Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 37 in your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnbook,
number 37. Let's all stand together. ? Lord of grace in every time of
need ? There's mercy for the needy one ? Who Jesus' name shall
be I'll ? By which I can draw near to God
? ? And to my mother pray ? ? Though Satan tempts my heart to sin
? ? I'll call upon my God ? And if I fall, He'll lift me up and
cleanse me in the blood. The way is open. God will hear my groans and cries
of grief. Nothing can keep me from His
throne but my own unbelief. O Lord, my unbelief remove, and
turn my heart by grace. ? Come help me to approach your
throne ? And there spread out my case Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our Bibles to Psalm
32, Psalm 32. Thank you all for your prayers
this weekend. I felt like the meeting in Pennsylvania
was profitable. Lord, Lord bless the services
and I think it was good for the for the congregation there to
have their first first conference and several folks from here and
other churches came to support them. And so that was a real
boost of confidence for them and. Caleb and Bobby send their
love and continue to covet our prayers. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 32. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. When I kept silent, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all the day long, for day and
night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned in
to the drought of summer. And we know that when our Lord
went to Calvary's cross that he experienced all the shame
and separation that sin brings. You and I have a little bit of
experience as to what sin, the consequences of sin in terms
of the shame and sorrow and separation that it brings us. He experienced
it to its ultimate infinite degree. And the mystery of mysteries
is that it was our sin that caused him that. But he owned our sin
as his own. And so God made him sin who knew
no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
And I read Psalm 32. You can't read, when I kept silent,
my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long, for
day and night the hand was heavy upon me, my moisture has turned
into the drought of the summer. There's Christ on the cross. And then in verse five, he says,
I acknowledge my sin unto thee. And mine iniquity have I not
hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,
and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every man that
is godly pray unto thee in the time when thou mayest be found.
Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh
unto him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou
shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with
songs of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct thee and
teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee. with mine eye. I will guide thee with mine eye."
Some children can be corrected with just a look. A tender-hearted
child can be rebuked and corrected and led with a look. An obstinate, stubborn child
might need the rod But pray the Lord will make us tenderhearted,
guide us with his eye. Verse nine, be not as the horse
or as the mule which have no understanding, whose mouth must
be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth
in the Lord, mercy shall come pass him about. Be glad in the
Lord and rejoice, ye righteous. Shout for joy, all ye that are
upright in heart. I want us to pray for Don. I
know he's having a medical procedure tomorrow, and pray the Lord will
be with you, brother, and give the doctors the wisdom they need
to help you. RG is making, A little progress. His goal is to be back here,
not this Sunday, but the next Sunday. So we'll see how that
goes. But that's that's his that's kind of his his goal. I was so happy to listen to the
messages that Jeff and Hugo preached and happy for you all to be able
to hear those and worship together. while I was gone, so Jeff, thank
you. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, what great comfort we have in
knowing that there is a throne of grace to which we can approach
Thee and find mercy and help in our time of need. Lord, we
confess to you tonight that we are a needy people. We are sinful
people. But what great, great comfort
and hope we have. What rejoicing we have in knowing
that our savior, thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our sin
bearer, bore in his body all the sins of all of your people
and put them away once and for all. Lord, we pray that you would
bless our time here tonight. Pray that you would enable us
to set our affections on Christ. Forgive us, Lord, for all the
unbelief and sin that has caused us to set our affections on things
below. Lord, give us grace this hour
to hear. From you. To hear of you. And to worship you. Lord, we
pray for dawn and ask your hand of grace and encouragement and
and healing and. And pray for the physicians.
Lord, that you would bless them and pray for our brother Robert.
Word that you would. Continue to enable him to regain
his strength and return here to worship with us. Lord, we
pray for Jennifer and ask Lord that you would provide for her.
