A typical American will not see the glories of heaven without the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  What will it take for us and them, as American persons, to see our very sick  and vulnerable condition caused by our collective rebellion against God's holy law, that now has us in the very tender and vulnerable position of being under God's perfect judgment?


What if anything are we to do to fix this very precarious and dangerous situation?  What does our God command us to do in similar circumstances in history?  What do we say to our friends and neighbors that will move their heart to cry out for our God to touch them with His healing power?  What must happen in order for heaven's grace to revive them to real  “life” as they lie helplessly in a very critical state? 


Without the quickening life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, no “real” change will happen in our county.  For “change” to happen in our America, we as the Jesus people who live in America, must apply the only cure available to us and to them.  Our Lord Christ's real historical death and resurrection.  But first we must place the oxygen mask on our mouth so we can breath in God's refreshing air before we can save them from their mortally critical state.  


We must receive this cure found only in the accurate rendering and heart reception of the historical account of the life and sacrificial work of Jesus Christ.  A very real Jesus sits as King over our nation; He sits in a position of tremendous power and authority at the right hand of God by virtue of this once for all work of atonement.  Jesus Christ sits high above all our American economic problems, social dissent, potential killer pandemics, civil unrest, and threats of nuclear attack.  Today let us stop and ask the ultimate question, “Where and what is the real cure that will fix our mortally wounded American heart?”


Jesus said to His disciples in the gospel of John 14:1, “let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me.”  just a few verses later, Jesus declares, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Hello America, Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead, are you in His Way, His Truth, and in walking in His Life?  If not, you and this nation will perish. 


Jesus gained His ultimate authority by virtue of serving, suffering, and dying in obedience to the Father's will.  In light of this historical reality we must see the cross of Jesus clearly from the perspective of history and its relationship to our mortal problem which wages a continuous unrelenting war with our heart and soul.   


I hope, by God's grace, to prove to your conscience that the only cure for our American disease is the public proclamation of Jesus Christ; a real Christ hanging immolated on a horrible form of Roman execution (a cross) for our sins.  As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so we must lift Jesus and His cross up before you so you will see clearly His Healing virtue and by faith receive His touch of healing to your heart and to cure our very sick nation.


"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up," John 3:14


The cross of Jesus was alluded to in all of history by the prophets and now openly declared by His Son.  Heb.1:1-3 reveals, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son...” 


And all of creation explodes with the revelation of Father's cure with, “who being the brightness of His glory and express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”  So all of His creation declares His eternal power and truth; we are to know and see the cross from eternity past to the eternity that awaits us all. 


As one who has been entrusted with this most amazing message, I believe that preachers and teachers of God's message have the only cure to America's greatest problem – sin and death!  Every time we preach Jesus and Him crucified in Spirit and in Power, sick souls are offered God's cure, the reality of heaven in the form of Christ's Holy Spirit is made available to enter into dead human souls and quicken them to new life. 


1 Cr.2:2-4, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified... (v4) my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”  This verse being properly understood, we then, as God's ministers, must raise up a generation of preachers that will unashamedly believe, live, and proclaim this amazing message!


How will the average postmodern American living in our pagan culture see Jesus as He is so clearly portrayed in the pages of scripture?  Simply by a Spirit-touched message of Jesus crucified.  We must preach under God's sovereign stewardship, as his ambassadors we entreat men to be reconciled back to fellowship with God.  We must preach the gospel message as it has been entrusted to us exactly as it has been rendered from God's mouth -- the very Word of God!  Anything less then the full account of God's dealings with men and angels will not fix our greatest malady – sin and death.


In our America, real sins (violations of the holy law of God) are committed continuously by those who name Jesus as Lord; these sins are committed many times in ignorance, God's people commit them without knowing they are offending a very Holy and Pure God.  Why?  I offer to you today this proposal:  We must set forth a righteousness of God as the only cure for our greatest ailment – our collective alienation from our Creator's favor!  Peace will come to our people only as they rightly connect with their Righteous Law-giving Maker, in the way or means that our God has provided!


