The God of Righteousness

Jeremiah 23, reading Verses 1 through 8. We're looking together during these evenings at the names of God in the Old Testament. And tonight we come to one of the truly great names of Jehovah, Jehovah Tzidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness.

Woe be unto the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Of course, by these shepherds, he means the kings and the rulers of Judah. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people.

Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries to which I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds, and they shall be fruitful and increase.

And I will set up shepherds over them who shall feed them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch. And a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the earth.

In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our Righteousness. Therefore behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

But the Lord liveth who brought up and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries to which I have driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land. Jeremiah 23, verse 6, is one of the key verses in Old Testament revelation. The name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Jehovah Tzidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness.

The great need of our day today, I think, is for men and women who have a conscience toward God. All of us have decisions to make. The most important decisions we make are not what tie shall we wear or what shoes shall we wear.

Those things are rather inconsequential. We have moral decisions to make, decisions to make that regard the values of life. A coward, when he's making a decision, usually asks, is it safe? A politician usually asks, is it popular? A covetous person usually asks, well, if I do this, will it pay off? But you see, as Christians, there's only one question we can ask, and that question is this, is it right? We have decisions to make every day.

And the only question a Christian can honestly ask as he makes decisions is simply, is it right? Now, it may not be safe. It wasn't safe for Stephen when he stood before those angry Jewish leaders and said, God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, and they stoned him to death. We ask, is it right, not is it popular, because oftentimes when you make the right decision, you become unpopular.

It was unpopular for Jeremiah. When you read the chapters of Jeremiah's prophecy, you find out that the prophet was very unpopular. If you went by the Gallup poll or the Hooper ratings back in Jeremiah's day, he would have flunked because they thought he was a traitor.

They thought he was crazy, and yet Jeremiah was preaching and doing that which was right. And it may not pay off. It didn't pay off financially for the Apostle Paul.

He says we've suffered the loss of all things. If I speak to one person here tonight who is juggling his conscience and playing with God's standards in order to get something that is popular or safe or financially profitable, you better watch out, because in sacrificing conscience, you are sacrificing one of the most important things that you possess, that inward monitor that approves when we do what is right and accuses when we do what is wrong. Someone says, but now we shouldn't be too worried about making decisions, because God is a God of love, and when we were little children, we made wrong decisions, and Grandma came and kissed it to make it well.

That's true. She did. But I don't have a heavenly grandmother.

I have a heavenly Father, and He does love me, but He also loves righteousness. And God is not going to compromise His own standards just to kiss it and make it well. You and I have to face the fact that we have to make right decisions.

I want us to consider this name in verse 6, the Lord our righteousness. I think if we understand this name, it will help us to be right in our everyday lives, and that's the important thing. A hundred years from now, no one's going to ask you up in heaven, were you popular? No one's going to ask you, were you rich? A hundred years from now, when we stand before the Lord and we have been with Him, the big issue is going to be, did you glorify God by doing the thing that was right? Perhaps the easiest way to understand this name is to take each of the words individually—righteousness, the Lord, and then the most important word of all, our.

Let's take the word righteousness. Here we have a problem. The greatest problem we face nationally is righteousness.

We have emerged from a period of time when it seemed like there was no righteousness in our nation. Jeremiah was ministering at a time in Judah's history when it seemed like everything was falling apart. When you read the preceding chapters, you find Jeremiah the prophet taking each of the kings and letting them have it.

You see, their great and godly king had been Josiah. Josiah had been God's instrument for revival. Josiah had been God's tool for a renewal and a revival in the land of Judah.

Josiah went off to fight Pharaoh and he got killed, and so Josiah's son, Jehoahaz, took over. He lasted three months. Then Jehoiakim took over.

He lasted eleven years, but he was shipped off to Babylon in exile. And then Jehoiakim took over, and he lasted three months, and he was exiled. And right now the king was Zedekiah.

