There is a great lesson, isn't
there, in Acts 3.12, when Peter saw it, he answered the people,
why, you men of Israel, you men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Why look ye so earnestly on us? as though by our power or holiness
we had made this man work. This was a stupendous miracle,
brothers and sisters. It was done in the most public
place in all of nation Israel. It was done before a crowd of
witnesses and remarkably as a result of the preaching of this sermon,
2000 people were added to the church. These are hugely significant
events in glorifying our dear and precious Saviour. But again, there is a great lesson,
isn't it? People these days are so often
encouraged to look for signs and miracles and wonders and
things, and Peter immediately, immediately, as they're looking
at how marvellous this man is, is wanting them to take their
eyes off what they see and put their eyes on what's really,
really important. There is a big lesson, isn't
it? In all events of life, there
is a cause to ask the question, what is God doing? What is God doing? What is God
saying in this event? And the answer is always, the
answer is always in the scriptures. I do keep praying that you might
find the Scriptures your love and your delight, the place of
comfort, the place where you come and hear from God as His
Word is revealed, as what is said in the preaching of the
Gospel is made real in your lives. In every situation, in every
event of life, we want to hold clearly and dearly and proclaim
passionately that God's eternal purposes are being fulfilled
always. Our great God reigneth. He reigns
on the throne of this universe and the eternal covenant, that
scroll that the Lord Jesus took, from the hand of God in heaven
and unloose those seals. Every day and every moment of
human history it is just being revealed again and again. God's
eternal purposes and all of God's eternal purposes are wrapped
up in this one event, this one event in Jerusalem in the death
and resurrection and now the exaltation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Nothing in God's universe ever
happens by accident. We ought to be embarrassed when
we say how lucky someone was, or that happened by chance. We
ought to be horrified when people say Mother Nature did it. I get
sick to death of hearing people talk about Mother Nature. Mother
Nature doesn't exist. God our Father does exist. There
is no such thing as Mother Nature. It's a figment of people's imagination. Our God does it. You turn down
to verse 18 and just read it with me. All of what happened,
all of what happened in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, all
of what happened in the resurrection, all of what happened in the gathering
of the church, all of these things All of these things are but fulfilling
the purposes of God. Look at 3.18, but those things
which God before had showed by the mouth of his prophet. That
word show means to announce fully beforehand. Our only ignorance
of the things of this world is an ignorance of scripture. If
we knew our scriptures really well, we would find ourselves
not troubled about what's happening in America or in the rest of
the world. We would find ourselves at peace
in the fact that our God does all things well. He always does
things well and He's announced them fully beforehand. He has showed by the mouth of
all His prophets that Christ should suffer, that Christ should
suffer, that there was a predictive purpose of God is what that word
means, that should suffer. And then He has so fulfilled. He has fulfilled it. God's purpose
has been fulfilled. That is why when it comes to
all things to do with life and Godliness, all things to do with
this world, the issue is, what do the scriptures say to the
law and to the testimony? If they speak not according to
this word, there is no life in them. So Peter says, you're looking
at something that's marvellous, and you were just amazed, and
you ought to be amazed. A man, 40 years, who had never
walked. I've got a little grandson over
in Western Australia, and he's been practising walking now for
the last nine months. He's been practising and practising
and practising, and he's getting very close. This man had never
walked when he was 40 years old. Immediately, not only was he
given the bones and the muscles and all of the other attendant
things for walking, He was given the ability to walk, and not
only to walk, but he went leaping. He went leaping into the temple.
Peter says, you're looking at all of that, but there is something
that's much bigger, and someone who is much more important, and
someone who did this work. We didn't do it. We don't have
the power, we don't have the holiness to do this. This is
not a work of some clever apostles. This is the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let me tell you about him, says
Peter. Let me tell you about him. Verse 13, and he begins,
doesn't he? The God of Abraham. Here is this
Jewish nation thinking and proud of the fact that they are Abraham's
descendants. They can trace their lineage.