In America, our weak preaching of this righteousness of God, combined with sloppy unholy living of this sacred message, has made the average christian very insensitive to sin, sin is no longer sin.  Even though God measures our sins carefully on the perfect scales of His Justice.  One day soon He will deal with us and our sins in perfect justice.  Either we are under and inside the righteousness of God revealed in the person of Jesus or we are outside the canopy of this blessed estate, naked and vulnerable, totally unprepared to meet Him in the day of His appearing.


In Jonah's day, the city of Nineveh was so lost in idolatry and self-will that these poor Ninevites could not discern their left hand from the their right.  Jonah was given a simple proclamation for these lost people, “repent or perish!”  This same heavenly proclamation of “repent or perish” is over our America.  Only a thorough person by person heart wrenching work of repentance will we enjoy the abatement of the wrath of God's justice hanging precariously over our heads and His favor and justice being supplied to us through His Son Jesus Christ!


How do sinners come to this place of blessing we call repentance?  The word of God tells us that the Holy Spirit has been supplied to us for this purpose: to convict of sin, declare and reveal righteousness, and point us to judgment to come.  Once we know “how” we have violated God's law and repent thoroughly (turn away) from our sins, we will not see blessings fall on our America.  God cares so much about His righteousness that He will not let our prideful nation slide by His plan of real restoration.


Once we have confessed our sins and turned our hearts back to God, The next step is to reach out desperately for a righteousness completely and totally outside of our making, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.  This reach of faith is met with an imputation of heaven's holiness flooding into your soul that moves you outside of our fears, this virtue tumbles down to the cry of your broken and repentant heart.   


Your obedience to God's call of “repent of perish” moves us straight toward His door of righteousness and empowers you to walk into the path of light found in association with His Son.  Now as those who have received God's righteousness naturally become bearers of that righteousness to our depressed and unholy world.  


Our current economic problems are due to our lack of propriety in our every day decisions.  Our families are broken and carnally independent of other families.  Divorce is the most inefficient way to handle family finances.  One home = one utility bill, one car can be shared, one washer and dryer, one yard etc.  As a world superpower trying to manage world affairs, America has over stepped her bounds in the world, how can we be care takers of peace in the world while our families are broken and ravaged by divorce.  Our morality and intrinsic value as a nation is evaluated by the condition of our families.


Judgment must begin with God's people!


1 Pet.4:16-17, “but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God.  For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”


 As christians living in America what is God saying to us?  Is He calling us to save America's economy?  Is He guiding us to deal with nuclear proliferation in Iran or any other place on the planet?  Those who live by the sword will certainly die by the sword.  Judgment must begin with us, why us christians?  Because we have been entrusted with the eternal words of God, those words that point us to gaze upon an eternal kingdom, a city who builder and maker is God!  We should know better!


What kind of message will fix our desperately broken moral situation here in our local and national Babylon?  The light of God's pleasure shines where at least two or three gather in His Name.  A remnant of believers who seek with their whole hearts the face of God.  His power and grace will enable them to endure the hardships of a totally broken economy and lawlessness should this be our portion in the days to come. 


Our message must have at it's core the clear requirement that all men must depend solely upon a righteousness outside of their understanding and ability to perform.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ has all the power and content we need to see spiritual change in America.  We must labor and strive to declare boldly the righteousness of God revealed in Jesus Christ.  In Rom.1:16-17, Paul tells us, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."    


What is the power of God to save man?   It is nothing less then a righteousness of God which is clearly and historically revealed in Jesus Christ!  So in order for us to more effectively move God's agenda forward in our world, we must recognize the God-cure for our horrible sickness and then apply this cure to the curse that holds all of creation in derision .  If we do not understand God's revelation then we will not see the restoration of morality and common sense in our America.  


I am sensing another political effort emanating from our religious leaders that speaks in political fashion, even in these dark times.  If we pick up the sword of political action without the picking up the cross of Jesus, we will fail in our political pursuits.  Why do men run to quickly to political action?  Because politics sells.  Money flows to political action.  This being understood, our billions if not trillions of dollars have not solved the morality of America over the last 50 yrs.  Politically-minded people will ask for more money with the promise that electing them will make a moral difference in government and our world.  


