Good to see you all. And I want
you to open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. And I want to deal for a little
bit this morning, speak to you for a little while on the subject,
one sacrifice for sin. One sacrifice for sin. And you know that one sacrifice
for sin is that of our blessed Redeemer, the Lord Jesus. By
his one sacrifice for sin, he did what Daniel said that he
would do. He made an end of our transgressions,
he put away our sins, and he brought in everlasting righteousness.
He satisfied the demands of God's justice. In this matter of salvation,
I know The religious world loves to talk about the love of God
and the grace of God. Well, I love to talk about the
love of God and the grace of God. But we know God's not going
to show his love or his grace and compromise his justice or
his law. He's not going to do that. He's
not going to show mercy at the expense of justice, will he? He can't do that and remain God. He'll never do that. In order
to save his people from his sins, he had to lay down his life,
a sacrifice for sin. He, bless his name, he came into
this world. God sent his son on a mission,
on a mission of mercy, on an errand, gave him a work to do. The Savior is born into this
world, born of a virgin, lived a life of perfection under the
law. And that life of perfection under
the law showed he is qualified to be the sacrifice of sin. You
remember when God gave the Passover lamb, he told the Israelites,
he told Moses and told Moses to tell the Israelites, said,
now you take your lamb, a male, firstling of the flock, and put
him up four days. Inspection. Look him over. Make sure there's nothing wrong
with him. He's got to be without spot. He's got to be without
blemish. Can't be anything wrong with
him. Four days, look him over good. Our Lord Jesus came into
this world. For about 33 years, he was looked
over real closely, right? He was made under the law. He
lived under parental law, civil law. God's law, and he was thoroughly
examined. Any blemish, any defilement,
disqualify him from being sacrificed. That old pilot, he kind of spoke
for everybody right there before our Lord died. He said, I find
no fault in this man. Ah, he's qualified to be sacrificed. This is the one who'll bring
in everlasting righteousness. This is the one who's the fit
substitute for sinners. And he died under the wrath of
God, bearing the sins of his people. Our indebtedness laid
on him. Really, he became responsible
for our indebtedness before the world ever began, didn't he?
That's exactly right. He stood as our surety in the
covenant of grace. God gave his people under his
son, said, you save them. You save them. You bring them
home righteous, in your righteousness. This is your responsibility.
Our Savior accepted full responsibility for the salvation of his people.
And right then and there, he became responsible to God for
my sins, to do something about them. 2,000 years ago, he'd done something. All the indebtedness of God's
people laid upon him. He bore responsibility to God
Almighty for our sinfulness. And he paid the debt. And you
know how I know he paid the debt? You know how I know that that
one sacrifice for sin satisfied God? and brought in righteousness,
and put our sins away, and God doesn't remember them anymore.
You know how I know? God exalted him. And there's
several stages of his exaltation. His resurrection. At resurrection,
that empty tomb says, the work is done to God's satisfaction. The resurrection says, sin has
been put an end to. It's over. Didn't the Savior
say on the cross, it is finished? Well, that's true. It's finished. It's completed. The work of redemption,
all God Almighty demanded for the salvation of His elect has
been accomplished. Finished. By the substitutionary
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's finished. It's finished. My debt's paid. And I know that
because He's been raised. Raised again for our, because
of our justification. And then he ascended back to
heaven. Oh, Psalm 24. Lift up the gates. The Lord of glory is coming back.
Victorious. Huh? The conqueror, right? The
conqueror. Not somebody who tried to do
something or other. but the one who saved his people
from their sins. His name is Jesus. What does
that mean? He shall save his people from
their sins. Did he do it? He did it. He ascended back to heaven and
sat down. And now he's run the whole shooting
match. The son of man is. As God, he
was entitled and indeed he did govern all things because he's
God. Now he reigns and governs all
things as the mediator, as the son of man. And he earned that. He earned that right by finishing
the work of redemption that the father gave him to do. He's the
only sacrifice that could put away sin. The only sacrifice. Look here in Hebrews chapter
10 verse 1. And I'll say this first. No animal's sacrifice
could put away sin. And we know that. No animal's
sacrifice could put away sin. Look at, what, how long I got? All right. I'll unbutton my collar then.
