Now here is something that you might not know: “Anne of Green Gables” was the first published work of Lucy Maud Montgomery. That means that she had no previous success with which to promote her new book. She had to send the manuscript for “Anne” to several publishers before one was willing to print it. She would send off a sheaf of papers, first to one place and then to another, and she would get them sent back with a rejection notice. Can you imagine the chagrin that those publishers felt just a few years later when L.C. Page in Boston was getting rich on the reprints of this one book? Then came the sequels, books of poetry and other works by Lucy Maud. And I wonder how Lucy felt after the first few rejection letters? I am told that much of Anne Shirley’s character was actually the character of her author. And if that is the case, I can just see her gritting her teeth and searching for another potential publisher.
This raises the question of “why” – why did those publishers reject that manuscript? I suppose that in some cases there were real, substantial reasons. For example, it could have been that some of them were already printing more books than they could. Book publishing is an expensive gamble – there is the cost of typesetting, paper, printing and marketing. If they choose to print a book and it doesn’t sell, then they could be out a great deal of money. It could have been that some shops could not then afford to take on another project. But then again some rejections might have come from purely subjective reasons. There are no car chases, murders to solve, no incest, no political intrigue, no treason in this book. Some male publisher may have skimmed through the first few pages and decided that it was a “chick-flick,” and that he wasn’t interested. Another editor might have thought that anything set in Canada would never sell in the United States where most of the readers and money were. Someone else might have thought of the book as childish and not suiting his particular clientele. Any number of reasons might have been given for rejecting the manuscript, but rarely are publishers considerate enough to mention them in their rejection letters.
I know that this isn’t even close to being the same thing, but I thought of “Anne” as I was considering the scripture before us. Doesn’t verse 3 suggest that many people in the nation of Israel were sending God a rejection notice? It’s not the rejection of a manuscript or a book, but in a sense that is involved. And it’s not the rejection of something which would make the recipient wealthy, but then again actually it is.
My question for the day is this: “Why did those people reject this great offer?” Why do so many of our neighbors turn their noses up at the preaching of the gospel? Why did we, for so many years, reject Christ? I have a simple task this morning – all I need to do is point to the verse itself.
The righteousness of God – the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God. I’m not sure that the wisest, smartest, most blessed saint of God will ever FULLY understand the righteousness of God. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t try touch the hem of this garment of the Lord. Let’s liken the righteousness of God to a face. Faces are made up of eyes, a nose, cheek bones, lips, eyebrows and a number of other features. Perhaps in one person her eyes, or her complexion, are the first things that people notice. Or perhaps it’s the shape of his mouth or the size of his nose or nostrils. There may be dozens of features which make up a face, and they almost always come together in something unique – that person’s individual face.
The righteousness of the Lord – the face of God – begins with his holiness. That means that the basis of His visage and character is perfectly sinless – a beautiful complexion. God cannot lie; He cannot promise and not keep His word; He cannot act unjustly; He cannot sin. God’s holiness is foundational to everything about Him. And so this holiness then extends into His truth and His justice. God’s righteousness must include His wisdom and ultimately His love. The love of God is a much abused subject, because it is often considered outside the context of His holiness or His entire righteousness. This ignorance is why some people think that God could never create Hell or the Lake of Fire. When people separate God’s love from His righteousness, some think that God cannot judge sin. Or they think that they can continue in their ungodly immorality, profanity, pride and greed, thinking that God only has a passing interest in their faults. In other words, when people misunderstand God’s righteousness, they think of the Lord as one of themselves.
As you know, when the Lord Jesus returns to earth it will be to establish a perfectly righteous kingdom. That kingdom is foretold to exist for a thousand years – that is not a figure of speech but an exact prophesy. During that Millennial Kingdom, the world will become a place as righteous as the Lord Himself. He will judge sin with perfect holiness and justice. Those who will worship Him will do so with perfection. And when that thousand years are finished and the wicked dead will be cast into the Lake of Fire, eternity will be just as righteous, but with perhaps some practical aspects no longer being necessary. For example there will never again be any need to judge sin – sin will be no more.
But we aren’t in the Millennium today & righteousness is something that we can only study through the Word. And as much as you and I are commanded to strive for holiness, uprightness and righteousness, we live in constant failure. Christians are saints of God in perspective – saints in the decree and will of God. But as long as we remain in these bodies, we will be nothing more than sinners saved by grace. We are surrounded by sinners, enveloped in sinful temptations, and fed with the fruit of a cursed creation. And we still live with the sinful Adamic nature within us.
In other words, as much I am suppose to be an example of the believers to you, I’m a failure at the kind of righteousness that the Lord demands. And even though you are to be perfectly righteous before your relatives and before the world, you are not. And you certainly can’t study ecology, the economy, the environment, or the envelope of space to successfully learn about the righteousness of God. In reading “Anne of Green Gables,” or “The Lord of the Rings,” or “Narnia” any other human book you might learn about stubbornness, pride, jealousy, human love and devotion, but you will not directly learn about the righteousness of God.
