Turn back to John 19 with me. Rebecca had planned to be with
me this morning, and bless her heart, she's got that same stuff
that so many others have. She sends her best. God the Father is the perfect
parent. Jesus Christ is the perfect son. One of the great problems in
our society today is that children no longer can trust or believe
their parents. They don't really know if their
parents are saying what they mean or if they even mean what
they say. And I realize this doesn't apply
here like it does out in the world. But it's not a new problem. I remember, I'm sure Carrie could
tell me almost the day and the month and the year, but she might
have been a freshman or sophomore in high school. And one of her good friends' mother
called and asked to speak to Becky. And she said to Becky,
you know, We got to marshal our forces together here to deal
with these things. You know, they're too young to
have cell phones." Maggie said, okay, yeah, we're not planning
on getting Carrie one. And then she said, and this dance
coming up, no older boys, no way are they going with an older
boy. Maggie said, well, yeah, we think
that too. I don't know how few days went
by before this friend of Carrie's called and said, mom just got
me a cell phone. And it wasn't long after that
until Carrie's friend called her and said, you know, so-and-so
asked me to the dance. Oh boy. And mom said, I can go.
And I don't know if he's a junior or senior or whatever he was,
but it was all out the window. Don't misunderstand me. We weren't
perfect parents, far from it. We had to, on occasion, give
a little, and I don't like the word compromise. I don't think
we did that, but you give a little here and you give a little there,
mainly trying not to make our children complete outcasts over
what we believed when they, in fact, really weren't very sure
yet who and what they believed. You see the difference there?
And young people, unless taught otherwise, very often are going
to do what they want to do rather than what they ought to do. And
we're not completely immune from that either, are we? But you say, is there a place to
draw a line in the sand? Yeah, there is. Hold John 19
and turn over to Joshua 24 with me. Joshua 24. We do need to teach our children
that when we say something, we mean it. And when
we say we're going to worship God on Sunday and Wednesday,
we mean it. And as long as they're under
our roof, they will also attend. Now, we're not fanatical law
keepers. Don't make them miss something vitally important to
them. Otherwise, they'll be angry with
you, which that may be, may happen anyway. But more importantly,
they won't just despise you for it, they'll despise your God
for it. They need to know, however, that
when we say in general and specifically in regard to our Lord, when we
say something, we mean what we say. And here's the evidence
of this in Joshua 24, look at verse 14. fear the Lord and serve Him in
sincerity and truth. And they know when you're sincere
and when it's truthful that you say you know God and you love
His Son and whatever. If you don't ever come worship
Him, they know that's not true. They know you don't mean what
you say. It says, now therefore fear the Lord and serve Him in
sincerity and truth. And put away the gods which your
father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt and
serve ye the Lord. And if it seems evil unto you
to serve the Lord, well, choose this day who you will serve,
whether the gods which your father served that were on the other
side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land
you dwell. But as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord.' And the people answered and said, God
forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods."
God forbid. Children pick up on hypocrisy
quicker than anything there is. Boy, they can spot it. They can
spot it. And I said all that to say this.
When God's Word says what it says in John 19, are you back
there? When it says what it says in
John 19, look at verse 30 with me. When Jesus therefore had
received the vinegar, he said three words. He said, it is finished. When God's word says something,
it means what it says. And it says what it means. Folks,
it is finished. You say, well, what's the it?
That's a good question. Good question. What's the it?
Well, we could spend a lot of time on what it does not mean. You know? But it's so much more
important to get what it does mean. If I were to have to say
just one word which most closely defines it in this case, that
word would be salvation. Our Lord was saying salvation
is finished. The salvation of my people, of
God's chosen elect, It is finished. He meant what he said, and he
said what he meant. And God recorded it perfectly
so we can believe it. As simple as I know how, this
word salvation, I wouldn't embarrass any of the children, although
they might be able to give a better definition than some of us adults
because they're being taught. But here's the best way I know
to define salvation so that all of us can understand it. You
know, a person is saved. Salvation means being saved or
have been saved. Salvation means being saved from
something to something. by a savior, by
someone. You say, well, give me an example.
