Like this morning, y'all. John
19. People have gathered out this
morning to, because of the resurrection, a day. They're celebrating a
day. And we know the resurrection
is a person. Martha said, oh, if you'd have
been here, you hadn't have died. Oh, Martha, he's going to live. I know I lived in the last day.
The resurrection, he said, Martha, I'm the resurrection. I'm the
resurrection. And I've done been resurrected
waiting for the next one. been resurrected from the dead
and waiting for the resurrection, my interest in the glory. John
19. Now let's start at verse 25 and read
down through verse 30. Now there stood by the cross
of Jesus His mother and His mother's sister. Mary the wife of Cleophas,
Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his
mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he saith unto
his mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then saith he to the disciple,
Behold thy mother. And from that hour that disciple
took her to his home. Then saith he, and after this,
verse 28, after this, Jesus, knowing that all things were
now accomplished that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I
thirst. Now there was set a vessel full
of vinegar, and they filled it with a sponge with vinegar, and
put it upon Hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When our Lord therefore
had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished. And he
bowed his head and gave up the ghost." I want to use those phrases
It is finished. But I've read those verses of
Scripture to show you our Lord Jesus Christ and how in control
He is of everything. Here He is. There's five people
standing by His cross. Standing by it. And while they're
standing by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, He talks to
them. He talks to His mother. He talks to John. And He's having
a conversation with them. They're standing right by His
cross. Standing right by it. They could touch Him. But He
can't touch them. Only with His words. Only with
His presence. And He had this conversation,
and I've read that to let you know what a mind, and what a
person, and what might, and what strength, and what glory our
Lord Jesus Christ has even in His moment of weakness. He's
crucified in weakness, but in this crucifixion, in His death,
He showed us just how powerful and how He controls all things. In this world, and everybody
that's in this world, and everything that's going to happen in this
world and in the world to come, He shows us in His weakness what
power and glory He has. Look at the mind of our Savior
in the moments before He dies. Most people, when they're in
their last moments of life, are troubled in their mind. They
get troubled when they know they're going to die. Know that they've
just got a few hours, just a little while. Either they have a lot
of pain so their mind wanders. And they're all waiting for the
rest of us to get rid of their pain. Or they are down to the
fear of death. And some of them, they can't
even collect their thoughts or speak to where they can be understood
by somebody else. But our blessed Redeemer's mind
here is so clear. His memory is perfect. Ain't
that what it says there? After this, Jesus, verse 28,
knowing that all things were now accomplished. knowing that all things were
now accomplished. You think this man is not in
control of his own life and death and the life and death of others?
His last acts on this earth were full of wisdom and prudence and
power, even though his sufferings were without measure. When our
Lord Jesus Christ declared, It is finished, in his mind In his
mind, he had some things clear before his mind. He had his father's
glory before his mind. He says, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify thy son, for thy son
hath glorified you. And that's what's foremost in
his mind, the glory of his father. And secondly is the salvation
of his sheep, his elect. These are the foremost things
in his mind. Even in his suffering, his mind
was so clear when he said, it is finished, that he said that
after everything written about him was accomplished. Ain't that
what it says? Jesus, knowing that all things
were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled,
he said, I thirst. The last two things he uttered
from the cross, I thirst, and it is finished. And when he said,
it is finished, Our Lord Jesus Christ meant every purpose of
God was fulfilled. Every promise of God was fulfilled
in Him. Every prophecy concerning Him
was finished. Everything, the Psalms, the prophets,
they wrote them, and every ceremony, every ceremony under the law,
every ceremony, every ritual, Everything that they went through
was fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. Every sacrifice that
was ever offered under the law was accomplished and fulfilled
in Him. Every covenant, our Lord, from the covenant of works of
Adam to the covenant of grace, every covenant was fulfilled
when He said it is finished. And all the eternal glories of
God were fixed clearly in His mind at this awful hour And I
tell you what, our Lord is so glorious and so wonderful that
all these things were comprehended in His mind and in His will and
in His heart even when He was dying. Do you know that He died
by His own power? It says there He cried. In one place it said He cried
and here it said He's finished. And then it said, he bowed his
head and gave up the ghost. And all of this was going on
while, and all around him in this cross and in this crowd
around him, all of this while he was mocked and his enemies,
well, there were some fellows down below him, some Roman soldiers
were gambling for his clothes. Gambling for his clothes. And
His enemies mocked Him. His hands and feet is nailed
to a cross. And at this moment, in time on
the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ beheld all of God's revelation. All of God's revelation. Everything
written in this blessed book. And then He cried as He saw it
all. is finished. And I tell you, our blessed Savior,
by the worth of His person, endured in six hours on the cross, by
His sufferings and the agony He endured, our everlasting punishment. How could one man in such a short
space of time suffer for so many and pull away all the sin of
all He suffered for can only be one way, because of the worth
of His blessed person, because of who He is. Oh, the worth of our blessed
Savior. Our Lord Jesus Christ's sufferings cannot be measured
by our finite minds, but there are some things that I do know.
