For God's call to worship, please
turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. We're gonna read verse 28 through 31. Many years ago we had a conference
here and a gentleman come up and he preached on these verses.
and told about the lie being told in religion, that is, that
the blood of Christ is an unholy thing. That's what they believe,
a common thing. Verse 28, he that despised Moses'
law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how
much sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy
who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the
blood of the covenant wherein he was sanctified an unholy thing,
and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace. For we know
him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me. I will recompense,
saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge
his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. This idea of trotting underfoot
the Son of God and counting His blood unholy or holy is something
that's set apart, differentiated from. Christ is holy, we are
not. But in today's religion, they
say that Christ loved everybody. He shed His blood for everybody. and it's up to you to decide
to accept or reject his offer of salvation. They say that the
blood of Christ was spilled for Jacob just as much as it was
for Esau. It was spilled for Jesus equally
as it was for Paul. It was a common thing. That's
not what the word of God says. It is a holy thing. It makes
the difference. For everyone that he spilled
his blood for, everyone will be in glory. And he did not spill
for only, he spilled only for those whom God the Father gave
him. That's what we believe, and that's
what, thank God, we preach. That's a comfort to my soul.
That's a comfort to my soul. Always like years ago, I heard
a man say, an old gospel preacher, he said, in today's false religion,
they tell people God loves everybody. Christ died for everybody. And
it's up to you to either accept or reject his offer of salvation,
that Christ is in your hands. The gospel of God's glory in
Christ is that we are in Christ's hands. And Christ's holiness
demands that he either save us or he judge us into the pit of
hell. And it is his decision, not ours. We are dependent 100%
on him. If God ever gives you the faith
to believe that, you'll know something about pleading for
mercy. Lord, we're so thankful for allowing
us to gather here today. Oh, Lord, we know it is by your
power that we're here. We're so thankful that we're
in your hands. The hands of the one that has
all power, we have no power. We're so thankful, Lord, that
you've sent your servant here this morning to declare Christ
and him crucified, and that your blood accomplished what it set
out to do, and that is the salvation of your people. We pray that
you would be with our brother as he declares that. We pray for your children, unworthy
sinners, Lord, who can do nothing for themselves. Oh, we pray especially
this day for those who may be sitting here who are strangers
to your grace, that today might be the day that you meet with
them, Lord, that you pierce their hearts with the truth that salvation
is all of Christ, that you might give them the faith to believe
and to worship you, to love you, and join us in our love for Christ
and his gospel. We ask these things for your
glory, amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin, the
hymn on the back of your bulletin. Compared with Christ in all beside,
no beauty can I see. The one thing needful, dearest
Lord, is to be one with Thee. A sense of thy redeeming love
into my soul convey. Thyself bestow for thee alone
my all in all. Less than thyself will not suffice
my comfort to restore. More than thyself I cannot crave,
and thou canst give no more. Loved of my God, for Him again,
with love intense I'd burn. Chosen of Thee, ere time began,
I choose Thee in return. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to 2 Samuel
chapter 12. 2 Samuel chapter 12. What a blessing it's been to
identify with David's experience. His experience with sin in chapter
11, and now his experience with forgiveness In chapter 12, Nathan,
the prophet of God, gives to David an allegory, a story, about
a man who stole his neighbor's sheep to feed a guest. And David, in his hypocrisy,
tries to show indignation toward this person and pronounces judgment
against the man who stole the neighbor's sheep. And Nathan
very lovingly says directly to King David, David, thou art the
man. And David responds to that clear
word from God with, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan,
again, the prophet of God, speaking the word of God, says to David,
and the Lord also hath put away thy sin. He's put it away. Sinners need to know how it is
that God does that. How does God see me? Because when I get a glimpse
of him, all I can see in myself is sin. When I get a glimpse of His holiness,
of His glory, of His righteousness, the only conclusion I can come
to is that everything in me falls short of His glory. And that
is God's definition of sin. Which leads me to one conclusion.
