Hey, buddy. You're going to go
back to the... We're going to start our second
service. We're going to begin with 229
in the hardback. 229, tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story of
unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His
love. Tell me the story simply as to
a little child For I am weak and weary and helpless and defiled
Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story of
Jesus and His love. Tell me the story slowly that
I may take it in. that wonderful redemption, God's
remedy for sin. Tell me the story often, for
I forget so soon. The early dew of morning has
passed away at noon. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story of
Jesus and His love. Tell me the story softly with
earnest tones and grace. Remember I'm the sinner whom
Jesus came to save. Tell me the story always, if
you would really be. In any time of trouble, a comforter
to me. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story of
Jesus and His love. Tell me the same old story when
you have cause to fear that this world's empty glory is costing
me too dear. Yes, and when that world's glory
is dawning on my soul, ? Tell me the old, old story ? Christ
Jesus makes the whole ? Tell me the old, old story ? Tell
me the old, old story ? Tell me the old, old story ? Jesus
and His blood Our second hymn will be 176.
Break thou the bread of life, 176. Break now the bread of life,
dear Lord, to me. As Thou didst break the loaves
beside the sea, beyond the sacred pages I seek Thee, Lord. ? My spirit paints for Thee, O
Living Word ? ? Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord, to me, to me
? ? As Thou didst bless the bread by Thy hand ? And shall all bondage cease,
all fetters fall, And I shall find my peace, my all in all. Thou art the bread of life, O
Lord to me, Thy holy word of truth that saveth me. Give me to eat and live with
Thee above. Teach me to love Thy truth, for
Thou art love. O send Thy Spirit, Lord, now
unto me, that He may touch my eyes and make me see. Show me the truth, conceal, And in thy book reveal, I see
the Lord. Morning. I'm going to be reading
out of Hebrews this morning Hebrews chapter 1 Hebrews chapter 1 starting in
verse 1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in
time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days
spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed Hearer of all
things, through whom He also made the worlds, and being the
brightness of His glory in the express image of His person,
and upholding all things by the word of His power. when he had
by himself purged our sins and sat down at the right hand of
the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels,
as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did
he ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And
again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
And when he again says, the firstborn into the world, he says, let
all the angels of God worship him. And the angels, he says,
who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of
fire? But to the son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever
and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter in your kingdom. You have loved righteousness
and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God has
anointed you. with the oil of gladness more
than your companions. And the Lord in the beginnings
laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work
of your hands. They will perish, but you will
remain. And they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak.
You will fold them up and they will be changed, but you are
the same, and your years will not fail. But to which of the
angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand till I make
your enemies my footstools? Are they not ministering spirits
sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? Lord, we thank you for giving
us the opportunity, Lord, Assemble once again. We pray for our pastor
today, Lord, that you'd give him the words, Lord, that you'd
encourage his heart, Lord, to preach your son and give us hearts
to support and love the Lord. your ministry here that you've
done, Lord. We pray also for our brethren worldwide, wherever
they are today, Lord, even those we don't know. And for those
who can't make it here today, Lord, whatever struggles they're
going through, we pray you'd look after your own. In your
name we pray, amen. All right, let's be turning to
Mark 15. We were in Mark 15, verse 15
through 39 last week, and that will be our text again this morning,
but we'll be looking at it a little bit differently. The scriptures,
I'd like to just begin with an introduction here. The scriptures,
they declare to us that God is holy. And that means he has no
sin. There's no evil in God. There's
no darkness in him. And thankfully, God does not
change. He's perfect and right in everything
he does. And the scriptures teach us also
that God is holy and a just God. And that means he's going to
punish sin. He's going to judge sin and iniquity
or lawlessness. and he's going to do this in
righteousness. What God does is right, and so he'll judge
sin in righteousness. Now, those that continue in sin,
those that riot in this world's pleasures, fulfilling the lusts
of the flesh, Peter tells us that they shall give account
to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. And Paul confirms this judgment. He tells us who the judge is
in 1 Timothy 4.1, that it's God and the Lord Jesus Christ who
shall judge the quick and the dead, just like Peter said, the
quick and the dead, meaning those that are now alive in Christ
as well as those who are yet dead in trespasses and sins in
Adam, the quick and the dead. He'll do this at his appearing
and his kingdom. And Paul tells us in Romans that
his appearing shall be the day when God shall judge the secrets
of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. My gospel, he says. And that
means that Our righteousness, our righteousnesses, whether
a man or woman calls them righteousnesses or doesn't call them righteousnesses,
whether you think they're your good works or you don't even
think about the works that you do, whether you call them good
or not, all those things which are our works, our righteousnesses,
are going to be held up to the righteousness of Jesus Christ
and those that do not measure up to his perfect righteousness
shall be counted as nothing but dung at best and sin at the worst
for us. And that's all of our works.
