Thank you, Ruth. You'll turn
in your Bibles to Hebrews. Chapter 7. In verse 22. Hebrews 7. By so much was Jesus made a surety
of a better testament. Lord willing, that's what we
want to do tonight. We want to praise the God for our surety,
Jesus Christ. In the beginning, couldn't have
read a better scripture opening up today. In the beginning, God,
before he created everything for his purpose and his good
pleasure. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit, the one and only wise and true Lord God
Almighty. There was God. God who is spirit, the God who
cannot lie, God who cannot change, There's no need to change. He's
perfect. He's holy. He's just. And all He does is
good. And all He does is right. He's
God and He's righteous. Before God created all things,
He purposed all things. God is a God of purpose. Nothing happens by chance or
happenstance. Everything God ordained before
the foundation of the world. Everything. Isaiah 14, 24 tells
us, the Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, surely as I have thought,
so shall it come to pass. And as I have purposed, So shall
it stand. He's an all-knowing God because
everything he ordained, everything is working for the good, together
for the good of those that love God, that those are called, chosen
of God before the foundation of the world. Acts 15, 18 tells
us known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the
world. It's all his work. Every bit
of it. Salvation is all of God. It's
all his work. Father, son, and the Holy spirit. All things were done in eternity
in the mind of God. In the beginning, God made a
covenant with himself. It's God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Spirit. And for his purpose to be fulfilled
and to get all his glory for everything that he does, everything
that he's done. It all belongs to him. No one
counseled him. They didn't ask anybody's permission.
There was nobody else. God, in the beginning, God. For the salvation of his chosen
elect in Christ Jesus, the son and the father, made a covenant
with himself. He chose the people. chose a people in his son because
it pleased him to do so. God the Father chose a people
in his son to show his grace and his mercy to, his unmerited
favor. And look out in the future and
see what you would do or not do. He chose you in Christ for
the foundation of the world, chose you out of Adam's race,
because it pleased him. To predestinate those chosen
unto salvation. To conform them to the image
of his darling son, who he loves. To call them by his word. Christ is the word of God. Preached,
he sends those preachers to create them a new creation. And it's
Christ who speaks through those preachers. If it's from the man,
it's no good. It's fang jangling. Christ is
the one that preaches to you, if it be of God. And for a new creation in his
son, by the inward grace, the working of the Holy Spirit. This
is all the work of God, God, the Father, God, the Son, and
God, the Holy Spirit. They all are one. They're all
equal. To born them again anew and give
them faith and spiritual life eternal. God is a spirit. He's a spirit. You must worship
him in spirit and in truth. He's the truth. To his praise
and to his glory, predestinated them to the adoption of children. This was done in eternity. You're
predestinated to the adoption of children in Christ. He called them the sons of God
in the Lord Jesus Christ from eternity. See how that keeps
you and me out of it? We had nothing to do with it.
Not one thing. Not one thing. And that will
follow through through the experience from eternity to when it's revealed
to us until He calls us all together in Him into glory. He's calling us right now. He's
calling his elect right now. He's gathering his elect because
he's on the throne. He was there in eternity. Yes, we fell. We did. We fell
in Adam. Adam fell in the garden. This too was purposed of God. It didn't happen by his free
will. God purposed it. He knew what
Adam would do. He fixed it. Let's create man in our own image.
God made Adam and he made him humanity's first representative
head. He was your representative head. Whether you like it or not, he
was your representative head. And as by Adam's willful disobedience
to God, His prior act as your representative head, he sinned against God. And by
that one man's disobedience, we all, all of his children,
born in the flesh, all humanity is born with his nature, because we were in him. We were
in his loins. We were all, he made us all sinners and we were all born with that
nature. Adam couldn't keep one commandment
that God gave him, not one. And we can't either because we
got his nature. That sinful, God-hating nature. It's at enmity with God. Natural man born of the flesh
cannot please God, nor can we do anything to save ourselves. Saying we're sorry and getting
down on our hands and knees and crying and begging God to forgive
us is not going to do it. Not in our natural flesh. We
can do nothing to appease God's holy justice. We can't pay that sin debt that
we owe. We got nothing to pay it with.