Okay. Look at verse one. For the law
having a shadow of good things to come. All those typologies of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, they, they were foretelling
someone glorious is coming. One who would do the work of
redemption. But they had no substance. See,
a shadow doesn't have any substance. Shadow doesn't have any reality
to it. They were just shadows. So he
says, for the law having a shadow of good things to come and not
the very image of the things can never, with those sacrifices
which they offered year by year continually, make the comers
there unto perfect. It's no telling how many thousands
upon thousands of animals died in the Old Testament. Starting
right there, actually starting in the Garden of Eden, right? That's where death first took
place, when our fallen parents defied God. Adam, the federal
head of all of us, he rebelled against God and we fell in him. We're cut off from God, estranged
from God. For by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned, that is, all sinned in Adam. We're
cut off from God. Nothing happened when Eve sinned.
She didn't represent anybody. But something happened when Adam
sinned. But I'll tell you, Adam's sin didn't take God off guard,
though, did it? Remember, the Lord had said,
He didn't say if you eat, He said when you eat. Look back at Genesis chapter
2. You ever notice this? Look at Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2, verse 16. And you know this well, but the
Word of God bears reading again and again, even though we may
be able to quote it. Look at Genesis 2, 16, the Lord
God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. For in the day that thou
eatest thereof, he didn't say now if you eat of it, he said
in the day you eat of it. In the day, if this didn't catch
God off guard, this didn't surprise God, This is going to work into
God's purpose of redemption. You see, a Savior's already been
appointed before the world began. He's the Lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. And you see, God makes all of
creation. And upon the stage of creation,
He will bring to pass that which is His greatest glory. The salvation
of a multitude of sinners through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherein His righteousness is
imputed to us and our sinfulness imputed or charged to Him. And
it's on this great stage of planet Earth that God brought redemption
to pass. And He's saving His people. Well,
this man sinned. And we all fell, like it or lump
it. It don't matter what you think
about it as far as the factuality of it's concerned. It's a fact.
We fell by representation. We didn't fall like the angels
fell, one by one. We fell by representation. Good
news. Good news. As we fell by representation,
we're saved by representation. Another representative man, Christ
Jesus the Lord. Well, Adam sinned, he fell, and
he went running from God. Man's been running from God ever
since, right? And he heard the voice, Adam
and Eve heard the voice of God calling in the cool of the day,
not in the heat of the day as in wrath, but in the cool of
the day as in mercy. Adam, where art thou? And God
never asks a question for information. Does he? God never asks a question
for information. This is to bring to Adam's conscience
and awareness his state of being. What kind of mess are you in
now? And Adam did what every son and daughter of Adam has
been doing ever since, running from God. He ran from God, and
he tried to cover his own shame by making an apron of fig leaves. And that is salvation by works.