In our diverse and blended society one man's morality is another man's phobia.  More political action will drive more political action, live by politics, die by politics.


The Gospel of Jesus Christ!


In the gospel of Jesus Christ, a righteousness of God is revealed; this righteousness must be preached in the context of all of historical events, starting with the fall of man.  God the Creator is also God the Redeemer; He has ordered very carefully each change of season and epoch of time to funnel our understanding to the cross of Golgotha and to the empty grave.  


Jesus Christ is sitting right how at the right hand of God.  Jesus Christ has defeated death –  our greatest problem!  Death has lost its power over me and any other person who loves the gospel of Jesus Christ; death can no longer intimidate us!  A great depression, world war, pandemics, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks no longer cause us to fear!  


Solving our death sickness requires God's remedy of everlasting life.  Our mortal sickness must be rooted out at it's source, way down deep inside our natively stubborn hearts.  Our world must receive openly God's cure for our deadly sickness before we will see real heart change in our people.  We must accept the accurate historical rendering of Jesus Christ's redemptive work as it has been openly displayed in the entire history of man.   From Eden to the soon coming days of Armageddon, God has passionately entreated men to come back to intimate  and perfect fellowship with Him as intended for all men on the 6th day of creation.   


God has always sought to visually and verbally declare to all of mankind His remedy for our eventual mistake of heeding the voice of the serpent to be our own boss.  Adam and Eve have mortally cursed all their descendants by one simple decision to eat that which God commanded the not to eat -- the knowledge of good and evil – we got a full dose of EVIL.  


God's Holy Law 


What was the Garden of Eden like?  We know that Adam and God walked together loved each other exclusively.  Adam experienced a completely open heaven.  Adam walked with God in the cool of the day.  How can this beautiful experience be restored to you and me?  Our hearts and our minds must be enlightened to see, hear, and feel to know this work of restoration deep down at the heart level.  So how, Jonathan?  How does all this good come back into my broken and messed up life?


It starts with our position in God.  All men are born in a state of rebellion, but in Christ, God the Father has reconciled us, or restored, a people for Himself.  In fact, more then being brought to God without being destroyed or banished from His presence, we now have been declared “sons”of God by faith in Jesus Christ's work on the cross.  Gal.3:26 “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”


Our Maker is so passionate about restoring us back to the original state we held in the Garden of Eden that He released from His Holy heaven His only begotten Son.  His passion is so clearly represented in all of creation and clearly seen and witnessed in the lives of our faith-filled forefathers.  As you study each eternal promise of blessing to Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets you can not help but feel the fervency of God's heart for man's restoration.  


In the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, His ignominious death, and most powerful bodily resurrection ,we are overwhelmed with so much heavenly love and passion, we are left speechless.  Undeniably men have have been given a clear witness of God's love, in every facet of history, we learn of God's sovereign plan to redeem (buy back) us from the death curse of Adam's sin.  We will never live forever with God without His pursuit of us with a remedy and a cure for our biggest sin – eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!


Jesus our Perfect King and Law Giver


Only the government of Jesus is lasting and permanent.  Jesus was born to save and restore mankind.  When Jesus came to earth all the events of history leading up to that manger stall housing His lowly birth, all of history alluded to His meekness and His beautiful glory manifested in servant-like way.  Jesus shows us God's heart as Our God who shows us that He is worthy of our complete trust.  David was loved by God because he was God-lover more then a self-aggrandizing despotic king.  Jesus came to sit on David's throne forever.  Jesus came to serve and save that which was lost – mankind – to restore us, as our perfect and all-powerful King, back to the perfect fellowship intended by our Creator for us at creation!  


Through a careful inspection of the institution of His moral law, and in His detailed instruction of ceremonial and civil government, the Lord God established the life of the children of Israel to preserve them from their own foolishness and to point them to a vicarious Savior that one day would redeem them forever.  Jesus was there on the mountain  where God gave Moses His holy Law that eventually His Son came to earth to keep perfectly, in this work we see a wisdom and love far beyond our natural understanding.  