All right. Let's say the house is on fire. We need to be saved
from the fire to the safety outside. And who do you want for that?
You want a fireman, don't you? If you got out in the ocean somewhere
and, man, a storm came up and you're out there and can't go
on, You need to be saved from that storm, that water, to the
safety of the shore. Who do you want? You want a fireman?
Not unless he swims really good. No, we want a lifeguard, don't
we? Somebody up there in a stand on the beach who can come out
there and get you and bring you in. Let's say you go to the doctor. Doctor says, you got it bad. It's really bad. What do we need? We need to be saved from the
sickness, restored to good health. You want a fireman? You want
a lifeguard? No, you want a physician. You
want a doctor who can deal with this, right? That's the best
I know how to define salvation. But what's our case? What do
we need this morning? What have we needed since the
day we were born? It's real simple. We need to
be delivered from sin to righteousness by the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the Savior. When our Lord said, it is finished,
he meant salvation is finished. I've delivered you from your
sin. I've given you a righteousness and I'm the one who did it. Now,
everybody's terrified of this Ebola stuff going around. And
I understand it. What is it? 40, 50, 60% fatal
or what have you. I got news for you. We got something way
worse than that. We got a disease called sin.
You know what the mortality rate is? 100%. You say, how can you
prove that? Well, everybody I know that ever
lived died. What'd they die of? Something.
Something. And it all comes with the category
of sin. Somebody, you say, well, not everybody gets shot, or not
everybody gets this or that, something done to them. Well,
you're right. Somebody can be born and be perfectly
healthy for a long time. And one day, their heart just
stops. Boom. What happened? Sin finally
came and took what it had coming. You see, when Adam ate of the
fruit, we died. We died. We weren't injured.
We weren't just crippled or what have you. Buddy, spiritually,
we died instantly. Adam no longer, you know that
woman he loved that the Lord gave him? He loved her. What happened? All of a sudden
he went, she made me do it. What was the change? Sin came
in and the woman he loved, he's saying kill her, not me. Sin
is just such an awful thing and we've got it. And somebody's
gotta save us from it. But to come into God's presence,
you see. We need. We need somebody who
can get us to righteousness. And the Lord Jesus Christ, he
lived here over 33 years. You know what? Not one time did
he ever sass his mom. Not one time, not one time did
his dad say, take out the trash. And he went, I'm not doing it.
Or he didn't go, well, I'll get it in a minute. I got to watch
my program. Much less did he do all the things we've done. He was perfect. You say, how
could he do that? He was God's son. This is how
he could do it. He's the only one that ever did
or could. What was he doing? Why did he act that way? Why?
Why? Because he was making this righteousness. We needed to be saved too. And
when they took him up Calvary. What they were doing is punishing
him for sin. So he didn't have any. Oh, I
know, but we do. We do. And something had to be
done with our sin. in order for us to not have it
anymore. And buddy, he took everything
we had coming. And up to that point, everything
he'd ever done had just been perfect. Somebody cursed him
and he went, bless your heart. A leper came into his presence
and everybody else went unclean, unclean and ran the other way.
You know what he did? He reached out and took the leprosy
in himself and made him clean. What was he doing that for? Why
was he acting that way? We needed a righteousness. He
was building it for us. Turn over to Romans chapter 3
and You young people, one of these
days, somebody in modern religion is going to come to you and try
to tell you that what you believe is not
true. That it's not all of grace. That you've got to do something.
