The Righteousness of God

The Righteousness of God THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD
By C. M. Pullias From the 23rd chapter of the Book of Numbers , 10 th verse, we have this statement: “Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his.” Strange as it may appear, these very significant words fell from the lips of a very wicked prophet. One who had withstood God and whom God had withstood; who ran greedily after the reward of. unrighteousness and then came to use the language which w,e have for our text. But he perished in the gainsaying of Korah. It is yet a question perplexing as to what becomes of people when they die. It would not be a very great trouble to tell where they go when they die, if we could tell how they live before they die. This passage tells that if a man lives the life of a righteous man, his end will be that of a righteous man. Our difficulty, then, in knowing what becomes of people, is in finding out how they live and if you can find out exactly how a person lives, you can easily put your finger on the place where he goes after he is dead.

I believe, then, that righteousness is a supreme question. It is a momentous one—it is one that ought to arrest the attention of every heart and soul, because your destiny and mine depends upon living righteously, and unless we know what righteousness is, it will be impossible for us to live as righteous men and women in the world. Our purpose then tonight is to call your attention unto that subject and discuss it and in order that it may be done carefully and properly and that we may build, as it were, from the ground up, I call attention to one of the beatitudes of Christ, as they call it. In the fifth chapter of Matthew: “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” This, then, is the first thing we want to impress upon you; it is the first point we want to bring out. It is fundamental. They write and talk about it as a beatitude of Christ, but for the sake of directness and simplicity we want to call it a condition of heart. That is a heart condition—a trait of character, we might put it. Now beatitude sounds good and reads nice, but whether we get the strength of it and the meaning of it, or not—a condition of heart, a trait of character. For a man to be hungering and thirsting after God’s righteousness, the promise that he shall be filled, which means that he shall be eventually a righteous man, and of course if he is a righteous man until he dies, he dies a righteous man, and if he dies a righteous man, he will receive the end of a righteous man, and we may determine what that is before we get through tonight.

It is not a great deal of trouble for people to do what they want to do, and here Jesus Christ strikes at that thing and I wish I had the power to make my listeners want to be righteous—to thirst and hunger after righteousness—and I wish I could paint it in such colors and make it so attractive that every heart wpuld be hungering and thirsting for it, because if such a condition sets up in a man he will go after it and never stop until he gets it. No man will eat unless he is hungry, but if they are hungry they will seek food and they will eat it when they find it, and if they are thirsty they will seek water and will drink it when they find it. It is not hard, therefore, for people to get that lesson, and when people fall in love with the righteousness of God, and the kingdom of God and the service of God and the church of God, they will seek for them and they will seek until they amount to much in accomplishing anything- in the find them, and unless they do that they will never service of God, they will never do much about it. But my understanding of it is that a man can do anything he wants to do, unless he wants to do something else more. If a man wants to go to heaven more than he wants to do anything else, you can’t keep him from going to heaven, and I frankly tell you, that if men and women want the righteousness of God as much as they want some other things, they will have the righteousness of God and the kingdom of God and they will go to heaven, and there never will be another person turned away from the beautiful gate, into outer darkness and despair. I believe it is no more difficult for a man to go to heaven than it is for him. to do some other things. It becomes an easy thing then, an easy matter—he takes a joy and a delight in it—he does not feel that he is being bored to death, neither does he feel that it is an unjust requirement. The Bible says, “His commandments are not griev-ous”—noi; to the man who would rather have God’s commandments than anything else. If a man wants water, then he would not give a dime for all the bread in the world; he does not care for bread, he does not seek food, he does not try to get it; he wants water and water he must have. And to show you the force of it, although it may be a little bit uncomely for an illustration, but take a man who is a liquor drinker, who has an ungovernable craving fo drink, he comes to town and he will find a bootlegger without any trouble at all, but I could not find one in six weeks.

Why? Because I do not want one. We find what we want. Any man who wants Jesus can get him, and any man who wants God’s righteousness and God’s kingdom, can get that; but a man who does not want it will have a difficult time of ever possessing it. And therefore I wish that I might so describe that fabric of righleousess that is made up of all the little details of word and deed in the hfe of a man, until it would so appeal to you that we would call for it and hunger for it and thirst for ic. Jesus therefore gave us that as one of the conditions that is laid down. A heart condition—that is essential to righteousness. No man will ever go to heaven who does not want to go. No one will ever be a Christian who does not want to be one. Everything we can do, in service, in worship, in word or in deed, must be done from a willing heart. A man must come to God because he wants to come and if he does not will to come he cannot.