The medication that she needs. We ask it in Christ name. Amen. Number 158 in your hardback teminal,
158. Let's stand together again. of strength and love in these
cold parts of ours. Our love so great, so cool to
the ear, and blind to the eye. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to 1st
Peter chapter 2. 1st Peter chapter 2. I've titled this A Precious Savior. A Precious Savior. How precious that name is. Something as precious, it is
highly valued. Something as precious it is of
infinite worth. It's priceless. It's not for
sale. Sometimes we refer to our children
as precious and they are. Scripture speaks of precious
metals and precious stones and that distinguishes them from
the common metals and the common stones of this world and how
we We guard those things that are precious and we protect them
and we display those things which are precious to us. And here,
the Lord tells us how precious the Lord Jesus is to the Father,
to the hearts of his people. And then in contrast to that,
how common and indifferent the world is to the one who is to
us the pearl of great price. You remember in Matthew chapter
13 the Lord said the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant
man seeking goodly pearls. And when he had found one pearl
of great price, he sold all that he had and he bought it. Oh,
he came across a pearl like he'd never seen before. And it was
worth everything to him. And that's how our Lord likens
the kingdom of heaven. And that's how the Holy Spirit
in our text reveals the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
he's precious. He's precious. He's loved in
the heart. Something's precious, it's rare.
That's what makes gold and silver and platinum and And diamonds
and rubies and sapphires, we call those things precious because
they're not common. They're rare things and we value
them for their rarity. And so here our Lord has told
us a little something about himself when the Holy Spirit calls him
precious. Look at verse 6 of 1 Peter chapter
2, wherefore also it is contained in the scripture. I love that. That's how the Lord
reveals himself to his people from the scriptures, where his
value, his infinite worth, His beauty is set forth in scripture. And God says, behold, I lay in
Zion a chief cornerstone. He is the stone that on which
the entire church rest. The Lord Jesus Christ, after
the Sermon on the Mount, said, He that heareth my words and
doeth them is like a man who builds his house upon a rock.
And when the storms come and the winds blow and the rain falls,
that house will stand. Those who disregard his word
and hold him not in high esteem as precious are like the man
who builds his house on sand. And when those same storms come,
that house will fall. And of course, that relates to
the storms of life. But more than anything else,
it relates to the storm of God's wrath and judgment that will
come upon all men. And the only safety that the
house has is to be on this chief cornerstone, the stone which
the builders rejected. This is that rock. They followed
the children of Israel through the wilderness. This is the stone
that the Lord said he was when he told Peter, blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-Jonah, you have said that I am the Christ, the son
of the living God, and that confession is the rock upon which my entire
church will be built, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. What a sure stone we have. So the Lord says, I've laid that
stone, and I laid that stone in Zion, and that stone has been
tried, it's been proven, it's been tested, and it's able. It's able to bear the weight
of the church. He was able to bear the weight
of all of our sin when he hung on Calvary's cross and where
sin was imputed to him and charged to him, credited to his account. He paid the penalty for it. He's
able to bear the weight of our trials and troubles so that when
the floods of this world come about us, they'll not overtake
us. And he was able to bear the judgment
of God's wrath. Government shall be upon his
shoulders. He bears all things. His children enjoy the benefit
of what he's bearing. But in fact, he's bearing all
things, all things in this world. He bears them up. chief cornerstone elect behold
my servant God said mine elect the one in whom my soul delighteth
he's God's chosen Savior and God says this is who he is to
me Now the important thing to remember here is that when God
gives us a new heart, he causes us to love the things that he
loves. He causes us to highly regard the things that he highly
regards. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased, you hear ye him. And so what the Lord is telling
us about what he thinks of Christ is of great interest to us because
we want to have the same esteem and the same value of Christ
that the Father has and by his grace we will. And so the Lord
tells us here, he says, he says, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone,
this is the stone The church is built in, and this is the
stone on which the whole church is knit together, that lively
stone that he tells us about in the previous verse. And notice
next, precious, precious. He's precious to the Father.