They had it written down. They could prove their lineage
all the way back to Abraham, all the way back to Noah, all
the way back to Adam, all the way back to God. They must be. They must be the chosen ones
and they were chosen for a special purpose. But they were. They were because of their wicked
rebellion and the judgment of God upon them because of their
unbelief. They were as lost as you could
possibly be. When Peter spoke to that great
crowd on the day of Pentecost, there wasn't, in all of those
he was looking at, there wasn't one saved. I'm not saying they
weren't the children of God, but amongst that vast crowd,
he said to the whole lot of them, repent. repent. The God of Abraham,
all of your religion, all of your Jewish worship, all of your
supposed law keeping, all of your supposed righteousness,
all of the things that you have reason to boast in, your lineage,
your works, your heritage, the temple that you had, the supposed
obedience to the law, all of that, rather than it drawing
you closer to God, had been the means by which you were enraged
against His Son. The God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, Peter wants to make
it abundantly clear that the God he's talking about is the
God of Scriptures, and it's the God that they claim to worship.
It's the God to whom all the Scriptures witness. It is the
only true and living God. It's the God that they claim
to worship in their temple. They were there at an hour of
sacrifice, a sacrifice appointed by God for them to come and offer
sacrifice for sin. And yet they were, in the midst
of all of that, as proud as you could be and as blind as bats. It's a great lesson for us, isn't
it? We meet many people who are very zealous in religion, brothers
and sisters. Zeal in religion and all sorts
of activities is no guarantee, is no guarantee that people know
God, is no guarantee that they know the name of God, is no guarantee
that they call upon the name of God. The Lord gave me the
other day these panthers, they're flooding Chilheaven with these
panthers, and these panthers are talking about a God who bears
absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the God that we're going to
read about in these verses here today. They are zealous, they
are active. But religion and religious duties,
without a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed
in the Scriptures, is damning to souls. Multitudes, multitudes. For this God, the God of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified
His Son Jesus. He has glorified His Son Jesus. He has glorified Him. The glory of God and the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ are so intimately linked that you
cannot claim to worship one without worshipping the other. Turn with
me to John 17 for a minute and we will look together at the
Lord Jesus and that High priestly prayer it is in that upper room
on the night he was to be betrayed and sentenced to death. It's
amazing how often just in these short number of verses we have
this whole picture of glory, glory. God is glorious in himself. He is the God of glory. He is, as Isaiah 9 says, thy
God and thy glory. But let's listen to the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. These words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify
Thy Son, that Thy Son may also glorify Thee. The glory of God
the Father and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ are intimately
linked. They will never be divided or
separated. As Thou hast given Him power
over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many
as Thou hast given Him. And this is eternal life, that
they may know Thee, the only true God. Not just know about
Him, but know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom
Thou hast sent. Listen to His work. I have glorified
you, verse 4. 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. He was eternally
glorious, our Lord Jesus Christ. As God the Son, he's eternally
glorious. I have manifested thy name unto
the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they
were. They were a gift from God the
Father. And thou gavest them me. They
were given into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ in the
eternal covenant. They were given to him as his
responsibility, as the surety of that covenant. They were given
as a precious gift from God the Father to His Son, and they were
entrusted into His care. He gave us them out of the world. Thine they were, thou gavest
them thee, and they have kept thy word." What a remarkable
description, brothers and sisters. We'll talk more about this later
on. What a marvellous description of believers. They have kept
thy word. And immediately any blood-bought
child of God says, that's not about what I've done. That's
the glorious work of my surety. They have kept thy word. Now
they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me
are of thee. For I have given unto them the
words which thou gavest me. And they received them, just
like the people on the day of Pentecost. They received the
words of God gladly, and have known surely that I came out
from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray
for them. I pray not for the world. Dear
oh dear, if people just read the scriptures, without all the
rubbish of religion, they would give up the nonsense that they
parade around this world, wouldn't they? He's not praying for them,
brothers and sisters. He's not praying for them. Then
they turn around and say that he died for them the next day,
and he won't pray for them the night beforehand. Lord William,
we might talk more about that later on. I pray for them, I
pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me,
for they are thine. All mine are thine. All that the Lord Jesus has belong
to God, and thine are mine. And he owns all that God the
Father has given him. And listen to this. It's a remarkable
statement, brothers and sisters, isn't it? I am glorified in them. I am glorified in them. Paul prayed a similar thing in
2 Thessalonians, that we'd be glorified in him and he in us. What a remarkable privilege,
brothers and sisters, in the Lord Jesus Christ we have. We
bear in this world the honour and the responsibility of bearing
witness to Him who is glorified in us. He's glorified His Son, Jesus. The God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. The God of our fathers. Peter's one with all of these
Jews. He's glorified His Son, Jesus. He has glorified him and he continues
to glorify him. In Acts 2 we read that he is
a man approved of God and he was delivered up by the determinate
counsel and full knowledge of God. God has raised him up having
loosed the pains of death. This Jesus has God raised up,
whereof we are all witnesses. And where is He now? Acts 2.33,
He is at the right hand of God, exalted, having received of the
Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, and He has shed forth
what you now see and hear. He has shed it forth then, and
He has shed it forth in every day since, and He is shedding
it forth now. He has shed forth what you now
see and hear. Let all the house of Israel know
assuredly that God has made that same Jesus whom you crucified,
both Lord and Christ. See, Peter wants to make sure
that they are very clearly identifying who the character of God is.
