Let's open our Bibles to Exodus
chapter 15. This is the song and prayer of praise that
Moses offered to the Lord after having gotten safely on the other
side of the Red Sea. Verse one. Then sang Moses and
the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying,
I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath
he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song,
and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare
him at habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord, Jehovah, is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host
has he cast into the sea. His chosen captains also are
drowned in the Red Sea." Of course, this is a picture of what the
Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross when he defeated
the works of the devil and conquered death. Verse five, the depths have covered
them. They sank into the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand, O
Lord, is become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath
dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine
excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee.
Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble.
And with the blast of my nostrils, the waters were gathered together. The flood stood upright as a
heap and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. The
enemy said, and here's the false gospel. The enemy said, I will
pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My loss
shall be satisfied upon them. I will draw my sword and my hand
shall destroy them. Six times, I will, in that verse. This is what man thinks he's
gonna do in order to earn his salvation. He's gonna pull out
his sword and the works of his hands. Look at verse 10. Thou didst blow with thy wind. And we know what the wind is
a picture of, it's the spirit of God. It's what blew as a mighty
Russian wind on the day of Pentecost. prophesy unto the wind son of
man thou didst blow with thy wind it's always our hope the
wind of the spirit will blow when we gather together and we
go to God's Word the sea covered them They sank as lead in the
mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O Lord,
among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretched
out thy right hand and the earth swallowed them. Thou, in thy
mercy, hath led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou
hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. contrast to the six I wills of
verse 9 we have seven vows and there's our there's our hope
the perfect work of salvation accomplished in the Lord Jesus
Christ. I talked to Deanna today she
sounded much better and thought that she might be able to make
it this Sunday so hopefully that'll be the case. We are praying especially for
Jennifer. She starts chemo this Friday
and it's a clinical trial and so one of our prayers is that
she does not get the placebo. That she gets the actual drug
and then that she'll be able to tolerate the the side effects. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the accomplished
work of salvation that our Lord Jesus Christ won for us as the
man of war, went to battle against sin, against Satan, satisfied
all the demands of your law, Lord, and got the victory. Oh,
what a captain, what a conqueror, what a victor we have. Lord,
we pray that you would cause him to be exalted in our hearts
tonight. As we look to your word, Lord,
send your spirit, the wind of your spirit to blow upon your
word and make it alive and make it effectual and cause us, Lord,
to be drawn into thy presence and to worship thee. Lord, we thank you for your hand
of strength that you've given to Deanna and we pray that it
would continue and that they would be able to return and be
with us Sunday. And Father, we thank you for
the medicine that you provided for Jennifer. And we ask Lord
that you would bless this trial and Lord that you would use it
in your hand as the great physician to bring strength and healing
to our body. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, let's stand together.
We're gonna sing number 22 in the Sproul Hymnal. And I'm gonna
need a hymnal. Number 22. This will be sung
to the tune of Rock of Ages. We were ruined by the fall. Adam's sin defiles us all. By our deed as by our birth. We deserve the law's great curse. Helpless, hopeless sinners we. Never can our souls retreat. But the blessed Son of God came
as man in flesh and blood. ? He fulfilled the law's demands
? ? And in death stretched out his hands ? ? On the cross of
Calvary ? ? Christ redeemed and set us free ? ? In the time which
God had set ? Spirit came for His elect To regenerate and call
From the ruin of the fall By His power and by His grace We
were born for God's own praise ? Now your purpose we fulfill
? ? Saved according to your will ? ? Sing this song of joyful
praise ? ? For the glory of your grace ? ? Blessed Holy Triune
God ? All right, be seated please. Let's open our
Bibles together to Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter
one. I've titled this message, Made
Meat. M-E-E-T, made meat. What are we made meat for? Let's begin reading in verse
13. Who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness, I'm sorry, verse 12, giving thanks unto
the Father. which hath made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath
delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated
us into the kingdom of his dear son, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. This passage of scripture The
Lord is telling us what He's done to make us meet that we
might be partakers of the inheritance. And that's really everything,
isn't it? If we partake of the inheritance
of the saints in light, Don't you love the way the Lord uses
the word light here to describe heaven? This was what the inheritance
is. We know from God's Word that
there'll be no sun nor moon to give light. For the Lord Jesus
Christ, the land that sits upon the throne shall be the light
thereof. There should be no shadows, no
doubt, no darkness, questions everything will be perfectly
true and illuminated in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is the light of the world and he is the life of the world.