It's not just the bad things that I feel shameful about. It's
every part of me. Standing in the presence of a
holy God is sinful. How can I get a word from God
like David God? And the Lord also hath put away
thy sin. If God sees me the way I see
myself, I have reason to be afraid. And more than reason to be afraid,
I have no hope. If God sees me the way I see
myself, I'm hellbound under the wrath of a holy God. I know that however it is, God sees
something is the way it is. So what does God say in his word about my sin? I'm intently, eternally,
desperately in need of a word from God. The only way that we can see
what God sees is with the eye of faith. The only way we can believe what
God says is with a heart of faith. And faith is the gift of God. But faith comes by hearing. And hearing comes by the word
of God. So these things come together, don't they? We come
together in order that God might speak. And in speaking, he might
give me ears to hear and comfort my heart, give me hope, give
me rest, give me joy, give me comfort, give me peace. Cause the love of God to shed
abroad in my heart so that I can believe what God says about me
rather than what I see in myself. Now I've told you the story,
the verses are found here in 2 Samuel chapter 12. In verse 13, and David said unto
Nathan, I'm sorry. Nathan says in verse 7 to David,
thou art the man. And then David recounts, Nathan
recounts to David why it is that God finds him guilty. There's
no There's no claim for innocence. There's no not guilty plea. There's
no justifying himself. We're really good at justifying
ourselves with one another, aren't we? Someone accuses me of something
I'm not guilty of, I'm gonna jump to my own defense really
quick. Matter of fact, somebody accused me of something, I've
got some guilt in, I'm gonna justify myself. Isn't that the
way we are? Well, yeah, but, and we make
excuses and we justify what we've done, but not when God speaks. Not when God speaks. When God
speaks, there's only, all we can say is truth, Lord. Truth,
Lord. Whatever you say is right. Oh, the blessing of being able
to take sides with God against yourself. The blessing of being
able to agree with God. The blessing of being able to
believe God. David said unto Nathan in verse
13, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David,
the Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. The means by which the Lord gives
light and truth and hope and peace, forgiveness is by the message of the gospel. And the message of the gospel
always comes through a man. Here it's the prophet Nathan,
the preacher. How shall they believe upon him
in whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? God always uses the means of one sinner telling another
sinner how they got forgiveness. One beggar telling another beggar
where they can find bread. What is preaching? It's a nobody telling everybody about somebody
who can save anybody. Here's the means by which God
always is pleased. bless what the world calls foolishness. God says the foolishness of man,
the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man and God
is pleased to use the foolishness of preaching to save them which
believe. Sinners are always in need of
being saved. A faithful interpreter. Job said
they're one in a thousand. There's lots of false prophets
saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. They're declaring
messages that are not true. They're either playing on men's
emotions or tickling their ears and telling them what they want
to hear. But God's men, God's messengers,
God's ambassadors. Paul said, we are ambassadors. Ambassadors for Christ, as if
God did beseech you, be reconciled to God. That's my need, my need
is to be reconciled to God because my sin has separated me from
my God. That's the only thing that can
separate a man from God is sin. And the only sin that can separate
a man from God is his own sin, not someone else's. So I need to know how it is I
can be reconciled to God. How can I have my sin put away? And I just want to begin by saying
that God always uses a very feeble means by a very feeble voice
of one voice just crying in the wilderness, behold the Lamb of
God which taketh away the sins of the world. A man that just
points to Christ because he is the one and the only one that
can take away our sins. God sent the Apostle Paul to
a woman who was praying down by the river by the name of Lydia
and preached the gospel to her. Paul sent Philip to an Ethiopian
eunuch, reading from the book of Isaiah out in the desert of
Gaza and ask him, understandeth what
thou readest? How can I accept a man should
guide me? And Philip got in the chariot
and preached unto him Jesus. God sent Peter to Cornelius in
Joppa, a Gentile, a man who God had been dealing
with. And now he's gonna bring him
a gospel message from this ambassador. Oh, just telling the old, old
story of unseen things of old. Of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus
and his love. That's what we're doing. Because
apart from the declaration of what God has given us in his
word, there's no way to see. There's no way to see how it
is that God could, how can a man be right with God? That's the
question Job asked. How can I? How can a sinner stand
in the presence of a holy God and be accepted? How can God
say to someone like me, and also I have forgiven thee and put
thy sin away. We preach the whole counsel of
God. We don't try to manipulate men. We just tell them what God said.
Thus saith the Lord. This is what God says. And faith always believes God.
Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful? Faith just
believes God. agrees with God. Here's what
God says in first John chapter one verse nine. If we confess
our sins, David is David has been exposed. And the first thing out of his
mouth is I have sinned against the Lord. And the Lord said,
if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us of our sins and cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. Forgiveness always comes with
confession, but don't make confession a work. Don't make confession something
that you do to earn favor with God. Don't make confession your
contribution to your salvation. Men will do that. Confession
is repentance. It is a work of grace in the
heart. It is a change of mind. It is going from justifying oneself
and establishing one's own righteousness before God to simply agreeing
with God. Now there's a couple of words
that you're familiar with that we get from the Greek language. The first word is homo. The word
homo means same. We use it in our English language. And the second word is the word
logos. And the word logos means word. The Lord Jesus is called
the logos, the living word. It's the word from God. In 1
John 1 verse 9, the verse that I just quoted, if we confess,
that word confess is a conjunction of homo and logos, it is the
word homologous. And it means this, it means to
speak the same thing that God speaks. That's all it means. Agree with God. Take sides with
God against yourself. How do I know I'm a sinner? Because
God said so. Do I feel the full weight of
my sin as I ought? No. Am I sorry for my sin as
I ought to be? No. How do you know that you're
a sinner? One simple thing. God said so. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. There's
none righteous, no, not one. When God looked down from heaven,
he saw that every thought and imagination of the heart was
only evil and that continually. Well, I have some good thoughts,
not what God says. Not what God says. God says our
thoughts are full of vanity. They're sinful. Anything that
comes from us is just sin. That's how we... What is fake?
Believe God. It's just believing what God
says. That's what confessing is, confession
is. If we say the same thing about
ourselves that God says about us, he says, I will forgive thy
sins and put away thy iniquity. You see, confession is, well, we see it here with David.
I've sinned, sinned against the Lord. I've got no justification.
I've got no excuse. I've got no claim to make. I've got nothing that I can say. God is right and I'm wrong. I'm
a sinner. And this is a faithful saying,
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's all he
saves is sinners. And he saves every one of them,
every one of them. What a blessing it is. You see,
apart from the grace of God, we would hold out on thinking
that there's something in us that's not sinful. There's some
righteousness in us. There's something that would
recommend us to God. There's something in us. Or at
least there's some prospect of being able to have something
and do something. You say, I'm not there yet, but
if I work a little harder, I can get there. No. No, there's only one that's without
sin. And God made him who knew no
sin to be made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Turn with me to Psalm 38. Psalm 38. You see, brethren, yeah, does the
Lord give us a sense of our sin? Yes. Does he give us a sorrow
for our sin? Yes. Does he cause us to have
a desire to separate ourselves from that sin? Yes. But have
we ever sensed sin as we ought? Have we ever sorrowed for sin
as we ought? Have we ever separated ourselves
completely from all sin? No. No. You see, wallowing in guilt and
shame and putting on some false humility about being some great
sinner is not what God's requiring. He's just simply saying, agree
with me. homologous, just say the same
thing that God says. Just agree with God. Truth Lord,
what could I ever present to a holy God that would recommend
me to him? Psalm 38. Oh Lord, rebuke me not in thy
wrath. David wrote these words. We often
refer to Psalm 51 when we're thinking about David's sin with
Bathsheba because that Psalm tells us that David wrote that
in response to that particular sin. But here's David's presenting
himself as a sinner before God and he's expressing to God. But
more importantly, and this is true of all the Psalms, There are self-professing theologians
who will tell us that there are certain Psalms that are messianic,
there are certain Psalms that are about Christ. Truth is, the
ones that they identify as messianic are so blatantly clear that you
don't even have to be a believer to see the fulfillment of those
Psalms in the New Testament. Just read the Bible, you see
that that's By the power of the Holy Spirit, every Psalm is messianic. Every one of them speaks first
and foremost about the Lord Jesus. And when David's speaking, he's
speaking prophetically about Christ. And though he's expressing
his own sorrow for sin, in its ultimate fulfillment and application,
it is a prophecy of the words of Christ. I can just hear the
Lord Jesus as he's hanging there on that cross for three hours.