I do know that when He suffered, and why He suffered, and being
a sacrifice for our sin, He took away what causes eternal punishment,
which is sin. He took that away. And I also
know that what He suffered on that cross was accepted by God
for all whom He died. I know that. And when our Lord
Jesus Christ said, It is finished, what was comprehended in this
statement? What did our Lord Jesus Christ
mean when he said it is finished? God help us to grasp this and
understand it. And I believe that I hope that
I can say some things about it that would be worthwhile. I know
this when it's finished, all the types, how many types were
in the scriptures concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. Every
sacrifice that was offered. Every prayer that was prayed,
every blood that was shed, all the types, all the lambs, all
the bulls, all the goats, all the heifers, every promise concerning
our Lord Jesus Christ from Genesis 3.15, every prophecy. And Isaiah alone, you mentioned
it the other night, Isaiah is quoted more than anybody else
in the New Testament. And all the things that Isaiah
said about him, all the things that Jeremiah said about him,
all the things that Malachi said about Him, all the things that
Moses said about Him, all the things that Noah said about Him,
all the things that all the prophets said about our Lord Jesus. Zechariah
said, He's going to be a king, but He's not going to be a king
like you think He will. He's going to be meek and lowly,
and He's going to ride into town on a foal of an ass. And oh, listen. And all these
were fully accomplished in Him. Accomplished, it says, knowing
that all things concerning Him were now accomplished. Accomplished. Scriptures were fulfilled, the
whole book. The Law and the Prophets were
finished and fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. From Genesis
3.15, when it says there, when God made the curse upon the serpent,
And He said, I'm going to put in between thy seed and the seed
of the woman, He's going to crush your head and you'll bruise His
heel. But when He said the seed of the woman, there never had
been a seed of a woman before, and nobody knew what He was talking
about until He was born. And when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman. And on it
from Genesis 315 till you get to Malachi when it says, He shall
arise, the Son shall rise with helens in His wings and everything
in between. All the types from the Passover
lamb to the red heifer and even the turtle dove and the hyssop. They handed Him hyssop with vinegar
on it. and even the hyssop that they
used to spread the blood with and sprinkle the blood with.
All from Solomon's temple and everything in between was fulfilled
in our Lord Jesus Christ. Every prophecy was wrought out
in Him. Now let me give you a problem
to solve. You take away Christ from this
book. Take Christ out of this book. And give the Old Testament, just
the Old Testament. Find the wisest man you can find
on the earth. Find you a Jew somewhere that's
read nothing but the Old Testament all of his life. Find the wisest man you can,
hand him this book, and just give him the Old Testament. Just
the Old Testament. Take this problem. You read this
book and construct in your imagination. an ideal character who shall
fit exactly everything that is prophesied and promised in this
book. It's like that Ethiopian eunuch
when Philip joined himself to the chariot. He was sitting reading
from the book of Isaiah, the scroll of Isaiah, reading Isaiah
53, 6, where it says, you know, he shall be as a lamb led to
the slaughter. Sheep before shears, he's dumb
and he's open not his mouth until his judgment was taken away.