Now that being fundamental, we start right at the beginning where wTe ought to start on any subject, then whenever that condition is wwought in a man, then another thing that is logical, he begins to look for that for which he hungers and thirsts (Matt. 6: 83, 34). “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” But think of a man seeking God’s king’ dom and God’s righteousness who does not care for it, who does not want it, who does not hunger and thirst after it—why it is unreasonable, and the man that is seeking for God’s kingdom, and God’s righteousness is the man who hungers and thirsts after it, and so we must seek God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness first, and whenever that condition is thoroughly set up in us, as big as it ought to be, when we want to be everything in the sight of God that we ought to be, then we will make God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness first, and not put it off until the last thing.

It is unfortunate that we strive after everything else and seek everything else and try everything else, and when the last drop has been drained out, and when the last thing has been done and we find it to be a failure, then we turn to God. We should give God the first, and then the rest of it, if there be any, may be used for our satisfaction or for our gratification. Now.then, observe this fact, that when I get enough of this world’s goods, then it is that I am going to turn my attention to the service of God, but no, you won’t, you cannot do that. Who ever had enough? The more a man gets, the more he wants, and every acquisition, instead of gratifying our desires, intensifies them. A man dreamed a dream one day, and he said: “If I had a little farm well tilled, and a little barn well filled and a little wife well willed, then I woud be content and that is all I would want.” And in the course of time he got the little farm well tilled and the little barn well filled and the little wife well willed, and was he then content? No. One day he said to his wife, we must certainly make an outlet over here on this side of our place, we must have this land also, and his wife agreed, and they began to work for it and after while they got it, and the more he got the more his desires were intensified and I believe that is right, I believe it is the right thing. I had a dream one day, that if I could ever preach a sermon like a certain man I knew, I would be satisfied, and right now I am at, or at least near that, and I am less satisfied than ever I was; and so the more we have the more we want. Very often we hear a man say, “When I get all I want, when I get all the clothes and all the automobiles and all the cattle and all the stocks and bonds that I want, then I am going to give my life to God and my heart to God, but he never will. But let me turn your attention to another thing now, that when people hunger and thirst after righteousness, then they will begin to seek for righteousness and the kingdom of God. Well, where are they going to seek for it? Does not the Book say, Seek and ye shall find? Have you not seen people seeking for God day after day and year after year, and they never did find him? Well, something is wrong, somewhere. I read where God said, “Ye sought me not after the due order.” Maybe that is the reason. There are people who want to be righteous, but they do not know how to seek and the result is that their seeking is all in vain. His tears and anguish would tell you he was earnest and sincere. The Book says “seek and ye shall find,” and why is it that some men seek and never do find. Well it is just like this: If I went out to seek for gold and there was none where I sought, I never would find any. So likewise with the righteousness of God. Whenever I go to seek for God’s righteousness where that righteousness is not to be found, then my seeking is in vain and I never can find it. Then where shall I go, where shall I seek? That is the question; Well, let us read what the Books says about it. Isaiah 34:16, “Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate. For my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.” Isaiah says, “Seek out of God’s book and read. Do you read the Bible? If you do not read the Bible and thus read it because you are seeking for God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, the chances are that you never will find it. Where else would you go ? If I wanted to know something about horticulture I would not take the Bible to try to find it. If I wanted to know something about the weather or the phases of the moon, I would not get a Bible, but I would get an almanac, but if I wanted to know anything about' God’s righteousness or God’s kingdom, I would get the Word of the living God. Seek out of God’s book —that is the place to seek. Then how are you going to seek? Read. I tell you, indeed, if we just let the Bible do its own explaining, it would be a much easier proposition than when we undertake to help it out. The first condition is that a man hungers and thirsts after righteousness, then the next thing he will be seeking after righteousness, and then he will go to the Bible, and then he will be reading the Bible, because the Bible