We were born unclean. We were born unrighteous. We
were born unholy. We were born in bondage, captivity. To Satan, to our sins, we love
our sin. Under the curse of God's law,
we deserve eternal separation from God. Because the wages of sin are
death, and that's eternal death. Separation, eternal separation
from God. He can't even look upon you. He can't look upon your sin. And he won't let any sin go unpunished.
God demands it to be clean, holy, just, righteous, perfect. Or he won't accept it. And he
won't change his standards because he don't change. He's perfect. He's God. So we were ruined and helpless. And we were so blind, we didn't
even know it. We were just as happy as we could
be. We can't discern in the flesh,
we can't discern spiritual things, because only the flesh knows
flesh and is only concerned about the fleshly things, about the
lust of our bellies. And only spiritual knows spiritual,
and only God can reveal those things to you. Only God can make
you a spiritual being, give you a spiritual life and faith, create
you a new creature. He don't wash your flesh and
clean it up. He creates a new creature in
you. And that is Christ revealed in
you the hope of glory. God's a spirit. Behold the wisdom
of God. But before God created anything
for his purpose, he provided himself something. He already purposed that you, you would fall, you would be
ruined in Adam. He provided himself a sacrifice
A perfect sacrifice, because he demands perfection or he won't
accept it. He provided himself a perfect
sacrifice to appease his holy justice, to satisfy him. One who could pay. He chose his
son to redeem his elect, those that he chose in him. because
he knew they were gonna fall. He purposed. He chose his son to be our surety. Christ joyfully, joyfully volunteered,
despising the shame, but that joy. He loved you from eternity. Isn't that wonderful to know
that the God Almighty who created all things for Himself, by Himself,
loved you from eternity? He even knew you were going to
be a sinner, vile and wretched and unclean. But He chose you
in His Son. He sanctified you and his son. But oh, for the joy, the father
and the son, they struck hands, they struck hands, they drew
near and they struck hands. And Christ became our surety. God trusted him. with his elect
people. He first trusted Christ with
his chosen elect. Chosen out of Adam's race, set
apart, sanctified in Christ Jesus by his electing grace, by his,
by Christ, by his obedience, this one last Adam, who's the elect's representative
head. We have a new, better representative
head. Christ made us, in eternity,
the righteousness of God in him. We didn't know it, we haven't
experienced it yet. We have now experienced it. But
in the beginning, we hadn't experienced it. But God said we were. God said
he did choose us in his son. What God says is right. Christ, our substitute, our redeemer,
God made him our surety, our all, by his free and sovereign
grace in his only begotten son. That's why they say, he says,
behold the Lamb of God slain, slain. God says he's slain before
the foundation of the world. That's how sure, that's how sure your surety is. Before he ever created you in
the flesh, he trusted his son. to be your
substitute, to pay your sin debt. He loved you from eternity. Christ
our surety. Be pleased God, hope he shows
us a little more about what this surety, our surety Christ Jesus
is. What Christ our surety means,
How Christ made was made our surety. What did he accomplish
as our surety? We could be here all night on
that. Christ our surety. What does
it mean? What's a surety? Well, to put
it in human terms, we can say we think of a surety, we usually
think of someone who borrows money from someone and that person
becomes a debtor to the lender, right? And in some cases, that
person needs a cosigner. He needs a surety. So a lot of times a father will,
for a child, will cosign for them, for their first car, what
have you. And if that child doesn't make
the payment, the lender then seeks that surety for the payment
and he's made responsible legally because he co-signed for him.
But in this example, the lender only seeks the surety when the
debtor doesn't make a payment, can't make a payment. That's
not so with God. God fixed it so you can never
pay the debt. You never, he never expected
the first payment from you. He knows you didn't have anything
to pay with. That's why he provided a surety. Someone he trusted. Someone you, in the experience
of grace, in your appointed time of love, you're gonna trust him
too. Because he's your surety. Could never pay that debt. We
had nothing. God would accept. He ceased looking to us for that
payment. When he struck hands with his
son, he drew near and he made a covenant And he made him and he volunteered
to be our surety. He trusted us, or trusted, I'm
sorry, he trusted us to his son to redeem us. Christ is the only
sacrifice that God's pleased with. Only Christ's blood. All those offerings of Lambs
and goats and bulls, that blood was, that was a type, those were
pictures of this surety, of this redeemer, of this sacrifice. Christ Jesus, His blood, His
only blood, only His righteousness and His holiness, His perfect
obedience, only Christ's one-time sacrifice of Himself could put
away the sins of his people. We are bought with a price more
precious than silver and gold. Christ bought us with his own
blood. He laid down his life for us. This is what he promised the
father he would do in our stead for his glory. He came as a man. The God of glory came as a man.
