Psalm 130. And here in this Psalm,
I'm going to take up just the last two verses. Psalm 130, verse 7. Let Israel hope in the
Lord. Don't you love that the Lord
tells His people where to hope? Don't you love that He just makes
it clear to us in the Scriptures and tells us where to look, where
to hope, where to find courage, where to find comfort. He just
tells us plainly. Let Israel hope in the Lord. And he tells us why. Look. For
with the Lord there is mercy. That's a good reason to hope
in Him. Because there's mercy with Him. And with Him is plenteous
redemption. and He shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities." Now I want to talk about this word redemption. Redemption. This is a prophecy
that's talking about at the time that it was written, it's talking
about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the sure
redemption that He would accomplish. Now, I want to ask this question
first. What is redemption? What is redemption? The word means to buy again. To buy back. An object was purchased. An object was purchased. That
object is the Lord's people. Called here in the scripture
Israel. And a price was paid. When you
buy something, you have to pay a price to buy it. A price was
paid. And the price that was paid was
the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. His own blood. Matthew 20 verse
28 says, Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. That word ransom is redeemed. That's what it is. To give his
life to buy many. 1 Peter 1.18. Turn there with me. 1 Peter 1.18.
We're going to look at some scriptures and go very simply through this,
as simply as we can. 1 Peter. Chapter 1, verse 18. Peter writes, Forasmuch as ye
know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver
and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers. That's what they had been taught.
But you were redeemed, verse 19, with the precious blood of
Christ. As of a lamb without blemish
and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the world
was founded. to do this, foreordained to give
His life, to lay down His life, but was manifest in these last
times for you. Now, if the Lord's people had
to be bought again, if they had to be bought back, then that
means that they were once His. Now they never ceased being His.
They were given Him from before the world began. But when they
came into being, in time, they were lost. And they had to be
bought back. So, for them to be redeemed,
it mean they had to be, there had to be a need for them to
be bought back. There had to be a need for Him
to lay down His life. There was obviously a need, some
reason that His people needed to be bought and purchased. Now, the Lord's people, Scripture
says, were sold under sin. That's a word of economy, of
economics. Sold, were sold under sin. Sin's described in Scripture
this way. This is what this being sold into sin was. Scripture describes it as bondage,
as slavery. as imprisonment, as debt, as
the loss of rights, as the loss of freedom, the loss of all ability
to pay our way out of this horrible debt. How did we get that way? How did the Lord's people, His
Israel, come to this place? How did they get to this place?
Look at Romans 5. Romans chapter 5. Verse 12. Wherefore, as by one
man, anybody know who that man is? It's Adam. Adam. Wherefore, as by one man,
Adam, sin entered into the world, and death by sin. So death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned." Look down at verse There's
a parenthesis there from verse 13 down to verse 17. And one
of the things that parenthesis tells us is that this redemption
is not like the way we were sold into sin. We were sold into sin
by Adam and what it tells us is He represented everybody. But that's not how this redemption
came about. The second one who would redeem
us, Christ Jesus, didn't represent everybody. He represented those
given Him that He came to buy back to Himself. Now look at
verse 18. Therefore, because this sin entered
in, as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to
condemnation. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, anybody know who that one is? The Lord Jesus Christ. By the righteousness of one,
the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For
as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. How many? All that he represented. All
that he represented. By one man's disobedience everyone
he represented were made sinners. So by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. How many? All of them he represented. All of them he represented. Moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound. That's why the
law came about. The law entered that the offense
might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, Even so, might grace reign not through sin, but through
righteousness unto eternal life, and here's the name of that one,
by whom it's going to reign unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ
our Lord. This is the debt we incurred
through Adam. All men became debtors to an
infinitely holy God. How bad? What do we owe? What
do we owe? What do we have to pay? What
do we owe? What was this debt? How is it this debt's gotta be
paid? What do we owe this infinitely holy God? We owe holy God perfect
righteousness. And we don't have not even one
righteousness to make a payment. Not one. Here's what we owe Him. We owe Him satisfaction to His
law. And that's death. The wages of
sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it must
die. So that's what we owe. We owe
a perfect righteousness and we're sinning completely through and
through. And we owe death. We got to die. Now the scripture said here that
the law entered that the offense might abound. Now let's just
suppose that your mother, your father don't pay their bills
and they fall into debt, into serious debt. One day they hear
a knock at the door. They go to the door and there's
a man standing at the door and he's there to tell them they
owe. He's there to say You owe a debt. He's there to say, this is how
much you owe. That man doesn't have, he's not
there to pay that debt. He's not there to help you out
in any way to pay that debt. He's there for one purpose, to
tell you you owe and to tell you how much you owe. That's
what the law was for. The law was given that the offense
might abound, that you might know just how much the debt was. You see your mom and dad go to
the mailbox, and they come back, and they have a bill there. And they open it up, and that
bill tells them how much they owe. That's what the law is.