Man's been doing that ever since. That just comes naturally, doesn't
it? It comes naturally. We're born
knowing how to sew, A fig leaf apron. You don't have to teach
anybody how to sew a fig leaf apron, do you? You don't have
to teach anybody salvation by works. You don't have to teach
anybody salvation conditioned upon your willingness, or your
deeds, or your law keeping, or your baptism. You don't have
to teach that. We know that. We're readily acceptive
of that message, aren't we? And the Lord dealt with the fallen
pair in great mercy. And he spoke to them. And I'll tell you this, the one
who spoke to them, I fully believe was the son of God. And I'll tell you why. God Almighty will not speak to
nor be spoken to by any son or daughter of Adam except through
a mediator. And that's the truth. God Almighty
will not speak to, He won't speak to you, and you're not going
to speak to Him except through a mediator, Jesus Christ the
Lord. And the Son of God spoke. He
announced his own coming. He identified himself. The seed
of the woman. The seed of the woman's coming. Oh, he's going to be wounded. His heel will be wounded. That's
his substitutionary death. But the head of the serpent is
going to be crushed. And then he illustrated what
he was going to do when he came. He took a couple of animals that
were altogether innocent of any crimes against God Almighty. And he killed them. And thus
there is set a vital principle is established right there in
Genesis chapter three. And it goes all the way through
the Bible, and it's just this. If the guilty are to go free,
a suitable, innocent substitute must die instead. And my friends,
as we all know, that theme runs all the way through the scripture. And he killed them animals. The
son of God shed the first blood in this world. And that blood
that was shed was typical of his own blood that he would shed
in time for the remission of sins. And then he stripped those
old fig leaf garments off our parents. I've thought about it and I bet
you all have too. How must they have felt then? Scared, nervous, shaken before
the Lord? Then in loving kindness, he covers their nakedness. He
covers their shame. His righteousness. Don't see their shame anymore.
Let me tell you something. In the Lord Jesus Christ, in
His death, we're made the righteousness of God in Him. You listen to
this scripture again. For He, God, hath made Him God
the Son to be sin for us. The old timers used to say to
be the sin bearer. That one who knew no sin and
he never did know any sin. Ever. Why? That we might be made the
righteousness of God. That's not the end of the sentence.
In Him. In Him. All my crimes charged
to Him, imputed to Him. His righteousness established
in His death. My soul, how wonderful this is. The very righteousness of God
Almighty. It's imputed to me. I won't have any sin. My sin's
gone. Right? Aren't our sins gone?
When God Almighty looks at us, He sees His Son. He sees Christ. There's no one can charge us
before God. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect is all charged to Christ. Our debt's paid. We find out about it in regeneration.
Right? That's when we find out about
it, and we're made gloriously happy. If I owed a big debt, and one of you went to the bank,
said, how much does a look up the account of James Ferguson
Berg? Boy, he's got a lot of indebtedness.
Yeah, well, put that all on my account. And here, I'm going to pay. I'm
going to cancel that. And here's a million dollars. Put that on his account. That's a done deal. And I don't
even know about it. Does the fact that I don't know
about it, does that have any bearing on the deal, so to speak? I don't have any bearing on it.
Let me tell you something. He sealed my pardon, paid the
debt, made me free. I didn't know about it. But that don't mean the debt
wasn't paid. A lot of people think, you know, when we believe,
that's when the debt's paid. Faith don't pay a debt. Faith believes the Son of God
who paid the debt. And the Spirit of God comes to
us in regeneration, in the new birth. He gives us life. And He makes
us to see, makes us to realize who God is and His holy requirements
and what we are in our filth. And I know we can't We can't
wrap our minds around God. The Spirit of God doesn't give
us total knowledge of God, but we learn something about God's
righteous demands, don't we? About how God hates sin. About
how God can only pardon the guilty through a suitable sacrifice.
The Spirit of God teaches us something about ourselves, Randy,
right? Gotta learn something about ourselves. About ourselves
and about the one we sinned against. Today in evangelism, it's just
present one, two, three, A, B, C. It's nothing to it. That fellow
told me one time, he said, getting saved's easy as falling off a
log. Well, hang on a minute. We're not talking about falling
off a log here. We're talking about the Spirit of the Living
God doing something to us, giving us life, revealing somebody to
our souls, to our hearts, getting a heart sight of the Son of God
in His glory. In regeneration, we're brought
to see the Lord Jesus Christ, who He is, and what He did for
sinners, and why He had to do it, why He alone had to do it.
and that it was done. And then we're made to rejoice in
Him, to look to Him, to believe Him, to hug up to Him, to lean
on Him. But that doesn't have anything
to do with putting our sins away. We hug up to Him saying, thank
you for putting them away. And we worship Him, don't we?
