In the gospel this evening, we're turning to the book of Job, the chapters number nine. The book of Job and the chapter number nine. I want to read a number of verses at the beginning of the chapter. I trust that you'll follow along even as God's word is read. So Job chapter number nine, and we're reading from verse one. Job nine, verse one. Let's hear God's word. Then Job answered and said, I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with God? When he contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. He is wise in heart and mighty in strength, who hath hardened himself against him and hath prospered, which removeth the mountains, and they know not, which overturneth them in his anger, which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble, which commanded the sun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars, which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea, which maketh Arcturius, and Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers off the south, which doeth great things past, finding out yea and wonders without number, Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not. He passeth on also, but I perceive him not. Behold, he taketh away. Who can hinder him? Who will say unto him, What doest thou? If God will not withdraw his anger, How much less shall I answer him and choose out my words to reason with him? Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge. If I had called, and he had answered me, yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice. For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause. He will not suffer me to take my breath. He filleth me with bitterness. If I speak of strength, though he is strong, and of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead? But if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul. I would despise my life. We'll end our reading at verse 21, and we'll just briefly engage in a word of prayer before the word of God is preached in this house. Loving Father, we thank thee, O God, for the hymns that we've been singing, bringing us to the cross and bringing us to our Savior, to our great high priest, the one who entered into this world, who took to himself our flesh our humanity who died in the flesh and lord we rejoice dear father that father he now is in the glory we ever liveth to make intercession for us. We look to heaven, Lord, when Satan tempts us to despair, to tell us off the guilt within. Upward I look and see him there, the one who made an end to all my sin. Because this sin the Savior died, my sinful soul is, Lord, satisfied. Lord, we rejoice, dear God, that is set free. We thank thee, dear God, for God the just is satisfied to look on him. and to pardon me. Bless, Lord, in the going forth of thy word. Come now and empty me of sin and self, and fill me now with thy Spirit, and guide us through this meeting and through this message. We offer prayer in and through the Savior's lovely and precious name. Amen and amen. As a young boy with the Stewart grandparents living next door to us, I often find myself on many an afternoon on their side of the family home. Granny Stewart was a big fan of a particular television program called Countdown. It's a game show that really pits two contestants against each other as they attempt to construct words from nine randomly selected vowels and consonants and also the solving of maths questions that require the contestant to use their arithmetic skills to reach a random target. calculated from six other numbers chosen from a selection of 24 face down cards, which have large and small numbers written on each of them. I think it's better seen than really me trying to explain what Countdown is. We would often try and beat each other through the various rounds of that particular program. And obviously, Granny Stewart being much older than I am, Normally she came out on top, but then we came to what I thought was the most difficult round of the game show. It was called the conundrum. The conundrum was a 30-second buzzer round in which the contestant competed to solve a nine-letter anagram. I was useless at it. I could never see the hidden word in those jumbled up letters but I wasn't alone in that because oftentimes even the contestants on the show were unable even in those 30 seconds to provide a solution to that particular conundrum. As I reminisced about my afternoon battles with Granny Stewart and the many conundrums that went unsolved by us I often I began thinking about the world's greatest conundrum. When I use the word conundrum, I'm really speaking about a problem that is difficult to solve, a confusing or a difficult problem. That problem we have come to read about here in Job chapter 9. In fact, it is a conundrum that so perplexes the mind of Job, so much so that God's child, he comes to present that conundrum to his readership in a question that he asked to Bildad in Job 9, in the verse number 2. How should man be just with God? How should man be just with God. I believe that Job's question throws up the world's greatest conundrum, and that's what we want to consider this evening in this gospel meeting, the world's greatest Now there are three matters that I want us to think about, three matters that I want to preach upon in this gospel meeting. The first matter that I want to say a number of things about this evening is the problems behind the conundrum. The problems behind the conundrum. Let me refresh your memory with the question. With the conundrum that Job puts to Bildad, how should man be just with God? I believe that there are really here two main difficulties found in this conundrum when it comes to how a man can