He said that in him is life and the life is the light of men. This We have light now that is somewhat
dim, but in that day when we inherit the fullness of His glory,
then the light will be perfect. And so the Lord's telling us
that we are to give thanks to God because He has made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of all the saints. The word saints
is the word sanctified. It's the word set apart. It's
the word holy. And that's what God has done
to make us meet. He has set us apart. He has sanctified
us in Christ. And we stand perfectly holy in
the presence of God in the person of our substitute. He that sanctifieth
and they that are sanctified are all as one, for which cause
he's not ashamed to call them his brethren." So here's the
inheritance of the saints in light is heaven. It's glory of God revealed in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we're We're told
that God has made us meat for that. If he doesn't make us meat
to inherit heaven and to inherit the fullness of Christ with all
the saints, we won't inherit. He has to make us fit for that
place. That's what the word meat means.
It means to be made fit. It means to be appropriate or
to be rendered fit or to be made able to inherit. The first time
we see this word meet in the scriptures is when after Adam
had named all the animals, God had him name every animal that
was there before Eve was created. Why? Because Adam came to see
that there was nothing in the animal kingdom that was meat
for him, that was fit for him. But you know, I was thinking
any one of those animals would be more fit as a part of Adam
than we are left in our unregenerate state fit for the kingdom of
God. We're not fit for it. We're not
suitable. We're not adequately able and
appropriate and prepared. And then as Adam is a type of
Christ and Eve is a type of the church, the Lord put Adam into
a deep sleep. which is what happened when the
Lord Jesus Christ bowed his head on Calvary's cross and died. And the Lord took from the side
of Adam, from his rib nearest to his heart, a piece of his
body and made his bride. And what a glorious picture of
this one now who is meat for him. She is a help. meet you know sometimes we we
put those put those words too too close together when we call
the the woman the help meet no she is a help meet for him adequately
suited for him and so it is that the lord jesus has made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance with all the saints in light
And so, he has to do that. He has to make us meet. We would not be fit. It would
not be appropriate for us to enter into glory and to inherit
the light and the glory of heaven unless the Lord does a work for
us and in us and to us. And Psalm 100 says, it is he that
made us and not we ourselves. We are his people, the sheep
of his pasture. We have to be just like the Lord
fashioned from the dust of the earth, our flesh, we have to
have him breathe into our nostrils the breath of life in order to
make us meet, to make us alive. And that's exactly what he does. Look at our text again. Verse
12, giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, in the
light of the gospel. If you walk in the light as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ cleanses us of all of our sins. The gospel is
called the light. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
light. The earth was without form and
void in Genesis chapter one, which is a picture of our spiritual
condition before God says, let there be light. Let there be
light. And there was. And so if the
Lord We are without form and void. And how does the Lord say
it? The wind blew upon the depths
of the deep. And God said, let there be light
there. Again, we see the spirit of God
blowing and the Lord speaking and making us something that
we weren't making us fit, making us adequate, making us appropriate
for the inheritance of the saints in light. We read in Galatians
chapter five, stand fast in the liberty with Christ has made
you free. We are dependent upon God to
make us something that we're not. We can't make ourselves
that. And if we're going to be fit
or meet for this inheritance, then God has to make us something
that we're not. And we cannot make ourselves.
He made us, the Bible says, accepted in the beloved. He did something
for us. He did the making. He created
something out of nothing. And he made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light. The Bible says that He made us
to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. He made that. We can't make that. We can't
make anything. We're the ones being made. And
we have to be made willing in the day of His power. We have
to be made a new creature. This is the work of grace. What
is the Lord saying? We thank God because he has made
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light. And he gets all the glory because
he did all the making. The Bible says that he makes
us unto our God kings and priests. We're not talking about kings
and priests among men. We're talking about kings and
priests in the presence of God. He made us kings and priests
unto our God. So that when we come into the
presence of God, we're of royal descent. We're of his family. And we have access into the very
presence of the throne of grace with confidence, knowing that
the Lord Jesus Christ has paved the way and he has made for us
what we could not make for ourselves. He creates a new thing in us,
a new nature, a new life, a new heart. And we thank Him for that. I fear sometimes that we jeopardize
the hope and the joy of our salvation by looking for that work of God
in us. or looking for that work of God
that we have done, rather than looking for the work that He
did for us. It's not the work that God does
in us or the work that God does by us. It's the work that God
did for us. He did it for us. And how do
we know that we've been made meat to receive the inheritance
of the saints, because we're looking to the work that he did
for us. We're looking outside of ourselves
to a work that we didn't have anything to do with. Now notice
in our text, there's four things in this passage of scripture
that God has to do in order to make us meet for the inheritance
with all the saints in light. Verse 13, who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness? That's the first thing. He has
to deliver us from darkness. You see the contrast here? between
the light of Christ and the light of truth, the light of heaven.