tells you of God’s righteousness and God’s kingdom, and you will there find the power of God. “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life.” “From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation.” “Every scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” “He opened his mouth and began at the same scriptures and preached unto him Jesus.” Where else would he begin and how else would he continue and where else would he end? Beginning at the scripture, continuing in the scripture and ending with the scripture. In the Law, in the prophets, in the Psalms, know the glorified Lord as the giver of every good thing. Go to the Bible, seek out of the Book of the Lord and read. No one of these shall fail. If you seek in some other' book you will fail. Reading from the tenth chapter of Acts, we have in verge 34 a very significant statement that leads us a step forward: “Then Peter said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Now think of a man working righteousness until he has found righteousness and of “seeking righteousness” when he does not care anything about it. A man is not a righteous man until he works righteousness. A man is not a liar until he lies, he. is not a murderer until he kills someone, and he is not a righteous man until he does the righteousness of God. “In every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” “He that doeth righteousness is righteous.” We think there can be nothing said that would add to a passage as simple as that. You notice that a man works righteousness and then he is a righteous man. How big is that in you? How much doth that appeal to you? What place does that find in your heart? If it is as big and full in you as it ought to be, I want to tell you that would create within you the desire to want the righteousness of God, and that would lead you to the Book of God and that would cause you to read the Book of God, and reading and learning from the Book of God, you would learn about God’s righteousness and then you would work the righteousness of God. Paul in writing to the Roman brethren in the tenth chapter of the book of Romans beginning with verse one, says: “Brethren, my/heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not Submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Now you think for a moment. Those Jews, Israelites, were righteous. They had adopted a system of righteousness, but it was not God’s righteousness. Then there is such a thing as God’s righteousness on the one hand, and our righteousness on the other. This says plainly, that they, being ignorant of God’s right-eousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. I am more, charitable now than I used to be in that instead of charging them with duplicity, or dishonesty, as the case might be, I would rather throw the mantle of charity over it by calling it ignorance—ignorance of God’s, righteousness. And so I suggest to you that I doubt if there is a man on earth that if he knew what God’s righteousness was, would have the audacity to want a man’s righteousness rather than the righteousness of God. Why are they not doing that? They just do not know. They are ignorant of God’s righteousness. Alienated from God’s righteousness by the ignorance that is in them. And now notice this fact. There are two kinds of righteousness. My righteousness is one thing and God’s righteousness is another thing. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” So then we have it that God has thoughts and I have thoughts and God has righteousness and I have right-eousness, but I am not interested in my righteousness or yours, but in God’s, and that is the thing I am seeking after tonight, and that is why I appeal to men and women everywhere to read the Bible and learn the righteousness of God and when you have found it, be a worker of God’s righteousness. Now we only want to distinguish between these. First, what is the righteousness of God and what is the righteousness of men? The Book says, “Our righteousness is as filthy rags in His sight.” If our righteousness is a^ filthy rags in the sight of God, then I am not interested in it any more and I immediately dismiss that and turn to the other side of it—to the righteousness of God. I read where Jesus, when he came to the baptism of John, and John said, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answered him, suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness (Psalms 119:172 : “My tongue shall speak of thy word, for all thy commandments are righteousness.” And I know as well as I know anything, that God commanded that because God’s commands are righteousness! 'and it takes that to make it—that is what the Book said. And thus when Christ was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, he was baptized to obey the command-ment of his Father in heaven. Sometimes I hear people discussing it, that they can fulfill all righteousness and not be baptized, and I only have one word to say, and that is they can beat the Lord Jesus Christ. He said he could not do it, but they claim today that they can. Well,' let us try again. I turn attention to 1 John 5:17. “All unrighteousness is sin.” I read it just merely for what it says, “un” is a negative.