Only by heart obedience to God's clear instructions would the Israelites survive the wilderness journey to conquer the giants of the land of Canaan.  Joshua knew this intimately and demanded complete compliance with all of God's law before he took the 12 tribes over the river Jordan.  So too in our times, obedience is the only cure for our problems in America, obedience to God's righteousness will heal us and move us forward.  For Joshua and Moses, God delayed by 40 years the fulfillment of His promise to give Abraham's children the land of promise.  By letting an entire generation languish and die in the wilderness, God revealed His determination of have a people who hear and do what he commands.  Is this too much for God to ask?  Total obedience to God's holy and perfect law? For courageous Joshua, total obedience was a matter of life or death for his people. For us, total repentance and total surrender to God's righteousness is our survival!


You may think, Jonathan, “aren't you being overly simplistic?”  Yes and No, I challenge you to show me another way to solve our moral condition here in America, and then show me the historical success of that “other” way.  I will submit to “your way” if the facts support a historical long-term prosperity of that nation who followed “that way.”  


Historically no nation maintained such a clear mandate to have a land unto itself as Joshua's Israel when they went to inherit the land of Canaan promised to Abraham.  Yet they failed to obey God's inflexible laws and lost their high position and their national status as a nation governed by God, maker of Heaven and Earth.  


Think of it, the higher your position in God's economy, the farther you fall if you disobey God's law.  Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Russia, India, China, and now European and American world domination have all failed to achieve their goal of universal happiness for themselves and those nations they conquered.  How much more evidence do we need to simply submit to God's righteous judgment and law?


As we start to understand our sonship in Christ as His law-keepers, the more we submit to God's Sovereignty and rightful rule over our lives, the more we will hear and discern His Voice.  As sons of the Living God, we move back toward the Garden of Eden experience, yet in this new and living way we move back to Eden with Christ as our King and law giver.  By a whole-souled embraced of God's righteousness in the person of Jesus Christ; He will not fail to bring us into His everlasting kingdom.  In this path with Christ as our King and righteous Law giver, we are eternally blessed with no possibility of screwing it up! Rom.5:21, “that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”


The text reveals that the righteousness that Jesus Christ offered is an unbreakable promise for all those who receive that righteousness as it has been offered in Christ.  Adam's creation mandate had conditions be fruitful and multiply and do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “the day you eat of it you will surely die!”  Adam ate and lost it all for himself and his children, for believers in Jesus, our faith in Christ secures our eternal blessedness without certain repercussions, Jesus is our new Adam forever and ever!


So many times we get lost in this massive message of salvation in Christ.  We have our private issues and doctrinal concerns, but really what is salvation all about?  Many of us  choose to maintain our denominational way, or support with much tenacity our confession of faith, rather then simply presenting Jesus as our only way back to peace and harmony with our Maker.  


We must then faithfully warn men to give a more earnest heed to heaven's mandate to be reconciled to God.  As preachers of this amazing message, our call is to first to preach a righteousness revealed in Christ alone, and then by an obvious walk of symmetry with this amazing offer of righteousness in Christ, we continue lead men and women by our walk as a son or daughter of the everlasting Kingdom of God!  Like the pied piper we lead men, women, and children all the way to heaven singing the songs of Zion all the way to the shores of Jordan. Is this not what the apostles laid down their lives to secure or obtain?


Sound biblical doctrine and accurate confessions of faith are important but will not gain us heaven and our inheritance of eternal life.   Remember, the apostles taught Jesus to a denomination-less world; these itinerant ministers focused on setting a jewish Jesus forth as crucified and as Lord and Christ of all the history of man and in the history of the nation of Israel.  Notice how Philip handled the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:32-35, “Now the passage of Scripture he was reading was this: He was led as a sheep to slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth.... and beginning from this scripture he preached Jesus to him.”  