What a glorious place of light that's going to be. No darkness,
no shadows, no doubt, no fear, no uncertainty, just perfect
light, perfect truth, perfect love, perfect... He must deliver us from the power
of darkness. We come into this world born
spiritually blind, dark, unable to see the truth of the gospel,
unable to believe God. And in order for us to be made
by God, meet to be partakers of this inheritance, he has to
first deliver us from the power of darkness. Secondly, he has
to translate us into the kingdom of his dear son. He has to move
us not only out of the power of darkness, but into the kingdom
of light. Thirdly, verse 14, he has to
redeem us. He has to purchase us. In whom
we have redemption through his blood. That's the redemption
price. Fourthly, he has to forgive us of our sins. Now that's a
work done outside of us. And that's a work that God does
to make us meet so that we can be partakers of the inheritance
with all the saints in light. Let's take them one at a time
delivered from the power of darkness. As I quoted a moment ago, the
earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. That's how we come into this world, without form,
void, dark, ignorant, unable to believe. And if the Lord leaves
us there to ourselves, we'll not be able to see. What is more dark than death? Yet, the Lord says we are dead
in our trespasses and sins. That's our natural state. Our
natural state is that we're spiritually dead. We're spiritually blind. And he has to come and deliver
us. He has to deliver us. We can't
deliver ourselves. We're chained to a dark dungeon
of unbelief and we're not able to believe until he does for
us what that angel did for Peter. When you remember Peter was there
in prison and the prison doors were open and the chains fell
off. And the angel came and said, come on, let's go. And they walked
out of the prison and went to where the other disciples were
gathered there in Jerusalem. And they didn't believe that
he had been delivered. But that's exactly what the Lord
does. He breaks the chains. He came to set the prisoner free.
He has to deliver us from the power of darkness. He has to
do for us exactly what Moses did when he went down into Egypt
and delivered the children of Israel from the taskmasters of
the law. They were required to produce
something that they were not able to produce. And God requires
us to obey the law perfectly, and to
be righteous in His sight. But we can't. We're not able. We're blind. We're dead. We're under the power of darkness. And unless the Lord comes and
delivers us, we will not be meet to be partakers of the inheritance. But that's exactly what he does.
He sends his spirit and he breaks the chains and he opens the eyes
of the blind and he shows us. You see, there was a time in
your life and in my life, we didn't know we were blind. We
didn't know, we couldn't see, we were just going about. And
then the Lord opens the eyes of your understanding and you
say, well, I didn't know any, I was blind. I was blind, but
now I see. Now I see. Now I see who Christ
is. The living, successful Savior
of sinners. I see myself for what I am. Completely
sinful, unrighteous, and unable to do anything to save myself.
I see what God has done in order to make me meet, to be partakers
of the inheritance. He has borne my sins in his body
upon that tree. I see things that I never could
see before. So the first thing that the Lord
has to do in order to make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light is he has to deliver us from the power
of darkness. You couldn't believe. Have any
interest in believing? Somebody asked me recently, well,
you know, what do they think about the gospel? I said, well,
I think they're indifferent about it. They don't think anything
about it. They've come, they've listened. They act like they're
paying attention, but obviously they haven't heard anything.
they haven't gotten mad and they haven't gotten sad they're just
you know they're just indifferent and that's the way we would be
if the Lord did not deliver us from the power of darkness we'd
be indifferent to the gospel we would not believe and we wouldn't
know we didn't believe and we would not be able to believe
that's exactly what he does exactly what he does Notice the second thing that
the Lord does. This is why we give thanks. This is why we give thanks. Because
the Lord has made us meet. He has made us suited. He has
made us fit. He has made us adequate to be
partakers of the inheritance with all the saints in light
because he's delivered us from the power of darkness. We were under the control of
Satan. and never knew it. Never knew
it. You know, people, I hear people
get all concerned about, you know, someone engaging in what
they call devil worship, and that's an awful thing. But people
that are, that are you know, outwardly moral and religious
and people that are, you know, that are recognized as, you know,
God-fearing people are worshiping the devil, they don't know it.
They don't know it. We have to first be delivered
from the power of darkness. Secondly, we have to be translated
into the kingdom of his son. Now this word translated means
to be moved from one place to another. It really is the word transported. But the Bible speaks of translated.