He laid down his life for his sheep. You go to 1 Peter 1.18,
verse 18. 1 Peter 1.18. For as much as ye know that ye were
not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold from your
vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was made known, was manifest in these last times
for you. who by him do believe in God
that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory that your
faith and hope might be in God. It's all for his glory. We didn't
have anything to do with it. What is Christ our surety? He
took full and total responsibility for all of the elect of God. He took all responsibility to
save us to the uttermost, to fulfill that covenant of grace
to the glory of God. That God would get all the glory. As Judah, you know the story
in Genesis, as Judah became the surety For Benjamin, remember,
Christ took full responsibility for all of God's elect. He said,
if I bring him not unto thee and set him before thee, then
let me bear the blame forever. But Christ can't fail. Christ
cannot fail. He's God. He's already ordained
all of this. What better surety? You can't
have a better surety. He's God. He's the son of God. All the fullness of the Godhead
resides in him bodily. Failure is not an option. Hear
Christ's prayer. And this is very familiar to
you, but we're gonna read it again. In John 17, we'll start
in verse one. These words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, and this is as he was going to
be crucified. Father, the hour has come, glorify
thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. As thou has given
him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou has given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the
glory which I had with Thee before the world was. And skip on down
to verse 20. Neither pray I for these alone,
his disciples, his apostles, but for them also which shall
believe on me through their word. He set up his churches, he set
up his apostles for his preachers when he was on this earth, that
they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me. And I in thee,
we're talking about this unity, that they also may be one in
us, that we may be one in the Father and the Son, that the
world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which
thou givest me, I have given them. And they may be one, that
they may be one even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me,
that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may
know that thou has sent me and has loved them as thou has loved
me. Did you read that? Did you read
that? Father, I will that they also
whom thou has given me be with me where I am. that they may
behold my glory, which thou hast given me. For thou lovest me
before the foundation of the world. And he says, he loves
you, too, in Christ. Before the foundation of the
world. Look over in John 6. Let's look
over in John 6 real quick. John chapter 6. Verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Here's your surety talking. God
draws you to him. He seeks and save sinners. Christ Jesus, our surety. All
that the Father giveth me, for the foundation of the world,
shall come to me. This is where you experience
the grace. And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast
out. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. And this is the Father's will, which hath sent me, that
of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up again at the last day. Eternity to eternity, he's
gonna keep you. He says it again, and this is
the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the
Son and believe on him may have everlasting life and I will raise
him up at the last day. I will raise him up at your surety. God said it. He can't lie and
he can't change. He won't change his mind because
it's perfect. Everything he does is perfect.
Only Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father, can present
us perfect to God in Him. God looks to His Son. He sees
His Son. And He chose you in Him before
the foundation of the world that you might be blameless and holy
in Him in love. Wow. Wow. How was Christ made our surety?
Before the world was Christ Jesus, like we said, he drew near to
God the Father. And on the behalf of his chosen
elect people, Christ Jesus took full responsibility for us. He
struck hands. That's for us to understand.
You make a covenant with someone, you strike hands with them. You
shake their hands. Your handshake is your word,
right? It's your honor. He was bound
to honor. He struck hands. He agreed. He became a surety. He was bound. Bound. No greater word is there
than Christ Jesus. He is the word. He is truth.