And he walked up to him and says, Do you understand what you read?
He said, How can I except some man guide me? So he got up in
the chair with him and he said, Who does this man, this man speak
of? Himself or some other man? And he began right there at that
scripture in Isaiah 53. And he began to preach unto him
the Lord Jesus Christ. And believe me, he could have
never got out of Isaiah and said everything that could possibly
be said about our Lord Jesus Christ. But he took that. And,
oh, beloved, remember. Now, remember, this is what you've
got to come up with if you're going to use the Old Testament.
You're the fellow that's got to come up with this person that
every promise and prophecy in the Scriptures would speak of.
He must be a prophet like Moses. that can go into the presence
of God and come back out with a message. He's got to be the captain of
the Lord of hosts, like Joshua, and fight the battles and take
them over into the promised land. He must be Aaron, the high priest,
and he must be Melchizedek, the high priest who has no beginning
of day and ending of days. and whom Abraham paid tithes
to. He must be both David and he must be Solomon. He has
to be Noah. His name means Comforter. And he must be like Jonah and
spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He
must be Judah. of whom the kings reigned, and David was over. He must be
Joseph, hated and despised of his brethren, sold into slavery,
held in bondage and in prison, belied on and falsely accused
of things he didn't do. And then he must be brought up
out of the prison. And then he must be exalted to
the throne. And when he passes by, everybody's
got to bow down. And if you get anything from
Pharaoh or anything out of Egypt, you've got to go to Joseph. And
if you get anything, that's what this man's got to be. He must
be the lamb slain. The morning lamb and the evening
lamb, he's got to be the Passover sacrifice. He must be the goat
that Aaron lays his hand on and confesses the sins of all of
God's people on it. And it must be slain. He's got
to be that goat. And then he has to be the scapegoat
that the fit man carries off into the wilderness and he carries
all their sins away where they can't be seen anymore until they
watch that fit man come back without it. He's got to be both. Got to be both. And he's got
to be the fit man that takes it out there and brings it back.
Comes back without it. He's got to be the turtle dove
dipped in the blood, and he has to be the priest who
slew the blood. He must be all the altars. He
has to be that brazen altar where the burnt sacrifices and the
peace offerings were made, and the fire consumed them. and with a fire continually burned. He must be that brazen altar
that can burn the fire of God's judgment on the sacrifices on
that altar. He must be the altar of incense
made out of gold. And they just had a certain,
apothecary just had certain ingredients, and it went up, and it smelled.
When they went into the tabernacle, they went in there, they smelled
that fragrance. That was typical of the prayers
going up. Our Lord Jesus Christ must be
that altar of incense, and His smell must go up before us before
God. And He must be the tabernacle. Everybody, I'm telling you, He
has to be the tabernacle. Let me tell you something about
that tabernacle. When you looked at the tabernacle, it had badger
skins over it. Is that not right? Fifteen foot
wide, forty-five foot long. And anyway, it had all these
badger skins over it. all sewn together, and when you
looked at it, it just looked like any other tent. But boy,
when you went inside it, you look up, wide, such blue embroidery
and purple embroidery, beautiful artwork, it's wide, it's snow,
clean of snow, and when you got inside it, It had these boards,
and these boards were covered with solid gold. They was covered
over with gold. And when you went in, you seen
the altar. And then you went to the altar
of incense, and then behind that veil, there was a mercy seat. And that mercy seat's made out
of gold. Two seraphims come up over it like this. And that high
priest, when he went in there, first thing he had to do, he
had to offer first blood for himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
he didn't have to offer blood for himself. But when that high
priest went in there, the first thing when he stood before that
mercy seat, he went, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. He had to have perfection to
stand on. Blood had to be put before that
altar before he could even get to it. And then when he got there, he
had to sprinkle that seven times. And then he had hope and praise
that God would accept it. But when you went in that tabernacle,
oh, the beauty and glory in it looked like anything else on
the outside. And that's the way it was with
our Lord Jesus Christ. He looked like any other man.