I like that. I like both words because the
Lord has to translate the gospel for us. Otherwise, it's just
gibberish, isn't it? It's just an unknown tongue.
And the gospel has to be translated into the language of grace so
that we can hear it and believe it. But this word translated
means translated into the kingdom of his son means that he moved
us from one place, the power of darkness, to another place. I think of Enoch walking with
God and the Lord translated him so that he was not. He was moved
from this world into receiving the inheritance of the saints
in light. Why? Because the Lord translated
him. You know, it wasn't that Enoch just got so close to God
in his walk that he was closer to heaven than he was to earth.
No, the Lord had to translate him. The Lord had to move him
from one place to another. And that's what he does in order
to make us meet, to be partakers of the inheritance. He has to
move us, translate us. I think about that. that demoniac
in the gatherings. And when the Lord came to him
and he was chained to tombs, he was in the power of darkness.
Uh, he was cutting himself trying to, uh, trying to pay for his
sins, trying to atone for his sins. That's what the prophets
of Baal did on Mount Carmel. They were cutting themselves
and crying out. Is that not in one way or the
other? Is that not what we do in religion?
If we can punish ourselves enough, we can atone for our own sins. And what happened when the Lord
delivered him from that legion of devils? The Bible says that
he was clothed and in his right mind. In his right mind. He was translated. He was moved
from the power of darkness to the kingdom of the Son of God. And that's a picture of what
the Lord does every time he saves someone. What's he doing? He's
making us fit to be partakers of the inheritance with all the
saints in light. In order for that to happen,
He has to deliver us from the power of darkness and he has
to move us and translate us and transport us and transfer us
into the kingdom of his dear son. The one thing that cannot
be moved. We saw that Sunday from Hebrews
chapter 12 that the Lord moves all those things. Let's look
at that verse one more time. Hebrews chapter 12. Look at verse 26, whose voice then shook
the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake
not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once
more, signify the removing of those things that are shaken
as of those things that are made that those things which cannot
be shaken might remain, wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which
cannot be moved. Let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptable with reverence and godly fear. The
kingdom of God cannot be moved. You know, faith can't be moved. Not saving faith. God gives you
saving faith. You, you, you, we say, well,
I'm, I'm always fickled in my faith and I'm up and down and
I, you know, and I believe, but I don't believe, but you believe. You believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the son of the living God. You believe that salvation
is of the Lord. You do believe that you're a
sinner and that the only hope of you being saved is for him
to do it. You believe that. And that can't
change. If God's given you true saving
faith, you can't not believe. That's glorious. You can't do
it. It can't be moved. And he will
shake anything that can be shaken, anything that we make. Now we've
been talking about the things that God makes. He has made us. But now here in Hebrews chapter
12, it's talking about the things that we make. The things that
we make are all gonna be shaken. So that that which he makes cannot
be moved. That's glorious. What has he
made? He's made us partakers of the
inheritance with the saints in light that can't be shaken, that
can't be moved. He made it. What he makes is
sure and steadfast. He has to translate us into the
kingdom of his dear son. And that's what he does. He moves
us from one place to the other. He opens our hearts even like
he did for Lydia. Lydia was praying and trying
to find her way to heaven and trying to figure out, you know,
what God required in order for her to be saved. And Paul comes
to Philippi and finds her down by the riverside with some women
having a Bible study. And he preaches the gospel to
her. And the Bible says, and God opened Lydia's heart. He
opened her heart. He translated her. From that,
she was under the bondage of darkness. She was trying to figure
out a way to get to heaven. And the Lord
had to deliver her from that and translate her into the kingdom
of his dear son. It's the kingdom of Christ, the
kingdom of God. Oh, what a glorious thing it
is to be to be a part of that kingdom, to be moved from the
kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. That's an eternal translation,
isn't it? That's an eternal distance between
those two kingdoms. Notice the third thing that the
Lord has to do in order to make us meet, make us fit, to receive
the inheritance, to be partakers of that inheritance. I want to
be a partaker of that inheritance, don't you? I mean, that's the
only thing that's going to matter. What does it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? This is the
inheritance that we're interested in, isn't it? If we're to be
partakers of that inheritance, God has to make something in
us. He has to make something for us. He has to translate us
from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear
Son. Notice in verse 14, in whom we
have redemption through His blood. God has set a non-negotiable
price. Well, Tricia and I were. in one
of those salvage warehouses the other day looking for a stove
for our house. And they had one there. And,
you know, just a hodgepodge of different stuff. And I asked
the guy, I said, are these prices fixed or are they negotiable?