The sacrificial system revealed a righteousness outside of man.  Our effort to come back to God was bound to and prefigured in a righteous bloodshed.  Abraham offered up his only supernaturally born son to God, foreshadowing what the Father would do one day with His holy heavenly son - Jesus.  The law of God established in Moses points exclusively to completed work of Jesus Christ – a righteousness revealed!  When the Israelites wandered from heart worship of God and the pre-incarnate Jesus they were severely disciplined.  The temple Solomon built represented Jesus in every way.  The Shekinah glory that filled Solomon's temple was a future representation of the accurate presence of Jesus in the temple a millennia later.  God can not be represented wholly in buildings made by men's hands.


The Law of God is Good


God's law was good and still continues to be good.  The way of God is right.  Ps. 19:7, “The law of the LORD [is] perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD [is] sure, making wise the simple...”  The slightest break in our hearts from His holy law is enough to ruin us for eternity.  No man can keep the law of God from the heart!  Gal:3:22 says, “But the scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”


The bible declares in  Gal.3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law having become a curse for us --- for it is written, 'cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree!” 


In Dt.21:22-23 confirms that quote just made by Paul to the Galatian church when he said, “And if any man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.” 


When we break God's holy law means a curse comes upon us and our seed.  Not way around the curse, it is forever hanging over our head and the head of our seed.  To God, breaking His commandments is a big deal so much so that He had to punish a sinlessly perfect law-keeper in our place to satisfy His requirement for perfect justice.


To accurately understand God's righteousness as it is revealed in the scriptures, we must meditate on Paul's appeal to the Corinthian church 2 Cr.5:20-21, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  He hath made who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”


The Word of God reveals that He was “made sin” for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  We are all born under the curse of the Creator's law – God told Adam and Eve, “do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.  Adam did not heed God's command.  This free will choice of Adam has placed an eternal curse on all of humanity.  


In the last several decades preachers have tried to sell us that man still has a free will, as humans who sin by natural order in the way of our curse in Adam, how then is our will free?  We must have a work of grace move us to see and receive this righteousness as it has been revealed to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Men can chose not to receive, but they are choosing death, isn't that insane?  A free will is able to think clearly and chose between to quality options, but a natural man under the curse of the law; his will is bound to the curse.  Only in Christ is our will freed up to choose the way of life!  Paul told the Athenians, “God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent.”  Acts.17:30  God is saying you have no choice but receive my righteousness or you will die in your sins... horrible decision!


If you are diagnosed with cancer and a doctor comes to you and tells you of a revolutionary cure for your disease, will you decide to die?  Especially if the cure makes you eternally healthy?  How is your will free if your cure is conditioned by your obedient and obvious response?  The only way to go is to take the cure!  Our constant emphasis on free will allows a man to think he has an excuse for his disobedience to God's creative law to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.   God made us to know good and only good!  We should not have ever had the horrible sense of sin and distance from God but we do feel, see, hear, and know intimately sinful behavior on every level of living.  In light of this reality we must acknowledge our debt, our lostness, and our deadness to keep God's commands!


As the old writers say, “sin is exceedingly sinful”  In our day we have lost the horror of sin as it impacts our senses everyday in our local Sodom and Gomorrah.  We walk right into the atmosphere of sin every day and it hardly bothers us!  We allow sinful thoughts to take over our mind all the time without conviction outside of Christ's work inside of us!  Naturally, we are bad actors at righteousness, in reality we are sinful and we think sinfully.  Our callous attitude toward sin must change today!   


What does the word of God teach us that sin is?   As bible students we teach that sin is any violation of the law of God both in practice or in motivation (at the heart level).  Our hearts are soiled from birth by sin and wrong motives.  Our worship of the creator is imbued with wrong concepts of the Maker of the sun and the moon.  While every man knows in his heart that the sun didn't just appear in the sky all by itself, yet historically, man has continuously succumbed to the temptation to worship the sun instead of it's Maker.   


When Jesus came to earth, He came to destroy all manifestations of sin in man.  A pure form of worship had to be established in Jesus.  He came to “be” righteousness in every way.  He exalted the Father as Creator and Law Giver.  He showed us how to walk before the face of the creator.  Abraham was guided by Jesus before Jesus was incarnated as Jesus.  If you have studied Abraham's life you know he had several major God encounters starting with, “Go forth from your country...” and eventuated with, “Take your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountain of which I will tell you.”  


