Alright, take your Bibles and
turn to Daniel chapter 9. Daniel 9. I've had on my heart
for some time just knowing that there's so much crazy going on
in the world that I figure people are going to be coming up with
all kinds of thoughts and ideas for the end times and you know
there's a lot of nonsense out there about what the scriptures
mean concerning the end times. This scripture was laid on my
heart, Daniel 9, 24. Daniel 9, 24, and this will be our text. Seventy weeks are determined
upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression
and to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity
and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up the vision and
prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy. Now the angel Gabriel here
is speaking to Daniel, a man greatly beloved of God, and he
says that there are six distinct things that would be fulfilled
by the Messiah within a definite period of seventy-sevens. So that's seventy times seven,
which is four hundred and ninety years. Now, very briefly, by
way of introduction, in verse 25, it tells us when that timetable
would begin. And Gabriel says, know therefore
and understand that from the going forth of the commandment
to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince,
shall be seven weeks, that's 49 years, and three score and
two weeks, bring it up to about 483 years, The street shall be
built again, and the wall even in troublous times. And this
command would come by Cyrus, which was prophesied of 200 years
before he was ever even born. And Isaiah spoke of Cyrus, saying,
That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all
my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the
temple thy foundation shall be laid. And then just as God said
it would be, so it was. In 2 Chronicles 36, just listen,
it says, Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that
the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be
accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king
of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and
put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia,
all the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven given
me. And he hath charged me to build
him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah, who is there among
you of all his people? The Lord is God, be with him
and let him go up. So that within 490 years of this
commandment that Cyrus commanded to build Jerusalem, it says that
these six things would be fulfilled by the Messiah. And the most
compelling of all these words is actually what our Lord and
Savior said when he gathered together the 12 unto him, And
in Luke 18, 31, he said, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all
things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of
Man shall be accomplished. And that right there is where
we are blessed when we see how the scriptures declare and proclaim
our Lord Jesus Christ, because he is the one that saves his
people. My title this evening is The
Completed Work of the Messiah. My prayer is that this day we'll
see how all this work was fulfilled by our Savior, Jesus Christ,
who would come and be crucified and would rise again the third
day. We're gonna have six divisions,
but they're not that long, because there's six of them, and they'll
be those very phrases that we read there in verse 24. Finishing
the transgression, making an end of sins, making reconciliation
for iniquity, bringing in everlasting righteousness, sealing up vision
and prophecy, and anointing the Most Holy. Let's look there,
Daniel 9.24, to finish the transgression. Now, we should understand here
that finishing the transgression relates to the nation of Israel
and the days of our Lord. If you look there in Daniel 9.11,
9.11 and verse 12, Daniel confesses while praying to God the following,
Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that
they might not obey thy voice. Therefore the curse is upon us,
is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of
Moses, the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. And
he hath confirmed his words which he spake against us and against
our judges, that judged us by bringing upon us a great evil. For under the whole heaven hath
not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. And so the Lord
God did deal with Israel because of their transgression. They
sinned against them, and the Lord sent them off into captivity
for 70 years. And that was spoken of by Jeremiah.
But the angel Gabriel says of the Messiah, he says, 70 weeks,
or 77, Daniel, are determined upon thy people and upon thy
holy city to finish the transgression. to finish it. So that tells us
that Israel was not yet done with their transgression. There
was still more yet to be done. And that transgression by Israel
would be fulfilled or completed when they rejected the Messiah
and they crucified him. They are on a cursive tree. Moreover,
Daniel cries to the Lord in his prayer in verse 18. He says,
Oh my God, incline thine ear and hear, open thine eyes and
behold our desolation. and the city which is called
by thy name." And yet Gabriel declares to Daniel at the end
of verse 26 that desolations are determined. So you think
that you're desolate now, you think Israel is destroyed now,
wait until they get done finishing the transgression because there's
going to be even greater damnations. Now I want us to see this, so
look in Matthew 23, Matthew 23 verse 29. It's a bit of scripture
but I want us to see where the people
of Israel were at when our Lord came. Matthew 23, verse 29. He says, this is our Lord speaking,
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because ye build
the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the supplications of
the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the
prophets. Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are
the children of them which killed the prophets." And the reason
why our Lord said this to them, it wasn't because they decorated
the tombs of the prophets, although that's pretty odd and weird sounding
to us, but because they were saying, we wouldn't have done
that. If we were there in that day, we wouldn't have done that,
as if there are some righteous people. And what they were confessing
is their own blindness and deadness of heart, that they didn't think
that they could do such a thing. And yet that's exactly what the
Lord shows us, that that's what we all are by nature. We could
do that very thing, right? If it wasn't for the grace of
God, were we there in that crowd, when they were whipping up that
crowd of people against our Lord, we would have been right there,
crying out, crucify Him, crucify Him. And it was yet for the sins
of His people that He was bearing our sin there and went up on
the cross and put away our sin and mercy, even though by nature
that's our very heart, enmity against God. Our Lord says there
in Matthew 23, verse 32, Fill ye up, then, the measure of your
fathers. Go ahead, complete the transgression. Ye serpents, ye
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and
scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some
of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and persecute them
from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous
blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel,
Abel right there from when they left the garden, Abel unto the
blood of Zechariah, son of Barakias, whom he slew between the temple
and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these
things shall come upon this generation. And our Lord turns from the Pharisees
to the city of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou
that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together
Even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not. That's all of us by nature. We
will not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that we might be
saved. That's not our will. Left to
ourselves by our nature, we will not believe. And so he says,
behold, your house is left unto you desolate. And that's what
Gabriel said. And that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate. Do you see how Israel must finish
the transgression? There is still transgression
for them to commit against the Lord. Paul confirms this when
he speaks to the Thessalonians saying in 2.15, the first letter,
who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have
persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary to all
men. Forbidding us to speak to the
Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins all the
way For the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. Now what
does that say about us? Are we any better than they are?
