Thank you, I appreciate it. It's
a delight to be back. It's been too long since we've
visited down here. And I can't say that the new
grandson didn't have anything to do with that, but it didn't
have everything to do with that. We think the world
of your pastor and are just delighted to have fellowship with him and
the gospel whenever we can. I'd like for you to be turning
to Leviticus chapter 7. I thought I did. I've got a light. I've got a green light. Okay. Can you hear me now? Okay. Alright. I'm speaking this morning from
a passage here in Leviticus 17, and I've given this title to
this message, Imputations, Single Foundation. I hope that the Lord
makes that clear to you by the time I'm done. Let's look at
verse 15, Leviticus 7 and verse 15. And you just keep on turning, I get
lost in those Old Testament pages myself, especially with onion
paper. Verse 15. And the flesh of the sacrifice
of his peace offerings for Thanksgiving shall be eaten. Notice this shall
be eaten the same day that it was offered. He should not leave
any of it until the morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering
be a vow or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day
that he offers his sacrifice. And on the morrow also, the remainder
of it shall be eaten. But notice verse 17. But the
remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall
be burnt with fire. Let's pray. Lord, you know And it's only
by your grace and direction that every time we speak, whether
we teach or whether we preach or whatever we do, we take it,
Lord, as our obligation and our great privilege to always speak
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, we recognize that in
all of these Old Testament books, they too were under that constraint.
They spoke of nothing but the glory of our Savior. And we pray
this morning that you would bless in the presentation, Lord, of
these efforts, that you would make of it a message, a gospel
message, a message that glorifies Christ and it uplifts your people. And Lord, if we've experienced
that this morning, we'll be fine and we'll be exalted and we'll
be happy and we'll rejoice. For it's in Christ's name we
pray. Amen. Let me begin by making it perfectly
clear that the sole foundation upon which the blessing of imputation
rests is not our faith. God does not impute righteousness
because you believe. It's not that way. You believe
because he imputed faith to you. Yet this is exactly the opposite. What I'm telling you is exactly
the opposite of what most people believe. In one form or another. I can illustrate this by, I remember
the day back in Bible college when one of our professors was
teaching about greater than, less than, or equal to. And he
was teaching about equivalence or equal to. And he said it goes
like this. He said, Abraham believed God
and it was counted unto him for righteousness therefore he concluded
in mathematical terms that imputation teaches us that faith is equal
to righteousness in God's eyes and he concluded with this statement
therefore when we put our faith in Christ God counts it as the
equivalent of righteousness At the time, I'll have to confess,
as a foolish freewheeler, at the wrong school, at the wrong
time, learning the wrong stuff, I remember that that struck me
like, boy, that's just innovative. That's just exceptionally deep. But nothing Nothing in this world
could be any further from the truth. And neither does it change
anything to say that righteousness is imputed when faith is the
gift of God, instead of when faith is the supposed free will
of a man. For in whatever case, the underlying
assumption is that faith is what causes or brings about the imputation
of righteousness to a dead sinner. And there's the problem. How
can a dead sinner ask for righteousness? How can a dead sinner seek righteousness? No. It's not that God responds
to us and gives us his righteousness for something we did and therefore
my calling and his giving is all the same. No. We're dead
sinners. Dead sinners can't do anything.
And imputation has nothing to do with what you do or what I
do. If God imputes His glorious righteousness to you. What's
that word impute mean, Mark? Impute means that He gives to
you in the same fullness that it applies to Him, the very righteousness
of God. That is the imputation of righteousness.
And it has nothing to do with anything we do. So the whole
point of this passage is summarized for us in that central verse
of verse 18, it, that is the sacrifice, shall not be accepted. Neither shall it be imputed unto
him. In other words, the benefit of
the sacrifice will not belong to that person who offered it.
It shall not be accepted. Now we need to understand why.
This is what we're looking for. No theology degree required.
If God does not accept the sacrifice, He will not impute the righteousness
to that sinner. If the sacrifice is not sufficient,
if the sacrifice is not acceptable, if it's not what pleases God
and sets His wrath at ease, it will not be accepted. If the sacrifice is accepted,
He will always always impute the righteousness. Where the
sacrifice, the God-demanded sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ has
been given in your behalf, it will always be accepted as your
righteousness by God Almighty. No amount of believing ourselves
to be saved will ever make it so if the sacrifice has not been
accepted. No amount of repentance for sin
will ever find forgiveness. Just saying, Lord, I'm sorry.