You've got to do something. And to that I say this, using my illustration, How would
one of you young people like to be caught in a burning house
and you wake up in the middle of the night and the smoke's
overcome you and somebody sees the blaze and calls the fire
department and here comes a fireman into the house and let's say
it's your house, Isaac, and you're laying there and the smoke's
overcome you, you're just laying on the floor and the fireman
goes through all those flames and comes to the door and there
you are and he says, Isaac, You just take one step towards me,
and I'll take you the rest of the way out of here. Is that
the fireman you want? You say, of course not. Isaac
can't move. He's as good as dead already. Or do you want the fireman to
come and pick you up and carry you to the door, and there's
the door, and he sets you down and says, now all you got to
do is go that far. You will be saved. You want that fireman? You want to be out there in the
ocean and you're overcome, you're exhausted and you're drowning? When I was 16 or 17 and I worked
at this scout camp and we had to do some lifeguard duty and
we'd been trained for that. We had a group of kids come through
from Arizona on their way somewhere and they got a free swim and
we had a diving break. which was this really hard black
rubber thing, and they used it to practice life-saving. They
would throw it out in 10 feet of water, and you had to prove
you were capable of swimming down there and picking up the
brick and bringing it back and putting it on the shore. That's
what a lifeguard had to be capable of. That was simulating, underwater,
the weight of somebody drowning. These boys were doing that, and
they'd bring it to the shore, and another one would throw it out
there, and they kept doing that while I was up in the lifeguard stand.
And this one boy came up, and he set the brick down and went
over here to get out of the way. And this kid wound up to throw
it out there again. And just as he threw it over
the edge of the pool, another kid came up like this, and that
brick hit him. And I saw it all happen. Several
others did. And that boy went back, and he
went like this, and he just started drifting to the bottom. And it
was just everything was frozen in time. Now, do you think that
boy needed me to go, well, if you'll just work your way back
to the surface, I'll jump in and get you to shore? He couldn't do that. He was out
cold. Do you think he needed me to
dive in there and get him back and get about six feet from the
edge of the pool and go, here you are, you're back to the surface,
now just swim on over there and you'll be all right? That's what
modern religion is. They're calling our Lord a liar
when he said, it is finished. He didn't do most of it and you
got to do the rest. He doesn't count on you taking
the first step because he knows we're dead in trespasses and
sin. We might as well be on the bottom
of the pool or passed out on the floor in the burning building.
There's no hope for us. But look in Romans 3 verse 20,
what the word of God teaches us. Therefore by the deeds of
the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Even the righteousness of God. Now where is the righteousness
of God? which is by faith of Jesus Christ
unto all and upon all them that believe. For there's no difference. You see, it doesn't matter that
you didn't do the righteousness. It's believing that Jesus Christ
did and I'm putting everything on him. I'm counting on the fact
that when he said it's finished, I've got a righteousness and
that's that's where I want to be. I'm going to stand right
there. We see that. Turn now over to 2 Corinthians
5. There's not anything left for
me to do. I told you our Lord lived perfectly. In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21,
for He, our Heavenly Father, hath made Him, the Lord Jesus
Christ, to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, that says God
made Jesus Christ to be sin, even though He had no sin. He
put Him right over here as sin. Why? For us, for His people. God made Christ's sin, created
a righteousness for us. You know what that makes Him?
Our Savior. Our Savior. He's already done
everything that needs to be done. It is finished. The salvation
of God's people, it is finished. And let me say this, the second
word, it is. is. Not might. We hope it is. It could be. Waiting on you to
do something. He's done all he can do. No. It is finished. Is means a thing
is true. Means it's a fact. Means it's
reality. Behavior, language, and attitudes
in every generation attempt to undermine the Word of God. Some
are more subtle than others. You know, kind of an example
of that right now is this thing about, well, it ain't over till
it's over. And I guess if you're talking
about sports, if it's not the last out of the game or the clock's
reached all zeros, maybe it ain't over. But listen, salvation,
it is finished. It just is. It is. It's over. It's done. Salvation is of, by,
and through Jesus Christ. It just is. And then finally,
it is finished. Now that does not mean it's almost
finished. But you've got to do this little
thing. Or, it's pretty much done. How would you ladies like to
go have your nails done? Anybody like that? I know some
that do. And you walk into the salon,
and you sit down, and she just sits there. Sits there and sits
there, and you go, well, you going to do my nails? And she
said, well, you do the first one, and then I'll do the rest of
them. You'd say, well, I'm not paying for that. Or she does
eight of them, and there's these two that aren't done. And she
starts packing up and getting ready, and you go, wait a minute.
Wait a minute. She says, I'm finished. And you say, what do
you mean? She says, well, I did that many. You can do the rest.