No, and no wise. That's all our hearts. We know
this. The Lord teaches us and has shown
us that it's not because of anything righteous or good that we have
done, but it's completely dependent upon the mercy and the grace
of our God to save us and to deliver us from what we are by
nature. Paul wrote to the Galatians,
but the scripture hath concluded all under sin, Jew and Gentile,
that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to
them that believe. So that it's not our faith, but
rather the faith of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's his faith
that we have this promise, because he was faithful to fulfill all
the word of the Father, doing for his people what they could
not and would not do for themselves. The Lord, you know, many people
think, well, what did the Lord give the law for? Like, why did
we, why were we given a law if we can't keep it or we can't
fulfill it? But the law doesn't make a man righteous. It doesn't
do anything to make that man righteous. The law can only tell
you, you either are righteous or you're a sinner. And we all
know, as the Lord has shown us the blackness and the deadness
of our heart, that we are condemned sinners having no hope in this
life except for the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why we thank
God and praise him and worship him because he is our righteousness. All right, our second point says
to make an end of sins. Now, man and Satan, they wanted
to make an end of Christ. They wanted to frustrate God
and what God was trying to do and to establish his people in
the Lord Jesus Christ. So they took him, and they did
with him whatsoever pleased their heart, what they wanted to do.
They wanted to kill him. They wanted to frustrate him. But
through that death, our Savior frustrated all their works by
making an end of sins. Peter, speaking by the Holy Ghost
in Acts 4.25, Quoting Psalm 2, he said, Why did the heathen
rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth
stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the
Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together.
For to do whatsoever their hands had determined, no, but whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And the Spirit
confirms this elsewhere again in Acts 2.23. Him being delivered
by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, he hath
taken, and by wicked hands hath crucified and slain. So that
all men goes on executing that which is in his heart. He does
that which pleases him or what he desires to do. Left to himself,
man is going to do what he wants to do. It never is to serve and
worship God. It does serve to the glory of
God. God uses it to his own end to praise and glorify him, but
that's not man's true intent. Man wants to glorify himself.
Man wants to have something to boast in. Anyone who thinks that
he does otherwise is just lying and deceiving himself. That's
not the heart of man to do that which pleases God. The child
of God knows, though, that he, by nature, is an enemy of God.
That he does not love the things of God. He doesn't desire the
things of God. If he desires the things of God,
by nature, it's the God of his imagination. It's the God that
he's thought up in his own mind and thinks that, oh, well, I
like that God. I don't have a problem with God. Because it's the God
of his own imagination. It's one that he made up. So
man by nature does not know and worship the true and living God.
It's not until the Lord comes to a man in mercy and in grace
and shows him what he is, breaks his confidences, breaks him and
brings him low to see that there's nothing good in himself but that
God is a merciful God and a kind God and a loving God and will
do for us all those things that we cannot do for ourselves. So it's the Lord's mercy and
grace that he has for us sinners. Listen to what Christ did. He
says in Hebrews 1-3, when he had by himself purged our sins. And that tells us that our Lord
doesn't need anything from us. He's not looking for anything
from us. He's not looking to us for our good works. I mean,
you might as well go off into your backyard and pick up your
dog poop and present that to God and say, look, God, look
at this good work, this savory smelling sacrifice that I've
brought to you, because that's what our good works are before
God. They just think they're filthy, they're repulsive, just
like that analogy, it's repulsive. You can't imagine doing that,
and yet that's what religious men do all the time. They think that they're bringing
God something good and precious, and all it is is a stench in
his nostrils. And he doesn't, he's not pleased
by it. By himself purged he our sins.