and who they are. He does not move one second from
laying blame where blame lies. God has glorified his son Jesus
whom you delivered up and denied him in the presence of Pilate
when he was determined to let him go. Pilate was determined
to let him go because Roman justice said that this man is not worthy
of death. Pilate declared him to be a just
man. Pilate's wife came to him and
said he's a just man. Pilate was determined to let
him go. That doesn't excuse Pilate for one tiny second before God. But it does. It does add to the
burden of the sin of these people. But you denied, you denied, verse
14, you denied the Holy One and just. The Holy One and just. And you killed the Prince of
life. whom God has raised from the
dead. See, the sins of these people
are just laid out before them. There is no sense in which they
are put away or hidden at all, isn't it? You killed the Prince
of Light. In verse 19, Peter speaks of them and says it's
your sins, your sins. Be converted that your sins may
be blotted out. What are your sins? You did it. You killed the Prince of Life.
You desired a murderer be granted to you. You desired a murderer
to be graced to you, to be given to you as a favour. You denied. You denied the Holy One and just,
and you delivered Him up. The one you denied, you delivered
Him up. See, sin is exposed explicitly
and plainly, brothers and sisters. And sin is only ever seen in
light of what you have done to the Lord Jesus Christ. David's sin was against Bathsheba,
David's sin was against Uriah, David's sin was against that
child that God, in judgment, took from them, David's sin was
against nation Israel, David's sin was against his family, and
David, led by the Holy Spirit, says, Against you and you only
have I sinned. Sin is a grievous thing, brothers
and sisters, but sin is always sin against God. And contrary to what these people
are peddling around the place, when the Gospel is preached,
sin is exposed for what it is, rather than man being lifted
up. And before I finish that, we
may look at it again. There are several great questions
that come out of this, aren't there? There is the question of the
fact that there is a holy one and just. There is a question
about how the Prince of Life died. There is, in all of this,
a glorious picture of our salvation and our redemption. But before
I go too far, the question that should be on everyone's lips
is, how do I know? How do I know that I have a part
of this? How do I know that I have an
interest in redemption by this substitute, by this saviour? How do I know? The question in
Acts is laid out so clearly, isn't it? Do I own my personal
responsibility in this great crime? Or do I say, as no doubt you
have joined with me in saying a multitude of times, well, I
don't know that I would have done that. On what basis, on
what basis do you think that if you were there 2,000 years
ago, you wouldn't have been there doing those things, crying out
with turmoil, Crucify Him. Crucify Him. Cry out with the
mob, give us, grab us. See, what makes you think, as
I do so often to my shame, I wouldn't have done that? The answer's
really clear, isn't it? The answer's really clear. I
wouldn't have done that because I'm just a little bit better
than them. That's exactly what we're saying, aren't we? I wouldn't
have done that because I'm just a little bit better. I'm a little
bit more self-controlled than them. What does Obadiah 3 say? It says, the pride of your heart
has deceived you. All sin, all sin is sin against
Christ. And all sin is personal sin,
brothers and sisters. May God cause us not to treat
it lightly, not to treat it lightly ever. We saw last week out of 1 John
that the reality for believers is like Paul in Romans 7, that
what they see in their flesh is no good thing, and whenever
they wish to do good, sin is there with them all the time.
And I love what 1 John says, and when we sin, and when we
sin, we have an advocate with the Father. We haven't lost an
advocate with the Father. God's children are quick, I trust,
to confess sin. but also just as quick to run
back and find their comfort and their peace in the fact that
one took those sins away and they are no more. I'm sorry. You're back with us, Simon, thank
you. So we have these three titles of the Lord Jesus Christ. I just
want to look at them briefly and then there are some questions
that flow out of these descriptions of the character of our God.