He said, well, I don't know. Let me go talk to the boss. And
he came back. It was negotiable. The price
was negotiable. It was just one of those kind
of places, you know. If you negotiate down a price,
you're going to do it, aren't you? The price that God requires
for the redemption of your soul is not negotiable. On top of
that, it's beyond your ability to pay. God has one price for
the redemption of our souls and the forgiveness of our sin. And
that's the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the only price he'll take. and anything we do to try to
add to that price only robs from Christ His glory in being the
Redeemer, in having accomplished the redemption of His people.
Here's our hope. God has made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance with all the saints in light. by delivering
us from the power of darkness, translating us into the kingdom
of his son, and redeeming us through the precious blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says life is in the
blood. We know that's true physically. So much can be determined. Doctor,
buy the blood. You go to a doctor, they're gonna
try to diagnose you. The first thing they're gonna
do is take a blood sample. They're gonna look at that blood and
find out what's in the blood, because your life is in that
blood. Oh, but how much more true that is of our spiritual
life. It is in that precious blood,
that priceless, and that's what the word precious means. It means
it's without price. You can't, there's not enough,
there's not enough money, there's not enough work. Yeah, I was
reading, I think it was Hawker, Robert Hawker the other day,
and he said, if God required only one good work in order for
you to be able to enter in to the inheritance of the, just
one, all you gotta do is perform one selfless work. He said I'd never be able to
do it. To will is present with me, but how to perform that which
is good I find not. Why? Because sin is ever present
with me. I would not be able to perform
one act that would earn me merit with God. I would not be able
to do it. God required that work. that
the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished when he shed his precious blood
on Calvary's cross. And that blood went directly
to the mercy seat. And God said, when I see the
blood, I will pass by you. Here's what God has done to make
us meet, to be partakers. of the inheritance
with all the saints in light. He has redeemed us. He has bought
us with his precious blood. He gave that blood. You see,
God had to be paid for that for our souls. He gave that blood
to his father. And the father saw the travail
of his soul. And the father said, I'm satisfied. That's what I
required. That's the pay. That's the redemption
price. It was non-negotiable. He paid every bit of it. Every
drop of his blood. Full payment has been made. Thou hast redeemed us to God
by thy blood. Oh, he's made us meat, brother.
We're meat. We're fit. We're suited. If we've
been If we've been delivered from darkness and translated
into the kingdom of his son, and if Christ's blood is all
God needs and all we need for the redemption of our souls,
then he's made us meet to be partakers. I hear somebody said, well, you
have to apply the blood. How are you going to do that?
How are you going to apply the blood? We've got to get under
the blood. How are you going to do that? You see, this blood
offering was a transaction between God the Son and His Heavenly
Father. We don't apply the blood. He
applied the blood. He put it on the mercy seat.
And it was sufficient to cover all our sins. That's why Isaiah
said, come, come. Buy wine and milk without money
and without price. You know, the excuse of poverty
can never be given for not coming to Christ. Because in fact, the
poorer you are, the more qualified you are. Come without money. You say,
well, I don't have any money. Well, good. good that qualifies
you if you don't have anything you can't do anything you don't
know anything you completely depend upon the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ come without money, without price. Don't try
to, you know, that word price means to barter. Kind of like
what we did the other day. We were trying to buy an oven.
We were bartering with this guy. Negotiating. Well, what can I
do for you? You do this for me. Matter of
fact, I bartered with a guy today. Guy came to our house. I had
put something on Craig's list. He brought me something. I gave
him something. We bartered. Men want to do that
with God. You want to barter with God.
God says, no, without money and without bartering, without price,
don't try to work. No, the price has already been
paid. It's been paid in full. The poorer you are, the more
qualified you are. Turn with me to Psalm 49, Psalm
49. Look at verse 7, Psalm 49, verse
7. None of them can by any means
redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him. You can't redeem yourself. You
can't redeem your brother. You can't give God what he requires. He has one price, only one price. And that price is the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. For the redemption of their soul
is without price. Precious, priceless. We call
things priceless. Nothing in this world is priceless.