be just with God. The first problem that we encounter in this conundrum is the hereditary condition of every man. the hereditary condition of every man. How should man be just with God? Or to put it even more simply, how can man be right with God? That's really what Job is coming to ask here, and this is the question that Job is asking. How can man be right with God? You see, Job was all too aware, he was all too aware of the spiritual state of fallen man. For there was a time in his own life when he was such a man. There was a time in Job's life when he was not just with God. There was a time in Job's life when he was not right with God because he was a sinner. before God. And so Job, he comes to know from personal experience that man in his sinful state, rather than being just before God or being just with God, that man in his fallen sinful state is unjust before God. Writing in 1 Peter 3, verse 18, Apostle Peter, he recounts how Christ also suffered, hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. Notice how Peter describes the ungodly. Notice how he describes those who are yet in their sin. He describes them as being unjust. That is the natural state of every individual that belongs to the human race. We are born into this world as those who are unjust, or as this word is translated elsewhere in the New Testament, we are born into this world as those who are unrighteous. We are born into this world not right with God. And therefore, because of our sin, we cannot be just with God. In this inquiry of Job, that Job comes to ask, how should man be just with God, has led to the performance of all different kinds of penances and sacrifices by the adherence of different religious systems. As men across this world, they attempt to devise some system, some means, some ways whereby God can treat them as being righteous. And so they go about fasting. They go about in their pilgrimages. You go about paying into their churches or their places of worship, wherever that would be. All in an attempt to devise a means whereby God will treat them as being just or being treated as those who are righteous. And yet every attempt that has been made by man to devise such a means has ended in absolute and incomplete abject Sinners, they come to find what Job came to find when they try to justify themselves before God. What did Job find? Well, look down at the verse number 20 of this chapter. Because Job says, If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me Perverse. Self-justification was pointless in the eyes of Job. Because whenever he came to open his mouth, rather than justifying himself, we find that instead Job came to condemn himself. And that's what happens whenever the sinner tries to justify themselves before God without any reference to the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see the sinner, he or she thinks to themselves, well I have no salvation. I have no need of salvation by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. For I believe that I have kept God's commandments, and therefore I do not believe that I am guilty in God's sight. And yet the irony is this, that although that sinner may never have committed the sins of murder or adultery or fornication or theft, yet in their self-justifying, and in their self-justifying declaration, it finds that sinner guilty of the sin of pride. Who among us could claim that we've ever kept the law of God perfectly, has given complete obedience to its just demands? There's not one among us. Remember that young man who ran out to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels? He knelt down before him, standing before the Savior, the Son of God, that rich young ruler, Christ putting to him the law of God he had claimed. He claimed before God that he had kept the commandments of God from his youth up, at least the ones that Lord Jesus Christ spoke to him about. And yet, he had fallen already at the first hurdle, because he had placed money as a God in his life. He had put money as a God in his life rather than the true and the living God. You see, man has a problem when it comes to how he can be just with God. It is the hereditary problem of sin. Sin that has been passed down to all men from Adam, who was humanity's representative in the Garden of Eden. For as by one man sin entered into the world, And death by sin, and so death is passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And so here is the first problem with this great conundrum. It is the hereditary condition of every individual born into this world. Every man, every woman, boy, girl, teenager, in their natural state, is found to be in an unjust state. We are unjust. How can man, fallen, sinful, depraved, wicked man, be just with God? There's the first problem. But there's another problem in this conundrum, and it's not the hereditary condition of every man, but it is the holy character of God, the holy character of God. You see the words here in the verse number two, the words of Job imply that God's servant was convinced that God was so holy and that God was so just that he required man to be just in his sight. Now what would have convinced Job of that? Well it's the same thing that convinces us of this. It is a revelation of God that we have in His Word. Because the holy and the just character of God is spoken of throughout the record of Holy Scripture. For example, in the book of Deuteronomy, the chapter 32 and the verse 4, we read that God is the rock. His work is perfect for all His ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right as He. Elipaz, he comes to express his belief in God's just character when he says in Job chapter 4 and the verse