All unrighteousness is sin; then all uin is unright - eousness, of course. If all unrighteousness is sin, and all sin is unrighteousness, then let me inquire to see just how defimte and pointed the matter comes to be. Reading from Romans 14:21, I have these words: “For whatsoever is not of faith is sm.” I read, again from Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God.” Now then, with these statements I want to make this kind of a conclusion. I want you to notice then the deduction, that faith comes by hearing the Word of God, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin, and all sin is unrighteousness. How then, can you find a righteous thing outside of the Word of God? Faith comes by hearing the Word of God and whatsoever is not of faith is sin, and all sin is unrighteousness, then does not the Word of God reveal to us every item and every fiber of the righteousness of God? “Without faith it is impossible to please him.” Faith comes by hearing the wrord of God— -whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Does God say it in his word? Then it is righteous. If he does not, then it does not come by faith, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin, and all unrighteousness is sin, and all sin is unrighteousness. And faith comes by hearing the word of God. And you cannot do a thing by faith unless God has said it—God must have spoken in order to have faith, and you must have faith in order to be a righteous man. Whatever the Book commands, whatever God commands, whatever God reauires, whatever service you render in obedience to it, whatever it is, that is God’s righteousness. You get outside of the Bible and that is not God’s righteousness. God said, “Being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” There is a worshipful spirit in man and not knowing what to do, they are bound to do something and not knowing the Bible, they go about doing their own righteousness and do not submit themselves to the righteousness of God. Do you suppose that the Hindu woman that casts her baby into the river and watches an alligator eat it and then rejoices because the gods smile on her, would do that, if she knew what is contained in this book? She loves him so much more than she. loves her own life. She does not know what this book says. Do you suppose there would ever be another man anywhere that would bow down to stocks or stones or any idol that is made of wood or stone or any metal, that can neither bless nor curse? Would there ever be another man who would bow down to them if he knew what this book teaches? No, he never would do it. But being ignorant of God’s righteousness, he establishes his own righteousness. “Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows” (Hebrews 1:8-9). Friends, the scepter of the kingdom of God is right.

Righteousness ‘ is the banner, righteousness is the flag, righteousness is the sceptre of the kingdom of God. And the reason of it is, as given here, that Jesus Christ, the founder of the church, the builder of it and the head of it, and therefore the author and finisher of our faith, has given here this reason. He loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and I want to stop here to comment on that, that any man who loves the church and the righteousness of God as he ought, will hate iniquity and abhor evil. Shun every form of evil. Jesus Christ shunned it, Jesus Christ hated it, Jesus Christ stamped it under his feet, he hated iniquity. Now that is one side and is an important one. But you cannot wink at unrighteousness, at iniquity, at sin. You cannot smile at it any more than you can take live coals of fire in your bosom without burning your garments. You can’t do it. On the other hand he not only hated iniquity, but he loved righteousness. It has been a question with me many timqjs what it was that prompted Jesus to come down from his home on high into this world. I know now. I did not always know. I see him there with his Father, where the storms never sweep and where the darkness never falls, and where things never went wrong, where neither want nor necessity ever were felt, or a single wish ever went without being gratified. And then one day he threw open the windows of heaven and swung from the exalted position that he had held for all time and came down to this world. No man ever knew how deep the waters crossed. He saw the lost condition of humanity and he left his home in heaven. The record says he loved righteousness. He loved God’s commandments, God’s will, and when you see him facing the cross, there in the garden where he sweat drops of blood and prayed to his Father, “If it be possible let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” The apostle wrote about it like this. “Ever looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down on the right side of the majesty on high.” I saw him naked and cold and deserted and hungry, I saw him boycotted and persecuted, I saw him when the sun went down, exclaim, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” I saw him when they smote him with the palms of their hands and when they plaited a crown of torns and placed it upon his brow and mocked him as a king, he never opened his mouth. I saw him when he bore his cross and fainted under its load. They tell us his great heart broke on that occasion. He had done the righteousness of God. He loved the righteousness of God. And God’s righteousness never could be done by him until he passed over the hill and beyond the cross. Now a man that loves something else more than he loves the righteousness of God will never do it. In the fourth chapter of 1 Timothy we have a terrible picture presented and before he gets through telling about the conditions that would prevail he said, men will be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And I have observed men who claim to love God, who meet him regularly at the communion table, and break with him the bread and drink with him the fruit of the vine, and receive from his beneficent hand the greatest blessings heaven holds for men. I have seen those very persons love pleasure more than they love God. How? I will tell you how. People can find time to do nearly everything else, they can find their way to go nearly everywhere else, they can find money to bear the expenses of nearly everything else, but when it comes to the Church, we cannot find time and we cannot get away, and we are always broke. I am saying this frankly and candidly, my friends. A man may love God more than anything else and yet he has money to buy chewing gum and coca cola and ice cream and other things, but does not have any money for God’s cause, for God’s kingdom, for God’s righteousness! Whom does he love more—God or mammon? I do not think it is difficult to tell. I believe that it is an easy matter of solution. But we cannot dwell here long. I have known a few farmers in going my rounds, they could not leave their crops, the grass was about to get them, they could not leave them to come to church, but you let a circus come to town, they could leave them then. When the clown and the band wagon and the elephant is to make a parade, they can always come out to see them, but when it comes to the church, and the things that nurture and culture the souls of men that never die, then we claim we just cannot get time and cannot leave our business to do it. We ought not to play with this. Jesus loved righteousness more than anything else. He might have had a good home in this world, he could have had it all, because the devil offered it to him, but he refused it because he said, “Get thee behind me.” He would rather go to heaven when he died than to have all the world for a season and go to the other place. But I have read of people who loved the praise of men more than the praise of God and therefore those men were afraid they would be put out of the synagogue. Now, I want to call your attention to another point in this connection. The example of a righteous man, how far-reaching that is.