Not material things anyway. But this is priceless. And notice the last part of verse
eight, and it ceaseth forever. You know what that means? You
get a letter from a lawyer and that letter has on the top of
it, cease and desist. That means under the threat of
the law, if you don't stop doing what you're doing and never do
it again, then the weight of the law is gonna come. That's
what cease and desist means. And that's exactly what this
is saying. Stop, and don't ever try to, you know, don't pick
back up. Don't go back to Egypt. Don't go back to Moab. Don't
go back to the law. Don't go back to works. Don't
go back to Sinai. Cease and desist. Here's what
the Lord's saying. Look at verse eight again. For the redemption of their soul
is precious and it ceases forever. It stops and it never, it never
comes back. In other words, it satisfies
now and forever what God requires for the salvation of our souls. Go back with me to our text real
quick. I said there were four things that God must do in order
to make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance with the saints
in light. He must deliver us from the power
of darkness. He must translate us into the
kingdom of his son. He must redeem us with the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he must, forgive us of our
sin. I don't know if I've ever looked
up that word forgive before, but I did in preparation for
this message. It means to lift up or to bear
or to carry away. It's what the word forgive means,
to lift it up, to bear it and carry it away. That's exactly
what the Lord Jesus Christ did when he hung on Calvary's cross.
He bore our sins in his body upon that tree. He lifted them
up and he bore them away. He carried them away. He buried
them in the depths of the sea. He separated them. Oh, blessed
is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered. The first time we see this word
forgive in the original language in the Bible is when Cain said,
my punishment is too great for me to bear. Well, your punishment and my
punishment is too great for us to bear. That's why the Lord
said, come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, all ye that
are burdened down. Your sin has become too heavy
for you. Come to me. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. I'll bear
it away. I took it away. He took it away by his death on Calvary's cross. He bore our sins in his body.
He carried them away. He's forgiven us. He prayed for
us. Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do. Peter, Satan has asked to sift
you, but be of good cheer. I have prayed for you. We have
the Lord Jesus Christ interceding for us. Let's close with 1 John
1. I want you to see something here.
First John chapter one. The Lord is the only one that
can forgive sin. You remember when the Lord had,
he was surrounded by people and there was an invalid that could
not get to him. And his friends carried him on
a bed and took him up to the roof and removed the tiles from
the roof and lowered him down. And the Lord looked at him and
said, he said, son, your sins are forgiven you. And the Pharisee
says, no man can forgive sins, but God, who's this man think
he is? And the Lord looked at them and said, What's easier
to say, your sins are forgiven or take up your bed and walk,
but that you might know that the son of man has the power
to forgive sins. I say unto you, take up your
bed and walk. And immediately that's exactly what he did. Proving
that he has the power to forgive sin. And that's exactly what
he does. to make us meet, to be partakers
of the inheritance with all the saints in light. Look at verse
nine of 1 John 1, and I want you to give special attention
to that little word, if. That little word, if. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. Now, the word confess, is a conjunction
of two words. The first word is to speak and
the second word is the same. In other words, to confess your
sin is not to make a list of all of your sins and somehow
try to, it's to speak the same thing about your sin that God
has spoken about it. What is that? That you're a sinner,
that everything about you is sinful. So to confess your sin
is to agree with God that everything about me is sinful. Okay. And the Lord says, if you confess,
if you agree with me, that you're a sinner, then I forgive your
sins and cleanse you of all of your unrighteousness. Or what
do you say preacher? Is this all conditioned on whether
or not I'm able and willing to confess? Well, let's, let's look
on. Look at there's another verse here. Chapter 2, verse 1. My little children, these things
I write unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
We have an advocate, one who intercedes on our behalf. and
presents to his father continually, himself, for the forgiveness
of our sin. But here again, you say, well,
is this conditioned on something I have to do? Well, yes and no. Let's look at chapter three of
1 John, verse one. Behold, oh, look at this, brethren,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth
us not because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know
that, when? Same word that we just
looked at in those other two verses, if. Now is it, is it possible that the Lord
Jesus Christ may not come? He may not fulfill his promise?
No. No. So this is the same word. When, when he shall appear, we
shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. So now go back
to the other two verses and let's, put the same word when in place
of if. When you confess your sins, when
you agree with God and speak the same thing to God that he
spoke to you that you're a sinner. He will forgive your sins and
cleanse you of all of your unrighteousness. Look at verse one. And when any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Oh, if the Lord has made us fit,
meet, adequate, proper to receive the inheritance, to
be partakers of the inheritance with all the saints, you're going
to agree with God about your sin. You're going to. continue to
need an advocate because sin's gonna be a continual problem
for you. And you're gonna know that there is a day when the
Lord Jesus Christ is gonna come again. And you're going to enjoy
the fullness of all the benefits of that inheritance that he has
made you fit for. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. Thank you for thy dear son and
the hope of our salvation. Thank you for making us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, go close.