After this horrific command was given and executed by Abraham, the Angel of the Lord (pre-incarnate Jesus) cried out, “And Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord will Provide, as it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it will be provided”  Who and what is the provision spoken of in this text?  Nothing less then the Lamb of God - Jesus Christ of Nazareth!


The Lord Jesus was with Abraham as covenant maker and keeper.  The sign of obedience God gave to Abraham was the rite or practice of circumcision.  The cutting away of the foreskin of the man's seed giver pictured and foreshadowed a changed heart (faith-based) under the true and lasting Abrahamic covenant which we stand under today by faith!  Abraham's obedience to this rite led to the bearing of the lineage that would bear the Christ!  


The Gospel from Creation 


As creator of all the things, the Father used “the Word” of His mouth to inspire every aspect of the creative order, which is clearly seen in our creation's diversity and in-comprehensible beauty.  Notice with me the account of creation from the vantage point of the apostle John.


John 1:3-5 “All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”


Men love darkness from their mother's womb.  Our calling from our mother's womb as preachers and as born again believers does not whitewash away our native desire to sin.  David declared in Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin did my mother conceived me”   


Isn't the reality of being “born in sin” a flesh withering and pride crushing thought?  If not, it should be!  The church of the modern day has advanced in knowledge to the point where we know so much “about” the Bible in the way of scholarship but we know so little of it “practically” in the way of godliness.  


2 Thess.1:7-9, “and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.”


We lack sober when we miss the work of Christ Jesus , we are so busy trying to survive in our naturalistic world that we forget the obvious.   Jesus lived sinlessly by being a servant to His creation.  Jesus kept the entire law of God because it was good to do so.  Clearly in history and in creation the Lord Jesus has been seen and witnessed as a perfect man and a perfect savior of men.  He made tons of food from a very little bit of food, He walked on water, He calmed a raging sea, and He defied death!  All in all Jesus came with an intense and very sobering mission --- to show us righteousness!


Nature and Creation reveal His Glory.  Paul unashamedly declared that creation reveals His eternal attributes, Rom1:19-20, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.  For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”


When we look up at the stars at night we know instinctively that they have a creator.  When we look at a sonogram of a pregnant women we know that the baby inside that dark and mysterious place has a creator.  When we see the sun rise over an ocean or experience the symphony of loud clashing of thunder and the light show of lightening accompanying it, we know that a God created the universe!


Ps. 19:1-2, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day unto day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge.”


The longer we live, our excuses to scorn God's righteousness become weaker and weaker, as more and more evidence pours in to proof God's existence and the grave approaches ever closer,and we must turn or never see His face in Glory!  


How can America and her churches come together?  God shows us so much mercy every day.  We hate our brothers and sisters without recognizing our precarious condition of being under the wrath of God with all men.  Outside of Christ's blood being applied to our account we have no righteousness.


As it pertains to civil conflict among men, several times the Lord reminds those of us who think we are great law keepers to “love our enemies” because the Father loves His enemies so much that He sends the rain on their fields as well as on the fields of the righteous.  Mt. 5:44-45, “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”


Who is righteous outside of God?  the simple answer -- no one.  Ps 53:1 says, “The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no God,'  They are corrupt, and have committed abominable injustice; there is no one who does good.”


The text goes on the declare in verse 3 “Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt, there is no one who does good, not even one.” 


We are all deserve to be banished forever from the presence of God, yet He extends even today His hands of love and mercy to you.  What will you do?  He was made sin so that you could become, by faith, His righteousness!


2 Cor. 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”


Every Gospel preacher must learn this verse by heart!  In this verse we have the entire summation of the work of Christ in one sentence.  I have meditated on these verses over the course of my entire life and still barely comprehend their depth and significance.  If it be possible, let us tear down the words of this verse to smaller bite size nuggets so we can grasp some of the richness of these holy words.