I read from the 11th chapter of Hebrews (verse 4), “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he, being dead, yet speaketh.” Did you ever read anything that excels that? Six thousand years ago, approximately, that young man offered a sacrifice to God and did a righteous act, and all the evils, all the wars that have raged, all the rising and falling in the birth and annihilations of nations and men, have not been enough to drown the clear, bell-like voice of Abel as it is heard ringing above the din of the conflict and speaking unto the struggling, striving soldiers of the cross today.

There is not even a modest marker to tell you where Abel was buried; nobody knows anything about it, but the deed which he did as an act of faith was a deed of righteousness, and by that he is still speaking, though he is dead. And when my life and yours are gone, it shall be that when our lips are sealed in death we can still be talking to our loved ones and our fellow travelers. We will either speak to men as righteous people, did or as wicked men did, you can take your choice. Six thousand years, and he is still talking. How long will you be talking when you close your eyes in death and your heart ceases to beat? When your body rests in the tomb, the life that you have lived for God, in faith, in purity, in righteousness, in obedience — will that stand out among the turmoil and the conflicts and teach a lesson and counsel and encourage those that are left behind ? But just another word before I close, and that word is the language of'mv text: “Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his.” You do not have to write a book other than the life that you have lived among men. It need not be written with pen and ink on paper at all, for influence lives and that very life continues. How far-reaching, to what extent it: goes and how much it may do, we may never know until we stand before our Savior when this life is over.

But, turning your attention further, the end of a righteous man—what is it? Listen. “Then shall the righteousness of the righteous be upon him,” looking on to the judgment in the great hereafter. Ihe righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, that is, the man who is righteous. Do you hear Jesus Christ saying in that day, the righteous would come to him and he would say, “I was hungry and you gave me meat, thirsty, and you gave me drink, naked and you clothed me, sick and in prison and you came unto me.” And then, “Inasmuch as ye. did it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did ’t unto me.” The righteousness of the righteous thus shall be upon him. But newspapers may never take it up, they may never know about it, but what difference does it make? God knows, for in that day every righteous deed and every righteous act will be pronounced upon the righteous. In Matthew 13 a description is made like this. He will send forth his angels and they shall gather out of his hmgdom all things that offend and them that do iniquity, and. shall cast them into a furnace of fire, there, shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shah the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” They shall shine forth above the brightness of the sun in the kingdom of God, forever. Then let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his.

Another passage, Revelation 19:7-8 : “Let us rejoice and be glad, for the marriage of the Lamb is come and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”

Let me still read you another. When the curtains of death were gently but surely drawing round about the peerless Paul, the mighty preacher, confined in his prison cell, awaiting the hour of his end as if he could hear the soldiers’ feet coming to take him out and to execute the orders of the king, he wrote like this: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” Friends, think on these last two quotations for a moment. The end of a righteous man. Look at him there in the spotless garments, clean and white, and today he sits in the loom of life with the shuttle running back and forth with lightning speed. Do not ever take your eyes off of it, you might ruin the pattern. On the other hand, if there is no crown for me I am to blame. Suppose we look at it like that. There is therefore laid up for me a crown, and I am mighty glad he added the rest. “And not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”

Friends, I beg you tonight in the adorable name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you no longer stand aloof and stay away, but that you come in obedience like this: Let whosoever will come and take of the water of life freely. Behold, I stand at the door and knock, He said, and if any man will open the door, I will come m and sup with him and he with me. Won’t you let him come in? Jesus is tenderly calling to you.