He's of infinite value to the Father. And those that are found
in him are of the same value. As he is, so are we. And the
love and the esteem that the Father has for Christ, he has
for the entire body of Christ. What a precious thought. Beyond our comprehension that
God Almighty could look on us and count us to be precious in
his sight. Precious in the eyes of the Lord
at the death of his saints. We died in Christ when God placed
us in the Lord Jesus Christ and the covenant of grace of the
lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world, that
was precious in the eyes of the Lord. When Christ died on Calvary's
cross, we died in him. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ. And so precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death
of his saints. When the Spirit of God comes
in power and slays us, he kills us, he puts to death any hope
that we have in a righteousness outside of Christ. A man has
to be killed before he can be made alive. We're dead spiritually
without Christ, but we don't know it until the Holy Spirit
makes us so. And precious in the eyes of the
Lord is the death of his saints. And that death carries on daily. We die daily. Why? Because the self-righteous, pharisaical spirit
of rebellion and opposition to the things of God
is always rearing its ugly head. And the Spirit of God is so merciful. He killed us once and he keeps
killing us, doesn't he? It keeps mortifying the flesh
that we might be made alive in Christ. Precious in the sight
of the Lord will be the day when we close our eyes and this world
and the angels of heaven come and usher us into glory and we
see him in the fullness of his preciousness and be made like
him. This word precious is a precious
word. God's telling us what's precious
to you. This is a good question for each
of us to ask. We have some things that are
more valuable to us than other things. What is that which is
precious to us, to our souls and our salvation? Is it not
Christ? He that believeth on him shall
not be confounded. No confusion. All the confusion of this life
and all the, this word also is translated as shamed. And to
stand before God in the day of judgment and to be made ashamed
is to be standing in his presence without Christ. What a fearful
thing that would be. But here he says, he that believeth
on him should not be made ashamed, should not be confounded, should
not be confused, should have a good understanding, a good
rest, a good hope. Unto you, therefore, now, All
those things that are said about Christ are said in reference
to the father's view of his son. But notice in verse 7, to the
believer, there's only one word given. There's only one description
given. To you that believe, he is precious. He's precious. Now, I want to
make a couple quick comments about what it is to believe,
because men by nature will make a work out of faith. To most people, faith is some
sort of a spiritual character trait that gives them strength
to appropriate and to make effectual the things that God has done
for them. You know, you hear of people
talking about, you know, men of great faith and it's almost
as if faith is some sort of of a quality of strength. To the
contrary, to the contrary, the very nature of faith is to be
without strength. In making faith a work, we deny
the very essence of faith. Faith, by definition, is the
absence of work. Faith, by definition, is the
opposite of work. Faith, by definition, cannot
exist in the same place with work. They are antithetical to one another.
They're opposites. They are contrary to one another. If it is of If it is of works,
it can no longer be of grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that faith is not of yourself, it's a gift of God. It's a gift whereby God breaks
our strength and causes us to see that we have no works. We
have no ability. Let me ask you a simple illustration. What are you doing right this
very minute to help that pew that you're sitting on hold you
up? The pew's doing all the work.
Doing all the work. You're not doing anything. You
don't have your foot propped up under that pew to help it
from falling over. You're just resting on it. The pew's doing all the work. You know, faith is not a work. Turn with me to Romans chapter
four. This is so important. This is the absence of work. Faith is resting, it is trusting,
it's relying upon the work of Christ. I have no work. So I've got to believe on someone
who has a work that is acceptable to God. I must rest my immortal
soul on him to do the work for me. Romans chapter four, verse two, for if Abraham were
justified by works, he hath wear up the glory, but not before
God. Can't glory before God. Can't
go before God and say, but Lord, we did many wonderful works in
thy name. Lord, I remember when I accepted
Jesus. I remember when I exercised my
faith to believe. No, that's a work. And that's
glorying in something that God says, you're not gonna go before
God and glory in that. For what sayeth the scriptures?
Here again, we're back to what does God say? Not what does man
think or what does one religious persuasion teach, but what does
the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness. It was imputed, it was charged
to him. He was brought by the Spirit
of God to see that he had no work. He was brought by the Spirit
of God to the end of himself. He was brought by the Spirit
of God to cast all his care upon Christ and trust him for all
of his righteousness. Now to him that worketh is reward
not reckoned of grace but of debt. If faith is what we bring
into the equation, in order to make salvation work for us, then
God owes us something. As we brought the, we brought
the trump card, we brought the one thing that made the difference,
our faith. And it's not of grace, but it's
of debt. But to him that worketh not but
believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness." Now to be justified means that I have no
sin, I have no sin. So, he that believeth and worketh
not, you see, Faith is the complete opposite
of work. It is trusting Christ to do all
the work for us. It is by God's grace that we
are justified. Turn back with me to our text.
Unto you, therefore, which believe. He is precious. He is the pearl
of great price. He is the precious stone. He
is the gold. He's not the wood, hay and stubble
of our works and of our righteousness and of this world. No. unto you which believe he's precious."