He can't lie. He struck hands with the father
and he took full responsibility for all that the father gave
him. He voluntarily submitted himself
to the will of God. Psalms 40 verse seven. Then said I, lo, I come in the
volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will,
O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. In eternity, Christ was made
our surety and God, the Father, accepted him as our surety. And he ceased looking at us for
any kind of payment. Christ volunteered to pay every
single debt that all of his elect owed. And Christ freed us right then
from the bondage, from the curse of the law, from
that penalty, from the wrath of God, Because
God looked to his son for full satisfaction for our debts. It's done. In the mind of God,
it was already done. It was enough. It was enough. Christ come to
accomplish and he did come and accomplished. And like I said, we have it revealed
to us. By his grace and time, time allotted
of God, he reveals this truth to us. But it was done in eternity. Job 33, 24. Then he is gracious
unto him and saith, deliver him from the going down into the
pit. I have found a ransom. He became our substitute before
the Father and promised as a servant, humbled himself to be a servant
to the Father, to do all that God required for our salvation
and His eternal glory in our room instead. That's grace, unmerited
favor. We didn't do anything to deserve
it, earn it, Don't now, never will. Christ did it all for the
foundation of the world. So what did Christ Jesus accomplish
as our surety? Well, in short, all. He did it all. This better Testament
is the covenant of grace. Christ is the covenant. He is
the mediator of the covenant. He's the fulfiller of the covenant. What better surety could you
have? He's the testator. All scripture, all types, all
pictures, the book is of him. It's a revelation of Jesus Christ. And he is the revelation of God,
manifest in flesh. Oh, glory be. Christ came and
fulfilled it all. He fulfilled the law. He fulfilled
the old covenant. All of those types ended when
he came as the God-man redeemer. There's no more need to go through
the ceremonies. He fulfilled the law perfectly. There's no need for that law.
That law don't have a thing to do with you and me now. He took
it away. He took the old away. He made
all things new. He fulfilled it all. Luke 24,
44. Let's look at it. Luke 24, 44
says, And He said unto them, These are the words which I spake
unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, And in the
prophets and in the Psalms, concerning me. It all concerned Christ. He fulfilled it all. It's God's
purpose, God's providence. The saving of his elect before
the world was. Elect of God, he loved you on
purpose. Think about that. He loved you
on purpose. He purposed to love you. He purposed
you to love him. And he did it in his son, by
his grace, unmerited favor, just because it pleased him to do
it. To make you clean and holy and just before him. Righteous. He loved you on purpose. From
eternity, he purposed to love you. He's loved us with an everlasting
love. He purposed Christ to fulfill
that covenant, trusted him to do it. Look on into Hebrews 8. Let's go on and look at that.
Let's go look at Hebrews 8. In verse 10. For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their
mind. I will write them in their hearts, and I will be to them
a God. Here's what your surety. And
they shall be to me a people, and they shall not teach every
man his neighbor. We have Christ in us. We have
his spirit. We're sealed with his spirit,
and he teaches us all things. And every man his brother, saying,
know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember
no more. How could he not remember your
sins and iniquities no more? Because Christ Jesus, you're
sure to put them away. He put them away on that cross.
He put them away from eternity when he became your surety, because
in the mind of God, there's enough is done is finished. And he came
and accomplished just as God purposed for him to do, just
as he created everything to purpose it. He created it all. That's why it says it's for the
good of those that love God. They called according to his
purpose. All your salvation. It's all
for your salvation, for the salvation of His elect, and to His glory. His glory, because He does it
all, and you can't glory in anything but Him, because He did it all. You can't pat yourself on the
back for one little thing, or anybody else. He purposed Christ
to fulfill the covenant, trusted Him. Christ came, God manifested
in the flesh, humbled himself as a man. He emptied himself in our flesh without sin. There's no sin in him. He never sinned. To suffer and
to be tempted as a man, to submit himself as servant
to God the Father, depending on the Father for everything. We're predestinated to be conformed
to His image. Listen to what He's done for
us. To live in perfect obedience
to the Father's will under the law, obeying it perfectly for
us, bringing in His perfect righteousness, His perfect obedience. He's faithful
to God, obedient even unto the death of the cross. There's no
guile in Him. He did it for the joy, for the
glory of God, and for our, for His, that God gave Him for our
salvation. Even unto death of the cross,
He became a curse for us, as cursed as every one that hangeth
on a tree. He took that curse away from
us. That eternal death that we deserve, that eternal separation
from God that we deserve, He bore that for each and every
one of us, the fury of God, the wrath of God for each and every
one of us in our place, setting His people free from eternal
death and separation from God. He bore in His own body all the
sins of His elect people. His body, He alone, He was made
sin for us. Who knew no sin? That we, and
He made us, He imputed His righteousness to us. He, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. He took our sins away in His
own body. and by himself, he paid the ransom
for all his people, put our sins away, all the guilt, all the
shame. He paid the price that we could
never pay for each and every one that the father gave him.