We love Him. Those animals, animal sacrifices,
They couldn't put sin away, but they pictured the one who would
do it. They pictured the one who would
do it. So over here in Hebrews 10, he tells us they couldn't
put sin away. They had to be continually offered.
Look back in Hebrews 10. He says in verse 2, 4, Would
they not have ceased to be offered? Well, surely they would have
ceased to have been offered, because the worshippers, if they
had been once purged, should have no more conscience of sins.
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again. This
is just every time another animal died on a Jewish altar, it was
a reminder, the sins are still there. Right? It's a reminder. The transaction
hadn't taken place yet. Verse 4, and here he states clearly,
for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should
put away sin. They were never intended to. The law was never intended to
be a means of salvation, for goodness sakes. I grew up in a free will fundamental
Baptist church, and if you didn't have a Scofield reference Bible,
my pastor used to say, y'all sell your boots and buy you one.
I mean, that was, and I'm not, if you got a Scofield reference
Bible, read the word of God, but ignore a lot of the notes,
okay? King James, when he commissioned those fellows to translate the
scriptures, he said, no human notes on the same page as sacred
scripture. That Scofield notes defies that. But that's another subject for
another day. But what I was going to say was
in Scofield's notes in John chapter 1, he's got the folks in the
Old Testament say, but keepin' the law. And the people in the
New Testament, now we say, but grace. I got news for you. Those who are saved anytime,
anyplace, any age, saved the same way. By the grace of God,
through the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? I don't care what you're talking
about, Abraham or Jim Casey. I don't care what you're talking
about, Noah or Randy Waitress. It don't matter who you're talking
about. With those who are saved, saved the same way. right there's
not a separate scheme for those fellows back there and then a
different one from us on they're justified by the righteous obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ just like we are just like we are
Christ Jesus at stone gym last night I think it was at at story
and I'm in filing when I'm You know, Onesimus had stolen some
money, and so Paul writes to Philemon. He says, now, if he
owes you aught, you put that on my account. Do you know how the Old Testament
saints were saved and justified before God? All their indebtedness
put on somebody else's account. He said, I'll pay. Here's my
righteousness. I'll pay. I'm good for it. God
the Father knew he was good for it, didn't he? He's good for
it. Christ came and paid their debt. He justified. He sanctifies. He cleanses. He purges by grace. through the merits of his own
blood, blood redemption, his sacrifice. We're saved the same
way they're saved. They weren't saved
by law, and us saved by grace. All saved by grace, for by grace
we're saved through faith. And faith's not even a condition.
That's a gift of God. We've got to be clear on this. Our salvation is conditioned
upon one person. and his obedience unto God. Isn't
that right? And my friend, there's no wiggle
room out of this now. This is a narrow way. This is
the only way it is. You say, well, my brother don't
believe exactly like this. Well, we're going to pray for
your brother because he needs to learn the gospel. We don't want to compromise.
We're not going to make allowances for other folks, are we? We're
not going to make allowances for error, even though we love
people and we appreciate them as far as our earthly relation. But if God the Spirit hasn't
given them an understanding of God's free gospel of grace, then
they're lost. They need Christ. They need the
grace of God. The fact of the matter is the
reason we have some understanding of how a just God can save sinners
this morning is because of the spirit of God's work to us and
in us, showing us, teaching us, instructing us. It's not because
we're smarter. It's not because we're more intelligent.
It's because God in his sovereignty singled us out and he taught
us. Isn't that right? What do you have that you didn't
receive? That's what Paul asks there in 1 Corinthians chapter
6. What do you have that you didn't receive? Why are you different
from somebody else? Here's your neighbor wrapped
up in free will works religion and they're fine people. I know
a lot of fine people who believe in salvation by works. I mean,
good neighbors, good in the community, and I'm talking about good the
way we use the word good. I understand there's nothing
good before God, but you know what I'm talking about. Neighborly
folks contribute to society, but they don't know God. And
we don't make allowances for them. I wanna, as a pastor, every
once in a while, there's some heartbreaking things happen.