Listen, God didn't start something. He didn't finish. I defy you
to read through this book anything that the Lord Jesus Christ put
his hands to. He did not finish. He finished
it. It is finished. It's done. Finished means over, done, gone,
eliminated, eradicated, put away, does not exist. It's so finished
our sin never existed. That's amazing, isn't it? It's
gone. It's finished. The righteousness of God's people
that we need It's accomplished by Christ alone. It's completed. It's fulfilled. It's done. It can't be bettered. It can't
be undone. It always was. It always has
been. And it never was not. It ain't over till it's over.
This is over. This is over. Salvation of God's
people is done. It was over before we ever began. Adam had physical life and spiritual
life. He ate of the fruit and died
spiritually. He lived on physically for years
and had children and then he died. And they had children and
it went on and died. If you want evidence of the importance
of bringing your children to worship, It not only, I think
I'm showing you that in the word, but I tell you what, there may
be no other place in these United States, maybe Todd's Road, Grace
Church, I'm not sure, where I can look around and point at so many,
okay, so many young people whose parents meant what they said
and said what they meant when they said, as for me and my house,
we're gonna worship the Lord. Some it took a lot longer to
get here than others. That's OK, too. But folks, it's finished. It's
finished. And let me give you one more
thing here. Those examples I used, those
were not frivolously chosen. The lifeguard. Is there one who can keep us
from drowning in our sin? Yeah, there is. And if you read
through this word, you'll see the illustrations and examples
that were given to support all I'm saying is that Christ saved
us from our sin to his righteousness by himself. There was a storm-tossed
ship. Our Lord took his disciples on
with him. He went down to the hole, fell asleep. And they came
to him, ran to him in this raging storm and said, Don't you care
that we perish? Isn't that amazing? They didn't seem too worried
about him, concerned about him. But boy, for our own hide, you
know, don't you care that we perish? You think God the Father
doesn't care if his children perish? Our Lord woke from His
sleep, walked up on the deck, and you know what He did? He
said, Peace, be still. He laid down. He wasn't having
any of His children drown. Not a one. Not a one. He's able to save. Another time,
He put His disciples on a ship, and off they went. Man, the storm
came up, and it raged, and it was awful, and they were all
out there just fretting and carrying on, and they looked up, And here
comes a man walking on the water. Boy, that's the lifeguard I want.
The one that doesn't have to swim to me, he can just walk
on the water. And he came, and as they got close, Peter said,
I think it's the Lord. And he said, Lord, if it's you
bid me come to you. And the Lord said, OK, Peter,
come on. Peter stepped out in that raging storm and started
across the water. And it says, he all of a sudden
looked up and went, man, I'm in a real storm. You ever get
in a real storm in this life and you just take your eye off
him? Well, that's when you'll start to sink. But have no fear. Peter said, oh, Lord save me
or I'll perish. And the one who can walk on the
water, what a lifeguard he is. He picked him up, carried him
all the way to the ship. You see, the word is full of
illustrations of this type that verify who he is, what he did,
and why he did it, and where he is now. How about this business
of the physician? When you get that cancer diagnosis,
that's serious, isn't it? And if there's one who can save
us from the deadly illness of sin, it's gotta be the Lord Jesus
Christ. Do you ever notice that, I've
been guilty of this, that when we find out something's really
wrong with us or a loved one, and we go to the doctor, did
you ever notice everybody's got their guy, their doctor. I mean,
he's the best surgeon in the whole United States. Did you
ever notice that? Oh, this guy's the best in the
whole region. He's just nobody better than him. And you say,
why is that? Well, we want to delude ourselves
into thinking that. But the truth is there's got
to be some real mediocre surgeons and doctors out there. Because
too many people die. Let me tell you, there is a great
physician. A great physician. You say, can
you back that up? As a matter of fact, I can. There
was a woman with an issue of blood for 12 years. All the doctors
and physicians couldn't help her. And yet all she did was
touch the hem of his garment. She was made whole. Peter's wife's
mother had a deadly fever. The Lord walked in the room,
he was gone. She was all well. There was a
crippled man. The Lord said, pick up your bed
and carry it home. He did. There were lepers everywhere. He cleansed them all. There was
a palsied man. He said, quit shaking. He was
still. There was a man with a withered hand. He said, stretch it out. It's a miracle. That's amazing. Not as amazing as being saved
from sin to righteousness by the Lord Jesus Christ. There
was a man possessed of a demon. They chained him and he'd just
tear the chains and break them. And he was wild as crazy. He was a lunatic, they called
him. Our Lord came, called out the problem. And the
next time they saw this man, he was seated in his right mind
at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? The Lord had taken
care of everything that was bothering him and made him completely whole.