We only have a few of his words recorded, but you know that he
was offering up to his father the words of scripture the entire
time he was there. And I can just hear him reciting
in his heart to his father, Psalm 38. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy
wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. For thine
arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh
because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones
because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone
over my head as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My
wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. I
am troubled, I am bowed down greatly. I go mourning all the
day for my loins are filled with loathsome disease and there is
no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sore broken. I have roared by reason of the
disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desires before thee,
my groaning is not hid from thee, my heart panteth, my strength
faileth me. As for the light of mine eyes,
it also is gone from me. My lovers and my friends stand
aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off. They also that
seek after my life lay snares for me. And they that seek my
hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits all the day
long. Look down at verse 17. For I
am ready to halt. My sorrow is continually before
me. For I will declare mine iniquity
and I will be sorry for my sin. The only way that God can look
at you and me and say to us, the Lord also hath put away thy
sin, is if he put them away in Christ. How do I know if he did that?
only place I've got to go with my sin. I can't go anywhere else. I don't have any other option.
I'm shut up to Christ. I can't add to or take away from
what he did. If he doesn't save me, I won't
be saved. I know whom I have believed and
I'm persuaded that he is able. I've got, I can't, Lord, to whom
shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. We know and are sure that thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's how I know
that he died for me is because he has shut me up to himself.
If it's Jesus plus anything, or if I think that I can add
to by my decision or by my dedication or by my works, anything that
he accomplished, when he said it is finished, He took that sponge of vinegar
as we saw in the first hour. He cried, I thirst. And they
gave him vinegar to drink. And he fulfilled all scripture.
And he bore our sins in his body upon that tree. And he put them
away by the sacrifice of himself once and for all. When are our sins put away? And the answer to that question
is threefold and the third point has three subpoints. Bear with
me just a moment. When did God put my sin away? The Word of God says that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation
of the world. Now the foundation of the world
is a biblical reference to time. So before time ever was, before
the angels were made, before the stars were flown into the
universe, before the earth was made, before Adam was made, before
time ever was, was eternity. So in eternity past, God had
an eternal covenant of grace where God the Son, God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit made a covenant promise
with one another. God promised his son a bride.
The Lord Jesus promised to bear the sins of that bride and put
them away by the sacrifice of himself. Now, the Bible also
says that God has loved his people with an everlasting love. And
the Bible also says that God's eyes are too pure to look upon
iniquity. So we can only come to one conclusion. In the sight of God, I opened
this message by saying, how does God see me? Because how I see
myself is sinful. I need to know how God sees me.
What are we concluding? that God has always seen His
elect people in the person of His Son, their substitute, their
sin bearer. He has never charged them with
their sin. He could not, if He was to love
them with an everlasting love, and if He was to look upon them
with affection, He always had to see them in Christ. And so our sins have been put
away. And I don't know, there's no way to put this into, from eternity, there. I wanna say from eternity past,
but past has a time reference to it, doesn't it? Eternity doesn't
have any time. And the scripture says this time
that you and I live in will cease to be. Time will be no more. When did God put my sin away?
He put them away in the person of my substitute, in Christ,
before time ever was. And what God did in eternity,
he accomplished in time. So that 2,000 years ago, when
the Lord Jesus went to the cross, he bore in his body the sins
of his people. He satisfied God's divine justice. He became the sinless sacrifice,
the sin bearer for the sins of his people. He became, as the Bible says,
our surety. He bore all the responsibility
for our standing before God. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 26 says,
once in the end of the world. I hope we're in the end of the
end of the world. I hope these are the last of
the last days. But when the Bible speaks of
the last days, it's not talking about the end of time. It's talking about that entire
period of time between the first and second coming of Christ.
And this verse proves it. Hebrews 9.26 says, once in the
end of the world, hath he appeared to put away our sins by the sacrifice
of himself. So what God purposed in eternity,
the Lord Jesus fulfilled in time. When did God put away my sin?
They've always been put away. They were put away 2,000 years
ago. And thirdly, in my experience,
in my experience, they are put away through faith in the new birth. Before God birthed me, by His
Spirit, gave me faith in Christ, enabled me to look upon Him for
the hope of my salvation. My sins kept me from being able
to believe God. My sins separated me from God
in my experience. I had no peace. I had no hope. I had no comfort. I was alienated
from God. I was without God. I was a stranger
to the covenant of grace. The Bible says all these things.