Zedekiah means the Lord is righteous. It's as though Jeremiah is saying, up there on the throne of Judah is Zedekiah, the Lord is righteous. But he is not righteous.

Zedekiah is anything but righteous. He is a scheming, conniving politician. In these verses in Jeremiah 23, he talks about how the nation has sinned against God because the rulers have sinned against the people.

Now, in the Old Testament, kings were compared to shepherds. That's why when David said, the Lord is my shepherd, he was talking about much more than just a pastoral scene. He was talking about God being the king.

Because in the Old Testament, the king was looked upon as a shepherd. What is a shepherd's job? To lead and to feed and to protect. What was the king's job? To lead the people and to feed the people and to protect the people, and they weren't doing it.

They were exploiting the people. Jeremiah looked upon the people of Judah as a flock of sheep, and sheep cannot govern themselves. One reason God had put a king on the throne was because these poor sheep could not govern themselves.

They were prone to wander, prone to get lost. And so God puts the king upon the throne, and he says, you be unto them a shepherd. But they weren't.

They exploited the people because of the sins of the rulers. The people sinned because of idolatry and immorality, because of shrewd but ungodly conniving with other nations. Little by little, Judah drifted into idolatry and sin.

And their greatest need was righteousness. That's a problem. We have the same problem in America today.

It's coming to the point in the United States of America where our states have to be run by gambling. We can't earn enough money. We can't raise enough money by just regular earning and taxes.

We have to have gambling to accomplish it. And so we have statewide lotteries, and people are gambling to maintain the government. We need righteousness.

Our greatest problem today is righteousness. We have people who are exploiting little children in pornographic rackets. We need righteousness.

We have television that is producing violence. We have immorality being laughed at, in fact, being promoted, because we need righteousness. Our greatest problem today as a nation is righteousness.

I have no defense for juvenile crime. A juvenile is old enough to know what's right and wrong, but I can understand when a teenager says to me, what good is it for us to try to do what's right? The people in government who do what's right don't get away with it. It's the people who do wrong who get away with it.

You do right, you lose your job. I've had more than one person phone me or stop me after church and say, Pastor, would you pray for me? I'm trying to do what's right in my job. I work for this part of the government, or I work in this particular field, and they're making it awfully hard on me.

Our greatest need, our greatest problem as a nation is righteousness, but I think it's also our greatest problem personally. There isn't a person here tonight who doesn't say, I need righteousness. There's some area in my life that needs the righteous touch of God.

Maybe it's righteous thinking or righteous loving or righteous acting. I don't know. It's a problem in my life and in your life.

Jeremiah the prophet said, it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. Jeremiah the prophet said, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? That word desperately wicked means terribly sick, a sick heart.

Now you talk about a sick society. We do have a sick society. You can walk down Wells Street and you find a sick society.

You can go uptown and find a sick society. You can drive down North Avenue and find a sick society. But a sick society is made up of individuals with sick hearts, sin sick.

And so the greatest problem we face personally is the problem of righteousness. You see, righteousness gives us the solution to every problem. If I have righteousness, then I am rightly related to God.

And if I'm rightly related to God, I can be rightly related to myself because I'm made in the image of God. If I know God and I'm in fellowship with God and he has accepted me, then I can accept myself and I can reach out and accept you. And so my relationship to God and to myself and to you is all based on righteousness.

Sin destroys relationships. When Eve sinned, she broke her relationship with Adam. When Adam and Eve sinned, they broke their relationship with God.

And you turn the page in Genesis and you find the two brothers disagreeing and one kills the other one. Where does it all start? With sin. When they had righteousness, then there was a relationship between them and God that was holy and good.

There was a relationship between man and woman that was holy and good. And sin came along and destroyed it. And our problem is that we're dealing with the symptoms and not the causes.

We're painting over the leprosy but not getting down to the germ. I was reading today in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14, two whole chapters devoted to leprosy. You'd think that Moses was on the staff of the Mayo Clinic.