How did he do it? Hebrews 9.26 tells us, Now once
in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin,
by the sacrifice of himself, so that the scriptures declare
that Christ came, taking upon him the likeness of sinful flesh,
though he himself had no sin. And he did, he fulfilled all
the law, all that the law spoke of. He fulfilled all that was
spoken of by the prophets, doing that which we cannot do for ourselves. And he, there in the garden,
drank that cup of sins. He took upon him the sins of
his people. A body has thou prepared me,
he said. And the Lord laid on him the
iniquity of us all. And he took that iniquity, he
took that sin of his people up there to the cross, that cursed
tree, and there he made a sacrifice of himself, bearing up under
the holy, just wrath of Almighty God. just poured out upon Him. That sin that we should have
borne, that iniquity and that punishment, that was our do.
Our Lord took it in our place. He drank up the cup of sins for
His people, and there He put away the sin of His people. He
just carried them away so that there's no more sin that you
or I who hope and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, there's
no more sin for God to deal with or for God to punish. There's
nothing more. Christ did it all, by himself,
purged he our sins. Alright, but how do we know that?
God now accepts us. How do we know that God accepts
us? How do we know that he accepted the sacrifice of Christ? Hebrews
10, 12 says, Because this man, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. And verse 14, And by that one
offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, so
that now in Christ we are holy. There's nothing more for us to
do. Everything that's needful and necessary for salvation,
Christ secured all those gifts when he arose from the dead,
he secured all those gifts and he gave gifts unto men by his
Spirit, washing us in regeneration, renewing us in the Holy Ghost,
sprinkling us with the blood of Christ, doing all those things
that now, is faith necessary for salvation? Yes. Is it a natural
faith? No. Christ, that faith, that
spiritual faith, that spiritual gift, which is precious in God's
sight, Christ accomplished it all and gives it to his child,
giving them that faith in him, fixing that faith in him. It's
all of him. It's not our work. So Christ
himself made an end of sins, justifying his people there on
the cross. All right? Three, making reconciliation
for iniquity. That's what Daniel said, to make
reconciliation for iniquity, what Gabriel said. Now that word,
reconciliation, is the same word as atonement used elsewhere in
the Old Testament. Now remember, the Scriptures
declare that we are enmity against God. Not at enmity, but we are
enmity. We are the enemies of God. And
that's where we remain until God had mercy upon us and saved
us in Christ. Romans 8, 6 says, for to be carnally
minded is death. And that's where we are by nature.
That's what we are by nature. That's what we are in this flesh.
This flesh is this carnal flesh. It doesn't do those things that
please God. Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God. So then, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. And the natural man hates that.
What do you mean I can't please God? I've done good things. I've
given big amounts of money to the plate. I've read my Bible.
I go to church. I do all these things for the
community. I've done nice things for my parents. I've even helped
out a few friends when they needed it. What do you mean that my
flesh can't do something that pleases God? Nope, your flesh
can't do something that pleases God. And man doesn't want to
hear that. He wants to think that he has some kind of control
over God, that he can persuade God or move God. The only one
that persuades God or moves God is his Son, Jesus Christ. That's
the one in whom God is pleased, so that all those in Christ,
God is pleased with them because we come in his Son. All those
who say, you know what, I'm going to I hear what Jesus did, but
I'm just going to make sure I do my part. I'm going to bring a
little something extra, just to make sure that God knows that
I'm really serious and committed. Nope, now you've defiled it.
You've added to the work of Christ. You said Christ's work is not
sufficient. I'm going to bring a little bit
more, and therefore you're not trusting and resting in the sacrifice
of Christ. His sacrifice is sufficient,
and Him alone is God the Father pleased, and nothing more. God
isn't waiting for us to get our lives right. Many people think,
well, maybe before I start coming to church or maybe before I believe
on Jesus or rest right there, maybe I need to do a little something
more just to show him. Maybe I need to do 49% and he'll
do the 51. Maybe I need to do 51 and then
he'll do the other 49. It doesn't matter whether you
come thinking that you have to do 100%, 99% or 1%. It's all defiling that which
Christ has done, because Christ has finished the work. It's completely
done in him. There's nothing more for us to
do. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5,
17, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Behold, all things have passed away. Behold, all things have
become new. All things have passed away.
All things are becoming new. And all things are of God. All things. All things in salvation,
they are of God. There's nothing more for us to
do. Who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and
have given to us the ministry of reconciliation. And that's
why we declare Christ here, because that is the ministry that's been
given to the church, to preach Christ, to declare his righteousness,
to declare his faithfulness in doing that for us which we cannot
do for ourselves. The scriptures are plain and
clear in it. There's nothing more for us to
do. Peter said when he was speaking to Cornelius and Cornelius' household
that was gathered there to hear what God said that you need to
hear what Peter has to say. And Peter said to him, give all
the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth
on him shall receive remission of sins. Christ did it all. And when he was speaking those
words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
And in verse 46, it says they, for they, those Jews that were
there with Peter, heard them speak with tongues and magnify
God. Isn't that so with us, brethren?