There was no why. Because of my sin and my experience,
though they were put away in the eyes of God in eternity past
and at the cross, in my experience, in time, they had to be put away
in the new birth. When God, by His Spirit, enabled
me to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and in my experience,
the putting away of my sin is a daily, daily experience. David was a believer. David was
a man after God's own heart. And what'd he say? I've sinned. What'd he pray in Psalm 38? What'd
he pray in Psalm 51? Oh, Lord, forgive me. Have mercy
upon me. You see, we continue to come,
don't we? I heard a message John Chapman
preached recently. He said he had a religious experience
when he was a young man. He was telling one of his friends
that, you know, that I've been saved, I'm not a sinner anymore.
And sometime after that, the Lord saved him. And he said, I've been a sinner ever
since. You know, we... You see, here's
the thing about it. People come to religion, they
come to the Bible, they call themselves coming to Christ for
lots of reasons. They come for material reasons,
they come for psychological reasons, they come for physical reasons.
The problem is they come for social reasons. People come to
church for, you know, they're looking for social relationships. And churches play on that. Most
religious organizations provide people what they want. We tell
people what they need. Because we know that if you're
coming for any other reason other than the forgiveness of your
sin, that reason that you're coming for is gonna change. Someone's
gonna offend you and your relationships are not gonna be what you thought
they were gonna be. You're gonna get through the stress and drama
of whatever crisis you were in and that's gonna get better and
all of a sudden you don't need what you thought you needed.
your health issues are going to improve or they're not. And in not improving, you're
going to be disappointed because you're gonna think God didn't
fulfill the promises that I thought he was gonna give me. You see,
if you come to God for any other reason other than sin, you will
leave because you'll no longer have a need for that anymore.
or you'll be disappointed that God didn't meet that need. But
if you come to him as a sinner, number one, that sin's never
gonna go, that need is never gonna go away. And number two,
you're gonna find him all sufficient to meet that need and to say
to you, also, your sin's been put away. It's been put away. It's gone. Y'all seen that commercial with
the guys? I love the commercial because every
time I see it, I think about this. He's advertising some over-the-counter
pain pills that you take. And he's saying he took them
for a couple of months and he went to his wife and he said,
honey, he said, this stuff works. The pain's gone. She said, oh,
I'm so thankful that it's helping you, honey. And this guy, it's
a testimonial kind of commercial. Perhaps you've seen it. And the
guy sort of tears up and he says, no. No, honey, you don't understand. It's gone. And that's the end
of the commercial. It's gone. And every time I see
that commercial, I think about, no, it didn't just get covered
up. It didn't just get, you know,
hid. It's gone. It's gone. Where is it? It's separated from
you as far as the East is from the West. God remembers it no
more. He buried it. They tell us that the deepest
place in the ocean is over six and a half miles deep. And the
Bible says that when God puts it in the depths of the sea,
that word depths means the deepest part of the sea. So they're wondering
what's in the bottom of the Mariana Trench. There they are. There's the sins of God's people
in the depths, the deepest part of the sea. God can't see them. He remembers
them. They're covered. God's justice
is satisfied. God's pleased. God, the Father,
saw the travail of his soul and God said, I'm satisfied. It's
gone. It's gone. So that as he is, how is he? Without sin. So are we. So are we. in this world. And one day, I
said there was three answers and the third one had three sub
points. When was our sin put away? Eternally past, at the
cross, at our new birth, daily, the new birth, in time, in our
experience, we come daily. And in our experience, brethren,
one day, we're gonna shed this flesh, It's going to go back
where it came from, dust of the earth. We're going to see him
as he is and be made like him. In other words, our experience
then will be without sin, without sin. You put it away. Oh, if being without sin doesn't
thrill your soul, ask God. Ask God to show you
what you are and what He's done for you. Our sin has been put on Christ. And it is no more. It is no more. I only hope I've got. Say, well, that's how God sees
it. Yep. And how God sees it is the way
it is. Tom, we're gonna close with a
hymn. 226, let's stand together, 226. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know that
His right hand is one who is my Savior. I take Him at His
word indeed. Christ died for sinners, this
I read. You, in their heart, I find a
need of Him to be my Savior. That he should leave his place
on high, And come for sinful men to die. You counted strange,
so once did I, Before I knew my Savior. ? And oh, that he
fulfilled, may see ? The travail of his soul in me ? And with
his work contented be ? As I with my dear Savior ? Yea, living,
dying, let me bring ? My strength, my solace from this spring ?
That he who lives Once died to be my Savior.