You open up this right here, and it says, here's what you
owe. Here's what you owe. That's what the law was given
for. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world. He came into
this world to pay, to purchase, to buy from the clutches of the
creditor, helplessly lost, indebted sinners. That's why He came.
That's why He came. And that's who He came for. Now,
what's redemption? Redemption is the lawful, is
the just purchase and deliverance God's elect from the bondage
of sin, from the curse of the law, by the blood of Christ.
That's what redemption is. Let me say it again. Redemption
is the lawful and just purchase and deliverance of God's elect
from the bondage of sin and the curse of the law by the blood
of Christ. It's called atonement. Satisfaction. Satisfaction had to be made.
That's what Christ accomplished at Calvary. Now, that's redemption. Now let me ask you the second
question. What did Christ redeem? Christ Jesus purchased, He redeemed
His people. He purchased, He redeemed His
people. The Scriptures tell us, look
at Galatians 3.13, Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law. That curse of that law said,
you owe righteousness and you owe death, and you can't pay
either. But Christ hath redeemed, He
has purchased us from the curse of the law. How so? Being made
a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. Look at John chapter 10. John
chapter 10. Jesus Christ purchased His people. John chapter 10 verse 11. He says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life. For what? For the sheep. He giveth his life for the sheep.
Look down at verse 15. As the Father knoweth me, even
so know I the Father. And I lay down my life for the
sheep. Other sheep I have which are
not of this fold." He's talking to Abraham's descendants after
the flesh. And he was saying, I not only
have some sheep from among the natural descendants of Abraham,
but I got some sheep from among the Gentiles as well. Other sheep
I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring,
and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. Look down at verse 26. And he said to them that didn't
believe on him, but ye believe not because ye are not my sheep
as I said unto you. Now he knows his sheep. And those
that were standing in front of him, he clearly said without
any doubt, you are not my sheep. He knew who his sheep were. And
he said to them, you are not my sheep. That ought to end all
argument, all conversation that Christ came to redeem everybody
without exception. If he said to one person, he
said it to more than one person, but if he just said to one person,
you are not my sheep, that would end all argument that he came
to die for everybody. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. Now he knows who they are. Now
let me make this as simple as I can make it. You go into a
store just like Christ came into this world. You go into a store
and you have what you want to purchase. You know when you go
in there what you want to purchase. Us men do, generally. We go straight
to what we want, come out with it. The ladies sort of shop around. But us men go in, we know just
what we want. And we go in there and we take
that thing into our hands and we walk to the counter with it.
We put it on the counter. We pay the purchase price for
that item. And you know what we expect to
do now that we've paid for that item? It no longer belongs to
the store anymore. It belongs to me now. And you
know what I expect to do with that now that I've paid the price
that was demanded for that item? You know what I expect to do
with it? I expect to take it, put it under my arm, walk out
the door with it, and take it home. Why? I bought it. It's mine. I purchased it. It
belongs to me. Christ said He came to save His
people. He came to purchase His people. He said, I know who they are.
I know on what shelf they're sitting. Just like you know what
item that item is. I know right where they're sitting.
And I'm going right to them. And I'm going to purchase them.
And I'm going to buy them. I'm going to pay the price demanded.
And I'm taking them home with me. That's what Christ came to
do. And that's what He did. I want
to talk to you about what he bought. He bought the souls of
his elect. He bought the souls of his elect. Romans 4.7 says, Blessed are
they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. You
know when you go to buy something and they bring the check to the
table, they put it on the table, somebody at the table grabs it
and says, I got it covered. That means you don't have to
pay anything. If I say I've got it covered,
that means your money is no good here. You pay, I've got it covered. Blessed is the man whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are covered. I bought it. I've paid
it. I've paid it all. I've bought
it, the Lord said. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. He will not charge his people
with sin. He will not charge his people
with sin. Why won't they be charged? We're
talking about economic terms here. Why won't they be charged
anything? The price has been paid. They've
been bought. Their souls are redeemed. There
is therefore now no condemnation. They bought. No condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. And they can't be punished on
account of their sin. Because His Son poured out His
precious blood, they will not be charged with sin. Payment
God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand, then again at mine. Justice won't allow it. The same
justice that demanded He lay down His life won't allow Him
to charge sin to His people. It's been paid for. Christ has
redeemed us from the punishment of sin, the condemnation, the
punishment of sin. It's gone. That's the second
thing. And then here's the third thing.
Christ has redeemed us from the dominion of sin. He's bought
us from the dominion of sin. You see, the problem is, before
Christ came and took up in power, effectual power, took up a bode
in the hearts of His people, you who hear this right now,
some of you sit here and could care less. And you will go on
caring less unless He comes to you and wakes you up and grabs
you and wakes you up and makes you see you need to be redeemed. Unless He makes you see you had
to be purchased and the value of this purchase that He's made.