number 17, these particular words, Shall mortal man be more just than God? And so we find here that Elipaz, the team knight, he believes that God is just. And so Job, he's considering this, he considers what he reads in the book of Deuteronomy, what Elipaz, his friend, has just said to him. And as for God's holiness, well, God declares Himself that He is holy. Once again, in the Pentateuch, in the opening five books of the Bible, Leviticus 11 verse 44, And therefore the holy and the just character of God stands in the way of an ungodly sinner being just before God. As the prophet Habakkuk reminds us, Habakkuk 1 verse 13, that God is of pure eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity. And so man in his fallen state, in his sinful state, in his unholy state, in his unjust state, cannot be just with God, a God who is sinless, a God who is holy, and a God who is just. This is something that you as an unconverted person need to understand. This is something that you need to come and accept even as a sinner. That the God of heaven and the God of earth is too holy and is too just to overlook or to turn a blind eye to your sin. Your sin, my sin, requires the execution of impeccable and equitable justice upon it. Not to judge sin would render God who is just to be unjust. God must visit sin, either in justice, or He is no longer God, or He visits sin in mercy. in allowing another to die in the sinner's place. If God does not punish sin, He has ceased to be what He has always been, holy, just and righteous. Thomas Watson said, God's holiness is the cause of His justice. Holiness will not allow Him to do anything but what is righteous. He can no more be unjust. than he can be unholy, and so he must punish the sinner for their sin. And so here's the conundrum that you, the sinner, faces tonight. You're unjust by nature. God is just in his nature. How can these two opposing parties, diametrically opposite in nature, diametrically opposite in character, ever be reconciled to each other? Is it the case that never, never the twain shall meet? Is it the case that the gulf is so vast, that the difference is so great, that the problem is so insurmountable that sinful unjust man can never be just with holy God? Well, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the twain can meet, that reconciliation can take place, that the opposing parties can be reconciled to each other. And that brings us to our second main point tonight. Not only do we see the problems within the conundrum, but then we also think about the solution to the conundrum. Every conundrum had its solution. Every conundrum had its answer. No conundrum went unsolved in that particular television program. And such is the case with the world's greatest conundrum. Thank God there is a solution. There is an answer to that particular conundrum. How can God justify the sinner while at the same time remain just himself? To simply forgive the sinner would mean that the just demands of the law had not been satisfied and had not been met. The law must be honored. The penalty of sin must be paid. The justice of God must be satisfied. But sinful man is inept. Sinful man is powerless. Sinful man is unable to do such things for themselves. And so God, in His infinite wisdom, devised a mean whereby sinners banished from Him, separated from Him, would not be eternally expelled from Him, but instead would be redeemed by him. In the inscrutable mind of God, infinite wisdom formulated a way in which God could remain just and at the same time righteously justify the ungodly. The book of Romans really presents to us that great scheme. That great way, the only way in which such could take place. The book of Romans presents to us God's solution to the world's greatest conundrum. Because in that book, Paul unfolds with forensic accuracy how just God can forgive sin and at the same time remain true to His righteous character. How can God remain righteous? And at the same time, justify the guilty. I tell you, that's a conundrum. It's hard to solve. But God solved that very problem. And so we read in the book of Romans in the chapter 3, if you want to turn there, we'll read from the verse 23, how God comes to solve this problem. Verse 23 of Romans 3, 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, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, and then underline these words, that He might be just, and the justifier, him which believeth in Jesus. Paul, he first makes it clear in verse 23 as to the universal extent to which sin has reached the entire human race. He says, all have sinned. However, Paul goes on to declare that God has set forth Jesus Christ to be the propitiation for sin. That simply means the sacrifice that turns away divine wrath. And in that sacrifice, he can therefore, as a result of offering himself as that sacrifice, be just. and the justifier which believes on or has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Scripture reminds us repeatedly that because God is just, he cannot clear the guilty. He will not let sinners off scot-free. Numbers 14, 18 is one such passage. The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children on to the third and the fourth generation. God by no means clears the guilty. Just as a human judge is unjust if he does not punish convicted criminals with a just sentence, so the Lord would be unjust if he merely passed over the sinner's sin. However, if there was one who was willing and one who was suitable to take the guilty sinner's place and to pay the price of sin on that sinner's behalf, then with justice being satisfied, the law being satisfied, the penalty being paid, God in His justice, God