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The sermon presents conviction of sin as a right, though incomplete, apprehension of God’s justice, power, and holiness. Faith provides the fuller vision: Christ’s atoning death vindicates God’s justice and turns His attributes toward the believer’s salvation. Christian prayer, obedience, and perseverance are possible because God supplies His own strength. The central evangelistic appeal is for helpless sinners to come honestly to Christ and trust His promise to save.
Theological center: The cross of Christ satisfies divine justice and wrath while revealing God’s mercy, so that His omnipotent power strengthens rather than condemns those who believe.
Applications: Find refuge in Christ · Persevere by divine strength · Come to Christ helplessly · Trust Christ with your soul
Primary texts: Job 23:6 · 1 Timothy 1:15 · Luke 18:38
“Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.” Job 23:6 I SHALL not, tonight, consider the connection of these words or what was particularly intended by Job. I shall use them in, perhaps, another sense from that which he intended. No doubt Job meant to say, that if God would allow him to argue his case before Him, it was his firm belief that God, so far from taking advantage of His superior strength in the controversy, would even strengthen him, that the controversy might be fair and that the judgment might be unbiased. “He would not plead against me with his great strength. No; but he would put strength in me.” We shall use the text, however, tonight, in another sense. It is one of the sure marks of a lost and ruined state when we are careless and indifferent concerning God. One of the peculiar marks of those who are dead in sin is this—they are the wicked who forget God. God is not in all their thoughts. “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” The sinful man is ever anxious to keep out of his mind the very thought of the being, the existence, or the character of God. And as long as man is unregenerate, there will be nothing more abhorrent to his taste, or his feelings, than anything which deals with the Divine Being. God, perhaps, as Creator, he may consider. But the God of the Bible, the infinite JEHOVAH, judging righteously among the sons of men—condemning and acquitting—that God he has no taste for, He is not in all his thoughts, nor does he regard Him. And mark you, it is a blessed sign of the work of grace in the heart when man begins to consider God. He is not far from God’s heart who has meditations of God in his own heart. If we desire to seek after God, to know Him, to understand Him, and to be at peace with Him, it is a sign that God has dealings with our soul, for otherwise we should still have hated His name and abhorred His character. There are two things in my text, both of which have relation to the Divine Being. The first is, the question of fear, “Will he plead against me with his great power?” And the second is, the answer of faith, “No; but he will put strength in me.” The fearful and the prayerful, who are afraid of sin and fear God, together with those who are faithful and believe in God, are in a hopeful state. And hence, both the question of the one, and the answer of the other, have reference to the great JEHOVAH, our God, who is forever to be adored. I. We shall consider, in the first place, tonight, THE INQUIRY OF FEAR. “Will he plead against me with his great power?” I shal…