Now those of you who were with
us last evening will know that tonight is really the last half
of last night's sermon and then half of what would have been
tonight's sermon. But as we began to study the
scriptures together, the Lord was pleased to enlarge our hearts
and to give us a little glimpse of the glory of himself against
the backdrop of our own desperate need And for those who were not
with us, I should just say that the subject matter assigned to
me for my two messages in this special and very wonderful week
of celebration is the rather lengthy title, The Glory of God
in the Accomplishment and in the Application of Redemption. And what I attempted to do last
night in the space of about an hour and five or ten minutes
was two things. Number one, to give you a working
definition of the key words in that theme. There's no use talking
about the glory of God in the accomplishment and the application
of redemption if those words mean nothing to us. And what
we saw from the scriptures was that the glory of God is nothing
more or less than the outshining of God's perfection. God's glory
is to his person what the rays and beams of the sun are to the
sun. And so we are concerned in these
nights to fix our attention upon the glory of God, the outshining
of God's perfection, particularly in his work of redemption. That is, his work of grace and
power in delivering sinners from sin and its consequences through
the payment of a price. And we're going to consider that
mighty work in two aspects, its accomplishment and its application. Its accomplishment is what God
did in the life history of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.
Its application is what God does in the life history of a sinner,
from the time He made hold of that sinner, calls him into a
state of grace, all the way to the point where He glorifies
that sinner at the last day. And so we are concerned to understand
from Scripture how God's glory, God's perfection, shine out of
His work in the life history of Jesus, in procuring, securing
redemption for people, and in the life history of the sinners,
when God actually saved him by grace. And then the second thing
I attempted to do was to give you an accurate picture of the
backdrop of God's work of redemption accomplished and applied. I used
the imagery of the diamonds, This shines most diligently against
the dark backdrop of black velvet. And unless we see the dark backdrop
of man's true condition, we will never appreciate the glory of
God in His redemption. And we saw our condition under
four headings. as the frightening reality of
human guilt. Our guilt is like a vast, dark,
present cloud hanging over our heads, waiting to break upon
us and press us into hell. Our terrible, sinful state can
be likened to a sickening reality. of our human defilement. The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked. And then it is to be seen in
the withering reality of human bondage, whoso commits sin, Jesus
said, is the very slave of sin. And then the humbling reality
of spiritual death. You have been made alive who
were dead in your trespasses and in your sins. and we will
never appreciate the brightness of the outshining of God's glory
in redemption accomplished and applied unless we are taught
by the Word and the Spirit just how bad we are. For God's redemption
is designed not for people who just have a little kink or wrinkle
in their humanity, it's designed for people under real guilt with
real defilement, with real bondage, and real death. And if we would
see God's glory in delivering us out of that guilt, out of
that defilement, out of that bondage, and out of that death,
then we must take seriously what the Scripture tells us. Well, then, someone may ask,
as we move on into our study tonight, Why in the world be
excited about the glory of God in the first place? Aren't there
a lot of other things that we ought to be more concerned about?
Well, I want to introduce our study tonight by saying very
simply, if you're not fascinated and turned on and captivated
by the glory of God, heaven would be hell to you. You say, prove
that in the Bible. All right, I'll do that. Turn
to Revelation 21. And verse 22 tells us, as John
has a vision of what heaven is like, I saw no temple therein,
John 21, 22. I'm sorry, Revelation 21, 22. I saw no temple therein, for
the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof,
and the city had no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine
upon it. For the glory of God did light
in it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb, and the nation shall
walk amidst the light thereof." Walk in the light of what? in
the light of that which is the light of heaven, and what is
the light of heaven? The glory of God. The only light
needed in heaven is the outshining of the perfections of God. That's
what's going to lighten heaven, and there'll be no night. That
will be the joy of all the redeemed in heaven, is to behold God's
glory and the glory of the Lamb. And if you have no delight in
beholding that glory now, there's no proof. that death will make
any change if you have any delight to behold it in that place to
come. So now, having put that brief
review behind us, and I hope convinced you of how important
is the subject, now we come to consider tonight, in a very condensed
form, the glory of God in redemption accomplished—that will be our
first head—and secondly, the glory of God in redemption applied. Now remember what we're concerned
to do. We want to discover what perfections
of God shine out from that work that God did in the life history
of Jesus. Well, in a real sense, the work
of Christ for sinners forms the brightest display of God's glory
ever made in the universe. God displayed His glory in the
original creation. The heavens declare the glory
of God. He displayed the outshining of
His wisdom, of His power, of His goodness, of His love. But the greatest display of God's
glory ever made in the universe was made in the person and work
of Christ, and in particular, in His work of dying upon the
cross. Every attribute of God finds
its clearest and most moving and powerful expression in the
midst of the blood and the sore and the agony and the blackened
heavens of Golgotha. There the brightest displays
of God's glory that have ever been made were made. We might
think of the glory of His love in determining to redeem an innumerable
company of hell-deserving sinners. We might contemplate the glory
of that love. God so loved the world, a world
of rebels, guilty, defiled, polluted, bound, dead, sinners, that which
would make God want to wreck as He looks upon us. But He so
loved that he was determined to spend his only begotten son
for such sinners as he determined in eternity he would save by
his grace. We might meditate upon the glory
of his love in redemption accomplished. We might meditate upon the glory
of his wisdom in ever conceiving such a plan. Think of the wisdom
that was needed To resolve this problem, a holy God made man
and said to man, you're accountable to me. If you disobey me and
break my law, I must punish you. Because I'm God, I keep my word. I will not clear the guilty.