I repent. Please forgive me. No amount
of repentance for sin will ever find forgiveness as long as our
sacrifice is unacceptable to God. No amount of good works,
no amount of right doctrine, no amount of self-sacrifice will
ever succeed in bringing about the imputation of righteousness.
For these are not the foundation of it. Things that we can do,
things that we can participate in can never be the ground of
righteousness. No, if you have any knowledge
of God, any love for Christ, any life in the Spirit, you know
that there can only be one cause, one reason, and one sure foundation
of the righteousness imputed to us, and that is the sovereign,
invincible, and irrevocable sacrifice of Christ. If He's your sacrifice,
I can guarantee you that the righteousness has been imputed
to you. And that when God looks at you, He sees nothing but the
absolute righteousness of Christ, if that's your case. Now what
was it that made the sacrifice of Israel's peace offerings unacceptable
in this passage we read? Verse 15 specifies that the sacrifice
shall be eaten the same day that it was offered. And it further
directs that to leave any of it until the morning of the next
day was not to be done. It had a symbolism that could
not be allowed. Verse 16 repeats that charge
to show that it applied not only to all the peace offerings, regardless
of type, not just this one that was the subject of the verse.
And then in verse 17, it strictly obligates the worshiper to burn
any part of the sacrifice that was not consumed. No leftovers
allowed by the morning of the third day. Third day. Though they could at all, at
the most extreme limit, they could either be offering the
second day, the morning of the second day, But to partake of
it on the third day, constituted what the scripture writer was
directed to write, it constituted an abomination. An abomination. Something that God would not
accept. It resulted in the sacrifice being rejected to eat it after
the third day. And there was no provision for
the forgiveness of sins after the third day. And certainly
no imputation of righteousness. May God bless us to be able to
discern the significance of these Old Testament types, because
they're wonderful. They're wonderful in their teaching.
They only have meaning for the believer. Remember, it was written
in the days before refrigeration, and it concerned a people dwelling
in a rather temperate region that had high temperatures, comparable
to something like the Deep South. Grilled meat might last for a
day at the least. And if the night was cool, you
might could eat it the next morning without it being too tarnished. But if it was left for two full
days in the desert heat, regardless of how cool it got at night,
it would certainly be well into the process of decay by that
third morning. He said, don't eat it decayed. That loathsome act of looking
to a putrid, decaying, rotten piece of dead meat and looking
at that as a means of being found righteous, even for Old Testament
saints, was absolutely unacceptable to God as a symbol of the glorious
sacrifice of His Son. No hunk of dead meat. God will
not receive a dead Christ. He only receives a fresh one.
Psalm 1610 speaks of this, let me read that to you. For thou
will not leave my soul in hell, Christ said. That would be the
equivalent of a three-day old set of sacrifice. Thou will not
leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer, thine
holy one, to see corruption decay. He wasn't left in that stone
tomb until he stunk and rotted and the meat fell off the bones.
What kind of a Christ would we be looking to if that was the
best we could come up with? If we would partake of an old
rotten sacrifice? Oh no. David speaks about it. David speaks concerning him.
I foresaw the Lord always before my face. Not that he had died
and not that he is missing, but he's always before my face. For
he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore
did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad. Moreover, did my flesh,
my flesh shall rest in hope because thou will not leave, thou will
not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer thine
holy one to see corruption." I hope you begin to see what
the Old Testament writer was writing about in Leviticus. Peter
goes on to say, to show that the resurrection of Christ, that
it was the resurrection of Christ that was violated by consuming
this decaying and rotten flesh. Peter writes and says, men and
brethren, let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David.
that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us
unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, knowing that God had
sworn an oath unto him, that of the fruit of his loins, according
to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne,
he, seeing this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ,
that his soul was not left in hell, Neither did his flesh see
corruption, this Jesus God hath raised up, whereof we all are
witnesses." It's not by accident then that the Old Testament commandment
denied partaking of the sacrifice on the third day. For it was
the third day that Christ rose from the dead. No rotten piece
of meat could ever prefigure our Lord's victorious death.
For decay speaks of a failure to redeem, not of Christ's immutable
accomplishment on the cross that cannot be reversed. No wonder
God said of those who would trust in such a hideous distortion
of Christ, it shall be an abomination to you. And the soul that eats
of it shall bear his own iniquity. Your sacrifice is not sufficient.