Everything that we do in the flesh before Christ came and
bore his righteousness in us is sin and wickedness. All right, so all in Christ are
as righteous as Christ is. And all outside of Christ, they
shall and do come up short of the glory of God, and their work
shall not be counted for righteousness. And they'll perish in their sins.
Now, that being said, here's the good news. This is the good
news of the gospel. It's that God and his Christ,
They have determined and so worked it to put away the sin of His
people. He's put away your sin. You that
believe Him and trust Him, He's put away your sin. God the Father and the Son have
a love for the people that God chose in eternity. He has a people
that He loves. So that by grace, that is apart
from our works, Because we have no works of righteousness or
good works. Apart from those works, we shall
be found in Christ, having his righteousness, which is perfect
and accepted of God by his grace. That's how we are put into Christ. That's how we come to be born
in Christ and born of Christ and have our lot and our inheritance
in Him. And so we see that this salvation
is the kindness of God. In 1 John 4, 10 it says, herein
is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That is, God sent
Christ so that He Himself brought salvation, brought forgiveness
for our sins, to put those sins away. God did that. Christ did
that by the sacrifice of Himself to obtain eternal redemption
for us. And so all who are in Christ,
all who are committed to Christ and given to Him in eternity
before we did any good or evil, before anything was done by us,
All those in Christ shall know this love, not because of something
we did, but purely based on his kindness and grace and mercy
to us in Christ. That's where he meets us and
that's where he shows his love and tenderness to us who don't
deserve it. So we'll all know this. In Romans
5, 8 it says, God commendeth his love. He's showcasing his
love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. And then we have a knowledge
of this, the revelation of this salvation by his spirit, by the
spirit giving us a new birth in Christ because we're dead
in Adam. We have no part in Adam anymore,
we're now alive in Christ, and that's our inheritance. And John
wrote, hereby perceive we, right? Here's how we understand and
know this, the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.
All right, and that's what Christ accomplished for us in the gospel. Now, one of the great fallacies
that man holds to, because some people, they know about Jesus
Christ and they claim to believe him, but a lot of people, they
believe that God forgives sins purely because he's a loving
God. They think that God only forgives
sins because he's a God of love, and that's their hope and their
trust. Well, he's a loving God, so he'll forgive everyone. He's
gonna forgive their sins because he's a loving God. But we know
from the gospel, we know that it's not based on the love of
God, because God is holy and just. He must punish sin, and
his holiness and justice must be satisfied. That's why Christ
came into this world. That's why he came to this world,
to lay down himself, to sacrifice himself, to put away the sins
of his people as their substitute. He did this because God is just
and holy. He's going to punish sin. And
so Christ came to lay down his life, that God might be just,
he's going to honor his name and his word, and he's also the
justifier of them which believeth in Jesus Christ. Alright, because
it's through Christ's death that our sin is put away. Alright,
so to make plain the evil of our sin to us and to see how
holy and just our God is, as we should think lightly of sin
or lightly of Christ's work, I want us to look now in this
passage of Mark 15, verse 15 through 39, we'll look to see
what our Savior suffered for us. It's a good day to do that. We're going to take the Lord's
Supper later today, and we'll see what He suffered for us,
that we might remember Him and what He did in laying down His
life for us. And so, it's not just that He
died for us, but that He died our death. He didn't have to
die. When he died, he was dying our
death, the death we earned for our sin and iniquity. He bore
our hell. He bore that separation from
God. He bore for us what we deserved. 1 Peter 3.18 tells us, For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit." Our title is, Our Glory Changed Into
Shame. Our Glory Changed Into Shame. And we'll see why I've titled
that at the end. All right, so the first thing
we see is that Christ was condemned. Christ condemned, right? So this
is what Christ endured. This death, this is all that
he endured. This is just a part of what he
endured. I'm sure I didn't cover everything,
but this is what he endured for his chosen people. First, he
was condemned, and that condemnation came by wicked men on top of
it. He was condemned by wicked men.