I will punish sin. Man, the sinner, is found in
his sin, dead in his sin, chained to his sin. Can he help himself? No. God is holy. Can he simply
turn his back and say, well, I didn't see it? Can you simply
blink man's sin away? No, that would stain his justice. Well, how can something be done
to rescue man, the sinner, without staining the honor of God, who
is holy and just and righteous? And that's the problem that God's
wisdom is on. The wisdom of God went to work
and conceived the inconceivable. one of the persons of the Godhead. It is determined that one of
the persons of the Godhead shall become a man without in any way
relinquishing anything that he is his God. He would take to
himself a human soul and a human body, and the offended God one
of the persons of the Godhead to take our humanity, and in
that humanity to live and to die to satisfy all the demands
of justice, that God might be a just God and still pardon sinners? And then send another person
of the job head to open the blind sinner's eyes, to snap his chain,
to give him a new heart. Oh, what wisdom is displayed
in the gospel. And we might meditate on it,
but I don't have time to. But what I want to do tonight
is I want us to meditate on just one beam of glory that shines
in the accomplishment of redemption. Not the glory of His love, though
that's there. Not the glory of His wisdom,
though that's there. For Christ is called the wisdom
of God, and in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
But I want us to focus on the most neglected aspect of God's
glory in the accomplishments of redemption. And you know what
it is? It is the glory of His justice. We're going to meditate for the
next 15 or 20 minutes on the glory, the outshining of the
perfections of God's justice revealed in the accomplishment
of salvation. Now, in what way is this justice
revealed? Turn in your Bibles to what is
the key text in all of the New Testament on this subject, Romans
chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. Paul has demonstrated
that every single segment of the human race is under sin. All humanity is under condemnation. Now he's going to begin to expound
the gospel, God's answer to the problem of human sin. And when
he does, we pick up the reading at Romans 3.23, for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by His grace," notice now, "...through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God sets forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood, to show His righteousness because
of the passing over of the sins done aforetime in the forbearance
of God, for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this
present season, that he might himself be just, and the justifier
of him that has faith in Jesus." Now, I don't have time, and it
would be impossible to break it down to the place where the
children could grasp this closely reasoned thread of thought. But
surely this much is clear to the youngest of you children,
that when Paul starts to expound the gospel, he says the gospel
of redemption in Jesus Christ has to do with God finding a
way to justify sinners and still be just in doubt. You see that? that he might be just, and the
justifier of him that has faith in Jesus. The heart of the gospel
is the revelation of the glory of God's justice. God does not
rub out His justice in order to save sinners. He magnifies
His justice in the salvation of sinners. Now think of the
problem. God is the judge of the world. Man as his creature. God says,
Obey me, and you will be blessed. Disobey me, and you will suffer
the consequences of death. We saw last night that in Adam
we all sinned. We've added to that original
sin our own personal sins, and we are guilty. And yet God is
determined that out of a human race He will take a vast multitude
whom no man can number, out of every kindred tribe and tongue
and nation, and He will forgive them, He will redeem them, He
will make them His own. But now how is He going to do
it? How can He do it in such a way that every last dropping
tittle of His law will have its full demand met? and yet the
sinner go free. We've sinned thousands and thousands
of times. How can God punish those sins
and still not send us all to hell? How can He be a just God
and punish sins and yet accept and forgive sinners? Can He simply
wave His hand? No, because His justice would
be crying out, The sinner must be punished. You said the wages
of sin is death. You will by no means clear the
guilty. You are pure. I am sent to look
upon iniquity. So what does God do? In infinite
woes and grief, God sends his only begotten Son. And what does
he do? Turn to Galatians chapter 4 for
the answer. In Galatians chapter 4, the Lord
Jesus The eternal Son of God who came from heaven, taking
to himself in Mary's womb a true human soul and a true human spirit,
ever continuing what he always had been, God of God, but now
taking something he never had before, a true humanity. And in the mystery of the person
of Jesus, the two distinct natures in the one person In Mary's womb,
there is a real human baby. At the time when a baby's birth
has the signs of the bottoming of life, Mary, with excitement,
granted Joseph out in the carpenter's shop and said, Joseph, Joseph,
I felt life. And as his tummy began to swell
and the little baby Jesus would poke an elbow and kick and do
a flip-flop, she said, Joseph, Joseph, come and see it. I think
it's his elbow. I think it's his foot. God, God in faith,
in the womb of a little peasant girl in Judea. And yet, that
God is taking a real humanity. And when he's brought forth,
don't believe that this was fondly praised. The cattle are lowing,
the poor babe awakes, but to listen to a Lord Jesus, no crying
he makes, that's a lot of baloney. When the cows woke him up, he
cried like any baby. He was a real baby who cried
as any baby. And think of it, think of it,
the God who had the wisdom enough to design the universe. He had
to learn his Hebrew alphabet, all that they knew, all that
came from dying, hate, death. Yes, he had to learn his alphabet,
had to learn how to tie his sandals. He had to learn everything you
and I have to learn. He was a real human being, and
yet this was God! This was God! This was man! God and man in one person! And
what was the condition in which he came? Galatians chapter 4
tells us, look at it, Galatians 4 and verse 4, But when the fullness
of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, a true
humanity, born under the law. Now that's the key phrase. Who gave the law to man that
said, this do and you shall live? This fail to do and you shall
die? It was God who gave the law.