He saved that man from his sickness. There was actually a bunch of
blind people. He made them all see. There was
a dead man. Now that's pretty sick, isn't
it? The Lord raised him up. There was Jairus' daughter. When the Lord got there, she
was dead. He breathed life into her. If we come to him, the great
physician, he can breathe life into us. He can take that sin
away and give us a righteousness, spiritual life. Folks, he's the
great physician who never, ever once has lost one patient. And then finally turn to Daniel
chapter three. Turn to Daniel chapter 3. If you're caught in a fire, you
need a fireman to save you. A long time ago, there was three
men, and they defied the king, which is basically what we all
do when we sin. We just defy the true and living
God. And the punishment for that was
being thrown into the fiery furnace. And certain death were facing
these men. In Daniel 3 verse 21, it says, then these three men
were bound in their coats with their pants on and their hats
and their other garments. They were tied up and they were
cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore, because
the king commandment, he was really mad. It was urgent. And the furnace exceeding hot,
the flame of the fire slew the men that took Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego up there. Let me tell you, sin's gonna
get everybody. Everybody. And these fellas walked up to
the fire, obeying the king, and they threw them in. They just
incinerated. That's how hot this thing was.
And then look at verse 23. And these three men, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, they fell down bound, tied up. What was
it they could do when they were tired up? Boy, they could take
the first few strokes. They couldn't walk towards the
door. Their feet were tied. They were
helpless, doomed, done for in the fire. It says, these three
men fell down into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
Then Nebuchadnezzar the king, he was astonished by what he
saw. And we will be too if we ever
see Christ. We'll be astonished. And he rose
up in haste and spake and said to his counselors, didn't we
put three men bound into the midst of the fire? And everybody
around him answered and said, true, O king, that's what we
did. We put three in there. And he answered and said, lo,
I see four men, and they're all loose, walking in the midst of
the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is
like the Son of God. You ever really get in a fire?
You want the fireman who's coming into the fire and going to give
you life and take you out of the fire. The reason Nebuchadnezzar
thought this looked like the Lord Jesus Christ is because
it was Him. You know why the fire had no
heat, had no effect on these fellas? The fourth man took all
the heat. You know why you and I don't
have to suffer for sin eternally in hell? Jesus Christ took our
place and he's already been there for us. He's the fireman of firemen. And he's delivered. If you read
on here, I'm not going to read on to it. It says they came out
of there and they didn't even have the smell of fire on them. Not a hair singed on their body. You know what that means? They
came out in better shape than they went in. And we do too. We have a perfect righteousness
before God. because of our Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. I don't care what situation we
wind up in or get into in this life. He's the answer. He's the Savior because eternally
He is. He's already done for us all
that we need to be done. Now, one other, let me ask you
this. You say, well, modern religion says you take the first step
and Jesus will do the rest. Or they say, you do all you can
do and then the Lord will do the rest. I'm telling you here,
there's nothing we can do. Nothing. Well, not quite. There
is a list of things in the word here that we can do as believers.
You know what it is? Let me read it to you. Here's
what we can do. We can be still. We can wait. We can bow. We can rest. We can worship. We can listen. We can ask. We can even beg. We can be quiet. We can trust. We can hope. And most importantly,
we can believe by the grace of God. Ask Him to enable us to
believe. Believe on the Son of God who
declares, it is finished. And says, come to me that you
might have life. You say, well, that's doing something. No, it's not. Just sit still.
Don't do a thing. Just believe. That's coming. That doesn't sound
like much for me to do. That's exactly right. He's already
done it all. It is finished. May the Lord bless His word.