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be made the righteousness of God in him)’ (2 Cor. 5:20, 21). VVe do not make peace with God. This peace has al ready been made at the cost of the blood of God’s own Son; and “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).. The only righteousness that God will accept is perfect right eousness. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). We could never produce the righteousness God demands, but God provided it in His Son,who met the demands o f .God’s justice and holiness. And when we receive Him, we are counted righteous because Christ within us is made unto us righteousness. ' y Peter told Simon to repent and pray. You have only to repent and believe, come to Christ and trust Him who has promised that if you come, He will not cast you out. Then “ dressed in His righteousness alone” you are “fault less to stand before the throne,” God has provided the righteousness He de mands, ~and He offers it in the Person of His Son. Will you not receive Him and thus have the blessed assurance that your heart Is right in the sight of God? worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” The entire pas sage means that the Christian is to manifest, to show to the world, the salvation that Christ has inwrought— a salvation shown by a godly and careful walk. This he cannot do in his own strength. He can do it only by the'power of God. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6). QUE.: Please e x p l a i n Luke 14:26 . Does not Jesus say in John 1 5 :1 7 : .“ These things I command you, that ye love one another” ? Luke 14:26 reads: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, hnd mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” The crux of the matter is contained in the answer of the Lord Jesus to the questioning lawyer: “ihou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matt 22:37). That is, the one w h o ,would follow Christ must love Him so much that any other af- f Continued on Page 119]
man measures us by his .own yard stick. And we keep our noses to the grind stone trying to measure up to all these appraisals of men, but God looks at the heart, and we care less how we look in the sight of God than how we .appear to the bootblack., We hurry to the tailor when our clothes are dam aged, we rush to the doctor when our bodies are ailing, but we go on with souls sick and sore and liable every moment to slip into eternal hell. We spend time and money, we leave no stone unturned, to appear righteous before men. We join church and go to church and go through; the motions of church activity, but for all that, our hearts may not benight in the sight of God. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes” (Prov. 12:15), but you can not hide the heart from the X-ray of heaven: it will go through dignity and sanctimoniousness and artificial piety and show underneath it all a sinful heart of unbelief still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. But how shall we get right in the sight of God? “Be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might QUE.: Does the world with its wealth belong to God or to Satan? The world and all it contains be long to God. “The earth' is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof” (Psa. 24:1). However, the devil and his -people possess much of it. There is a differ ence between ownership and posses-, sion. I own my umbrella, but some one else possesses it! Christ will one day come and take possession of all things, and the uttermost parts of the earth will be included in His king dom. “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth” (Psa. 72:8). ’ QUE.: What is the meaning of Philippians 2 :12 , “ Work out your own salvation with fear and trem bling” ? Mark you, this verse does not say, “Work for your own salvation,” but “Work out your own salvation.” Sal vation is the gift of God; it cannot be earned. It is your oiwn salvation that you are to work odt, or manifest. The text must be considered in connec- tion with the verse which immedi ately follows: “For it is God which
over town. There was a strange power about him. You have to watch a man with peculiar powers. It may take a Simon Peter to find him out, but he may get his power from below instead of from above. And even if you your self have an honest reputation, re member that not many mighty and noble are .. called. Your reputation means nothing if your heart is not right. Finally, do not forget that Simon was a baptized church member. He had made a profession and a great preacher had baptized him, but he knew not the washing of regeneration. Thousands of people are resting for salvation on just what Simon had. I know some who could have been won to Christ if they had not joined a church, but now-they are satisfied. I have read of a Negro who took the hands o f his clock to a jeweler to fix so that they might go around properly. When the jeweler asked for the clock, he replied, “Oh, no, I Won’t risk that clock with anybody.” Men improve the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. And until the heart is right the hands will go wrong- Absolutely Right or Absolutely Wrong Let us emphasize our text another way: “Thy heart IS NOT RIGHT in'the sight of God.” We have come to a time when good and evil are said to be relative, not absolute. In other words, what is good to me may be evil to you, and so on down the line. We have a flimsy, milk-and-water modern notion about right and wrong, but God has an absolute, unchange able standard, and He will accept nothing short of the righteousness which His holiness demands. There are no shades and grades and degrees Between right and wrong with , God. Jesus Christ said, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad” (Matt. 12:30). The Lord has never been converted to the new psy chology which makes sin to be only imperfect goodness, and unrighteous ness merely arrested development or moral “growing pains.” Right is right and wrong is wrong, and your heart is one or the other. Getting Right in God's Sight Finally, Peter said, “Thy heart is not right IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.” Simon’s -heart ■may have appeared right in the sight of men. Indeed, he must have seemed to be genuine, for Philip baptized him. But we are to study to show ourselves approved unto God, for all things are naked and open before Him with whom we have to do. We walk down the street and the clothier looks at our clothes and the barber looks at our hair and the boot- black looks at our shoes,, and each
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