Now God, in the person of Jesus, puts himself under the law. He obligates himself to keep
the Ten Commandments perfectly. In addition to that, he obligates
himself to keep all of the Mosaic law, all of the directives given
by God through Moses. He was made under the law. Think
of it now. From the first time Jesus could
sing, and Mary said to him, No, Jesus, you must not touch that. Never once. Did he look over
his shoulder and when she wasn't looking, reached out and touched
him. Never once, never once, never once when she'd take some
fresh cookies and said, now Jesus, we're having company tonight
and you shouldn't be in the company, don't you touch them. And she
went out in the backyard to hang up the clothes and never once
did Jesus look around and see those cookies and have his mouth
water and take even a piece off one of them in disobedience to
his mummy Mary. Never once, never once, And from
scripture it's evident he became part of a large family as Mary
and Joseph had other children. Never once did he ever pull his
sister's hair and say, yeah, yeah, got you backwards, you
got even. Never once, never once has a
little boy, never once did he tell a lie. And when he was out
playing with the kids as he fell down and scraped his knee, he
came in and cried and bled like any ordinary kid. But never once
did he ever turn around and stick his tongue out at a kid and say,
I'll get even with you. Think of it. Think of it. Growing
up in a large family, I'm one of ten, and we were reared for
the most part in a six-room house until my dad and I built a two-room
addition when the last couple ones came along. And all of the
tension that can come never once Did Jesus speak the mean words?
Never once did he do a selfish thing, and in that poor home
where perhaps food was limited, never once did he reach into
the dish first and take more than what he could. He was born
under that law that demanded perfect love to God and perfect
love to his fellow man. Never once did he live to any
day as a little boy and on into pre-puberty and on into his teenage
years. Never once! Did he allow any
person or thing to take the place in his heart belonging only to
his father? He loved his father with his
whole heart, mind, and soul, and strength every day of his
boyhood, every day of his pre-puberty, every day of his early manhood. And when he saw the other kids
around him beginning to fill their hearts with the idols of
popularity, when he saw them beginning to fill their hearts
with the idols of the pursuit of things and pleasure, never
once did one little square centimeter in the heart of Jesus allow anything
to rob that heart of perfect love to his Father. Every Sabbath
day that came, he kept God special day. Holy unto the Lord, not
grudgingly, he delighted in the special privileges of that day.
Never once did he ever take the name of his father in vain. He
kept those first four commandments perfectly every moment of every
day, every hour, every week, every year, all the way through
infancy, pre-puberty, teenage, young manhood. Never once Never
once did he dishonor father and mother. Never once did he think
a lustful thought that Jesus was not a sexless man. He was
a true man. He wasn't a eunuch. Never once
did he think a lustful thought. Never once did he make an impure
gesture, a suggestive action. Never once did he touch forbidden
flesh. Never once did he take anyone's
possessions that were not his. Never once did he keep back anything
that was owed to another. Never once did he ever speak
a word that even adjusted the truth one degree, said Deb Fender. He never bore a false witness.
Never once was there a covetous thought in his heart. He could
see a kid on the block that had a brand new bike, and he didn't
look out his window and drool in his heart with covetousness
and envy. Never once. He was made under
the law, and he kept that law so perfectly that when he became
a full-grown man at age thirty, he stood in the Jordan waters
to be baptized, and what did the Father say out of heaven?
This is my beloved son, in whom I am one." Well, please, think
of it. In a sense, the father was giving
Jesus a report card for the first thirty years of his life, and
he said straight A questions. This is my son, my beloved one. He's come to manhood, and now
he's going to embark upon his mission publicly and visibly
as the savior of sinners. He undergoes ordinance, baptism,
to identify himself with sinners, and the Father speaks out of
heaven and says, If my Son, made under my law, has perfectly,
completely, continually kept my law, every breath, every motion,
every action, every word, every deed, I am well pleased with
him completely. that can see down to the last
atom of a man's soul, soured the soul of Jesus and couldn't
find an atom of spirit. Not an atom of thought or desire. He was completely pleased with
him. Made under the law, he perfectly kept that law until he was ready
to be launched into his ministry now. When he was launched into
his ministry, what did he say? Read the Gospels and you'll see.
He faced tremendous demands upon him. We read, and I'm preaching
through the Gospel of Mark to my own people, and I've been
amazed at the selfless, energetic abandonment of Jesus to the work
of the Father. He's found up early in the morning
praying, Mark 135, after he'd been up healing till well after
sundown the night before. He starts off on a vacation with
the disciples and says, let's come apart and rest a while.
And by the time they get across the lake, a crowd meets them,
and what does Jesus do? He comes forth and ministers
to them. And all the pressures made upon
him, never once did he get irritated and say, I'm tired of all these
demands, I can't act it anymore. And then he had a bunch of disciples
who were really spiritually sick in the beginning. I mean, they
were sick. But oh, how he was patient, and
though he had to rebuke them and admonish them, never was
there a peevish anger, never was there a carnal irritation. never once, and all the way through
his selfless preaching and teaching and healing and guiding and counseling
the disciples, he comes near to the end of his earthly ministry,
and he can say in John 17, Father, I've finished the work you gave
me to do. I do always the things that please
my heart. You say, Pastor Martin, you just
got carried away talking about Jesus and forgot your subject.
No, I didn't. I'm right on track, friend. I'm right on track. Right
on track. I know right where I'm going.
Stay with me. We're going to consider the glory
of God's justice. in the accomplishment of redemption. And what am I doing? I'm trying
to describe to you what it means that Jesus was a real man, made
under God's law. And in that real humanity, as
a boy, a young man, a man, a full-grown man, he perfectly kept that law. Every single demand of it, every
single prohibition of it, in all its length and breadth and
depth, Jesus fully kept that law. having fully kept that law in
his life, so that he has in himself a perfect righteousness, worked
out by his obedience. The time now comes when, in a
very special way, he's going to take the punishment for those
who didn't do what he did. He's going to take the punishment
for those who didn't keep the law, and who are they? who fell
in Adam, who have added to our original sin, our own personal
sin, and have a mountain of guilt. The time is coming when, though
through all of his life there is a sense in which he was the
sin-bearer, John 1, 29, behold the Lamb, who is bearing, present
tense, who is bearing away the sin of the world. It comes to
a concentrated focus when he walks into that place called
the Garden of Gethsemane. And what does the scripture tell
us when he entered that garden? The scripture tells us he began
to be sorrowful and very heavy. A new weight began to press in
upon the soul of Jesus when he entered into the garden of Gethsemane. Turn, please, in your Bibles
with me to Matthew 20 Then cometh Jesus with them to a place called
Gethsemane and saith to his disciples, Sit here while I go yonder and
pray. And he took with him Peter and
the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and sore or deeply
troubled or agitated. You see what's happening? Something
new is being pressed in upon the soul of Jesus. He begins
to enter a realm of trouble and sorrow that is unique and new
and intense. And now he describes it, verse
38, Then he said unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death. He said, I feel a grief and a
sorrow. That is, as it were, the very
door of death I feel, and it's feeding sorrow even unto death. And then what does he do? It
says he turns to the three and says, abide here and watch with
me. And it says he went forward a
little and fell on his face. Don't believe that picture of
death feminine. And it shows Jesus with his well-arranged
robe, and his well-arranged beard, and the serene look in his hands
upon the rock, and a sweet, peaceful look up into the heavens, and
a halo that's full of heresy! Something was so crushing him
that he fell on his face! It didn't say, he neatly got
down and kneeled, and he straightened out his robe. You ever see anybody
fall flat on their face when they stumble over something?
That's what happened. He fell, and Mark uses a tense
of the verbs that gives the picture that he was continually falling.
He was stumbling like a drunk, my son. Something was overtaking
him and pressing him with such grief that he falls to his face,
not to his knees. on his face on the cold dampness
of the night ground and get him and what in the world is going
on read on and he prayed saying my father if it be possible let
this cup pass away from me Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."
And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and
said, Peter, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray
that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. Again, a second time he went
away and prayed, saying, My father, if this cannot pass away, except
I drink it, it, We're coming back to the cup. You see, the
cup is the whole secret to Gethsemane. Could it be possible that the
cup passed? He goes back and prays again.
If this cannot pass, if this cup cannot pass, except I drink
it, thy will be done. He came and found them, reaching
for their eyes were heavy, and he prayed a third time, saying
the same words. What words? If this cup cannot
pass away, except I drink it, not my will, but thine, be done.
What was it that caused him to stagger like a drunk man? What
was it that caused him to say, I feel a sorrow, even the sorrows
of death pressing in upon me? The answer is, it's all bound
up in the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup. And what was
there in the garden? Was there a big pallet hanging
down from heaven on a tree? No. The cup was an image of what
the Father was now presenting to the Son. Do you know what
the Father was presenting to the Son? As surely as when I
hold this glass, I look upon it and think of what it contains,
I present to my lips pure, drinkable water. Jesus
saw the Father holding out a cup to his waist. But that cup was
not full of pure water to quench his thirst. That cup was full
of the fury and the wrath and the anger of God against the
sins of the people for whom Christ was about to die. And as the
Lord Jesus was standing under the shadow of Calvary there in
Gethsemane, the cup that the Father put before Him was that
cup filled to the brim with the anger and fury and unmixed wrath
of God against the sins of every man, woman, boy or girl who would
ever be redeemed out of every kindred and tribe and tongue
and nation. And when Jesus would come from
heaven knowing that he came, that one day he would drink that
cup, then the cup is actually put before him. And he looks
into it, and he considers, what would it mean for me to drink
that cup, drink every last drop, so that the wrath of God against
the sins of his people and mine will be completely drained? What
will it mean? When he contemplated that, I
must taste the hell that they deserve. I must feel the forsakenness
that they would feel in hell forever. I must feel the fury
of my father's angry face. I must feel the wrath of his
holy law raining upon me. And when Jesus contemplated it,
hear me now, hear me now. He was so fearful of his father's
wrath that he said, O my father, if there's any other way, if
it's possible that that cup can be emptied, emptied somewhere
out in some far galaxy, if it can be emptied in some other
way, O my father, if it's possible, may it not have to be emptied
in me. May I not have to drink it, nevertheless,
not my will, but yours in time." He comes back and he prays the
second time. Luke tells him, and he was in
such an agony that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. There was such agony facing that
top that he sweat droplets of lest it may have been mingled
with these bloods, or so concealed that they were like blood drops.
It's not certain what the text means, but this much is clear.
God wasn't playing games with Jesus, and Jesus wasn't playing
games with God. And then says, O my Father, a
third time, if there's no other way for the cup to pass, Not
my will, but yours to die." Now notice, from that point on, as
you read the Gospels, shortly after the soldiers come, Jesus
said, Who are you speaking to? Jesus of Nazareth? He says, I
am He! And he lets a little bit of his
glory shine forth, and the soldiers fall flat on their faces. He's
saying, If I go with you, you don't take me. I go voluntarily.
And they get up off their faces. He said, whom do you see? Jesus!
He said, now take me. And from that point on, until
his death, Jesus appears in one posture only. One only. That of a guilty, condemned criminal. Read your Gospels carefully.
He's bound as a criminal, he's taken as a criminal to stand
before the high priest, to stand before Herod, to stand before
Pilate, and a cross is put on his shoulders, then it's taken
off and put on another man, and then his hands are impaled upon
it, and he's hung up upon an instrument of Roman execution,
so that if you were a visitor in Jerusalem and walked outside
the city wall, you would have seen him in one position only.
A guilty criminal condemned to die. Why was he in that posture? Why the posture of a criminal? From the moment he says, not
my will but yours be done, he takes the posture of a criminal.
I'll tell you why. Because God is teaching us in
the external, visible world what was true in the invisible, spiritual
world. Because before the court of heaven,
that's exactly what he became. A criminal. A criminal. Charged
not with one crime, not with two, not with three, not with
ten, not with a hundred, but with the billions of the crimes
of all of his people. Charged. Charged. Paul says in
2 Corinthians 5, 21, he was made to be sin for us. Peter says he carried our sins
up to the sea. He went from Pilate to Herod
to Pilate and to the cross in the posture of a criminal in
the eyes of men. But Paul, listen, as a true criminal
in the court of God, in God's court, not the pollution or the
commission of our sins were charged to Jesus, but the guilt of all
those sins were charged to Him. And when He went to that cross,
He hung upon it. You remember, He didn't complain
when the disciples took Him. He didn't complain when they
mocked Him and taunted Him and said, Hey, hot shot Savior, show
your stuff, come down from the cross, then we'll believe on
you and save others. Do it for yourselves. He didn't
complain as a lamb before her series had come. He didn't open
His mouth. But then do you remember what
happened? Around high noon when the sun was bright at its peak
in Palestine, all of a sudden it became midnight at noon. God
took a dark cloud, God took a dark shade of ale, and swept it over
the heavens, and it became black as midnight at noon. And from noon to three o'clock,
that whole area was plunged into the terrible darkness of hell
itself. And then toward the end of those
three hours, now Jesus complained. But who does He complain to?
Not the disciples. Not the scribes, not the Pharisees,
not the Roman soldiers, not even the criminal tongue either side
of him who were mocking him. But the first complaint he makes
is to his partner. My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me? What was happening? Behind the
veil of that dark cloud in the spiritual realm, the cup was
now, as Jesus mentioned, full of the fury of God's wrath unmixed
with mercy. And Jesus opened his mouth and
began to drink, and drink, and the Father took the cup as progressively
he emptied it, and the son drank, and swallowed, and drank, drank,
until he drank into the deepest recesses of his soul, the very
essence of the pains of hell, which is the darkness of abandonment
by God, until feeling the fires of hell in his holy soul, he
could contain the anguish no longer, and he cried, my God,
my God, why have you God didn't answer out of heaven.
The answer is clear. My son, you agreed to do my will. It is my will that you drink
the cup. that you drink the cup, my son,
though I've never loved you more than I love you now, because
you are obeying me even unto death, though I've never loved
you more than I love you now, my son, in your position as the
substitute and representative of all you came to save, my son,
if there to be The cup must be emptied. If there's one drop
left in it, that drop will be poured out in a day of judgment
and they will not hear the word, come you blessed of my father.
And so the father, while never loving the son more in his person,
may I say it reverently, he hated him with pure and perfect hatred
in his position as our substitute. My friend, Do you see why sin's
so serious? Do you see why the Bible says
fools make a mock of sin? It's your pride, your lust, your
envy, your idolatry, your attachment to the world, your love of the
acceptance of your peers more than the acceptance of God, your
thievery, your cheating, your lying, your coveting. My sin
caused that cup to be filled. MY SINS CAUSED HIM TO STAGGER
AND FALL LIKE A TRUNK MAN AND GET FEMININE! MY SINS CAUSED
HIM TO CRY, MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? Now the
question is this. If the father loved the son,
why in God's name did he subject him to all of that? I'll tell
you why. It's the only way he could still
be just. and justify sinners. Oh, the glory of God's justice
beaming from the cross! You who think of sin but lightly,
you who think of sin but lightly, hear its guilt, may estimate. See the Son of God forsaken! One is in the darkness, agonizing
in hell upon the cross. And tell me if you can say, oh,
it's just a little sin. Everybody does it. Oh, it's just
an innocent sin. Behold the immolated, marred,
dying, excruciatingly cruel death of the cross, our blessed Savior. But then you remember, in a way
that we don't know, through the Bible's silence, and it's good
to be content with God's silence, somehow the Father conveyed to
the Son when the cup was emptied. Because He drank, and He drank,
and He drank, and He drank, and He drank, until it said, He cried
with a loud voice. You see, He wasn't expiring in
death. He had conquered death, and his
shout of triumph was given to us in one Greek word, tetelestai. And what it means is, it has
been and remains accomplished. And what was accomplished? The
cup was empty. And when Jesus saw it empty,
he saw the Father throw it away. And when he saw the Father throw
it away, the cup full of his wrath against the sins of his
people. Jesus said, it's finished. All
the hell they deserve I've taken. All the wrath they deserve I've
swallowed it. Now, Father, throw the cup away. My work of suffering is done.
It is finished. Into thy hands, Father, not my
God now. He sees the smile of the Father's
face again. And may I say it reverently,
There was two more inches in the Father's smile, because Jesus
said, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my
life. The love of the Father, the love
of delight in the Son, was increased with every step of obedience.
And when that last and great step was taken, the Father's
delight in Christ reached its apex. It had never risen to a
higher height. And then he says, Father, of
whose face I see with joy again, into thy hands I commit my spirit."
Now the question is, can we really be certain the cup is empty and
thrown away? Yes. Because on the third day
he rose from the dead. And you look at Romans 4.25 now
and see what it says. Romans 4.25, what does it say? Look at it. Romans chapter 4 and verse 25,
speaking of Jesus who was delivered up for our trespasses, was raised
for our justification. The resurrection, among other
things, was God's amen to Jesus' last cry. It is finished! For wise and good purposes we
don't have to go into now. It was the Father's will to wait
three days to say amen. But the resurrection was the
Father's amen. It is finished. Now what do we
have? We have a God who can be perfectly
just. Who can continue to say the wages
of sin is death. The soul that's in it shall die.
I will by no means clear the guilty. God can continue to say
that and mean that. And yet take guilty sinners like
you and me and say, forgive us. Pardon us. Justify us. Accept
us. On what basis? Not some mushy,
nebulous, indistinct idea. Oh, God is love. He'll forgive
us, fix us all up. If that's what you think the
gospel is, my friend, you're on your way to hell as blind and
dead and sinners, a hot mess, hot. This whole notion, well,
God is love. He's all pushy-mushy and He'll
just, no, no, God is just. Every breach of his law he will
meet with vengeance. If you're ever to get to heaven,
you better know how he met your sin in vengeance, or you'll meet
it in the day of judgment. But thank God, my day of judgment
came at Calvary. My damnation was meted out at
Calvary in my substance. all the glory of God's justice in the accomplishment of redemption.
Now do you see what 1 John 1 9 means? If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and what? Just, righteous to forgive. Wait a minute, I thought when
I sinned, justice was against me. Outside of Christ it is. But when I sinned, And I look
to Christ, justice is for me. There for me my Savior stands,
shows His wounds and spreads His hands. And when the sinner
says, O Father, I've sinned, but in my substitute You punish
my sin. For Jesus Christ, say, magnify
Your justice in forgiving the sin already paid for by Your
Son. And I'm speaking figuratively
now. The Lord Jesus takes my case into his hands and says,
Father, how can you deny that plea? Look at my wounds. Father,
look at the print in my hand. Look at the print in my side.
Father, remember my cry. Remember the cup. Remember the
cup I drained. The cup I exhausted. The cup you threw out into the
vast abyss of nothingness. And the Father says, Son, how
can I turn aside such a plea? I delightfully, joyfully forgive
the sinner who confesses his sin. The glory of God's justice in
the cross of Jesus Christ, in the accomplishment of redemption.
Well, in just the few minutes that remain, let me just give
you some fuel for meditation. That's all I can do. I've just
about preached myself into exhaustion, so I'll give you a little fuel
for future meditation. What glory of God is seen when
he applies that salvation. Can't you say it reverently?
Jesus could have done all of that, and unless the God who
determined that he do that, determined to apply its benefits, it would
all be for naught. The same God who purposed and
planned and executed, redemption accomplished, is the God who
plans and executes, redemption applies. And my friend, He does
it for exactly the same sinners. You see, it takes the whole Trinity
to save one sinner. But the whole Trinity is committed
not to save one sinner, but a company which no man can number, and
it's those sinners whose sins were in the cup by God's determination
and sovereign electing grace. It was those sins in the cup
and the wrath of those sins that Jesus drained. So when we turn
to the matter of how does this salvation actually come upon
sinners, redemption applies. Let me again give you these three
lines of brief meditation. behold the glory in the accomplishment. Now the application of redemption,
behold the glory of God's covenant faithfulness in applying that
salvation. And you say, Pastor Martin, what
do you mean by covenant faithfulness? Just follow closely. Now the
father made some wonderful promises to the son. He promised the Son
that if He would take the place of those who had been marked
out to be the heirs of salvation, live the life they should have
lived under the law, die the death their sins deserved under
the curse of a broken law, if He would do that, the Father
would give Him a vast seed. the nations for his inheritance.
He would give him a bride. He would give him many sons who
would be brought to glory. I'm quoting scripture, if you
don't recognize it. All that scripture. Don't have
time to turn to them. Isaiah 53 is one of the best
passages. It says that because he was willing
to pour out his soul unto death, he shall see of the travail of
his soul. He shall be satisfied. The pleasure
of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. Here's the glory of
redemption applied. The glory of God's faithfulness.
God made a promise to Christ that all for whom he died would
actually enjoy every bit of the salvation he died to procure
for them. And God is so faithful to his
son that every sinner who ever gets saved is saved by grace
as far as the sinner is concerned, but it's by debt and right. as far as Christ is concerned.
I say it reverently, the Father put Himself in debt to the Son,
that if the Son would take upon Himself the obligations of His
people, live the life they should have lived in a real human condition,
die the death they should die, that He would see to it that
they would each one be called, justified, sanctified, kept,
and preserved, and glorified. so that the application of salvation
is all of grace to us the sinners, but it's all of debt to Christ
the Father. Isn't that a glorious thought? Oh, how certain is salvation. No wonder Jesus said, other sheep
I have, them also I must bring. There was no doubt about it.
He would fulfill every demand, and He knew the Father would
be faithful. This is what 1 Corinthians 1-9 is talking about. God is
faithful, Paul says, by whom you were called into the fellowship
of His Son. How does God's faithfulness lie
behind my actually receiving salvation? It is faithfulness
to Christ. His faithfulness to the promises
made to his son had never slurred on the thing. You see what long
and unworthy views of salvation we have! How it's been cheated! Little pities to a rock-geek
about the man of Galilee and the teacher, and all this other
silly claptrap. My friend, these themes are worthy
of the most majestic expression in praise, prose, poetry, music,
but not brought down to the jumbled beats of wild-looking animals. May God have mercy on their souls. Behold God's covenant faithfulness. We could say, behold His power,
but I just want to trace in briefly, behold His manifold grace in
the application itself. What does He do for us? He gives
us everything we've forfeited by sin. And what is calling,
regeneration, adoption, justification, sanctification, preservation,
glorification? What are all those things? They
are God's answer in grace, imparted to the sinner on the basis of
the death and resurrection of Jesus, of everything man lost
by the fall. God restores it all back once
more. Once more. Remember our illustration
last night? We had our young friend down
in the jail over here. He's not in jail tonight. He's
over against the wall. He was in jail down here last
night. And we talked about the man who puts up the bail. He
pays the price for the land's release. But then he's not released
until the jailer goes and opens the jail gate and lets him out.
You know what happens? Jesus is paid the price. But
when God the Holy Spirit comes to let us out of the prison,
you know how he finds us? stroking our chains, saying,
get away from me, I love it here. Yes, yes. And we look at the
jailer and say, you're my enemy, get away from me, you're going
to spoil all my fun. I love the jail, I love my things.
That's right. So what does he have to do? He's
got to restore the mental sanity. He's got to change our hard attitude
to the jailer, that's regeneration. He opens our eyes to see that
our chains are not He opens our eyes to see that God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost do not entreat us and command
us to come to Christ because they want to spoil our fun and
ruin life, but because they want to deliver us from that which
is our destruction. So what does God have to do?
Put forth an act of power to open our eyes and open our ears
and give us spiritual sanity until we joyfully walk out of
the prison. The dungeon flame was light!
My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went
forth! Was it like the devil? Because
I believed in eternal security? No, I rose, went forth, and what?
Followed Jesus. That's calling, regeneration.
With its repentance and faith, it follows. And it puts you in
the path of sanctification, becoming more and more like Jesus. And
all the while you have the status of a justified and adopted sinner.
What justification? God puts to your record the perfect
life of Jesus, and God takes away from your record all the
damnation you deserve on the basis of the death of Jesus.
Think of it! That perfect life as a little boy, as a teenager,
as a man! That perfect record! That's put
to my account! The Father says to me in heaven,
that's my son in whom I'm wealthy, because he sees me in the righteousness
of his Son, and all the things I committed, they were paid for
in the death of his Son. But then he does more than that.
That just makes me an accepted citizen. Then he says, look,
I want something better for you. I'll make you my son, Galatians
4, 6. He gives us the status of son. He not only takes us
as disinherited citizens and says, come back into the kingdom
as obedient, law-abiding citizens, But I want you to come to my
very heart and to my bosom as my son." Because that's what
Adam was. He was the son of God. He's called that in Genesis.
He became a disinherited son in redemption. We become the
sons of God through faith and Christ. And then God says, I
don't like what I see in you. You've got too much of Adam in
your attitude, your perspectives on life, the way you react to
things. Now I've got to make you like my son in test. I'll
take you as my son and I'll adopt you. Now I'm going to go to work
to make you like my son." So he gives us a new heart, puts
his spirit within us, and then he begins to conform us to his
son. And when he's all done, you know what the Bible says,
Jesus will be, hallelujah, he's going to be the firstborn among
many brethren. He's going to sit as it were
with his family and say, oh my father, don't they all look like
me? Don't they look like me, father? And the father's going
to say, yes, son, every one of you. Every one of us, right down
to a glorified body, a body with no weariness, no back pain, no
tears, no crying, no cancers, no degenerative diseases, and
a soul that doesn't have a gram of remaining sin, thinking it
could go through a whole day and never once have a mean, jealous,
filthy, selfish thought. to love Jesus perfectly as we've
always learned to yearn for loving, but never to love. I say when
God's done with us, we're going to be this cause of amazement
of angels. They're going to pull their wings
and put their hands over their mouths and cry with pleasure.
My friends, that's salvation applied. That's salvation applied.
And let me tell you another thing. You need to get the whole thing,
you ain't got nothing. You get it all, and you don't
get nothing. Jesus died to purchase the whole
thing for everyone for whom he died, and the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit worked in great great power to apply
the whole thing and nothing at all. And you know where it all
is? It isn't in your church, it isn't
in your decision, it's not in yourself. I close with 1 Corinthians
1.30. This is where it's found. Here's
where it is. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 30. If you're to have this salvation
accomplished by Christ, applied by the Father and the Spirit
and the Son, where are you going to get it? Well, look where the
Corinthians got it. 1 Corinthians 1, 30. But of them,
that is, by God's working, are you in Christ Jesus. who was made unto us, wisdom
from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and what?
Redemption. You want this redemption and
everything that's in it? It's all in Christ. And the only
way to have it is to get into Christ. And how do you get into
Christ? You've got to get out of Adam. You're either in Adam
or in Christ. And there's only one way to get
in Christ. I'm listening to you now as I pray. In a few hours,
God willing, I'll be on the train back to New Jersey to preach
to Matthew. And if I never see you again
until the Day of Judgment, I want you to hear my last words. Listen
to me. Listen to me. Boys, girls, men and women. I'm not talking to you because
I'm a preacher and I have to. I'm talking to you because I
love you. And I love my job and I love your soul. Listen to me.
Listen to me. There's only one place to get
it. It's not in you, so you don't get it by fixing yourself up.
It's not in the church, so you don't get it by walking down
the aisle and shaking the priest's hand and being received into
the church. It's not in a ritual. It's in Christ. And there's only
one way to get into Christ. You've got to get out of Adam.
From God's standpoint, you get out of Adam when he, by his Spirit,
gives you eyes to see yourself for what you are, a lost chimp.
give you a heart to forsake your sin and into Christ. From God's
standpoint, you get into Christ by His mighty work of regenerating
grace. From your standpoint, you get
into Christ when you divorce your sins, divorce the world,
divorce yourself from yourself. and throw yourself upon Jesus
Christ, locked, stocked, and barreled to be his for time and
eternity, no fine print, no conditions, no qualifications, Lord Jesus,
I throw myself upon you as my only hope of salvation. I give
myself to you as my sovereign and my Lord and my God. I give
myself up to you to love you and serve you until I see you
face to face. That's the only way you can understand
it. Now, are you in place? If you
don't, you don't want to bother me. And what he's saying is,
I'll face my own cup full of my own sin, full of the fury
of God. Listen, friends, if God, Jesus
Christ, if the God-man faced that cup and it almost killed
him, if God couldn't face the cup without sin, What in God's
name will you do when you save your cup? Full of your sin, you
little creep, little worm of the dust, little spider! When God in Christ releases the
cup, he tumbles like a drunken man! He prays, he's tortural,
takes the cup away! What will you do, little creep,
you little dust who squatters in your nostrils when you save
the cup full of your sin? Before you stomp out of work
tonight, sitting on the high horse of your proudest, self-righteous,
king-loving, world-loving, king-beloved, you'd better take note, my friend. Almighty God is serious about
sin. You saw it in Gethsemane in its
cowboy tonight. You'd better get serious about
sin, about Christ. You give yourself no rest until
you know you're in Him. And in Him, then, you have all
that you can seek, that you have accomplished on the cross, and
by His open truth, and by the sitting at the right hand of
the Father, in whom you will have applied to do now those
things He gives you on the threshold, all along the way that which
He gives you, until in the last days He glorifies you. I don't
care if I'm called a fool for a few years. There is something
in Jesus that he's going to brag about what he did in me before
all the women. He's going to brag not about
me, but about what he did in me. I can bear a few people saying,
oh, that's crazy. Those are like a madman's bones
in the mouth, crushed like a horse. It's crazy. I don't care what
they say. I could care less. You know and
God knows that we're dealing with reality on this market.
You can say what you want and you'll
be out of here, but trust me, I'm the authority on things that
Jesus is going to say to me in that place. He's going to say,
look, this is one of mine. I died for him. And in my time,
I opened his blinded eyes and I changed his heart and I turned
his will and he repented and believed. He was united to me
by the bond of faith and the indwelling of His Spirit, and
I kept Him by my grace, though He had a tinderbox of remaining
tin that could have broken out and been cleaned, and my grace
kept it for good, and my grace brought Him all along the way,
and through my grace perfected His Spirit and gave Him a new
body, and look at what I've done for Him. What do you think of
my work in Him? You want to mock him out now?
While I say these sinners depart from me into everlasting fire?
How self-righteous sinner! My friend, there's a crisis in
your history. You're dealing with eternal reality.
You're such a children. Let me say something very funny
to you. You watch MTV and video rock. My guarantee is you'll never
get serious about yourself again. There's nothing more calculated
to turn your mind off heaven and hell and God and sin than
to rock that fucker from right out of the pit of hell. You're
out of hell. All this emphasis is upon the
bizarre, the foolish, illicit sex, the violence, the distorted,
the grotesque. You mark my words, you get hooked
on that stuff. and you may never seem to think
a single thought about heaven and hell until you end up in
hell. And I've waved my word carefully,
and I've watched in effort to know where have I stayed that
I might be able to speak to the Pharisee I meet. Don't
make your model punk rockers, the immoral masonas who spread
their legs for any old guy to come along like an animal in
heat. Go model yourself after that
slut. Take out of your models some godly Christian women in
this church, who carry themselves with modesty and Christian grace
and beauty, and say, Lord Jesus, make me like them. Help me to
know their faith. Love their faith and go to heaven
with their faith. You guys, don't make your models
the mumbling Solange with his bulging biceps and tucked toes. He can't even talk a decent straight
sentence, but can just go around with his rippling muzzles and
his big guns and blow people to pieces? Don't make Sylvester
Stallone your model. Violent, self-centered man, married,
divorced, living like the animals that most of the people in Hollywood
still make them your model. Find men in this church that
are real men, who work hard, who love their wives, who love
their kids enough to want you on their buns when you need a
and call you about Jesus, and carry you to church, and say,
God, help me to know Jesus like Mr. So-and-so does in life. And
he can so-and-so does, and then, Lord, take me to the same heaven
they're going to. All you do is prove that this
world is about to take you to hell. You've been walking too
much to let you go without warning. May God help you to remember
these words. May God remind you of those tears
for real tears. And may Christ be present. And
some of you older people, you sit there, you've got a glassy
look in your eyes, I wonder if you understand one thing I've said. You've been
in church all your life, but I don't think you've ever seen
anything beautiful in Jesus. And that's the difference between
the Christian and the non-Christian. 2 Corinthians 4, 3 says, the
devil blinds the minds of unbelievers if they don't see glory in Christ.
The Christian is one who sees the glory of God in the first
place. And some of you, unless you're the best hypocrite in
the world, you've seen glory in his face. The glory is written
all over your face. And some of you, I think, are
sitting there now with a death wish. Lord, take me home. If
the pain about it can be so good, what will it be like to speak? Amen? Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Oh God, our
heavenly Father, how we thank you for your glory revealed in
redemption accomplished and redemption applied. And oh, how we plead
that your spirit would brood over this congregation, these
precious young men and women, teenagers, young adults, men
and women in the pickle and charm of their life, and gray hairs,
and old men and women. Oh, come, by your spirit, reveal
the glory of Christ and His salvation, and draw many this night to speak
your faith. May the blessing of the Spirit
rest upon the Word of Jesus, to our good and to your praise. For Jesus' sake we plead, Amen.