But what Israelite, think about that, what Israelite would insist
on finishing off the decaying remains of a three-day-old sacrifice? What kind of person would do
that? Only those who were not truly
saved. For anyone who saw Christ union
with Christ foreshadowed in the ingestion of this peace offering
would surely eat it all in haste. Is that not your heart? It's
mine. I want everything of Christ that I can get my teeth on. I
want everything in Christ that I can gorge my heart with. I
want to eat and live on and survive on and know only life. in Christ. Surely these Old Testament followers
of Jehovah had no understanding of that Christ. Those whom God
quickens together with Christ come forth from spiritual death
with a voracious appetite for everything that pertains to Christ
and they cannot get enough of Him. They come eagerly to the
feast and they waste no time Engorging their righteousness
starved souls on all the richness of their Savior May the Lord
forbid us and prevent us from being Happy with the life that
we have in this world in it easy in this easy They're making such
neat stuff these days There's inventing all kinds of new stuff
makes things easier makes things fun or makes things more interesting.
I I believe I would just rather have the one who is all in everything. He's all we need. But those religious
souls, religious whose souls are still dead in trespasses
and sins and feel no hunger for union with Christ, they're not
driven by a spiritual need to worship Christ. They come seldom
to the assembly of God's people, and their mock participation
in the service is only to appear to be righteous before men. or
to escape the embarrassment of being labeled as unfaithful,
or merely to go through the vain ritual of appeasing a guilty
conscience, as so many who come to church do. Such folks' religious
experience is about the same as choking down a piece of three-day-old
dead meat, rotten flesh, in the name of Christ. So, in light
of the New Testament commentary from the book of Acts, Leviticus
chapter 7, verses 15 through 18, is clearly teaching this
truth. True imputation of righteousness is solely dependent on the successful
sacrifice of the Son of God. And since the Old Testament sacrifices
were rejected and righteousness was not imputed when the offering
was rotten, we understand that the effectiveness of Christ's
death is revealed in what the Bible teaches about his resurrection
from the grave. Now talking about whether or
not you believe in the historical fact of it, that argument will
go on long after we're all dead. I'm concerned with whether you
personally believe in the eternally irreversible effects of Christ's
sacrifice that were guaranteed by His glorious resurrection.
Do we look to the sacrifice that actually can save, actually has
the power to save? Listen, let me read to you Peter's
conclusion of the resurrection that he spoke in Acts chapter
2. Christ, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of
death because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
Not possible. Why was that true? because he's
equal with the father he is was that true because he's the son
of God he is was it true because he's the lamb of God all of the
above are true if understood correctly for because of who
he is we are convinced of what he did tell me that some someone
named Mohammed died for the sins of all his people and put them
away I I got no time for that I got no time for that Read for
me from God's Word, where the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ,
actually took upon Himself the sins of His people and suffered
under the hand of God Almighty the eternal sufferings for those
sins. Tell me that that was eternally good and eternally valid and
eternally successful. I'll believe that. I'll believe
that. Because of who He is, we are
convinced of what He did. He fully satisfied everything
God's justice demanded from him as the substitutionary sacrifice
of his people. Therefore, to have left the Lord
Jesus to rot in the grave would have been a clear declaration
that Christ had failed to pay the full penalty of our sins.
And the Bible only has one thing to say about such foolishness
as that. Impossible. Impossible. Romans chapter 8
it says he who spared not his own son but delivered him up
for us all How shall he not with him? Also freely give us all
things why? Why I walk I walk softly when
I talk about obligating God But God Almighty, God the Father
obligated Himself. He obligated Himself through
this transaction that transcends all time and all eternity. He
obligated Himself that everyone for whom Christ died, who is
that preacher? Who are those people? You can't
tell by looking, I can tell you that. You can't tell by what
they do and don't do, I can tell you that. You can read the Bible
full of sins of God's people. But I do know this, I do know
that God the Father obligated himself through an eternal, through
an eternal decree that everyone for whom Christ died Every single
one in this room and every single one around this world down through
time from generation to generation that God chose in His eternal
electing grace and saddled the Lord Jesus Christ with every
one of those sins on that day on that cross and He put them
away. I know that He succeeded in putting them away because
After on the third day he rose No dead sacrifice in that you
will not find a dead Christ in that tomb. He's not there. You
will not find a rotten Decaying carcass there. No, you'll not
find it because he lives He succeeded He put he swallowed every one
of those sins and put them away He put them away so far that
God the Father can't even find them. They do not exist anymore. I Oh, no wonder Paul wrote that. He who spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him, together
with him, in union with him also freely give us all things? Here Paul clearly summarizes
that same impossibility that Peter proclaimed at Pentecost.