cannot justly ask for a second payment for sin to be made on the trusting sinner's behalf. With the demands of justice already having been executed upon a substitute, then the sinner can be justly forgiven. You know, never think for a single moment that God set aside his justice. in order for him to forgive the sinner. People think that. People think that God simply showed mercy and showed grace and showed love, and that he did. But God also worked justly in order that you might be forgiven, in order that you might be pardoned of your sin. Justice had to be fully satisfied before the sinner could be forgiven. and satisfied it was when God poured out upon His Son the full fury of His wrath against the sins of all who would come and believe on Him. You ask me the question, how has God's justice been satisfied so it no longer stands in the way of then God justifying the one who believes on Him? How does this come about? I point you to one place, to the cross, and more specifically to the sinner's substitute who hangs there upon the cross. Upon the blessed Son of God was laid, the sins of his people. Isaiah the prophet with accurate foresight, he says concerning the coming Messiah, he is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid our faces as it were from Him. He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He had borne our grace and carried our souls. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. With His stripes we are healed. And so we are at the cross. This is the first Lord's Day of a new year, 2024. And God willing, we'll be found there on many an occasion in the will of God throughout this year, standing in the shadow of the cross. And as we stand at the shadow of the cross, consider the great solution to the world's greatest conundrum, the death of Jesus Christ upon the tree. Justice meets at the cross of Jesus Christ. Another stands in the room of the sinner. Another takes the sinner's place. Another exhausts justice and the execution of it in his own blessed and sacred body. As we stand at the cross, And as we consider who has made it possible for an unjust sinner to be just with God, I want you to think a number of things with me as we come soon to the end of the meeting. I want you to think about the dignity, the dignity of the one on the cross. His dignity is derived from his deity, because the one who hangs upon the cross is very God of very God. The victim upon the tree is none other than God manifest in flesh. This is not some mere man who's hanging on the cross and dying on behalf of others. This is the God-Man. This is the Creator, the Preserver, the Upholder of all things. This is the Sinless One, the Spotless One. This is the pure one, the righteous one, the impeccable one, the faultless one, the flawless one, the holy one, the guiltless one. This is the innocent one. Oh, the dignity possessed by the victim who offered himself as a sacrifice in order that divine justice could be satisfied. It is the dignity of the one upon the cross which gives the sacrifice the infinite merit that it possesses. When Christ, the great Creator, died for man, the creature's sin, the dignity of the one upon the cross. Think about the agony of the one upon the cross. None suffered as the Son of God suffered, for His suffering and agony was according and proportionate to the eternal punishment. Think of that. It was proportionate to the eternal punishment that was due to every sinner who would believe on him. He experienced our hell, our judgment, in three dark hours. Look into Gethsemane's garden and view his agonies there before he ever reached the cross. Dr. Luke tells us in Luke 22 verse 44 that being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly and he sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground. And then make your way to Gilbatha. to the judgment hall and consider his agonies there. Contemplate the agony experienced by the Son of God in that cauldron of military scorn where Roman legionaries made him the object of their heinous deeds. Watch as he stripped of his own garments and robed in purple. Observe how the soldiers, they crown him with a crown of thorns and then they beat that crown into his precious brow with a makeshift scepter. Listen to the scourge as it falls upon his back. as it ploughs deep foe's air, see thong filled after thong filled of his quivering flesh torn from his bare back with the scourging lash, and then climb Golgotha's hillside and ponder his agonies there, the agony of body, the agony of soul, the agony of mind as hands and feet are pinned to the tree with nails, as scorners line up to vent their venomous contempt in His direction, as the Son of God strikes His Son, bruises Him, and He puts Him to grief. Consider the agony of the one upon the cross, in order that He might justify you. And then consider the legacy of the one upon the cross. Oh, the legacy of what Jesus Christ accomplished in his life and death is that he fulfilled the law on the behalf of the trusting sinner. He paid the price of their sin. And therefore, he is able to justify the sinner, listen to this, in a manner that does not impinge his justice in any way. God remains just while at the same time He is able to justify the sinner because justice has been fully satisfied. Regarding this Savior that I speak of tonight, do you know Him? Have you been reconciled to God through faith in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that work that He undertook on behalf of the sinner? Do you know Him? You love Him. He, the just, dies for you, the unjust. To do what? To bring you to God. To bring you to God in this gospel service. To bring you to faith in Him. And