Unless He does that, you'll go on not caring a thing in the
world about it. He has to take up dominion in the soul so that
sin won't have dominion over you anymore, so that you won't
sit there with the blinders over your eyes, the veil over your
heart, your ears stopped up, and your head in the sand, thinking,
I'm alright, I don't care a thing in the world about this, I don't
have to hear this, why does this apply to me? It applies to you
because you might meet Him tonight. You might meet Him tonight. But
He's redeemed us from the dominion of sin. Look over at Romans 6.
We looked at this Sunday, but I want you to see this again.
Romans 6, verse 11. Romans 6, verse 11. Let's start
with verse 7. He that is dead is freed from
sin. We can enter into that. We can
understand that easily. He that's dead is freed from
sin. He's not sinning anymore, is he? You can't charge him with
sin. You wouldn't dare walk up to
somebody who's died and said, oh, you're such a sinner. He's
not doing anything. He's dead to sin. He's freed
from it. Now, if we be dead with Christ,
we believe we shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ
being raised from the dead, He dies no more. What does that
mean? That means if we are raised with
Him, we are not going to die anymore. Death hath no more dominion
over Him. For in that He died, He died
unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Now
here is verse 11. Likewise, likewise. Reckon ye also yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sin. How dead to sin? As dead as a
dead man. That's pretty good news. That's
good news. You mean I'm that dead to sin? That dead to sin. But alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. How alive unto God? As
alive as Jesus Christ our Lord is. Let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God." Give yourself to God. Submit to God, he said. Yield
yourselves unto Him. Hear what He says. You're dead
to sin and your life is hid in Christ Jesus. You're alive unto
God and dead to sin. That's what he says to those
he quickens in the heart. He says, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God, because sin shall not
have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but you're
under grace. It's not the reigning power of
sin is broken. It's broken. It's not gone from
the body. It's broken. It's still in the
body of the sinner. But He said, don't yield to that
any longer because it's not going to have dominion over you anymore.
And when I hear, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal
body, I think, well then, I've got to do something to stop it.
But as He says, let not sin therefore reign in your body, He tells
you why this is not just an exhortation to you, but why it's a promise
that it shall not, because you're under grace. You're under His
dominion. You're under His power. And it's
not going to have dominion over you anymore. Now you can't do
the things you would do before. because He won't let it happen.
He's not going to allow it to have, it's there. And you're
going to be in sin, you're going to fall into sin, it's going
to be ever-present with you, but it won't reign over you. Those that are born of God will
not be able to turn from Christ and depart from Christ. They
will not be able to leave Christ. They will not be able to fall
into sin so as to be lost in sin, to be engulfed with it,
to love it, to go after it, to just want to have it all the
time. He will not allow that to happen in one whom He reigns. Sin will not have dominion over
you. Why? Because He has redeemed your
soul. He has redeemed His people from the dominion of sin. Then
the Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed the bodies of His elect. He's
redeemed the soul of His elect so that when they die, immediately,
they go to be with Christ in glory, in spirit. Their soul
goes to be with Him. But He's redeemed the body as
well. Look at Job 19. Job 19. Job 19. Job 19.25, I know that my Redeemer
liveth. Job 19.25, Job says, I know that
my Redeemer liveth and that He shall stand at the latter day
upon the earth and He has stood upon this earth. He came to this
earth and He stood on this earth. Job said, I know He's going to,
I know He's coming. My Redeemer lives. He said it
at this time. This is supposed to be one of
the first books of the Bible that was written. And though
after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God. whom I shall see for myself,
and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Now that's reason
to hope. You see a beloved believer, who
their body gets frail, and their body withers away from some disease,
or from old age, or whatever it is, and they wither away to
nothing. And you see him laying in a casket,
and you see him just... I think of my grandfather. He
had cancer, and it just didn't even look like him laying there.