He is, in verse 14, the Holy One. It's a great description
of our God, isn't it? He is a Holy One. God is light and in Him there
is no darkness at all. It is the most common title used
of our God in the Scriptures, His Holiness. In Psalm 110 that
Peter had quoted to the people in the first sermon in Acts,
he speaks in Psalm 110, He said, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit
thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
thy strength out of Zion, thou shalt rule in the midst of thine
enemies. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. In the beauties of holiness,
from the worm of the morning, thou hast the Jew of thy youth. The beauties of holiness. The
angels sang in the temple when Isaiah was bearing witness to
the Lord Jesus being in the temple. It was very clearly the Lord
Jesus that he saw there. And what were the angels singing?
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. So God is holy. He is essentially holy in himself. He's holy in his being and he's
holy in all that he does. Holiness is his, it's an attribute
of God and it can never be earned. But holiness is what's required
of men. For those who want to put people
back under the law and want people to look at their works, there
is just one simple thing that God requires of every single
one of us, isn't it? Absolute perfect holiness, brothers
and sisters. Absolute perfect holiness. No
sin whatsoever. Not doing your best, trying your
best. God says it must be perfect to
be accepted. He says be holy, for I am holy. And without holiness, no one
will see the Lord. His name is holy. Thus saith the High and Lofty
One that inhabiteth eternity, Isaiah 57, 15, whose name is
Holy, I dwell in a high and holy place, with Him also that is
of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. He is the holy
one. He is so holy that Habakkuk says,
Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil. Thou canst not look on iniquity. He is holy and the just. Just. The Lord is righteous. The same root word is used for
righteousness and justice. We might look at a bit more of
that later on. But He is just. He is just in
everything He does. He perfectly honours His law. He is perfectly faithful to His
character. Assemble yourselves, Isaiah 45,
28. Come, draw near together, ye
that are escaped of the nations. They have no knowledge that set
up the wood for their grave and image, and pray to a God that
cannot save." Pray to a God that cannot save. This God here cannot
save. He cannot save unless you help
Him. People think that it's speaking
about those who set up idols in forests and all sorts of other
places over the world and pray to these wooden images. He's
speaking about that, but he's speaking about religion, brothers
and sisters. I pray to a God that cannot say,
tell ye and bring them near, yea, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient
time? Our God declares the end from
the beginning. Who has told it from that time?
Not only did he plan it and declare it, he tells it so it's clearly
laid out. Have not I the Lord? There is
no God beside me. I love this description of God,
and I trust that you will as well. I love the fact that he
declares himself to be a just God and a Saviour. He will not save anyone without
His justice being perfectly satisfied. He will not save anyone without
any impediment whatsoever to His holiness, which is why Zechariah
9 calls on the daughter of Zion to rejoice greatly and shout,
O daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy King cometh unto thee. He
is just, and having salvation, lowly, riding upon an ass, upon
the occult, the foal of an ass. That was the one, wasn't it?
He rode into Jerusalem and they followed the prophecy and proclaimed
him, the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all
of his works. The great work. They had seen
a miracle, an outstanding miracle, there was a greater work going
on in Jerusalem. There was a greater work, wasn't
it? The greater work is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
see, His work was a holy work and it was a just work. And we
are justified, as Romans 3 says, justified freely by His grace,
which means that the cause was in Him. The cause wasn't in us. justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That's where
the redemption is, isn't it? It's in Him. It's not in us and
what we do. Whom God set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness. The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ
is a declaration of the righteousness of God, the holiness of God and
the justice of God. To declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins past through the forbearance of God,
to declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness, that He might
be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. 3,000 had been added to the Church
in the proclamation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The
declaration of who He is and what He has done to declare His
righteousness. To be righteous is to be perfectly
righteous in the eyes of the Lord. Perfect obedience in thought
and word and deed. To love the Lord thy God with
all of thy heart. all of thy mind, all of thy strength,
to love thy neighbour as thyself. We were told once that now we
have an obligation not only to ten commandments, but twelve. Dear brothers and sisters, how
are you going? What nonsense, what nonsense
to think that we can do that to God's satisfaction. righteousness. The Lord Jesus
Christ fulfilled all righteousness. He fulfilled God's holy law perfectly. And he said to those Jews at
the beginning of his ministry, I am God, I am Messiah, I am
the Christ, I am the Promised One, and you have three and a
half years to examine my life, like they examined the sacrifices,
they examined them minutely if they were careful to make sure
that there was not a spot or blemish on them. And the Lord
Jesus Christ was examined, examined for three and a half years and
at the end of his ministry said, can any one of you accuse me
of any sin? Not one. Dear oh dear, brothers
and sisters, it would take him milliseconds to find a bucket
load on me. But he could say that. He could
say it with truthfulness and with honesty. He is holy. He is the Just One. He is the Prince of Life. they desired a murderer. Barabbas was a murderer. That
was the great exchange, wasn't it? They desired a murderer be
granted unto you. and you killed the Prince of
Life. You killed the Prince of Life. That word Prince is a remarkable
word. What a remarkable title for our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Life. It actually means, the
same word is used to describe Him in Hebrews 12 too, as the
author and finisher of faith. He is the author and finisher
of life. In Hebrews 2.10 that same word
is used to describe the princes there described as the captain.
The captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering.
He is the author of life. All things are made by Him and
without Him there is not anything made that was made. In Him was
life. He owns life. to get to the funeral
home, they drive past our place, we see them going down our road
almost every day if you were there to watch a hearse with
a coffin in the back. Every death, every death is saying
to people, you do not own life. Every death is saying, you don't
own it. Life is not yours. It can be
taken from you in a heartbeat. You do not own it. He is the
author. He is the author. He possesses
life supremely. He is life in its deepest and
highest degree. He is life superlatively. He
is life beyond all others. John said, didn't he, the life
was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show
unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us. He is, as He declared Himself
to be, I am The One, The Truth and The Life. He is the One that
lives. His life is something that He
has essentially. He has eternal life. His life
is self-existence. As the Father has life in Himself,
so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself. The Son,
in His capacity, is our Mediator. He lives, our Lord Jesus Christ. He lives right now and reigns
in life. He cannot cease to live. All
other things will pass away, but His life His word, his life
will continue forever. He's the prince of life. He is
the prince. He is the captain and we are
just the subjects. And he says of his own life,
he says, I have the power. I have power to lay it down and
I have power to take it again. We all die. The wages of sin
is death, and they will be paid. But he had no debt of his own. He was the Holy One. He was the
Just One. So the question that lies before
us is how could a holy and just God put his holy and just Son
to death? How could a holy and just God
put one that He declares to be holy and just, and the Prince
of Life, to death? They are the most fundamental
questions, aren't they? The most fundamental and foundational
questions are the things that bring the greatest comfort. As
the farmer said, you lead me to a rock that is higher than
I. There is in this transaction,
this transaction on the cross, this remarkable substitutionary
atonement, there is the greatest comfort for ourselves, the greatest
comfort as we travel through this world, the greatest comfort
when we find ourselves fallen in sin. in ways that are so embarrassing
that we can't share with others. The great comfort of the souls
of God's people is in this transaction. And as we saw in the first sermon
in Acts, it is a transaction that was a transaction between
God the Father and God the Son. There is absolutely no question
that there were wicked hands that put the Lord Jesus to death.
There were wicked thoughts that denied Him. There were wicked,
evil transactions that said, give us a murderer and let's
kill this man who had just raised Lazarus from the dead. But every
time that's mentioned, and it's never hidden in scriptures, it's
always declared that this was because of God's determinant
counsel and foreknowledge. That's the great question, isn't
it? The great question of all religion, the great question
upon which Christianity hangs is how can a holy and just God
put to death a holy and just Son and save sinners without
any insult to His character? but in fact magnifying his character. This is the answer to that question,
isn't it? The angels long to look into it. The prophets wrote
of it in wonders. All of the types and shadows
of the Old Testament were just pictured in this. All of the
scriptures just hang on this one event, the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. and his resurrection. That's
why he said that the Christ should suffer, the Christ must suffer,
the Holy and Just One must be crucified, the Prince of Life
must die. The answers are so fundamentally
important and so fundamentally clear here, that not only do
they exalt the truth, but they make everything that stands opposed
to it look as silly as it ought to be, and cause the children
of God to be turned from all of that religion which denies
Him. How could He be put to death? He gave himself, didn't he? He gave himself. He laid down
his life that he might take it up again. He gave his life a
ransom for many. He gave himself for his church. He was put to death. And we need
to turn to some scriptures to work out why and how a wholly
unjust God could do this to his son. Because in Isaiah 53 it
says, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It pleased God the
Father to bruise him. And the word to bruise is to
crush him. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. And he has put him to grief. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul and offering to see. That's what
happened, wasn't it? That's the determinant counsel
and foreknowledge of God. That's what we read in Acts 3.18,
isn't it? That God has showed by the mouth
of all his prophets that the Christ should suffer and be put
to death. He has fulfilled what he has
promised. The Messiah, as the prophets
said, was cut off, as Daniel 9 says, he was cut off, but not
for himself. He was put to death under the
justice of God. He was put to death under the
justice of God. Turn with me to Zechariah 13. As you're turning there, I'll
remind you of that verse in 2 Corinthians 5.21. which is the Gospel in
a sentence, isn't it? God made him who knew no sin
to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. See the greatest transaction
of the cross was not the wickedness of Herod and Caiaphas and that
silly mob, enraged mob. It wasn't the wickedness of Pilate.