then ultimately to bring you to God, to heaven itself. This is what He did for you. I didn't do it for you. I could never do it for you. No church has ever done such a thing, but He did it for you. Will you reject Him? Will you spurn Him? Will you turn away from Him tonight in the gospel? It really brings us to the final point in tonight's message, and it's a brief point. We've thought about the problems that this conundrum throws up. Man is a sinner. By nature, he's unjust. God is just. And how can we bring these two parties together? They are diametrically opposed to one another. There's this problem, these problems. We thought about the solution, the cross. Then something needs to be said about the acceptance of the solution to the conundrum. You know, we can identify the problem that we have when it comes to our standing before God. We can be very aware of the solution to the problem. But if we do not accept the solution to the problem, then the problem remains. The sinner can accept that they're unjust and that God is holy, and that's the problem. They can also accept that Christ died for our sins. He once suffered for sins, for the unjust that he might bring us to God, and there's the solution to the problem. But unless the sinner, as I've said, accepts the solution to the problem, they will remain in an unjustified state. No, the sinner must come to accept the solution. The sinner must come to receive by faith all that Jesus Christ has done on their behalf if they are to be just with God, if they are to be declared righteous before God. This need for faith on the sinner's part is explained by the Apostle Paul. Yes, here in this portion of God's Word in Romans chapter 3, he speaks about how he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Romans chapter 5, this thought of faith again exercised by the sinner is again expressed in those familiar words, therefore being justified by Faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by an act of faith that the sinner is justified when they come to rest their souls upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. Without faith in Jesus Christ and in Christ alone, a sinner will remain in an unjustified state. Not only that, but they will die in their sin. They will die in their unbelief and they will go to hell. You see, for the solution to become effective in your life, you must exercise faith in Christ to the salvation of your soul. My question is, have you done that? You know, it's good to identify the problem. The sinner in their sinful state can never be just with God. It's also good to know the solution to the problem, the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. But the solution to the problem must be personally applied to you, or it does nothing for you. Well, may God then bring you to that point on your journey of life, to that place you come to understand that God is just and I am unjust. And if ever I am to be reconciled to this just and righteous and holy God, I cannot do anything myself but simply accept by faith what another has done on my behalf, that he has satisfied the demands of justice, that he has paid the price of sin for me, He bore the wrath of God on my behalf. You see, the biggest problem of the human race is this. God is holy, God is righteous, God is just, and man is not. Without negotiating his own righteousness, Without violating his own justice, holy God found a way in which he could be both just and the justifier of them that believe on Christ. And that way is through the substitutionary death of his dear son, where he, the just one, will die in the stead, in the room, in the place. of the unjust ones, and then bring them to God. May God tonight bring you to Him in the gospel. May God give you faith to believe on Him who died for sinners, so that tonight you can look to heaven and say, God the just is satisfied. to look on His Son who died for me, and because of that, to pardon me. Can man be just with God? Yes, through being savingly united to God's dear Son. the Lord Jesus Christ. May God bring you now just to Him as we bow in prayer. Let's bow our heads in prayer. As God dealt with you tonight in the gospel, as God spoke into your heart, as it were, as it all become now very clear, Has it become clear with regard to your state, your standing before God, that you're unjust? Has it also become clear that God is able to justify you? God is able to declare you righteous in God's sight as He will give to the trusting sinner the pardoning of their sin and His perfect righteousness? Why not come to receive that tonight? If you need help, assistance, God has dealt with you. Speak to me at the door, sit in your pew. We'll be back in again. God bring you to Christ. We'll say no more. We'll just close in prayer. We'll thank God for his hand upon this particular meeting. Loving Father, we come to consider this great doctrine of justification by faith. We thank thee, Lord, that it is the very doctrine upon which the church stands or falls. We rejoice, dear God, that we're justified by faith, not by works. O God, not by our works, but by a work, by the work, of Jesus Christ. We thank Thee, O God, that that's the only work that the sinner needs, and we rejoice, Lord, that it's enough. We rejoice, dear God, that God can remain just, and at the same time, He can justify the ungodly. Lord, we pray that Thou wilt be about Thy work tonight. Lord, justify those, O God, in this meeting who know not yet Thee as Savior. Save them by grace, we pray, and may even this first Lord's day of this new year be a year and a night of salvation. We pray this in the Savior's lovely, precious, and worthy name. Amen and amen.