Look at verse 15, Mark 15, 15. And so Pilate, willing to content
the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus
when he had scourged him to be crucified. So we know from the
night before that Christ was condemned by the Jews, right? The previous night he was condemned
by the Jews to die. And then they turned him over
to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles condemned Christ to die, and
that by crucifixion, which is what you did to criminals. Awful,
horrible criminals were crucified. They were put up like that, and
that was all done to Christ by the hands of wicked men on top
of it. people that were not just, people
that were not righteous, people that are not good. These wicked
men, what we are in the flesh, we crucified the Lord of glory,
the creator of us, was put to death by the hands of wicked
men. Now, here's the reason, and this will be the pattern
as we go through these. The reason that Christ allowed this condemnation
of himself was to deliver us from condemnation. He was judged
to deliver us from the judgment that we earned. We had a debt
of righteousness that we owed to God. Christ paid that debt
of righteousness by the death of himself, by the sacrifice
of himself. And so that eternal punishment
that was ours, that eternal hell, because we could never pay it
off, Christ bore that in his body as our sacrifice, as our
substitute. And so the scriptures teach he
was made sin to make us the righteousness of God. He became what we are
to put away that sin once and for all that we might be what
he is, righteous before God. And so Christ was judged guilty
to declare us less before the law of God. We now are guiltless. The law has nothing more to say
to us. We died. We paid the price. We paid the
penalty for our sin in Christ. That's put away. In Colossians
1.22, where we see Christ died the death of the sinner that
we might live unto God, Colossians 1.22, here we see our reconciliation
to them that believe in the body of his flesh through death to
present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. And so that's why Christ was
condemned to die by the hands of wicked men. All right, next
we see that he endured a cruel mockery. In his suffering, he
endured a cruel mockery. After being condemned, Christ
was given over to those soldiers, and you remember that the soldiers
gathered all the band of soldiers around him, surrounded by all
these wicked men who now came to mock him and to shamefully
treat him. Look with me, we'll read Mark
15, verse 17, through 20. It says, and they clothed him
with purple, and plaited a crown of thorns, or wove or braided
a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, and began to
salute him, Hail, King of the Jews! And they smote him on the
head with a reed. They took a stick and beat him
on his head, and they did spit upon him, and bowing their knees
worshipped him, and when they had mocked him, they took off
the purple from him. and put his own clothes on him
and led him out to crucify him. That's what occurred leading
up to the cross, before the cross. And then we read, while he hung
on the cross, in verse 29, go down to verse 29 with me, and
they that passed by railed on him. wagging their heads and
saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in
three days, save thyself and come down from the cross. Likewise
also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the
scribes, He saved others, himself he cannot save. Let Christ, the
King of Israel, descend now from the cross that we may see and
believe. And they that were crucified
with him reviled Him. And so, here we're given a sight,
a picture of what we of this world, of this flesh in Adam,
what we think of our Creator. When we saw Him in weakness,
we heaped it upon Him. We came and surrounded Him like
hunters surrounding an animal and viciously just attacked him
and tried to destroy him and rip him apart. And so we as men
exalted ourselves over our Creator and He that is exalted high and
whose name is above every name and we came to destroy Him. David prophesied of this in Psalm
69 verse 12. Through the Spirit, he said,
they that sit in the gate speak against me. And when he speaks
of those in the gate, he's talking about the noble, the learned
persons of a city. They're the ones who determine
whether or not something's gonna be allowed in the city, right? And they judge and they say things
according to wisdom and their understanding and knowledge.
They spoke against Christ, and he says, I was the song of drunkards. So from the greatest, most learned
person, all the way down to the most vile and worthless human
being. All of them, no matter all, everyone,
from all walks of life and society, all despised Christ. That's what
he suffered for us, to put away our sin. So here he was just
the week before coming into Jerusalem, riding on a colt, the foal of
a donkey, hearing the shouts, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord. And he hears that, and now he's
being despised and reviled and mocked and ridiculed as he hung
on the cross. And so he endured all this mocking
and spitting and punching and slapping and hitting with a stick,
the jeers and the temptations. He despised this shame. He endured
that shame so that when we stand before God, there won't be any
despising. There won't be any shame cast
upon us. We'll stand before our Father
spotless and holy and hear words of comfort and receiving We'll
have a glorious reception because of what Christ has done for us
in bearing that shame and the mockery, right? And we're going
to behold our Lord who did this for us. We're going to behold
Him in glory upon that throne and rejoice in that glory. We're
not going to be afraid and say, What have we done? We're gonna
rejoice and say, there's my husband, my God, my King, my Lord, who
did this for me, a wicked sinner, and he put away all my sins so
that now I'm righteous before my God, because this was his
prayer, right? His prayer was, Father, I will
that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I
am. that they may behold my glory
which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation
of the world." And so it'll be a blessing for us. There'll be
others who behold him in his glory, but it'll be a terrifying
day, right? Because they'll, they have no,
no covering for their shame. But he endured that shame to
obtain for us a covering so that we won't be ashamed. we won't
be afraid in that day and we'll stand rejoicing with him. There he is, just as he said,
just as he promised and we'll be rejoicing in that. Next, related
to this, he was stripped naked, stripped naked. Who of us would
want to be stripped naked before all the eyes of everyone to see
us? It says in verse 24, Mark 15
24, when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting
lots upon them, what every man should take. That means they
took his clothes off and he's hanging there naked before them
all. And the reason why he was stripped
naked is that as our perfect substitute, he was standing in
the place that we would be standing in before God, in complete nakedness,
having no works, no righteousness to cover that shame and nakedness.