It wasn't the wickedness of those men that drove the nail into
our hands. The greatest act of the cross
is the transaction between God the Father, God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit. And if that is not seen in light
of what the scriptures said, all of what is then said about
the cross is nonsense and meaningless. It only has meaning in the scriptures
in light of what that says. Read Zechariah 37 with me. This
is God speaking. Awake, O sword, the sword of
his divine justice. He says, Awake, O sword, against
my shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, against the man that is my fellow,
the one who is his companion, the one who is equal with God.
Save the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd. Smite the
shepherd. It was the sword of God's justice
that slew the Lord Jesus Christ. And the sheep shall be scattered
and I will turn my hand upon the little one. Let's just read on. And it shall
come to pass I love the shalls and wills of the scripture. It
shall come to pass that in all the land, saith the Lord, two
parts thereof shall be cut off and die, but a third shall be
left therein. And I will bring the third part
through the fire. He'll bring a remnant through
the fire. And I will refine them as silver is refined, and I will
try them as gold is tried. And what shall they do? Read
it with me. They shall call upon my name. They will call upon the God who
says, Away go sword against my shepherd. They will call upon
the name of the Lord. They will call upon Him as He
is defined in the scriptures. They will call upon Him as He
is revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They
shall call upon my name and what will happen? I will hear them. I will say It is my people, and
they shall say, the Lord is my God. They're promises from our
God, brothers and sisters. I'll call upon him, the one who
is slain, they will call upon him. And he will own them, won't
he? I'll call upon my name and I
will hear them. And I will say, it is my people. And they shall say, the Lord
my God." Which leads us to the great question, isn't it? He
was made sin. He was cut off, not for himself. He was put to death by the justice
of God. He was made sin by God the Father. Whom did he die? For whom did
he die? We've just read about them there
very clearly, haven't we? They are people that call upon
the name of the Lord. They are, as Isaiah says, that
he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquity.
He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us. He purchased
a church with his own blood. The great doctrine of the Cross
is the doctrine of substitution. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
was a ransom price paid for the eternal redemption of a certain
number of sinners. here in Acts and all throughout
the Church's history is those who have been added to the Church,
those who call upon the name of the Lord, such as should be
saved. We read again and again, and
you can read it in that pamphlet there, that people want to try
and say that Jesus died for all men, and they have some verses
of scripture which they think support it, don't they? And they're
very quick to parade them out. In fact, if they know their Bible
well and they've been trained in that system, they'll fire
them off like machine gun bullets at you until you can't feel as
if you can dodge them. In almost every one of those
verses where it says that he died for all men, or for all
the world, or he tasted death for everyone, there is that word
for. What does the word for mean?
It means in the place of. That's what it means everywhere.
In the place of them. The world of his elect. The ones
who he saved. It means in the stead of. or
on behalf of. It says that he gave himself
a ransom for all to be testified in due time. And here that word
for means a ransom that is a correspondent ransom. A life is redeemed by
a life. A life is redeemed by a life. He is the just and holy one. Our God is just and holy in all
that He does. And therefore the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ is a death that was just and holy in all
of its activities. God was doing no damage whatsoever
to His character. As He says in Proverbs 7.15,
He that justifieth the wicked And he that condemneth the just,
even they both are an abomination to the Lord. There is no way
in the world our God is going to commit an abomination, and
especially in the death of his dear and darling son. God made
him who knew no sin to be sin for us. The reality is that the
Lord Jesus Christ died under the wrath of God because God
the Father found sin on Him. And the reality of the truth
of the Scriptures is that the Lord Jesus Christ is so united
to His own And the Lord Jesus Christ is such a surety for His
own, that in the scriptures He declares their sins to be His. Let's just turn to a few of them.