Two whole chapters devoted to leprosy, which is a picture of sin. And I couldn't help but notice as I read those chapters over and over again, you find this little phrase, deeper than the skin, deeper than the skin, deeper than the skin. I said, aha, this is what Moses is saying to me.

Your sin problem is deeper than the skin. You can't just wrap somebody's knuckles and solve the sin problem. You can't just manacle somebody's wrists and solve the sin problem.

You can't just put somebody behind bars and solve the sin problem. There's got to be something happened to the heart. Righteousness.

Immediately, we face a problem, our greatest problem nationally, our greatest problem personally. Let me tell you why it's your greatest problem personally. Our standards are too low.

I recall when I was working for the Rockwell Manufacturing Company, we had a fella on our staff out in one of the buildings. We made valves. And they gave him a job as a tester to make sure he would measure the parts as they came along.

He was in methods and standards. And they gave him a micrometer. Now you know what a micrometer is, a very, very fine tuning on a micrometer.

And they said to him, now you mic every one of these parts that comes out. The ones that are too small, throw out. The ones that are too big, throw out.

They've got to be just right. Well, he was having a lot of them thrown out. You know what he did? He changed the micrometer.

He said, well, I can't be rejecting all of these. And so he actually went and instead of just moving it, he went and got a file and he filed down. He ruined the micrometer.

But he was passing a lot of parts, which was all well and good until the assembly line got a hold of those parts and tried to make valves out of them and they didn't fit. Now we do this. We say, well, you know, I don't steal, but well, I do do this, but I don't steal.

Well, try that with the next traffic cop. Next time you go through a stop sign in Chicago or a red light or you get a parking ticket and the policeman comes along and you say, wait a minute, officer, I admit now I was parked by a fireplug, but I've never committed adultery. He said, well, I appreciate that.

I commend you. And I'm sure your wife or your husband's happy, but you just broke the law. But sir, I have never broken a bank window.

It makes no difference to me. You've just broken the law. See, we have a tendency to set our own standards.

You go out to Colorado, for example, and you can go up on Pikes Peak, about 14,000 feet up there on Pikes Peak, or you can go down into one of those deep mines that they have out there, several hundreds of feet below the surface of the earth. Let's suppose that I go up on Pikes Peak and you go down to one of the mines and someone says, all right, touch the stars. Now, it's going to be much easier for me to touch the stars than it is for you.

You're down there in the mine. I'm up on the mountain peak. Or does it make any difference? Our brother just talked about the people we call the skid row people.

We say, well, they're way down the mine, but I'm up in the mountaintop. But neither one can touch the stars. And somebody here tonight is saying, Pastor, I don't need a Savior.

Don't talk to me about being saved. I'm better than most of the religious people I know, and I'll measure my life up against anybody in Moody Church. That's what I said.

Your standards are too low. I'm a member of Moody Church. You can measure your life against mine.

I say it again. Your standards are too low. You remember the dear lady who came to see Dr. Ironside, and she said, I don't agree with this that you're talking about.

I think we're saved by following our Lord's example. Dr. Ironside said, well, it's interesting because it says here, who did no sin. Do you want to start there? She said, I can't do that.

He said, that's why you need a Savior. You see, righteousness is a problem to us because our standards are so low and our desires are so low. We don't really desire righteousness like we should, and our strength is too small.

And so we set our standards here and say, well, I can reach that. God says, but you aren't reaching high enough. Righteousness, a problem.

You better solve that problem. Now let's take the other word, the Lord. Here we have a person.

What is righteousness? Righteousness is a person, not a thing, not a word in a dictionary, not a theological abstraction. Righteousness is a person, the Lord, our righteousness. Now, God is holy.

The psalmist talks about the way people have been mistreating each other, and he says, and you thought that I'm like you are. You've talked against your brother. You've been speaking evil against your brother, and you think I'm like you are.

The trouble today is people are making God in their own image. You say, well, you know, a lady said to me one day, she said, well, I certainly wouldn't send anyone to hell. You know, very self-righteous.