Who has done this incomprehensible work?  “He” hath made Him who knew no sin that...   “He” is who?  The Father God made Jesus to be sin.  verse 19 of 2 Cr.5 says, “that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.”  How hard to wrap our minds around this statement?  But it is true, so we must proceed.


Who was “made sin”?  “For He hath made “Him” to be sin.”  In the context the “Him” could only refer to one person – Jesus!  Verse 20 says, “therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” v21 “He made Him sin...”


What is the purpose of “making” Christ a sin sacrifice?  Why it is nothing less then reconciliation!  The word reconcile means: 1) to bring together those who are at variance. 2) return to favor with, be reconciled to one”


As we stated from the outset, let's stay focused on the major point of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  The main point of man's problem is he can not find his way back to God.  Every earth dweller wanders in the dark looking for truth and meaning until they find the only passage way back to God.  This occurs by means of a powerful work on God's part.  We are deserted to His mercy and beneficence.  All men must be “Reconciled” back into the good graces of an incredibly holy God.  The work of the empire of Satan must to done away with.  Satan's control of man and the eternal sickness of spiritual death courses through our veins, we are ruined forever, Satan and his work in our flesh must be destroyed once and for all by making sin impotent and powerless. 


Think of a cancer victim in the final stage of succumbing to lung cancer.  The patient and their doctors have tried all the means at their disposal to stop the growth of the cancer, but to no avail, all their high tech means have failed.  In the last stage of the final work of cancer takes the patient into a state of complete destruction of the workings of their weaken lungs.  Eventually these cancer-ridden lungs can not function and the cancer victim dies from the inability to breath.  


All men are born with cancer of the soul.  The heart of man is desperately wicked and incurable sick.  Jer.17:9 “the heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick; who can understand it?”  We are born to die.  Sin has no remedy, no cure!  Let that thought just sink in for a moment.  Imagine a world without sun, flowers, waterfalls, children laughing, the hugs of friends and family, the glory of multi-vacated sounds of different birds putting forth their best at the dawn of a new day.  A tall shady tree on a hot day, a galloping horse, and the wonder of the setting sun against the backdrop of Blue ridge mountain range.  These wonderful enjoyments come at a great cost to God,  yet right now does it cost you and I anything to see and experience these delights in our area?  These delights cost us nothing.  Rich and poor can enjoy them all!


Are you seeing Him, the only Way?  Are you walking in the Truth?  Are you feeling the life of Christ in your mortal body?  If you are indifferent to Christ's claim over your life?  Then the word of  God declares you the fool that Ps. 53:1 speaks of, “The fool has said in His heart there is not God.”


From 2 Cr. 5:21 we see the incredible result of our God “making” Jesus sin for us – we become, by virtue of our faith in Jesus, the righteousness of God.  Jesus perfect life and perfect death become ours by imputation.  What do we mean by imputation?  That we might become the righteousness of Christ  Imputation is rendered “ginomai” in the Greek language, meaning - to come into existence, begin to be, receive being


Our sin debt in heaven has been wiped out by the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus.  His righteousness has come into existence in our literal and entire humanity - body, soul, and spirit!  Christ's righteousness is now ours forever!  In the court of heaven our sins have been expunged, we have no sin on our record, why?  Because He was made to be sin for us.


Your real sins in thought word and deed were laid on Him at the moment He drank the cup of God's wrath and then patiently endured a horrible beating and a gruesome death upon a very real Roman cross.  God the Father executed Him on behalf of those who have received Jesus as their exclusive refuge from the wrath of God.  The wrath of God is definite and sure.  Our God does not grade on a scale.  With God it is either perfection or eternal separation from His goodness.  Jesus our perfect One has become our 100% perfect A+ grade from the perspective of the all-seeing pure eyes of God.


Let us never forget this reality.  Let us always remember what it cost the Father to set you free from the penalty of your very real crimes against heaven.  Your heavenly Father gave His only begotten Son to us that we might believe in Him and so that by the virtue of our simple faith, we as faith-filled believers in His righteousness, become the righteousness of God in Him.  We cry out today – America, be reconciled to God!



Many Blessings,


Jonathan David Keener