I mean, his flesh was so... He was just a skeleton laying
there. It didn't even look like him
laying there. But oh, look at this hope. Look at it. Just what
Pete read in Ecclesiastes. Death is the beginning. That's
the birthday for the saints. And the soul goes to be with
him, but that body, Job said, my very body, it doesn't belong
to the dust. The dust don't own it. The dust
don't put, they didn't purchase it. The dust can't have it. Why? Christ bought the body of his
people and he's going to have what he bought. And those bodies
are going to be raised, and that corruption is going to put on
incorruption, and then the body is going to be with the Spirit
in glory with Him. And Job said, I'm going to see
Him with these eyes right here. You know how long before Christ
ever came that Job died? You know how long his body, his
eyes had been in the dust? There wasn't anything left of
him by that time. There wasn't any bones left of
him by that time. But He said, I'm going to stand
before Him and I'm going to see Him with my own eyes. And He
did. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
purchased, He has redeemed this world. And by this world, I mean
He's redeemed this earth. He bought this earth. I don't
mean He redeemed everybody, every man in the world. I mean He bought
this earth. The curse that came upon this
earth, when you walk through the, you fellas out there playing
paintball and all that stuff and you get, next time you get
scraped on the arm by a briar, you can look around at your bleeding
arm and look at that briar that's growing up there and know that's
the curse. That's evidence of what fallen
man, that's evidence of what me and you did to this earth,
right there. The Lord said, Cursed is the
ground for your sake, Adam. Cursed is the ground for your
sake. You see, it's impossible for
Christ, for His reign to be on this earth in the shape it's
in right now because this earth is cursed by sin. Look at Romans
chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, verse 19. For the earnest expectation of
the creature, the word is creation, it's the world, it's the earth.
The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation
of the sons of God. For the creature, the creation,
was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him
who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
Now you can go on and you can save, you can recycle everything
and do all you want to, but the green movement is not going to
get the glory for redeeming this earth. Christ is. I'll tell you what we did. the thought that we can fix what
we broke. It didn't just start in the year
2000. It didn't start then. It started with Adam. Adam said,
I can fix what I've broken. And the way he deemed to fix
what he broke is by taking some fig leaves and destroying the
earth. That's how he decided he'd fix
what he broke. And everything we do to try to fix it on one
hand, we're polluting it on another hand. You just bank on that. Everything we do to make up for
it, I read somewhere where one recycled item causes x, x, x
amount of pollution to make one recycled item. It's much more
than what ends up being saved by that one item. Now I'm not
saying that's all bad and everything. I'm just saying we're not going
to get the glory for that. And if you think we can pass
laws to stop it, that's another thing. We're not going to be
able to pass laws to stop it because we wouldn't have to keep
on making them if we didn't keep on breaking them. But Christ
the Lord is going to receive the glory of that. He bought
it. Look over with me now and look over at 2 Peter chapter
3. 2 Peter chapter 3. I want you to see just how fully,
how plenteous this redemption really is. 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 11. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of, I'm sorry, verse 3, Oh yeah, verse 10. But the day
of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall
melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are
therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in
all holy conversation and godliness, looking for, in hasting unto
the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on
fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat. Nevertheless, well, if all this
is going to be destroyed, well, nevertheless, now what? We, according
to His promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness. The first creation He's going
to make new is the new creation within His people. That's the
Spirit. The second creation He's going
to make new is when He brings these bodies out incorrupt into
glory with Him. And the third creation He's going
to make new is this earth and these heavens. And everything
that's going to be therein is going to be the creation of the
Redeemer. And all to the praise of the
glory of the Redeemer. Because He bought it with His
own blood. He did it. Now, it's not going
to be. It's not that it's going to be
or that He made it possible. These things are fact. It is
done. He hath accomplished eternal
redemption. He has done it. Now, that's why
the Lord's redemption is plenteous. It's plenteous redemption. It's
plenteous because by it He saved millions. A number that no man
can number. It's plenteous because it's put
away the sins of His elect people. It's plenteous because He's fully
satisfied justice. It's plenteous because He's secured,
He's guaranteed, He's bought all the blessings of grace and
glory for all His people forever. Whatever you need. Whatever you
need. When He says, all things are
yours, doesn't that give all new light to that? He's purchased
everything and when He says everything's yours, what do you need? It's yours. If you're His, if
you've been bought by His blood, if you've been made to behold
Him and to count His blood precious and to know that He is precious
to you so that you have this earnest of the Spirit, the earnest
of the inheritance, He says all things are yours. You need righteousness? That's
what you needed. A perfect righteousness with
a thrice holy God. You need that? It's yours, he
said. You need justification? You need
to be satisfaction made to the law? He said, I bought it. You need peace with God. You
need acceptance with God. You need to be able to commune
with the thrice holy God. He said, I bought it. You need
forgiveness with Him. He said, it's yours. You need
glory. You need to be resurrected to
newness of life. You need to be brought into His
glorious presence. He said, I've purchased it. Now
what else do you need? What else do you need? Everything
else is Mighty small compared to that, isn't it? Well, Scripture
says, he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. He shall not fail nor be discouraged. I fail and I get discouraged. But he shall not fail and he
shall not get discouraged. What He redeemed, He's going
to have. What He bought, He's going to
have. What He purchased, He's going to possess. And all of
those for whom the Son of God died at Calvary shall live with
Him in glory in a new heavens and a new earth. That's plenteous
redemption. That's plenteous redemption. Let's read it again. Psalm 130
verse 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy,
and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Amen.