I'm not even perfect. I wouldn't send anyone to hell. And, of course, you know the answer to that.

Neither does God send anyone to hell. They send themselves there. God has done everything He can do to win people to go to heaven.

We measure God by ourselves. Certainly, I wouldn't, oh, but we don't measure God by you or by me. God is holy.

When Isaiah had that vision of Jesus Christ on the throne, he didn't look up and see comic book creatures singing little ditties. He didn't see a sign that said, the man upstairs. When Isaiah was given a glimpse into heaven, he saw and heard the angelic creatures at the throne of God saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of holy.

Paul says, he dwells in light that is unapproachable. Be ye holy for I am holy. Let's not minimize the holiness of God.

Righteousness is a person. God personally is holy. His law is holy.

All of his deeds are holy. No one can ever accuse God of minimizing sin. He tells us here in Jeremiah 23, I'm going to visit you.

I'm a holy God. And because I'm a holy God, I'll visit you for your sins. And he did.

Within 10 years, Jerusalem was rubble. Babylonian army came down. Read the book of Lamentations.

Whenever I read the book of Lamentations, it breaks my heart. Here's the great city of Jerusalem, desolate. The Babylonians came in and picked up the children and beat their brains out against the cornerstones of the houses.

They took the swords and killed people. Blood was shed. The temple was destroyed.

Why? Because God's a holy God. You say, what kind of a God would do that? What kind of men would do to God? What they did. For 40 years, Jeremiah preached and said, judgment is coming.

Judgment is coming. He wept. He put a yoke around his neck, went walking around the streets with a yoke around his neck.

People said, that man's crazy. They wrote him up in all the newspapers. Crazy prophet visits town.

And yet, what was Jeremiah saying? Give yourself to the Lord. Be yoked unto him. Otherwise, you'll be wearing a yoke of bondage.

He took a vase and went out and broke it and said, thus is God going to do to this nation if they don't become clay in the potter's hands. Don't tell me God is a God of uncontrolled anger. Don't tell me God is a God who doesn't love.

For 40 years, Jeremiah wept and preached and prayed. They wouldn't listen. The Lord, our righteousness.

Righteousness is a person. Now, that person is Jesus Christ. You see, he's the one who is going to be raised up, in verse 5, to be the righteous branch.

In the Bible, a branch means a descendant. David's family tree was being cut down. His descendants didn't look like very much.

And God says, one of these days, a branch is going to come out of Jesse. One of these days, a branch will grow out of David's family. And that branch will be a righteous branch, not like Jehoiakim and Jehoiakim and Zedekiah and all of this crowd that was idolatrous and wicked.

I'm going to set upon David's throne a righteous king. And he's going to reign in righteousness. Must have been a great encouragement to Jeremiah as he saw the nation falling apart, to know that one day, Israel would be regathered.

And one day, the Messiah would come and sit on the throne. That's going to happen, folks. The Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous branch of David, is going to come.

And he's going to sit on the throne of David. And he's going to rule from Jerusalem. And then righteousness is going to cover this earth like the waters cover the sea.

The Lord. Righteousness is a person. Now, let's take that third word.

And it's the most important of the whole name. Righteousness, a problem. I can't attain to it.

The Lord, a person. He is righteous. And because I'm a sinner, I'm distant from Him.

The Lord, our righteousness. Righteousness can be a possession. You say, can a person actually possess righteousness? Yes.

Since Jesus Christ is our righteousness, we can say, the Lord, our righteousness. As Mary said, my soul rejoices in God, my Savior. Paul, who said, he loved me and gave himself for me.

Righteousness is a possession. You can have righteousness. Now, we don't have any righteousness of our own.

We don't have any by inheritance. In sin did my mother conceive me. We don't have it by nature.

I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. There is none righteous, no not one. There's none that understandeth.

There's none that seeketh after God. They are all together gone out of the way. We don't have any righteousness by achievement.