I stand with a lady in our congregation. I've preached the gospel for
10 years. And her aunt died. And we were in the funeral home,
you know, at the casket, and I got my arm around her, trying
to console her, and she says, well, I'll tell you this, pastor.
She said, that's one woman I knows in heaven, because she's the
best woman I ever knew. That's like a dagger in my heart. That's not how folks wind up
in glory. They wind up in glory because
Jesus Christ paid their debt. Right? Because they're redeemed
by blood. Oh, my. Folks got to be taught,
don't they? Eyes got to be open. That's our
problem by nature is we're deaf to the message of the gospel.
And you know, it's really, please don't misunderstand me.
The gospel is, we're talking about the infinite wisdom of
God here, how God can be just and justify the ungodly. How
God can be a just God and a savior. But as to the declaration of
the gospel, it's a simple message. Really, isn't it? God accepts
me on account of somebody else. That's not too complicated, is
it? God saves sinners based upon
the righteous obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. His obedience
unto death, even the death of the cross. You mean I make no
contribution, preacher? The only contribution that you
make in salvation is the sin part. The sin, that's your only
contribution. You mean he does the rest? Yeah. You mean he fully satisfied the
demands of a holy God for me? Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. That's why the gospel's good
news, right? It's glad tidings of great joy. The message isn't sinner do. Man, some of these churches,
you gotta sign a covenant and sign all these things, what you
gonna do, what you gonna do. The message is not do, the message
is done. It's done. Job well done. You know how I know it's done?
You read further down here in Hebrews chapter 10. Our Lord
Jesus Christ went back to glory and sat down. He sat down. Job's well done. He'd been exalted. I said the
stages of his exaltation, resurrection, ascension, enthronement, coronation. And he rules in providence. He's
the one set forth over there in Revelation chapter 5. John
saw that book sealed with seven seals, and in that book sealed
with seven seals. That's the decrees of God Almighty. That's God's decree of predestination
of everything. The fates of men and angels and
everything's in that book sealed with seven seals and it's sealed.
And John said, I wept much because no man was found worthy to open
the book and to loose the seals thereof. But oh, the voice said,
don't weep, John. There's one who's worthy to open
it. The Lamb of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And he
took the book of God's decrees and he's opening the seals. You
know what he's doing today? The exalted son of God, he's
bringing to pass God's decree of predestination. That's what
providence is. Providence is God bringing to
pass, the Son of God bringing to pass in time what he purposed
to do in eternity. And every single thing that happens
in this whole wide world, God Almighty purposed it. He's the
first cause of everything. You say, explain that to me,
preacher. Well, I'll tell you, I'm not in the explaining business.
I'm in the proclaiming business. There's a whole lot that I proclaim
that I can't explain. And I believe a lot of times
we kind of get ourselves in trouble when we try to explain. Let's
just proclaim the gospel of God's free grace in Christ Jesus. He's
executing the decrees of God, bringing everything to pass.
And one of these days, this one whose blood put away our sin,
this one who's been exalted on the basis of his sacrifice, one of these days, he's coming
back. And every knee's gonna bow to
him. And every tongue's gonna confess that he's the Lord to
the glory of God the Father. there'll be universal homage
paid to Jesus Christ the Lord. Somebody said, salvation is paying
him homage now. Being brought by the spirit of
God to pay him homage now. So you gonna, we'll all go, everybody's
gonna honor him one day, right? Everybody's gonna honor Jesus
Christ. As far as we're concerned, it's
whether it's in this life or the next life. Salvation, if
it's salvation, it's in this life. We love his lordship. We love him. Because he first
loved us, we worship him. That one who's the one sacrifice
for sin. Redeemed by the blood of the
lamb. Ain't that wonderful? Just absolute glorious news. That's the good news I wanted
to share with you this morning. I hope I didn't go over it too
long.