If God did not spare a single ounce of the awesome weight of
his wrath against his beloved son, but delivered him up to
eternal death that all of his people deserve, then we must
answer this one question if we would see the full splendor of
Christ's sacrifice. How could God not impute? How could God not impute the
righteousness to even one sinner whose sins were so completely
and successfully put away? He'd have to stop being God,
and no bad. But he'd be a liar. He'd be one who'd back down on
his promise, and that will never happen. Who shall lay anything,
the writer said, This is how trustworthy God is. This is how
effectual Christ is. This is how successful his death
was and justified in the resurrection. Who shall lay anything, anything
to the charge of God's elect? I can think of a whole lot of
things that could be laid to the charge of this one of God's
elect. I could probably find out some
things on you that should be laid to your charge. But they
cannot be. They cannot be. They were already
laid to the charge of another. God's already taken care of that
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's God who justifies. I don't care what the preacher
says. I don't care what the pope says. I don't care what the king
says. I don't care what anybody says.
I don't care who the commentator is. God said, it's done, and
the sins were put away. I'm gonna take him at his word.
I'm gonna rest in that. How could anyone impute any sin
to even the most wretched sinner for whom Christ died? God justified
every last one of those despicable people for whom Christ died,
every last one. Who are you to say it ain't so? If Christ died for all sins of
all mankind, of all generations, and we know that not all of them
went to heaven, how could this be true? That's not what the
Bible teaches. The Bible's wonderfully clear.
It's the sin-darkened mind of man that reads selectively about
the quickening grace of God. It doesn't say Christ died for
every son and daughter of Adam's race, but I can tell you this.
If he did, everyone would be saved. The inspired word plainly
says here that it was in behalf of God's elect, his chosen. I heard this statement years
ago from Brother Henry Mahan. He said, you can tell and understand
the scope of what Christ did by the accomplishment of it.
We know that Christ particularly bore the sins of God's chosen
people because of what the Bible teaches so clearly and transparently
about the absolute success of his death. Verse 34 says, who is he who
condemns? Who can possibly condemn and
what a statement this is about the effectiveness and the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder we meet here every
Sunday morning and Sunday night and through the week and other
times and we can never, we can never give him the glory he deserves. Who is he who condemns? It's
Christ that died. Paul persists in demonstrating
the impossibility of any failure of the sacrifice of this one
so glorious. To condemn a single one of God's
chosen race simply cannot be done. It cannot be done. Because it's Christ who bore
their sins in his own body on the tree. You shall call his
name Jesus, Matthew wrote. What did he say? For he shall
save his people from their sins. Do you think he didn't? Do you
think it didn't work? No way. This is the Lord Jesus
Christ we're talking about. That verse speaks about specific
sinners. particular sins and a successful
Savior. And who? Show me a religionist. What pope? What religious order can say, show me one who
can prove that a single object of the Redeemer's infallible
sacrifice now rise in the pit of hell. You'll not find one.
Whatever we may have in our minds, whatever we may doubt, whatever
we may work up as sinful men in this world, in God's mind,
it's absolutely impossible that the blood be shed and the sacrifice
be made and the sinner not be saved. Now, no rotten meat here. Living Savior is all we have.
We rely on Him. And yet the verse doesn't end
there, for it goes on to provide an even greater assurance of
Christ's victory. Yea, rather, I'm going to tell
you something even better, who is risen again, who is even at
the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. I hope you can see the purpose
of the resurrection in these words. The proof that none, not
one, of those for whom Christ died have ever perished under
the wrath of God or ever will or even can is this. He rose
again. He rose again. May we not be
deceived. The resurrection of Christ is
not a sign of the mere possibility of salvation for all sinners.
That's the grievous error of false religion. God loves you
and he wants to save you. Christ died for you and he wants
to save you. If you just let him, he can save
you. No No, do you really want to
be in the equation of salvation? Do you really want to be a factor?
In what God determines to do with you. I don't want to be
nowhere in that. I Don't want to depend on Mark Daniel anyway
No, I want it to be his doing and his doing alone. No The resurrection of Christ has
not been the sign of a mere possibility of salvation for all sinners,
but his resurrection is the revelation of a guaranteed salvation for
every last sinner for whom he died. What's more, ever since
his resurrection and return to sit at the right hand of the
judge of all men, Christ has never ceased to intercede for
those beloved ones that he redeemed. Therefore we are perpetually,
perpetually preserved. What does the Bible say? accepted
in the beloved. That's a good place. That's a
safe place. Nobody's ever been hurt there.