None of us has achieved righteousness. Oh, we have our brownie points that we've earned religiously, but we haven't achieved any righteousness. We have no righteousness of our own.

Jesus Christ is our righteousness. I want to really ring the changes on that now. If you're going to have righteousness and be accepted by God, if you're going to have righteousness and escape hell, if you're going to have righteousness and face the judgment unafraid, if you're going to have righteousness, you have to have Jesus Christ.

Turn the pages of the New Testament with me, please. First Corinthians, chapter 1. Let the inspired writers speak for the uninspired preacher. First Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 26.

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flag, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. You look around and say, I'm smarter than most of those people at this church.

Maybe you are, but we're smart enough to know where our righteousness is, Jesus Christ. And God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen. Yea, and things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

Why? Why does God save that skid row wino? And yet here you are, a member of some sophisticated church and educated, and you look at him and say, he thinks he's going to make it? He knows he's not going to make it by himself. He's going to make it through the righteousness of Christ. Why does God do it this way? Verse 29, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

Nobody's ever going to stand before God and say, hey, God, I made it. I'm here. I earned my way in.

I worked my way in. Nobody will ever be able to turn to anyone else in heaven and say, well, how'd you get here? Let me tell you how I got here. We're all going to get there the same way.

The righteousness of Jesus Christ. It says so in verse 30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written, he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord, who is our righteousness.

Now, most of you tonight could quote with me 2 Corinthians 5.21. For he hath made him, Jesus, to be sin for us, he who knew no sin, that we, sinners, might be made the righteousness of God in him. He is our righteousness. The apostle Paul found that out the hard way.

If anybody thought he was righteous, he did. Listen to his testimony in Philippians 3. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath reasons for which he might trust the flesh, I more circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. And there he was, storming down the Damascus road, telling everybody how good he was, including God.

But what things were gained to me, those I count at loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. And do count them but refuse that I may win Christ and be found in him." 164 times in Paul's letters, you find those two little words, in him, or in Christ, or in Jesus.

That's his whole theology in two words. In Christ. In Paul, flesh, refuse, sin, unrighteousness.

In Christ, righteousness, salvation. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. What kind of righteousness do you have tonight? Faith righteousness or works righteousness? Now, if you have works righteousness, Paul says it's nothing but garbage.

When he saw Jesus Christ in glory, he saw he was wearing filthy garments, that all of his righteousnesses were just filthy rags. And dear brothers and sisters, if our righteousnesses before God are filthy rags, what must our sins look like? That's why Israel's in the mess it's in today. Paul says, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved, for I bear them witness they have a zeal for 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. There's the word, my friends, submit. Submit.

Here's Paul, the Pharisee, Paul, the rabbi. Submit not on your life. They will submit to me.

And then he saw Jesus Christ and got knocked off his high horse. And he looked up. Who art thou, Lord? Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he saw immediately his own righteousness wasn't worth anything.

And he submitted to the righteousness of God. You see, when you have works righteousness, you can brag about it. You can be important.

I prayed so many prayers. I've been to church so much. I've done this, I've done that.

God's not the least bit impressed. When you have faith righteousness, you can't brag about it. You brag about him, the Lord, our righteousness.

Righteousness can be a possession. Now, we're in the book of Romans. Just turn back quickly and concludingly to Romans chapter three.

In Romans chapter three, beginning at about verse nine, Paul gives us a full-length picture of how sinful we really are. We have proved that Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin. Jews had their religions.

Greeks had their wisdom. God's not impressed with either the religion or the wisdom. They're all under sin.

As it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one. The mind, there's none that understandeth. The heart, there's none that seeketh after God.

The will, they are all gone out of the way. They're together become unprofitable. That word unprofitable in the Greek means milk that's turned sour.

They've all turned sour. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Then he gets a full-length portrait.

Their throat, an open sepulcher. It means death. With their tongues, they've used deceit, lying.

The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Then he goes to the other extreme. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace have they not known. There's no fear of God before their eyes.