But, oh, for those that God let see, for those that God let look
into him, Those that love let see into His blessed person.
Oh, what glory! What majesty! What magnificence! Our Lord Jesus has. So He has
to be the tabernacle where God and man meet. Has to be the mercy
seat. And then when you're in that
tabernacle over on the right side, there's some showbread. He's got to be the showbread.
He's got to be the bread. And over here is a candle, seven
sticks on it. He got to be the light in that
tabernacle. Oh, listen, you reckon this fellow will find out who
this Phileas is talking about all these times. All these prophecies
must meet in this one man, even though they seem to contradict.
It says all kings shall fall down before him, and all nations
shall serve him. And yet it turns around and says,
He is despised and rejected of men. He must be born of a virgin. He must be a man without spot
or without blemish, and yet God causes all the sins of all His
people to meet on Him. He must be a glorious King and
yet a root out of dry ground. That is what He must be. I give you this book. Who is
this man that they're talking about? Who is he? Who is he? What's the key that will unlock
this book given to you? Only one. Only one key. Only one man. Only one person
can meet all of those requirements. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God incarnate, crucified on a cross and buried and rose
again. In Him all things are accomplished. When our Lord Jesus Christ said,
It is finished, everything is summed up in the God-Man, the
Lord Jesus Christ. All of us. All of the typical
sacrifices of the old Jewish law are now abolished and explained. If you ever meet a Jew, if you
ever meet a Jew, and there's lots of them, lots and lots of
them, if you ever meet a Jew that's got his little skullcap
on and got his long black coat on and his big black hat and
his hair uncut, do you know, that hangs down on the side of
his face? If you ever meet one of them, first thing you need
to ask them is, where's your high priest? You can't approach
God without a high priest. And secondly, where's the sacrifice
the high priest going to offer? And they understand that they
got to have those things. They got to understand that.
But all the sacrifices of the old Jewish law are now abolished
and explained. Tell us what they all mean. That's
what the whole book of Hebrews is about. And they were all finished
in Him. His was the one sacrifice. You know, all the sacrifices
that were offered under the law, not one of them ever put away
one sin. Not one sin was ever put away.
But when our Lord Jesus Christ came, by the sacrifice of Himself,
He put away sin once and for all." Huh? Satisfied God? And I'll tell you something else
He satisfied. He satisfied the conscience of His people. Scott
Richardson made a statement at Don Fortner's 35 years ago. Well, it's longer than that because I knew him that long, but he
made a statement before I ever knew him. That's when I first
met him. That's where he made that statement. He says the only
thing that'll satisfy a screaming conscience is a perfect sacrifice
because the conscience asks for perfection. That's why religion
can never, ever give peace to a man's conscience. A man that
wants to work to be saved by his works, his conscience is
never, ever satisfied. It always cries out, more, more,
more, more, more, more. But when you see a perfect sacrifice,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and sin put away once and for all by
Him, your conscience will never ask for anything else. It will
never ever say, give me more, because you find Christ to be
everything you need for time and eternity. His conscience
purges our soul. It's like they took the blood
and sprinkled it. It says over in 2 Peter, it says
the blood of Jesus Christ is sprinkled on our conscience.