Everything about him is summed up in that. You value him above all things. You must have him. You rejoice
in him. You hold him up as your righteousness
and and you glory in his beauty and
in his grace and in his work. That's what it means to you. He's precious. Why is the Lord Jesus Christ
precious to the child of God? Two reasons. Number one, because
of who he is. He's precious to you because
of who He is. He's the eternal I am. He is the sovereign, immutable,
omnipotent Son of God. That's who He is. He's God. And you believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the son of the living God. The fullness of the Godhead bodily. This is why he's precious, because
to know him is to have life. This is life eternal, that they
might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou
hast sent, to know him. And all of God's people do know
him. They know him. Some may know him better than
others. Christine, you know Scott a whole lot better than I do.
You probably know some things I don't wanna know about him.
But I know him. and I call on him, he's my friend.
You see, just because there's other believers that know the
Lord Jesus Christ better than you do, doesn't mean you don't
know him. You know who he is. If you're a believer, if God
has given you faith to rest all the hope of your salvation on
the Lord Jesus Christ, then you know who he is. Paul said, oh,
be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of
the law but that righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus
Christ." He said I've not yet apprehended, I'm not yet apprehended,
I'm not yet apprehended that which is apprehended, he knows
me thoroughly, he's completely apprehended me and I'm still
trying to I'm still trying to know him. Oh, but that I might
know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship
of his suffering. And I count all things but loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
our, to know him. He's precious to us because we
know him. And in that passage in Philippians
chapter three, He said, that I, by any means, might obtain
to the resurrection of the dead. That's why I've got to know him. He's precious to me to pursue him, to want
to know more of him. The fact that He knows me, He
knows everything about me. I talk about Christine knowing
Scott. If you knew everything that there
is to know about me, you wouldn't be here tonight to listen to
me. And if I knew everything there is to know about you, I
wouldn't be standing up here wasting my time with you. Isn't
that true? And the fact that God knows everything
that there is to know about us better than we know ourselves
and he loves us. He loves us and he's redeemed
us. Oh, that makes me want to know
him better. You know, we know men, but in our knowledge of
men, there has to be grace. There has to be patience. There
has to be forgiveness in our knowledge of one another. And
some people we just don't even want to know any more than we
already know them. But if we're to pursue a relationship with
another man, we have to be willing to overlook some faults, don't
we? But to know him? the one who's holy and harmless
and undefiled and separate from sinners and higher than the heavens,
there's no fault in him. There's no need for grace for
us to know him in the sense that we have to tolerate something
like we do with one another. No, everything about him is beautiful. Everything about him is glorious. To know him which is true, John
said in 1 John 5, verse 20. Turn with me over just a couple
of pages to 2 Peter, 2 Peter 1. Simon Peter, verse one, a servant
and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied unto
you through the knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus. He reveals himself to his people. When we read things about him
in his word, we believe. We believe what the Bible says
about him. And these precious promises become
a revelation of Christ. according as his divine power
has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory
and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises, that by these you may be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption of this world through lust. by
the revelation that God has given us of himself in his precious
promises, his precious promises, his promise to save, his promise
to forgive. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord has forgiven his transgressions. Jeremiah chapter 24, verse seven
says, I will give to them a heart to know me. Oh Lord, give me that heart.
Give me a heart to know you. Give me eyes to see you for who
you are. Lord, I get, I get, I'm so easily
distracted from knowing him. And I can say with Paul, I'm not yet apprehended. And I can waste so much time
making precious things of this world. Lord, here's one of his
precious promises. I will give them a heart to know
me, that I am the Lord. Listen to that. I will give them
a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. What rejoicing there
is in the heart of faith to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and to bow
before him, to delight in the fact that he's sovereign, that
he's omnipotent, that he's immutable, that he's in control of my life
and of my salvation. That's how I know that I know
him because I bow to him as Lord. I will be their God for they
shall return unto me with a whole heart. The Lord said, I'm going to, I'm going to write my laws upon
their heart, the law of grace. And that's not the moral law.