We'd be standing before God. Outside of Christ, we're uncovered. And every sin and every iniquity
and wickedness we've done would be exposed before the all-seeing,
all-knowing eye of God and would be on display for everyone to
see. That's nakedness, right? Adam
and Eve, they didn't know they were naked. before they sinned
because they weren't naked. Really, there was no shame. They
had no shame. It was only after they sinned
that they hid because they were naked. And so that shows us what
it's going to be like to stand before God without the sufficient
covering of Christ's righteousness. And one of my, the description
I like about what we are in Christ, we that believe, right? We're
called the bride of Christ. And one of the sweet descriptions
of us is in Revelation 21, verse two, where John is writing of
what he saw. And he says, I saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem. That's us, brethren, that's the
bride of Christ coming down from God out of heaven prepared as
a bride, adorned for her husband. And that adorning, it's his works
of righteousness in us. It's that joy that we have in
him. It's that hope that we have in
him. It's the rejoicing and thankfulness that he has worked in us, knowing
what he's done for us and accomplished for us. and that our sins are
put away, that nakedness is no more, there's no shame, we're
now full and complete, adorned for our husband, adorned with
all his righteous works and everything he obtained for us, all the jewels,
the precious jewels and the beautiful linens of righteousness. And that's how we'll be, that's
what we are even now in Christ and we'll see that, we'll be
robed and his righteousness to rejoice in him forevermore. All
right, then we see that he was numbered with sinners, numbered
with the transgressors. So the next verses, if you look
there, verses 27 and 28. Before we read these, remember,
he himself committed no crime. He did nothing worthy of death.
He didn't sin. He did nothing worthy of death
or worthy of of this despising. No guile was found in his mouth.
Look at verse 27 and 28. And with him they crucified two
thieves, the one on his right hand and the other on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled
with Saith, and he was numbered with the transgressors. So the
picture for us here is that our Lord took his place with us. He came and joined Himself to
us. He stood with us. We that are
sinners, we that had nothing, we that can give Him nothing,
He came and stood with us. In all our poverty, in all our
wickedness, in our filth, in our stink, in our shame, He came
and stood with us, rather than despise us. Think of how you
feel when you see something nasty. and gross and smelly, how we're
put off and we go away from it. And yet Christ came and took
his place with us. And he stood in our place. And so, rather than despise us,
and rather than cast us away as the off-scouring of the world,
he came and stood by us. And so he identified himself
with the transgressors of his people, and he shed his blood
For us, He shed His blood, He gave up His life for you and
me. And when we get a view of the
darkness and the evil in our own heart, we know what a great
gift that is, that He died for us, that He paid the debt that
we owe to God. And so, the Holy Lamb of God
was made sin for His people to be the sacrifice for His people
to take away our sin forever. That's what we read in 2 Corinthians
5 21. For God hath made Christ to be
sin for us who knew no sin. He didn't know any sin. God made
him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Okay. Now that brings us to the
next suffering that we see of our Savior, where he is forsaken
of God. Forsaken of God. Because he was
made sin for his people, the scriptures tell us, they teach
us, that God the Father forsook God the Son. The Son was forsaken. And when you think about this,
this wasn't just said or taught to us or done for drama's sake. God's not just putting on a drama
show, right, that he's forsaken him and making it look bad. It
means he really forsook his son for a purpose. He forsook his
son for a purpose. And I believe, I really do believe
in Hebrews 10, verse five, This verse is pregnant with an understanding
of what Christ did there. It says, wherefore, when he cometh
into the world, speaking of the Son, he sayeth, sacrifice an
offering thou wouldest not. It's not just a picture or a
type. We can't do any sacrifice to
put away sins, and it's not just going to be a picture of a sacrifice. It's going to be a real sacrifice,
a real laying down of the Son of God. Not animals, not goats
and bulls and the blood of anything else. He had to be made what