The Holy Ghost takes. You think about it. How did you
get rid of your guilt? How did you get rid of your sin
that was on your conscience? The Holy Ghost comes and He takes
that blood. sprinkles it on you just like
Moses did, except the Holy Spirit does. And once that blood's applied,
the conscience of sin's going just like that. I know that's so. I know that's so. I'll tell you
what, I know what it's like to not have a satisfied conscience,
and now I know what it is. Oh, I'll tell you what, I know what
it is. And oh, listen. And our Lord Jesus Christ, you
know, when Isaac and Abraham went up on that mountain, and that ram caught in that thicket,
this is what happened. That ram caught in that thicket
was taken and put in the place of Isaac. And that's what God
did for us. He took Christ and put Him in
our place with all of our sin on Him. And God inflicted death
on Him. And His death satisfied God for
all the sins of all of His people for all time in eternity. People
that haven't even been born yet and never heard the gospel have
their sins already taken care of. And someday, one of these
times, they're going to hear a preacher preach, and they'll
say, That's it! That's it. That's it. And our
Lord Jesus entered into the holy place not into the holy place
made with hands, not with the high priest robes on, but clothed
in human flesh. And He entered into that holy
place not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own blood. And when did He do that? I believe
He did it during that three hours of darkness on the cross. I believe
He entered into the presence of God by His Spirit and took
His own blood and put it on God's altar. That's what it said. He entered once into the holy
place. and obtained eternal redemption
for us. And after ending the holiest
of holies by His own blood, He comes out from the presence of
God, and Christ is finished. Christ has finished redemption,
finished it. His perfect obedience is finished,
and for sinful, sinful man to be saved The law must be kept,
and a man must have a righteousness in order to see God's face. And
our Lord Jesus Christ, in finishing the keeping of the law for us,
brought in an everlasting righteousness. It says, Christ who is our righteousness. Not going to be. And Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. And
he even finished the law for a transgressor, which was death.
He went on to the end of the law, all the way as far as the
law can take a man. How far can the law take a man?
To death. And once death has been inflicted,
and justice has been satisfied, then Christ comes back out of
that grave. God can ask no more. The law
has received its claim. Justice can't ask for another
moment of disobedience or obedience from anybody. He can't even ask
no more obedience from me. He can't ask for a righteous
act from me. He can't ask for anything from
me. Why? Because Christ did it all. It's
done. He can't come and get anything
from me. He's got it all from His Son. And I know you all know this, but holiness is a state of being. It's not something you can be
more at one time than another. And if you're in Christ, you're
holy. And you can't be more holy at one time than another. I'm
as holy as I'm ever going to be. And I'm as righteous as I'm
ever going to be. When I get to glory, I won't
be no more holier than I am now, and I'll not be no more righteous
than I am right now. Now, ain't that right? That's why death
has no fear and no sting to it. Man, I've got these big old wasp
nests all over the place at home, and black hornet's nests all
over the place and all that, and I get stung every once in
a while. But I tell you one thing, if you ever catch one of those
things and take the stinger out of it, let it just crawl all
over you, you know. And that's the way death is.
Christ got a hold of death, took out his sting, That's why when people we love
go to glory, you know what we say? Thank you, Lord Jesus. Blessed be your name. He took
the sting out of it for us and for those that we love. He took the sting out of it.
Oh, listen, the uttermost farthing has been paid. The law can't
curse us anymore. The whip of God's law was worn
out on the back and soul of our Lord Jesus Christ and cannot
never be lifted up again for those who our Lord Jesus Christ
suffered. And this is another thing I got
off old Scott years ago. He says men die and then face
the judgment. It's a point under men wants
to die and then face the judgment. But our Lord Jesus Christ faced
the judgment. and bore the judgment. And then
He died. We have to go out and face the
judgment. He bore the judgment and then He died. And our judgment
is for us. And our Lord Jesus Christ, in
closing, He totally destroyed the enemies of our soul. Completely
and absolutely destroyed them. Sin? Sin cannot do anything to
us. The strength of sin is the law.
Well, the law has been fulfilled, so since you have not had dominion
over you, why? Because we are under grace. Huh? Satan, he crushed his head. Death, he took away its sting.
And the keys of hell and death are on his girdle right there.
Huh? Oh, it is finished. Everything God wants from me,
Christ did. He did. Thank you, brother. Thank
you, folks, for letting me come up here. I appreciate it. Hope
I get to see you again real soon. We have a meeting at our place
June the 17th through the 19th. We have three days. We'll feed
you good. The ladies will. And there'll
be some good preaching down there, too.