You understand that. The moral law is written on the
heart of all men. When we come into this world,
the moral law is written on our hearts. This is the law of grace,
this is the law of the spirits, the law of righteousness, the
law of sin, the law of Christ, the law of love. He writes it
on our heart. And they shall all know me from
the least of them, even to the greatest. From the least of them,
those who know me the least, to those who know me the greatest,
they shall all know me. Turn with me to the Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon. Chapter 5. Here's the world. The world says
in verse 9, what is thy beloved more than another beloved, O
thou fairest among women? That's spoken in contempt. You
think you're the only ones that are saved? You think you're the
only ones that know God? You think nobody else knows God?
What makes you so special and what makes your beloved so special? What is thy beloved more than
another beloved that thou dost so charge us? You speak to us
as if we don't know him. Why would you charge us of such?
What makes you think you're so special? Nothing's changed, has
it? Nothing's changed. Solomon wrote this a thousand
years before the birth of Christ. The world's the same, nothing
new under the sun. Oh, my beloved is white and ruddy. And that word ruddy means red.
He's white in that he's perfectly righteous. He's red in that he's
covered in his own blood. To put away my sin, he shed his
precious blood. He's the chiefest among 10,000.
His head is as the most fine gold. His locks are bushy and
black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves
by the rivers of water, washed with milk and fitly set. Oh,
he sees everything. His cheeks are as a bed of spices,
as sweet flowers, his lips like lilies dropping sweet-smelling
myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set
forth with beryl. His belly is bright ivory overlaid
with sapphire. His legs are as pillars of marble."
Oh, what strength he has, what beauty he has, what perfection. You see, these are all precious
things. These are all precious things. Now the church, and that's
who's saying this, his bride, remember he came to wake her
and she didn't come to the door right away. And when she did
come to the door, he was gone. And now she's out looking for
him. She's pursuing him. She got a
smell. of his aroma, and now she's out
wanting to know where he's at. And she's asking everybody she
meets, have you seen my beloved? And now she's describing him. His legs are as pillars of marble,
set upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon,
excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet. Yea,
he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this
is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. And after they hear,
about how precious he is and how beautiful he is and how perfect
he is. Whither is thy beloved gone,
O thou fairest among women? Whither is thy beloved turned
aside, that we may seek him with thee? Now their tone has changed,
now that they've heard about what he's like. Now they're interested
in him. And that's what interests us
when we when God, by his word, reveals how precious Christ is. We say with these daughters of
Jerusalem, where is he? I want to know him. Oh, my beloved
has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed
in the garden and and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's and
my beloved is mine. He feedeth among the lilies.
You know that we're in that garden right now. I pray that the wind
of the spirit right now would blow upon those sweet spices
of God's word and reveal to our hearts more of how precious he
is so that we could say unto you which believe he is precious. He's precious. Secondly, the reason why he's
precious is because what he has done. What he has done. And he is able to do what he
did because he is who he is. Not just anyone could die to
pay for my sins. A sacrifice had to be made that
was perfect. A sacrifice that was pleasing
to God, a lamb that was without spot and without blemish. Only
he could bear our sins. Only one that was God could become
man and bear our sins in his body upon that tree. Turn with
me to Daniel chapter 9. Daniel chapter 9. We could go to 10,000 passages
of scripture to speak on what he has done, but I want to try
to refrain our comments to this one verse in Daniel chapter 9. The children of Israel are in
Babylonian captivity, and God has come to the prophet Daniel
and revealed to Daniel what's going to happen. Children of
Israel are gonna be delivered from captivity. And in 586 years,
which is what the 70 weeks is a reference to, Messiah's gonna
come. And Daniel is receiving this
prophecy from the Lord about what Messiah was going to do.
And so in verse 24, 70 weeks are determined upon thy people. This is ordained of God, God
speaking to Daniel saying, this is going to happen exactly as
I purposed it to be. And upon thy holy city. And three
things, three things that is gonna happen. He's gonna finish
the transgression, he's gonna make an end to sin, and he's
gonna reconcile for iniquity. Now in Exodus chapter 33, the
Lord speaks of those three things. Transgression, iniquity, and
sin. Transgression is a violation
of God's law, which we are guilty of continually. Never been able
to keep one of God's laws. We've transgressed the law of
God. Iniquity. Iniquity is what men
do in order to try to save themselves. Iniquity is the dead works that
men perform in hopes of being able to establish a righteousness
before God. Iniquity is man's self-professed
faith that he brings to God in hopes of making effectual the
work of Christ. That's what iniquity is, iniquitous,
unequal. falls short of the glory of God,
and sin is what we are. And so here's what the Lord's
going to do when He comes. According to this precious promise,
this is one of those precious promises that the Lord's given
us, He's going to finish the transgression. The first time this word finish
is found in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 8, verse 2. after the
flood. Here's what God says. The fountain
of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped and the rain
from heaven was restrained. The word restrained is the same
word finished here. Now what did that rain represent? What did that flood represent?