In Psalm 40, if you read in Hebrews 10, you'll see very, very clearly
that Psalm 40 is a psalm that speaks so directly of the Lord
Jesus Christ. There can be no mistaking of
it. It's quoted again and again,
isn't it? Sacrifice, verse 6. Sacrifice and offering thou did
not desire. My ears thou hast opened. Burnt
offering and sin offering thou is not required. Then I said,
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. And he preached righteousness,
as the next verse goes on, in the great congregation. He didn't
refrain his lips. He's not hid, verse 10, I have
not hid thy righteousness within my heart. I have declared thy
faithfulness and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving
kindness and thy truth from the great congregation. Withhold
not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let thy loving kindness
and thy truth continually preserve me. And then why? For innumerable evils have compassed
me about." What does he say? Next word. So it's not me saying
it. This is what God says. This is
what the Lord Jesus said of himself. My iniquities have taken hold
upon me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of my head. Therefore my heart faileth me. In Gethsemane's garden, all of
the weight of all of that bore down on him and his heart was
broken. Let's turn to Psalm 69 and see
yet another witness of the Scriptures to this extraordinary truth. He speaks of the anguish of what
he's going through, doesn't he? In verse 1 he says, Save me,
O God, for the waters have come in unto my soul. I sink in deep
mire where there is no standing. I come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying. My throat
is dried up. My eyes fail while I wait for
my God. They that hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy
me, being my enemies wrongfully, Almighty, then I restored that
which I took not away. O God, Thou knowest my foolishness,
my sins are not hid from Thee. One of the ones that I really
find remarkable is that in Psalm 18 He speaks of his righteousness. In verse 20 he says, The Lord
rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of
my hands has he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the
Lord, and have not wickedly departed
from my God. For all his judgments were before
me, I did not put away his statutes from me. I was also upright before him. Who on earth can say that with
any sense of honesty whatsoever? I was upright before him and
I kept myself from my iniquity. For all of those 33 and a half
years, he kept himself from those iniquities until he was lifted
up on Calvary's tree and he became a curse. He became a curse. Cursed of God. He was made sin. The reality of substitution is
that there was a transfer. The glory of the Gospel, brothers
and sisters, is that there was a transfer. It wasn't a figurative
transfer. There was a real transfer in
God's eyes. There was a real transfer of
seeing. from all of God's children, all
of those ones that the Father gave to Him, a real transfer
of that sin, those innumerable evils, a real transfer on to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is why, he says, isn't
it, he's in his own body, he bore our sins in his own body
on the tree, that we being dead to sins. Dead to them? Why are
we dead to them, brothers and sisters? Paul says in Romans
6, reckon yourselves dead to sin. Why? Because they are dead. And they don't exist any longer. He has made a curse for us. And
he once offered to bear the sins of many. That's why Divine Justice
pursued the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Peter wants to declare
before these people, the saved and the lost, that this Lord
Jesus Christ is the Holy One, and He is the Just One, and the
God that they are declaring in this Gospel is wholly and just
in all He does, and He will always deal with every person on this
planet with strict and holy justice. And God's people love it that
way. God's people find their comfort,
a comfort for their souls in the character of God revealed
in the scriptures. That's why Divine Justice pursued
Him. That's why the sword was raised
against Him. He bore the sin of many and out
of this fountain streams of free salvation flow. This is the glorious
mystery of substitution, the glorious wonder of substitution.
Why would you want to look at a lame man who's been healed?
and not look at what that points to. Not look at the Gospel that
was declared before it, the Gospel that was declared after it. Look
away from the things of this world and look to Him. It's remarkable, isn't it? And it should grieve our hearts. that the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ and this glorious substitutionary atonement is so little esteemed
and mocked in this age. It's good to ponder, isn't it,
that God found sin on His Son at the very apex of His faith
when He was abandoned by men humiliated before men, at the
depths of his suffering, God found sin on his son. And holy justice, holy justice,
pursued his son, punished his son with a holy wrath until until
there is perfect satisfaction. And God cries out, it is finished. It is finished. That's the glory of redemption
in the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? No wonder this man went into
the temple leaping and praising God. He was joined with those
apostles. He's leaping and praising God
for salvation. That's the glory of redemption
in the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? Christ has finished redemption.
He's made an end of sin. He's justified the ungodly. He's
reconciled sinners to God. He's perfected forever them that
are sanctified. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
die to attempt to save or to try and make salvation possible.