And he says, we're like the sand. You can't even count us. His
own blood to redeem us. He bore the entire fury of God's
holy wrath. He poured out His justice upon
Him. His wrath and His fury on Him. He beat Him. He shoved that sword of justice
deep into Him until He was satisfied. And Christ bore it all. He prepared
him. God prepared him a body for that.
That's your surety. That was done before the foundation
of the world. And he came and accomplished
it in the time that the Lord sent him to do it. And it was
in our room instead that he died and that he was buried. And then
according to the scripture, he rose again the third day and
he justified us, the ungodly, the just for the unjust. The
lamb for the ass. God said if it's unclean, it
can only be, you have to sacrifice a lamb in its place. We were unclean. We had to have
a sacrifice, a pure and perfect spotless lamb in our place. If not, he said it'd break its
neck. break his neck, kill it. And he ascended up again into
heaven and to the holies of holies and presented himself as sacrifice
to atone for our sins. The only sacrifice that God would
accept and be pleased with. And this is how God accepts us. He accepts us in his son, our
surety. This he did for us as our short,
as our substitute. And God exalted him and he sits
now on his throne. Let's go to Psalms 110. Go to Psalms 110. Look here. Psalms 110, we'll
start verse one. The Lord said unto my Lord, Set
thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. In the beauties of holiness from
the womb of the morning, thou hast the dew of thy youth. The
Lord has sworn and will not repent Thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek. He's our high priest. Our surety
is our high priest. He's our advocate with the Father. He's our only acceptance, our
only holiness, our only righteousness to God the Father. That's Christ
your surety. He accomplished everything that
God required for your salvation. Perfectly, fully, completely. And when he comes again, he's
going to get that purchased possession, every single one of us. He's
going to change us. He's going to raise us up. We're
sown in corruptible seed. We're going to be raised in incorruption. We're going to be like him. He's
going to change us. He's even going to raise our bodies out
of the grave. He's going to change them. But it's that new man. It's that new man created in
Christ Jesus. That's the one. Christ in you. Christ revealed in you. The hope
of glory. It's Christ in you. His seed
in you. He born you. You're a new creation
in him. He did it before the foundation
of the world. You experienced his grace when
he shined his light. His marvelous light into your
darkness and revealed himself to you in the face of his only
begotten son, Jesus Christ. Your surety. God, the Holy Spirit, quickened you. He gave you faith
to believe in spiritual life, to understand spiritual things, made you a new creation in Him. One day, we're going to be known
as we're known. And we're going to know him because
we're going to be like him. We're going to be in him. We always
were. That glory that I had with you before the foundation of
the world. If I bring him not unto thee, and set him before
thee, perfect, then let me bear the blame forever. Quickly, Isaiah
42, 4 says, he shall not fail. nor be discouraged till he have
set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his
law. We have a peace. We have peace with God now through
blood of Jesus Christ, our surety. He did that. The God man broke
down that middle wall of partition. Brethren, we're saved by grace
through the faith, that God-given faith. And if God justifies you,
He justifies you. You live by faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because He's faithful. And we
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
He's given us the ministry of reconciliation. We got brothers
and sisters in Christ, and he has entrusted us with his word. He speaks through us. He sends messengers, the preachers,
the man, to preach his gospel, to declare it to you. and he
saves his elect right now through his word. That's how he says
he'd do it. The foolishness of preaching. All by God's free and sovereign
grace and our surety, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 3 20. Now to him that
is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us. Unto him be glory in the
church. He sanctioned you for the furtherance
of the gospel. We have a responsibility. We
have a duty. We serve the living God. And it's all by Him. It's all
by His grace in Christ Jesus. We can't do a thing. We can do
nothing without Him. Nothing. He does it all. Unto Him be the glory and the
church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.