It was the judgment of God. But now the rain had fallen The
earth had been cleansed, completely cleansed, and now that the purpose
of God was accomplished in destroying all the evil of this world, the
rain now is restrained, it's stopped. What the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
on Calvary's cross was he stopped the judgment of God. He finished the transgression. Another place this word finished
is found in the Bible is in 1st Samuel chapter 6 when the Philistines
had taken the ark and God had afflicted the Philistines
with a disease as a result of their taking the Ark and they
want to send the Ark back to Israel. And so they take the
Ark and they put it on a cart and the Bible says that they
take two cows that had just given birth to calves and they took
the calves of those cows and they shut them up. That's what
the Bible says, they shut them up. And that's the same word
used finished here. He finished transgressions. He
shut up these two calves and they put the cows on the cart
to pull the cart and pointed them towards Bathshemesh, which
means the house of the sun. And the Bible says these cows,
disregarded the lowing of their calves, which had been shut up,
and they looked not to the right hand or to the left, but that
they took that ark, and we know what the ark is a picture of,
it's Christ, they took that ark to the city or the house of sun,
and they didn't look to the right or the left because their calves
had been shut up. The Lord Jesus Christ shut up
our sin, He finished transgression. He made an end of sin. And no
crying out of our sin will cause Him to look to the right or to
the left until He takes us to the house of the Son. What a glorious picture. Here's
the promise of God. Here's His promise. He made an
end of sin. Lamentations chapter 4 verse
22 says, the punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter
of Zion. He will no more carry thee away
in captivity. We're held captive to sin, to
unbelief, and he made an end of it. And he made reconciliation,
and that word reconciliation is the word atonement. When Noah
built the ark, he pitched it, he covered it with pitch, inside
and out, to keep the judgment, the water, from coming into the
ark. And that was called the atonement,
it was a covering. Notice in this passage that he
made reconciliation or atonement for iniquity. You remember what
iniquity is? Iniquity is all the dead works
that men are so proud of. It's what they do that don't
measure up. It can't save them. And he made
atonement for iniquity. Here's the truth, believers.
Only a child of God sees the need for their iniquity to be
atoned for. Everybody else believes that
their iniquity is their atonement. He made atonement for your iniquity. He put away sin. He finished
the transgression. This has been determined and
it was done. And notice, he will bring in
everlasting righteousness to seal up the vision and prophecy
and to anoint the most holy. He brought in an everlasting
righteousness. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Oh, what hope. What hope? To you, he's precious. Now, I just want to point one
word out to you before we close. Go back with me to our text.
Verse seven, unto you, therefore, which believe he is precious,
but unto them, which be disobedient. The word there disobedient is
the word apotheo from which we get our word apathy. They're
indifferent. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 7. To be disobedient is the opposite
of having him to be precious. You see, he's either precious
to you, he's either everything to you, or you're indifferent
to him. You take it or leave it. Maybe
a little measure here or there of God, but precious? Priceless? To be held in the highest esteem? Nah, not so. You see, the Lord is showing
us that those who are indifferent toward the gospel, the majority of them are not
gonna hear what God has said about the unbeliever being apathetic
and indifferent, they don't care. Why the Lord put it in his word?
To show us a clear contrast. You see, you're either indifferent
or he's precious. No middle ground. Everything in our salvation is
all our righteousness. All of our justification before
God got to have him. Why? Because the Lord's given
you a heart to need him, to love him, to want him. Our Heavenly Father, bless your
word to our hearts. Forgive us, Lord, for how Quickly
and often we are prone to wonder. And thank you for once again,
showing us how precious our Lord is. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. Number 53, let's stand together.
? How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
? ? In a believer's ear ? ? It soothes his sorrows, heals his
wounds, and drives away his fear ? ? Dear name, the rock of my
heart ?