to be, and God has spoken to me. Would you raise the hand if that's you? Say, God has shown me tonight that I have never actually believed in Jesus alone. At best, I'm on both chairs, and it's time I sit in the Jesus chair. It's time I actually trust him to do all the saving so that his righteousness can be put on my account so that I can be justified in God's sight. That's never happened to me. It needs to. God has shown me that tonight. Would you raise the hand? Yes, I see that hand. God bless you. Is there someone else? The preacher, I have never made that choice. I've known about Jesus. I thought I believed on him, but at best, I've had a split trust, which means I have mistrusted Jesus, which means I need to trust him alone to save me. There's been one hand. Is there another? All right, I see that. God bless you. Is there anyone else? I've never been justified. At best, I'm on both chairs. I need to trust Jesus only. All right, thank you. I see that hand. God bless you. Is there someone else? God's speaking to me. I need to be justified. Is there anyone else? I picture God has spoken to me. Father, I pray that you'll bless in these final moments, give us wisdom for the closing of this service. Lord, you know hearts. You know those that are justified in your sight and those who need to be. I pray, Holy Spirit, you'd make very clear to each individual who needs to be justified that you would show them that yes, Jesus is the savior, the justifier. May they tonight place their dependence on Jesus alone to actually save them from sin and hell. May they get on the Jesus chair. May they in their hearts, not just ask Jesus to save them, but trust Jesus to do it once and for all. Now with our heads still bowed and eyes closed, I wanna ask a couple of questions to those of you who raised a hand. And you can just answer by raising your hand or nodding your head. And this is just for the, The two or three here who raised their hand saying, I need to be justified. Here's the first question. Do you believe that Jesus can save you from sin and hell? All right, wonderful, good. Do you believe that Jesus would save you if you trusted him to do it? All right, sure he would, all right, good. Now obviously if you leave me out of this or anybody else out of this, Jesus is going to take care of this right away. And do you know if you trust him, the way you'll know that he saved you is because he said he would. It says here that when you believed in Jesus, you're justified. He said in John 6, 47, he who believes on me, see there it is, the Jesus chair, not me plus anything else, not me plus baptism, not me plus good works, not me plus church. He said, he who believes on me, So there it is. So it's a matter of really trusting Him to do what He said. So here's the final question. Since Jesus is willing to save you from sin and hell, and of course He is, are you willing to depend on Him to do that for you tonight? All right, wonderful. Yes, I see that, I see that. Now, I'll tell you what let's do. If God has spoken to you, and obviously he has, or you wouldn't have raised your hand, then I'd like to just speak with you as the service is brought to a close here in a moment, and everyone is dismissed, I'll stay here at the front, and if you'll just come, and I wanna make sure that you understand clearly what's happening, and if there, if, If this is God speaking to you, then that means you can trust Jesus tonight and be justified and walk out of here and know you have the righteousness of Jesus. So let's pray. I'll turn it over to Pastor Schor. When the service is dismissed, I'll hang here at the front. And if God spoke to you, you just stay back and we'll get this settled. You can get this settled with God tonight. Lord, we thank you for speaking to hearts. I thank you for the two that have indicated that yes, you're speaking to them and they're willing to trust you. And Lord, I pray they'd get this settled once and for all. We thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen. All right. Let's stand and sing 328, only trust him, only trust him. Come every soul by sin oppressors, mercy with the Lord.