He died to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and He
put it away, brothers and sisters. Who shall lay, as Romans 8 says,
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. Yea, rather He's risen again,
He's even at the right hand of God and He makes intercession
for us now. He represents them. He represented
them in all eternity when the covenant was sealed. He represented
them in His life on this earth. He represented them on the cross. He represented them when He was
buried. We are one with Him, brothers and sisters in Christ.
He intercedes for them, and He saves none but for those for
whom He died, and He died for none but for those for whom He
is the Kinsman, Redeemer. And this God has raised Him from
the dead, the next verse goes to say. raised him from the dead. A holy and just father raised
a holy and just son from the grave. Why? Romans 4.25 makes
it so abundantly clear. Because of our justification,
he was raised because of our justification. We are justified. Paid in full. You see, justification is a judicial
term. The titles and the terms in scripture
are so fundamentally full of blessing for the children of
God. It's a judicial term, it means
acquittal from guilt. It is to be justified, is to
have the removal of all punishment because the removal of all sin
has taken place. See, a court can pardon someone.
A court can pardon a guilty person. But the wonder of the Gospel
is that God can justify a guilty person, which means that in the
eyes of God they have no sin at all, ever. The word justification
comes from the The weights and measures. It means to be a just
or righteous man is one in a sense, according to Leviticus 19, is
one who's weighed in the balance and is not found wanting. One
whose obedience is perfectly equivalent to God's holy law. Perfectly equivalent. Judgment. Will I labour the line
and righteousness to the plummet? It is the glory of our great
God that in the death of his son is justified us perfectly
and completely. Sin is put away. The wonder of the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ is that in that same event which saves us,
all of the glory of God's holy character is revealed. You take
every attribute known of God and take it to the cross and
there you will see it exalted in wonder. People talk about
the love of God and they talk about a love that doesn't save
everyone, anyone. It just makes people savable.
But you take the love of God to the cross and you'll see what
love does. You take the holiness of God
and you'll see it at the cross. You take the justice of God and
you'll see it at the cross. You take the sovereignty of God
and you'll see it most clearly at the cross. And to undo the
gospel To undo the gospel of substitutionary atonement is
to unravel and deny every character of God. We've just read it, haven't
we? He's a just God. That means the
punishment that was inflicted on the Lord Jesus Christ was
a just punishment. To say, as modern religion says,
that Jesus died for the sins of all the world is to declare
that God the Father punished the Lord Jesus Christ for sins
and then will turn around and punish those same sins in hell.
It cannot be, brothers and sisters, the scriptures do not allow it
to be. It is. It is a doctrine which
is so blasphemous we should be shocked and horrified by it. It's a doctrine which is so glorious
that we should find our peace. No wonder in Psalm 21 our God
says, Thy glory is great in thy salvation. It's where we see
our great God. His resurrection from the dead
is a revival of all of His people and He will raise us up and we
shall live in His sight. His resurrection declares that
He is the Son of God with power. It declares that Satan is vanquished,
that the sins of God have been put away forever, that His people
are justified. That means they have no sin in
the eyes of God's holy justice. They are the first to admit and
confess that they are nothing but sin. They are so willing
to confess it. Like Paul, they would stand in
line to find who is the chief of sinners. They are not wanting
to resolve from that at all. They are not wanting to resolve
from the horrors of it. But the Gospel declares that
God's people are justified. that God's justice is satisfied. Let's go back to Isaiah 53. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him, verse 10, and he has put him to grief. When thou shalt
make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the
travail of his soul, God the Father will see the travail of
his soul, the Lord Jesus will see the travail of his soul,
and shall be satisfied by his knowledge. My righteous servant
shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their
iniquities. He will bear them, and He bears
them away. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with
the strong, because he has poured out his soul unto death. He was nundered with the transgressors,
and he bore the sin of all the world." What does it say? He
bore the sin of many. and made intercession for the
transgressors. Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the
joy set before Him, endured the cross. Our Lord Jesus Christ
is now satisfied, perfectly satisfied, satisfied with His work, perfectly
satisfied with His own. Who shall lay any charge? Who
shall lay any charge? The world would lay all sorts
of charges. Our own conscience will lay all
sorts of charges. It's God. It's God that justifies. The Prince of Life has abolished
death and brought life and immortality to light. through the Gospel. He is the Prince of Life and
it's His to give life and immortality. Brothers and sisters, the very
character of God revealed in the Scriptures is the very comfort
of our soul. God has spoken. He's spoken clearly. May his words, may his words,
his words of promise be the comfort of our soul. Let's pray.