There is only one place to begin to learn about righteousness – the revelation of God which we call “the Bible.” It’s in these pages that we begin to see that the Lord is high and holy. We learn about the nature of the Lord; about His power and His glory. In the Bible we learn about each of His attributes beginning with his absolute holiness. Obviously, one of the great lessons, repeated over and over again, is God’s hatred of sin. Fire from Heaven; the work of the death angel; earthquakes and fissures in the ground swallowing up the wicked, say something about God’s hatred of sin. Sodom destroyed for her homosexuality; Jerusalem sent into captivity for her corrupted religion; Babylon destroyed for her mistreatment of God’s people; city after city, nation after nation. There is Moses’ sister, Miriam, smitten with leprosy because of her rebellion against God. And there is Moses himself not permitted to enter the Promised Land because of a little sinful indiscretion – as some might say. Thinking of leprosy, a disease which God used to depict and then to punish sin – It might be said that syphilis and other forms of venereal diseases are God’s judgment for immorality. Cirrhosis of liver is often a result of the abuse of alcohol. Long term drug use is often judged by God with mental problems. And many say that AIDS is the righteous judgment of God for homosexuality. Might we go beyond that and talk about various other diseases, such as cancers, heart problems, and stomach problems, which could be God’s judgment upon other kinds of sins in our modern society? I’m not going to say that everyone who is sick is being divinely judged, but perhaps some of those diseases, which were virtually unknown two hundred years ago, are the hand of God’s death angel.
Isn’t it true that if I walked into the emergency room at Kootenai County Hospital and began to tell people there that their problems were caused, either directly or indirectly by sin, that I would be kicked out? In fact, if I walked about that emergency room reception area and spoke to people about the righteousness of the Lord I would be kicked out. Not only are people ignorant of God’s righteousness, that is the way that the vast majority want to stay. The ignorance of which Paul writes here is not just a passive – the “I never knew” sort of ignorance. That is the way that we all want to remain, until the grace of God works on a man’s heart. Not only does the average man go about to establish his own righteousness, we could rephrase this verse correctly to say that the average man goes about to ignore the righteousness of God. Doesn’t the noun “ignorance” come from the same word which gives us the verb “to ignore”? The average man stops his ears and refuses to open them to what the Bible reveals about Jehovah. A perfect example is Pharaoh in the early chapters of Exodus.
The first and foremost answer to our question: “why do people reject the Lord” is: “wilful ignorance.”
And why would they – why would we – want to do that? Because we foolishly think that we can. I don’t like what God has said about my life-style, so I’ll redefine the word “sin,” leaving out my favorites. I particularly dislike what the Apostle James said – “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Sure I have been a little bad now and then, here and there, but no one is going to accuse me of being guilty of all. And I have decided that all the years that my parents forced me to go to Sunday school and church when I was young, has put credits upon my righteousness chart, outweighing some of my “indiscretions.” And those goofy modest clothes that they made me wear, when I wanted to dress like the other kids, that is a part of my burden of righteousness. I have decided that every time that I refused a temptation, that act of personal righteousness washed away at least two occasions when I gave up and sinned. Doesn’t my twenty-dollars to charity mean anything at all towards God? And I have decided that my charity in December is worth double points.
Who do these people think that they are? “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.” Personal pride is a key factor in the rejection of God’s righteousness. I can write stories at least as good as “Anne of Green Gables” so I’m not going to publish this manuscript. God is not going to tell me that I’m not good enough for His eternity – I’ll just publish my own Bible.
In Revelation 3 the Lord was talking to the people of Laodicea, who seemed to be struggling with this same kind of problem. To them He said, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” What was the problem with the people of Laodicea? Wasn’t it pride? They could not see how naked they really were. Many of them knew nothing of the righteousness of God.
Why do so many reject the Lord and His righteousness? As foolish as it may sound….
But Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. This doesn’t mean that early in man’s history the law was the means of obtaining righteousness, but now that He has come that opportunity is gone. Rather this is Paul’s way of saying that Christ met and fulfilled the law for God’s righteousness and our salvation.
The Old Testament law basically said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Ezekiel 18:4 – “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The wages of sin is death.” No amount of obedience to God’s laws was sufficient to overcome the slightest disobedience. As James said, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”
But the Anointed of God, the Messiah, the Saviour, the One who is perfectly righteous, took upon himself all the demands of the Law. He was absolutely sinless in every way and in every second of His earthly life – His eternal life. And yet He died under the demands of the Law on behalf of everyone who believeth. He fulfilled the law for the purpose of righteousness.
Of course this takes us back to the subject of justification. Paul said, “Knowing that a man is not justified (declared righteous) by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” “But that no man is justified (declared righteous) by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.” “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified (declared righteous) by faith.”
Paul’s testimony of his fellow countrymen was that they had a religious zeal, but it was one of ignorance. They were so ignorant that they thought that they could leverage themselves into Heaven by their own weak righteousness – sinful righteous. And they were so ignorant that they couldn’t see that Christ Jesus met the demands of the Law on behalf of all who would acknowledge their need and trust him. Paul’s exhortation was: repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is my message this morning as well – You must have “repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.”