we are. And so there's no other way that
we could be made righteous, except he take our sin to himself and
then bear that punishment of God justly. God didn't unjustly
pour out his punishment and wrath on the son. He poured it out
because he was bearing the sin of his people to make atonement
for it. And so as part of that verse,
Hebrews 10.5, he says, a body hast thou prepared me. And I
see in that what he's saying is, I was given this body to
bear the sin of my people. I was given this body, you gave
me this body to perform this work, to bear the sin of my people
before you on the cross so that you could pour out your holy
wrath on that sin to put it away forever, to make atonement for
it. Look at verse 34, Mark 15, 34. It says, I'll show you, this
is the forsaken, at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud
voice saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is being interpreted,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? So we see there
the son was forsaken by the father. Okay, now the reason here that
our Lord said these words is so that we would hear them. The
Lord said these words out loud so that they could be recorded
so that we would hear and know that the son was forsaken by
the father. And one commentator noted this,
and I thought this was powerful, because he noted that at the
height of his obedience, at the height of Christ's obedience,
where He's obeying the Father's will, that He would come and
die, that He would lay down His life on the cross to put away
the sins of His people, to justify them, at that very height of
obedience, the Father forsook Him. Now, that's incredible to
me, that He and Christ remained faithful through it all. He didn't
sin once. He remained faithful to the Father,
believing Him for you and me, who are faithless and don't believe
and aren't worthy of that salvation. At the height of His obedience,
the Father forsook Him. All right, so Christ had to be
forsaken because God is of too pure of eyes to behold iniquity. It says in Habakkuk 113, We read,
thou art of pure eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look
on iniquity. So Christ was made sin to bear
that sin before the Father. He has that body to bear that
sin, to stand in the place to be a perfect sacrifice for his
people, to bear that sin, being laid on him, to hold it up to
the Father, that the Father might pour out his wrath sufficiently,
fully, perfectly, to destroy that sin, to put it away forever.
And Christ made the full payment that we owe to God in righteousness
for his people. And so it accomplished the work. All our sin is blotted out. The
stain is purged from us. So we have no more stain of sin. Christ effectually wrought salvation
for his people. He did it. It's all put away.
There's no more sin. There's nothing left undone.
No more sin for us to bear, no more sacrifice for us to make.
Christ did it all perfectly. And so now because Christ did
that and was forsaken by the Father in doing that for us,
we who believe Christ shall never be forsaken by God. We won't
hear those words, depart from me you workers of iniquity, I
never knew you. No, we won't hear those. We'll
hear, well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into
thy rest which I've prepared for you from before the foundation
of the world. That's the glorious thing we'll
hear. Alright, now the next thing we see is that he was made a
curse. It says verse 25, it was the third hour and they crucified
him. They hung him on a tree. They
crucified him on a tree. And that's what Paul writes in
Galatians 3.13 when he tells us, Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And that's because
any man that died in this manner, when the people saw that, they
accounted him to be accursed of God. that that would be such
a horrible death to die that they would be accounted accursed
from God. But Christ did this and the Spirit
tells us in Galatians 3.14 the reason why Christ was hung on
the tree was that the blessing of Abraham might come on the
Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith. So Christ did all this work so
that it wouldn't be salvation by the law, but that salvation
would come to all, Jew and Gentile, through faith. That blessing
of Abraham, the righteousness of Christ to all, that we all
might be saved by Christ. Because of Christ, we that were
born under the curse of Adam, right? We're all descended from
Adam and we all now have our part in Adam and the curse of
Adam, which is sin unto death, right? We died in Adam and we're
subject to the law and couldn't do, couldn't work righteousness.