Accepted in the beloved. So who in our day then could
the Old Testament symbolism be referring to that we read back
in Leviticus? Well, they would probably have the appearance
of being saved like many today. For those unsaved Jews that were
in that congregation couldn't be immediately discerned from
the other Israelites. Those who ate the rotten meat
and those who ate the good meat probably both looked like the
same people. They would likewise seem to hold Christ in high regard
for the false worshipers of that text were offering sacrifices
alongside the people of Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle.
They all brought their sacrifice. But their ignorance of Christ
will be evident from their ultimate disregard for the glory of his
sacrifice. Just as those ancient pretenders,
can you imagine that? They would all go and present
their sacrifice, and whatever distracted their thoughts, where
they didn't finish it as they were supposed to on the first
day, and they got up the second day that next morning, they could
have finished it then, but they got busy doing something. They
were thinking about something. I wonder what it is. What is
it that preoccupies men? I just know that there's a sinful
nature in me and a sinful nature in each one of you that distracts
us all day long and all night long, every day around the clock
to look somewhere else. And I know where you look. Because
I know where I look by nature. I look at this idiot. I look
at this idiot right here, and I wonder what I could do that
would make God happy. And I wonder what I could do
that would make God be pleased with me. And I think, what could
I do to do a better job for Him? What an idiot. People back in Leviticus were
doing the same. Some were looking at that sacrifice and by the
grace of God and the movement of the Holy Spirit had some understanding
of someone else taking their place and taking their sin upon
themselves and putting it away. And they reflected that by eating
it before it was three day old and rotten. And some of those
people would wait until that thing had been laying around
there in the desert until it was putrid. And they'd pull that
thing out and they would doctor it up a little bit and they would
try to put a little salt on it and put a few vegetables with
it and they would eat that thing. To their own condemnation. There
are people around the country and around the world this very
day who come in the name of Christ, they come with the book of Christ,
and they have nothing to do with Christ. They believe that they
have to add something to that, to what he did to make it work.
Choking down three-day-old dead meats, all that is. Oh my. This whole thing, this whole
message I'm trying to preach here this morning is simply this.
May God be pleased to grant us It's a grace. It's a grace. I've
tried now for 60 years. I've tried to keep my mind straight
on the doctrines of grace. I've tried to keep my heart straight
on loving God. And I've tried to keep my walk
straight by doing what I think would please God. And you know,
I don't put any stock in any of that stuff. I really don't. I don't remember ever praying
a prayer that was worth praying because it came out of this man.
I don't remember about doing any good deed that was worth
anything that would redeem me in the face of God Almighty because
it came from this sinner. I don't remember that there was
anything that I could do with Christ to make him successfully
atoned for me. Not a thing I can do. And that's
why they call it mercy. That's why we call it mercy.
I'm looking to Christ and Christ alone and whenever I get around
where He is, figuratively speaking, and whenever I'm among God's
people and the bread is broken and I see the life of Christ,
The blood is passed in the in the form of the wine I partake
of that And I don't take it home with me and set it back on a
shelf and say I'll do it later on I'm busy or it'll be good
next week. No, I Live all of us all of us
who are saved by the grace of God we live we live by the grace
of God and we eat and of the Lord Jesus Christ and we drink
of the Lord Jesus Christ and all of our life is tied up with
Him. May we never, may we never look anywhere else except to
the successful sacrifice made known to us as successful because
He rose again on the third day. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we don't know, we
don't know what motivated the Father to send you for such sinners
as we are. Even those of us, Lord, here
this morning who have been somehow united through the Spirit of
God with the very person of Christ, and we know some something, we
have some understanding of your glory and your grace and our
tremendous need for it. Lord, I don't know why you have
done us this way, but we are so thankful. And we confess here
this morning, Lord, that we look to that sacrifice that was gone
from the tomb on the third day. And we look to nothing, Lord,
that we've saved back. We have nothing that we've put
away in the closet of our heart that we felt like was worth keeping.
Some deed we've done. some work we finished, some desire
we have, we look to the resurrected Savior and He is all we need
and we are sufficed. For it's in His name we pray.
Amen.