Now, if we stopped at that point, we're in trouble because verse 19 says that every mouth may be stopped. Don't you argue. If somebody sits there tonight and says, boy, I'm gonna tell that preacher a thing or two after the service, that every mouth may be stopped.

When you stand before God, my friend, you won't argue with him. You can't come up there with your briefcase and all of your paraphernalia to argue your case. Your mouth will be stopped.

And all the world may become guilty before God. Are you a citizen of the world? Then you're guilty unless, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God, apart from the law has been manifested. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Verse 26, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then? Oh, it's excluded. By what law? Of works? No, by the law of faith.

Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified, declared righteous by faith apart from the deeds of the law. You can say the Lord, our righteousness, the Lord, my righteousness, when by faith you've received Jesus Christ. And there's no other way to get it.

Israel said, we don't want that righteousness. We'll do it our own way. God said, go to it.

They failed. There may be one person here tonight who is trying to make himself righteous before God. You're doing everything you can sincerely, honestly, to be accepted by God.

My friend, you're wasting your time. You're wasting your energy. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness.

Righteousness can be a personal possession when you believe on Jesus Christ. And then he takes your sin, he gives you his righteousness, and you are accepted before God forever. Many years ago, the exact date was November the 18th, 1834, a Scottish Presbyterian preacher, a young man, was sick.

And during his illness, he tells us in his journal, he had a new vision of what it meant to be righteous in Christ. You know, my friend, when you're sick and you're getting close to eternity, you think about the judgment, and this is what he was doing. And God came through to him in a new way, saying, I am your righteousness.

Well, he wrote a poem, which I have sung on occasion at various meetings as a hymn. It's not in our hymnal, but one of his hymns is in our hymnal. I'm speaking of Robert Murray McShane.

We have his great hymn in our hymnal, When This Passing World is Done. But he wrote a marvelous poem that was put to music, just simply called Jehovah Sid Cano. Allow me to read it to you.

It expresses his own experience with righteousness. I once was a stranger to grace and to God. I knew not my danger, I felt not my load.

Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, Jehovah Sid Cano meant nothing to me. I oft read with pleasure to soothe or engage Isaiah's wild measure, John's simple page. But even when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree, Jehovah Sid Cano seemed nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll, I wept when the waters went over his soul. Yet thought not that my sins had nailed him to the tree, Jehovah Sid Cano was nothing to me. When free grace awoke me by light from on high, then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die.

No refuge, no safety in self could I see. Jehovah Sid Cano, my savior, must be. My terrors all vanished before that sweet name.

My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came to drink at the fountain, life giving and free. Jehovah Sid Cano is all things to me. Jehovah Sid Cano, my treasure and boast.

Jehovah Sid Cano, I ne'er can be lost. In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field, my cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield. Even treading the valley, the shadow of death, this watchword shall rally my faltering breath.

For while from life's fever, my God sets me free. Jehovah Sid Cano, my death song shall be. What a marvelous thing to go through life with his righteousness, to face death with his righteousness, to stand before God with his righteousness.

And to think that in order for us to be able to say the Lord our righteousness, he had to become our unrighteousness. He could have said from the cross, I am your adultery, I am your murder, I am your lying, I am become the sin of all the world that I might give you my righteousness. I heard someone complaining the other day about clothing being so expensive.

The most expensive garment in all the world is the garment of righteousness the Lord gives you when you trust him. It cost him his son on the cross. Righteousness, our problem.

The Lord, our righteousness, a person. How do you get your hands on righteousness? The Lord, our righteousness, a possession. Lay hold of Jesus Christ.

And you'll be able to look the devil right in the face when he accuses you and say, Jehovah Tzidkenu, the Lord is my righteousness. No wonder McShane also wrote, when I stand before the throne, dressed in beauty not my own, when I see thee as thou art, love thee with unsinning heart, then Lord shall I fully know, not till then how much I owe. Take the name with you tonight.

Jesus Christ, Jehovah Tzidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness.