I've titled the message this
evening Grace in Works. Now Genesis 3 that we studied
through told us how man was kicked out of the Garden of Eden, how
man was kicked out of the presence of God. Genesis chapter 3 tells
us how it is that man fell into sin, how it is that you and I
became sinners, and how we gained our need of Christ. Now the very
next thing recorded in scripture after that story is the struggle
between grace and works. At the moment that Adam fell,
the religion that our nature loved became the religion of
works. Adam and Eve showed us an example
of that. They tried to cover their nakedness by their works,
their fig leaf aprons that they made. Now the religion that our
soul needs is grace, but the religion that our nature loves
is works. Genesis chapter 4 tells us about
the struggle between grace and works and shows us in a stark
contrast the difference between grace and works. Now this story
Jonathan read for us is a well-known story illustrated by two of Adam's
sons, Cain and Abel. Now, these are not Adam's only
children, not his first two children. Adam lived 930 years. You know, the whole human race
began with Adam and Eve. They had many children so that
the earth would be populated. Look over page, chapter five
of Genesis, verse four. And the days of Adam after he
had begotten Seth were 800 years. And he begat sons and daughters.
He begat many sons, many daughters. More than likely, Cain and Abel
were not Adam and Eve's first two children. Now, Cain was the
firstborn son, first son that they had. Cain may have had older
sisters. Their births were not recorded.
But this is what we do know. Cain was the firstborn son. And where Abel was in the birth
order, we do not know. But these are only two children
of Adam's that we're told about here in this chapter, because
the Holy Spirit is going to use Cain and Abel to give us a picture
of the difference between grace and works. The Holy Spirit uses
this story, what went on between Cain and Abel to teach us two
very, very important truths. Number one is this, there is
redemption from our sin in the blood of Christ. And number two
is this, there's condemnation in this religion of salvation
by works. It's the only thing it can produce. There's only
one way that you and I can approach God. Only one way sinful men
and women can approach God, and it's through the blood of Christ.
These two brothers, Cain and Abel, represent the two religions
that are in the world under all the different headings and denominations
you might put them, they boil down to these two things, Cain
and Abel. The way of Cain is the way of
works. And if there's any works involved
in that message, in that way of salvation at all, like the
Apostle Paul said, it's all works. And the way of Abel is grace.
Grace through the blood of Christ. So there's three or four things
I want us to see here. First is this. You know, all
of us inherently know We need to do something to make God happy
with us. We need to do something to restore
fellowship with God. By nature, we don't know what
that is. We just know something needs to be done. Verse one,
Adam and Eve knew that too. And Adam knew Eve, his wife,
and she conceived and bear Cain. And she said, I've gotten a man.
I've gotten the man from the Lord. This was her first son.
She was so excited. She said, I've got the man. I've
got the man that God promised. Now, like I said, all of us inherently
know we've sinned against God and somehow that sin's got to
be paid for. We know that we've offended God.
We've got to make this up somehow. We just don't know the way to
do it. And the way that we naturally try is works. We try to do something
to make up for what we've done wrong, and that's the way it
works. Whatever it is you think that you can do to make it up
and make yourself in a better standing with God, that's works. And that way cannot gain God's
favor. Adam knew that. Adam knew that,
and he taught his children that. He taught his children that the
way to God was through a blood sacrifice. God himself taught
that to Adam, and Adam taught that to his children. God taught
that lesson to Adam after he had fallen, and Adam had that
fig leaf apron on, you know, trying to cover his nakedness.
And it didn't work. It didn't cover his shame. And
God killed an animal. God clothed Adam and Eve. And
that was just to show their fig leaf aprons didn't work. God
clothed them. That animal had to die to clothe
Adam and Eve. Salvation, forgiveness of sin,
righteousness, can only come from the seed of woman who's
coming, who will offer a sacrifice that will put sin away. The only
way that we can be made right with God is through this seed
of woman who's coming, this man who's coming, who's going to
undo for his race everything Adam did to his race. And Adam
and Eve understood that. God told them the seed of woman
was coming. And from the moment God told them that, they were
looking for him. That's why Eve said, I've gotten a man from
the Lord. She was so excited. She thought this is the seed
of woman. This is the one who's coming to crush the serpent's
head and deliver us from the curse of sin. They were looking
for that promise from the moment God made it to them. And Adam
and Eve are just like you and me. God made them a promise. And they wanted God to fulfill
that promise right now. Right now, they didn't wanna
wait. And I can understand, can't you? They don't wanna wait 4,000
years. Eve thought her firstborn son
was gonna put an end to this thing right now. That's what
she was hoping. That's what she was looking for.
Now he wasn't, but I point all that out to say they were anxiously
and excitedly looking for the Redeemer who would come. They
were looking for that for him, and they taught their children
the same thing. They taught, Adam taught his children to worship
God through a blood sacrifice, just like God taught him. I'm
sure those boys and their sisters and all their other brothers
saw Adam worship God many times through a sacrifice, a blood
sacrifice. Now you think about this, think
about being the children of Adam. Adam's children learned straight
from the man himself who caused all this sin, all this death,
all this curse in the world. Adam brought it all on by his
disobedience and they learned about all of that straight from
the horse's mouth. They learned about original sin
in Adam. They learned from the man who
first tried salvation by works and didn't work. They learned
it from him. He told him it doesn't work.
He told his children how he made those fig leaf aprons, but it
covered their outward nakedness, but didn't hide their shame.
It didn't hide their sin and shame before God. Adam knew that. Adam taught his children salvation
is of the Lord. The Lord must give us faith to
believe Christ. And only the Holy Spirit can
do it. And Adam's children, Cain, is the proof of that. Adam's
children learned straight from Cain. All this whole matter of
where sin came from, what it is, and how it's put away, Cain
learned straight from the horse's mouth. And he still didn't believe. He still didn't believe. And
that just goes to show us how real death in Adam really is.
I can promise you, you and I hadn't gotten any better from the time
of Cain till now. If anything, we've just gotten worse. Even Adam couldn't make his children
see their sin before God and their need of Christ. Even Adam
couldn't do it. Cain still wanted to come to
God by his works. So here's the second thing. It's
a warning to every one of us. Here's a summary of the religion
of works, verse two. She again bared his brother Abel,
and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the
ground. In the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought
of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. Now, both
Cain and Abel knew they needed something to bring with them
to come before God. They needed something to make
this thing right with God. So they both brought a sacrifice
to appease God so that God would accept them. Now, Cain and Abel
were not two boys here. They're full-grown men. They're
both head of their own homes. Otherwise, Adam would have been
offering the sacrifice for them. They're full-grown men who are
heads of their homes offering this sacrifice. And Cain brought
the fruit of the ground. Now here's what we can learn
about the works religion of man, the works religion of Cain, still
in the world today as much as it was in Cain. First thing is
this, works religion, man's works, will never please God's holy
requirements. Verse five, but unto Cain and
to his offering he had not respect. Cain was very wroth and his countenance
fell. Now, God would not accept Cain's
offering. Now, Adam taught his sons, you
can only come to God through a blood sacrifice. It's the blood
that maketh atonement for the soul. It's the blood, it's the
blood, it's the blood. It's nothing but the blood. And
Cain is so dead in sin, he said, nope. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to do it my way. I
know God told my daddy this is the way we're supposed to do
it, but I'm going to do it my way. And Cain came to God by
his works. And that's what his fruits and
vegetables represent. It's his works. It's something
that he tilled the ground, he planted, he weeded, he, you know,
helped grow. I mean, you know, God made it
all grow, but this is came from the works of Cain. And I have
no doubt, Cain brought the best fruits, the best vegetables.
I mean, whatever it was that he brought, they were the best.
He didn't bring no bruised ones. He didn't bring no shriveled
ones. He brought the best that he had. I mean, can you imagine
at that time how the earth brought forth fruits and vegetables,
what it grew? But here's the problem. Cain
brought fruit that grew from the ground that got cursed. He
brought the fruit of a cursed ground. That's our works. All of our works come from a
heart, from a nature that's sinful, that's cursed in sin. They flow
forth from a sinful heart and God will never accept them. They're
not perfect. They're not what God has required.
And when Cain came by his works, he denied several very important
things. When Cain came by his works,
you know what he denied? He denied he's a sinner. He denied
he needed a substitute. He didn't bring a lamb to be
killed as his substitute because Cain didn't think he should die.
He thought he was good enough, he shouldn't die. He didn't need
a substitute. He's not a sinner. I mean, not
really. He didn't need blood to cleanse his sin. And works
religion does the same thing today. This is what works religion
says. I'm good enough. My works are
good enough. I mean, I'm not perfect, but
I'm not such a sinner that I need blood. My works are good enough. I don't need a substitute to
die in my place. I can do good enough. Oh, it's
fine if Christ died, me and Jesus will do this thing together.
I can do something. I'm not really dead. That's what
works religion says. It denies the very truth of God. And God was not gonna accept
our religious works anymore than he did Cain's. Now, I'm just
quite confident nobody here is bringing stuff from your garden
as an offering to God to atone for your sin. But we got our
fruits and vegetables, buddy. Now watch it, we got our fruits
and vegetables. Our works, our fruits and vegetables are preaching
in Christ's name, casting out devils, doing many wonderful
works, looking at all this religious stuff that we're doing. And all
those works are evil works without faith in Christ. Now read on,
verse six. And the Lord said unto Cain,
why are you wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou
do us well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou do us not
well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him. And God told Cain, Cain, what
are you mad for? You ought to be mad at yourself
or be mad at anybody. If you come the way that I've
commanded you, you come through the blood, through this blood
sacrifice, you'll be accepted. And if you don't come the way
I commanded you, you don't come through the blood, you don't
come through a sacrifice, sin lies at your door. And the picture
I get there in my mind, it's like a lion, lying at the door,
crouching at the door, waiting for you to come out, and when
you come out, it's gonna pounce. That's what God's telling him,
sin lies at the door and it's gonna destroy you. Now God told
Cain that, and what did Cain do? Did Cain say, Lord, I'm so
sorry, please forgive me. I'm gonna go get a lamb from
Abel and offer a lamb. No, he insisted on coming in
his works religion. You know why? Because Cain's
dead. He's spiritually dead. He died in his father, Adam,
and he would not obey. That's what works religion always
produces. It cannot meet God's holy requirements. All right, second, man's works
religion. This is what it always produces.
hatred and resentment toward God and toward other men. Verse
eight, and Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass
when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his
brother, and slew him. Cain was mad because God did
not have respect to his offering. And that word respect, it means
to look to, it means to regard. In one place, the word is translated
spare. God would not spare Cain because
of his sacrifice, because his sacrifice was his works. God would not look at Cain's
sacrifice with any respect. God had no respect for that.
God says, got to be a blood sacrifice. God wouldn't look at that with
any regard because Cain offered his sacrifice based on his personal
worthiness. God, look what I did. Instead
of coming in the worthiness of Christ and God would not respect
it. And buddy, that got Cain mad. I mean, he was angry. He was angry at God. Cain resented
God's rule over him. And that's what works religion
always does. It's the only thing it can produce.
Think about it. What does works religion do?
Puts people under the law. That's what it does. And this
is what they say, obey the law, keep the law, and God will accept
you. Now that's true. If you keep
all the law of God, and not just 10 commandments, not just three,
four, five things they pick out that they think are important,
but if you keep the whole law of God, you obey it all, God
will accept you. That's true. But since you can't
do it, being put under the law breeds contempt and resentment. Resentment toward God. It makes
us mad and resent God that he gave us a law that we cannot
keep. We say, well, that's not fair,
and we resent God. That's what happened to Cain.
Made Cain angry with God, and he took his anger at God out
on his brother, and he killed him. angry at God and other men. Now, Cain and Abel did not offer
these, you know, we see these children's picture stories and
it shows Cain and Abel offering these sacrifices together side
by side and that's not what happened. If they worshiped together, they
would have used the same altar. They're worshiping God and they
offered these sacrifices, heads of their own home. Then later
on, they got together and they said, how'd your service go Sunday?
Now, anytime I call another pastor on, well, almost any day, but
particularly Monday, this is always one of the first things.
How'd your service go yesterday? How'd it go yesterday? Brother
Eric's been out preaching all over this country, and I call
him when he gets back home or text him and say, how'd it go
today? That's what they were doing. How'd your service go
yesterday? Abel said, oh, it went well. God had respect to
my sacrifice. And Cain was mad. He said, God
didn't have any respect for my sacrifice. And I would imagine
that they had a discussion about this thing, wouldn't you? Why
was God, why wouldn't he respect your sacrifice, Cain? I just
wonder if Abel just wasn't real bold. He wouldn't compromise
the truth, he's the younger brother, but he's not gonna compromise
the truth. And he reminded Cain, Cain, God must be worshiped with
a blood sacrifice. We've been taught that since
we were this high. God must be worshiped with a blood sacrifice.
Sinners are saved not by our obedience, but by the obedience
of Christ, by the sacrifice of Christ, our substitute. That's
why there's gotta be a lamb to be sacrificed. God can't accept
our works, Cain. All our works are sinful. Sinners
cannot be saved by our works, but all sinners can be saved
by grace, by grace through the blood. That makes us smile, make
Cain angry. He was filled with so much hatred
toward God and Abel, He killed his own brother. Now you think
that grace and works aren't loggerheads? The first murder that ever happened
on earth was in an argument over grace and works. Grace and works,
which way is it? And the way of works can only
produce hatred and resentment. The only thing it can produce.
Third, works of religion produces liars. Look at verse nine. And
the Lord said unto Cain, where is Abel thy brother? And he said,
I know not, am I my brother's keeper? Now Cain knew good and
well where his brother was. He's the one who hid the body,
probably hid him under some branches or brush or whatever. And he
just lied to God's face. And you know what Cain showed
right here? He's under the influence of Satan, the father of lies. And that's what works religion
is. It's the religion of Satan that just produces liars. Satan
is the one that told Eve the first lie. He said, oh, you shall
not surely die. And now Cain's acting just like
him. He's under his influence, because that's what works religion
is. Man's nature is incapable of loving the truth, knowing
the truth, or telling the truth. And worse religion produces people
who lie. They lie to other people. Their
whole shtick is this, trying to deceive people into thinking
that they're good, into thinking that they're better than they
are, thinking that they've done things that they haven't done, trying
to get them to think I haven't done things I have done. It's
just trying to deceive people into thinking I'm better than
what you really think I am. And worse religion produces people
who try to lie to God. They come to God and they tell
God, I'm good enough. God, look at all these works
that I've done for you. Look what I've done for you.
And God sees through that lie every time. And you know what? People usually eventually do
too. Here's the fourth thing. Worst religion brings the curse
of the law, the separation from God, verse 10. And he said, what
hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood
crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from
the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's
blood from thy hand. When thou tellest the ground,
it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive
and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. Now, worse religion
can only produce guilty people. That's the only thing it can
produce. If you try to keep the law, you're gonna be guilty, because
you can't obey it. And their guilt can only bring condemnation
from God. It's the only thing. The soul
that sinned, it shall die. This guilt of not obeying the
law can only bring separation from God, just like Cain. And
it seems like here, God gives to Cain an even worse curse than
he did to Adam. You know, the ground's already
been cursed for Adam's sake, hasn't it? That's why it's bringing
forth thorns and thistles now. And now, the ground's gonna bring
even less bounty to Cain. Now, if anybody here thinks your
works are good enough to bring you to God, that God will accept
you, that God will be pleased with your works, I tell you this,
God's gonna make those works appear in your eyes more and
more and more sinful, and more and more of a curse to you, and
never a blessing. Worse religion can only produce
the curse of the law. and separation from God. I mean,
you think about it, Adam had already been thrust out of the
garden. He'd already been thrust out of the presence of God. And
now, Cain is thrust out from God's face, from God's presence,
and society too. He's got God by himself. And
that's exactly what our sin does. Eventually, it must bring separation
from God. It must. Now, I'm jumping ahead
of myself a little bit here to get into grace, but that separation
from God is gonna be executed on one of two people, on me or
my substitute. When our Savior cried from the
cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You know why
he cried that? So his people would know he suffered
separation from God. So we don't have to. Why did
he suffer separation from God? Because the sin of his people
was put on him. See, that sin must bring condemnation and separation
from God, either us or our substitute. Here's the fifth thing about
works religion. It never produces true repentance. It might make somebody sorry,
but it never produces true repentance. Look at verse 13. And Cain said
unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Now
Cain feels real sorry now, doesn't he? He feels real bad now. Cain
didn't seem to feel too bad when he bashed his brother's head
in with a rock, watched his brother's blood spread out on the ground.
He didn't feel too bad when he watched that life force leave
his brother's eyes and watched his brother lay there dead. Cain
didn't feel too bad when he was dragging the body off and hiding
it somewhere, you know, so Abel's wife couldn't find it, never
knew what happened to him. He didn't feel too bad, her over
there suffering and not knowing where her husband was, he didn't
feel too bad about that. But boy, Cain sure was sorry
he got caught, wasn't he? He's sorry he got caught, and
he's sorry he's being punished. Now that sorrow, I'm sure it's
genuine sorrow, but it's not repentance. It's not repentance. Repentance is not just being
sorry. Repentance is a turning. It's
a turning to trust in the opposite of what I used to trust in. It's
turning away from everything I used to trust in about myself
and turning away from that and turning to trust Christ and Christ
alone. Cain and his worst religion was
punished and it did not make Cain repent. You know, it's one
thing Cain and all his complaining, everything he's talking about
here, you know one thing he doesn't say? Lord, be merciful. Lord, forgive
me. Lord, cover me in the blood.
He didn't say that, did he? He was sorry, but that's not
repentance. And if you and I are only sorry
for the consequences of our sin, we've not repented either. If
we're just sorry our sin's gonna make this body die and makes
me sick and makes us suffer all this sorrow and heartache in
the world, if that's all we're sorry for, we're sorry for the
consequences of sin. And that's not repentance. There
is a sorrow involved in repentance. You know what it is? I'm so sorry
that I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that I used to trust
in myself. I'm sorry. I wish I'd never done
that. And now I turn to Christ to trust
him and him alone. But worse religion will never
produce that kind of repentance. The only thing that will produce
that kind of repentance is God's grace in the heart of a sinner.
And that brings me to the third thing. Here's a summary of grace. Grace in Christ Jesus. Look at
verse four. Now the word respect, like I
told you, it means to look to and to regard and to spare. Now, the only way God can regard
his people, the only way he can spare them is by looking to Christ
crucified, by looking to the sacrifice. And God accepts his
people, he spares his people. You know why? Because when he
looks to that sacrifice, he sees justice is satisfied. Justice
is satisfied in the death of the substitute. The substitute
was literally made guilty for me of my sin, and he is put to
death for it. And God sees that sacrifice,
that awful, bloody, horrible suffering and sacrifice, and
God smiles. God, that's a sweet-smelling
savor to him. Justice is satisfied. Mercy from
God can only come if his justice is satisfied for our sin. And
the only way God's justice can be satisfied is the sacrifice
and the death of Christ. Now verse 10, the Lord said that
the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Now if you hold your place there
and look over Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12 has a
verse that of all the commentaries you might read on Genesis chapter
four, this is about the best one. Hebrews chapter 12 and to verse 24. and to Jesus,
the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel. Now the blood the
writer of the Hebrews here is talking about is the blood of
Christ. And the best way I can think
of to illustrate the difference between works and grace is to
see the difference. And what is it that the blood
of Abel cries? And what is it that the blood
of Christ cries? Now the religion of grace gives us the opposite
of the religion of works in every way that you can think of. Abel's
blood crying from the ground spoke of sin, didn't it? There's
a sin that happened here that causes Abel's blood to be spilled
all over the ground. His blood speaks of sin, but
the blood of Christ speaks of righteousness. The blood of Jesus
Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. makes his people
righteous. The blood of Christ washes his
people white as snow and gives to them in the new birth a righteous
nature that comes from the blood. The blood of Christ speaks of
righteousness. Here is how a sinner can be made
righteous, in the blood of Christ. The blood of Abel speaks of anger. Abel's blood was spilled, but
somebody's angry, aren't they? The blood of Christ speaks of
peace. The blood of Christ speaks of
peace for this reason. The blood of Christ takes away
the sin and makes God angry. So God's at peace with his people.
And the writer of the Hebrews here talks about the blood of
sprinkling. That's the blood of Christ sprinkled on our hearts.
When the Holy Spirit sprinkles the blood of Christ on our hearts,
he gives a new heart. And there's peace with God. We're
not angry at God anymore. There's peace with God. You know
why there's peace with God? Because we surrender. We surrender
and there's peace. The sin that makes God angry
is gone and he's at peace. The blood of Christ applied to
our hearts makes us surrender and there's peace. The blood
of Christ speaks of peace. Oh, it's the peace that he purchased
with his own blood. Thirdly, the Abel's blood speaks
of hatred. Abel's blood is spilled because
of hatred. The blood of Christ speaks of love. here in his love,
not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son
to be the propitiation, the covering for our sin. How did Christ cover
the sin of his people? With his precious blood. His
blood speaks of love. God doesn't love sinners because
Christ shed his blood for them. Christ shed his blood for his
people because God loved them. God loved them. God chose them. And he sent his son to put away
their sin, to make them what God will accept. The blood of
Christ speaks of love. There can be no question. Almighty
God loves his people. Look what he did to his son to
put their sin away. His blood speaks of love. Fourthly, Abel's
blood speaks of lies. That's when Abel's blood was
spilled. Cain was called to account. He lied, didn't he? The blood
of Christ speaks of truth. The blood of Christ enables God
to save sinners and be true to His holy character. God doesn't
save sinners and violate His holiness or His justice. No,
the blood of Christ enables God to save sinners and be true to
His holy character, to be true to every attribute of His character.
When God saves sinners, this is the wisdom of God, the wisdom. God saves sinners in such a way
that he makes it right for him to show mercy to them. In man's
works religion, this is the way that, the best thing the idea
of man can come up with is, well, we do our best and God overlooks
where, you know, it wasn't up to snuff. That's not salvation,
that's injustice. God saves sinners in such a way
he makes it right for them to show mercy to them. It's through
the sacrifice of Christ because the sacrifice of Christ removed
the sin. His justice is satisfied. That's
how God can be both just and justifier of the ungodly. He saved him in truth. The death
of Christ, the blood of Christ magnifies God's love and God's
justice, doesn't it? His mercy and his truth. All
right, fifthly, Abel's blood speaks of death. Abel's blood
is spread all over the ground. They're crying out to God because
Abel had died. The blood of Christ speaks of
life. Now, in a way, the blood of Christ
speaks of death, doesn't it? His death. His death is our substitute. But what's the result of that?
All of God's elect, everyone for whom Christ died, absolutely
must live. because Christ died in their
place. And God can't kill two people for the same sin. If he
put Christ to death for your sin, you must live. He can't
put you to death for it, because that would be unjust. Oh, this
is, grace is wonderful, isn't it? The wisdom and love and mercy
and grace of God, it's astounding. Six, Abel's blood speaks of guilt.
Abel's blood is spread all over the ground, because somebody's
guilty of murder. The blood of Christ speaks of innocence. Abel's
blood cried out, Cain's guilty, Cain's guilty, Cain's guilty,
guilty of murder. Well, the blood of Christ cries
something better. The blood of Christ cries out to the Father.
Father, they're innocent, they're innocent, they're innocent, they're
innocent because I died in their place. And then last, Abel's
blood speaks of the need for justice. Christ's blood speaks
it, cries out, justice is satisfied. Abel's blood cried out to God,
punish Cain for this crime. It's kind of like a family, you
see these families, one of their family members has been murdered,
they catch the murderer, they put the murderer on trial, and
during the trial, where's the family? They're sitting there,
aren't they, behind the prosecution, just staring a hole at that guy.
That's what I'd do, buddy, I'd be there every day. I mean, every
day, that guy's not gonna, I mean, if he ever turns around, he's
gonna see me. Abel's blood is crying out from the ground. Justice,
I want justice, I want justice. And his blood would not stop
crying out to God until their justice had been satisfied. Well,
Christ has died. He shed his blood for the sin
of his people. And the blood of Christ cries out. His death
has satisfied justice for his people, and they're innocent.
And just like Abel's blood wouldn't quit crying for justice, the
blood of Christ will not quit crying for mercy and for grace
and for forgiveness for God's elect. And the blood of Christ
is not gonna be silent. The blood of Christ is gonna
keep crying. It's gonna keep crying. It's gonna keep crying.
until the blood is satisfied. When all of God's elect have
received mercy, when they've all been given life, when they've
all been forgiven and they're all safe in glory, then the blood's
gonna say, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. I like what the
blood of Christ says, don't you? I like that, I wanna hear some
more of that. Maybe the Lord be pleased to
give us the faith to believe what we hear and turn from our
works and trust Christ. All right, let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for the blood of Christ. How we thank you for your wisdom,
your love, your mercy, your grace. that would cause you to save
sinful men and women such as we are through the sacrifice
of your son. Father, how we thank you. Human
lips can't express it as it ought to be expressed, but Father,
how we thank you. Father, I pray you bless your
word. Bless your word to your glory. Cause us who hear it to
see the glory of Christ our Savior, to believe him, rest in him,
and trust in him. It's in his precious name that
we pray. That's this great blessing.