We that were corrupt and defiled and spiritually dead sinners,
are now in Christ, born again of His spiritual seed. Because
He obtained this work in putting away our sin by the death of
Himself, so by the resurrection of Himself, He's obtained that
gift of the Spirit, whereby we know and hear and believe what
Christ has done for us. That's the gift of Christ to
us. And so, we're not under that
curse anymore in Adam. We're not under the law and all
the requirements there in Adam. We're in Christ, complete, accepted
of God, holy and righteous, before holy, just God, who is perfect. That's how perfect Christ is
and what he's made us, and we receive it by faith. All right,
so being delivered from the curse of the law, we now stand forever
sanctified by our God, by Christ before God. All right, now the
seventh thing we see is he did this sacrifice voluntarily. Voluntarily. It says in verse 37, and Jesus
Christ with a loud voice, or Jesus cried with a loud voice
and gave up the ghost. And so the reason that Christ
voluntarily gave up his life for the life of his chosen saints
is so that we might be delivered. He bound himself to the altar
and sacrificed himself that we who were in bondage and unable
to escape the prison now go free because of Christ's life, because
of what he accomplished. And he did that voluntarily for
us. All right, and then eighth, we see the veil was rent. The veil was rent. When Christ
died, we're given this important detail in Mark, Mark 15, 38. And the veil of the temple was
rent in twain, or two, from top to bottom, top to bottom. And
so Christ's body was voluntarily broken for you and for me when
he gave up the ghost. And so that when he did that,
when he gave up the ghost, We understand, we were justified,
our sin was put away. And so that sin and that curse
which was separating us from God, right, in the temple, that
veil separated the holiest of holies, that place where God
was, where he would meet with the people and the priest had
to come in there with blood Otherwise he couldn't enter that place
and he could only enter it once a year with the blood of atonement,
picturing the blood sacrifice of Christ. So all of us were
kept out. We couldn't enter into the presence
of God without the blood. And so when Christ shed his blood,
that veil rent in two, meaning we were now reconciled to God
the Father. That sin and that iniquity which
separated us and kept us from having fellowship with Him, that
curse that we were in Adam, has been put away once and for all.
So it doesn't matter where you are, at the top of society or
the bottom of society, that veil was rent all the way down from
top to bottom. You that are righteous, you that
are filthy sinners, It doesn't matter who you are or what you've
done in Christ. You have that hope in Christ.
All your sin is put away and you have free access to the Father. And so in Hebrews 10 verses 19
and 20 it says, having therefore brethren boldness to enter into
the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which
he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his
flesh. So we enter in through that veil,
through His flesh, right, His broken body, which rent that
veil open and gave us access to our Father. All right, so
the shame which our Savior endured for us. He did it for us in love
and in faithfulness. He endured all that pain, all
that shame, all that despising, the mocking, the stripping of
being stripped naked, the forsaking of the Father, dying, being obedient
unto death. He did it all that we should
know Him and rejoice in Him. and be glad in Him and be thankful
for what He's done. And so He made us the very righteousness
that God requires for us to stand in His presence for all eternity. Christ accomplished that for
us, brethren. Now, here's what I was looking
at when I titled this message. In Hosea 4, Hosea 4, verse 7,
that's the book right after Daniel. Why don't you go and just look
at that? It was one of the verses, and
this verse, well, let me read it. In Hosea 4, 7, right after
Daniel. This describes the hope of our
salvation in Christ. It says, in verse 7, they sinned
against me. God's speaking to Israel. They
sinned against me. Therefore will I change their
glory into shame. And I know that on one level
that verse is talking about that which we gloried in, the sin
that we glory in in Adam becomes a shame to us, in Christ. It becomes a shame to us. But
also don't miss that there, that he whom we now glory in was made
a shame. He was forsaken and despised
and rejected. He became what we are. He became the shame that we might
know His glory now and stop glorying in that which is the shame, our
sin, and start glorying in Christ who became a shame that we might
be glorified in Him and see Him now in His glory and what He
did. So, our Lord said that. It was the promise there that,
therefore, because we sinned and fell in Adam, therefore I
will change their glory into shame. And so we see that truth
there, that Christ was made a shame. And so remember that when we
take the wine and the bread remember what Christ became for us, that
we might know the glory of God and fellowship with him. So I
pray that that'll be a blessing. I pray that's a blessing to us. I'll close us in prayer. Our
blessed Lord, we thank you for your mercy, Lord. that you should
take Him who is exalted high and far above all creatures,
He that is wonderful and light and holy and perfect in all that
He is and does, came taking upon Him the humiliation of our flesh
and suffering and bearing with the sins of wicked men who condemned
Him mocked him, and stripped him naked, and hung him on a
tree. Lord, that he should bear the sins of his people before
you in his body, that you might pour out your wrath perfectly.
All that we had earned and obtained in our sin was poured out upon
him, and that he bore our death and our hell to put it away successfully,
fully, once and for all and forever. Lord, that he endured this shame,
that we might know the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
the righteous. Lord, we pray that you would
bless us to know him and to ever be looking to him and serving
him in love and in joy and peace and in fellowship. It's in Christ's
name we pray and give thanks. Amen.