How, at first, When we're in religion, we're speaking about
what we've done for Jesus. We're talking about, well, I
gave my heart to Jesus when I was 12 years old, or I walked the
Nile, or I was baptized, or I can come to church now faithfully
for 12 weeks in a row, or whatever it is. you start thinking about
and boasting about what it is that you've done, because you're
always searching for something to anchor your hope in, to give
you peace, because you're never at peace. You never feel like
you've done enough, so you're always talking about what you've
done, trying to convince others that you're a real Christian,
and trying to convince yourself especially that maybe you're
a real Christian, and trying to convince God. But the reality
is, brethren, we have nothing. It's not our work, it's not us,
but we begin to speak that tongue, that heavenly tongue, and we
begin to confess what He's done. We stop talking about what work
we did. We begin to confess that work
which He's done for us, and that kindness and mercy that He's
shown to us in His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ hath made reconciliation
for iniquity, so that we're no more enemies of God. All right,
our fourth point. to bring in everlasting righteousness. Our Apostle, the Apostle Paul
declared to the Romans, 1417, the kingdom of God is, does not
mean drink, but it is righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy
Ghost. For this righteousness, it's
an everlasting righteousness. It's an everlasting righteousness.
And the reason why is because the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
It's not dependent on our fickle righteousness and how we don't
We change like the wind, like the weather, but Christ's righteousness,
it's His everlasting righteousness. Turn to Romans 3.21, Romans 3.21. But now, verse 21, but now the
righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets. even the righteousness
of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all
them that believe, for there is no difference, for all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins that are 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." So our security, our
hope is not fixed in what we've done, not what we haven't done,
or anything like that. Our security, our peace, our
reconciliation, there is there in Christ Jesus alone. And it isn't that God is just
sweeping our sins under the rug or just winking at them. I was
speaking to a Muslim fellow one day, and he said, oh no, God
has grace on us too. All right, well, why does God
have grace on you? Well, because he's just letting
some of your sins go. He's just bypassing them. He's
just forgiving you outright for them. as if God is just unjust
and unholy to punish sin. But the scriptures say that God
will punish sin. There's no sin that's going to
go unpunished so that your sin is either punished in Christ
or you're going to bear the punishment of that sin. God's not just sweeping
sin under the rug or just winking the eye or pretending he didn't
see it. God must punish sin and that's what he did there on the
cross. That cross declares two things that God is just and God
is the justifier. so that he would not even spare
his own son but punished him when he was there bearing our
sin in his body. He poured out his wrath upon
him and then also that God himself is the justifier because now
what Christ has done is by Christ, through Christ, his faithfulness
in doing all the will of the Father that God is pleased and
forgives his people of all their trespasses and iniquities in
Christ alone. If we come to God in our own
righteousness, trusting in the carnal or fleshly work, the scriptures
say that we shall be eaten with moths and with worms. So that
when a man comes before God saying, I want to be judged in my own
righteousness, I want to be judged in my works and what I've done
and what I've not done in this life, I'm going to stand before
God in my righteousness. When he stands there before the
brightness of holy God, he's gonna look down. It may look
good here on earth, his righteousness, right? His ideas and his thoughts,
they sound pretty good when we think we're gonna stand before
God and tell him what we think or what we've done. But when
we stand before God in our own righteousness, you'll see it's
just full of holes, eaten by moths and worms, and that your
nakedness will be made bare before holy God. And you'll be ashamed,
he says. Isaiah says the moth shall eat them up like a garment
and the worm shall eat them like wool, but my righteousness shall
be forever and my salvation from generation to generation. Christ
himself brought in everlasting righteousness. All right, fifth,
sealing up the vision and prophecy. This here is not fulfilling the
fulfillment of vision and prophecy, but it's speaking of the Messiah
sealing up vision and prophecy from the people of Israel so
that they didn't understand when Christ came. Hear what Isaiah
says in 29 verse 10, For the Lord hath poured out upon you
the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes the prophets
and your rulers, the seers hath he covered, and the vision of
all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed,
which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this,
I pray thee. And you say it, I cannot, for
it is sealed. And that's exactly what happened
to the Jews in the day that our Savior came, the Lord Jesus.
In Acts 13.27 we read, For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and
their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of
the prophets which are read every Sabbath day. They have fulfilled
them in condemning them. And our Lord said to the Pharisees
and the rulers this very thing. He said in Matthew 13, 13, Therefore
speak I to them in parables, because they seeing, see not,
and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them
is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which is from Isaiah
6, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand. And seeing ye shall see, and
shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed
gross, and their ears are dull of hearing. And their eyes they
have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and should understand with their
heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. We should
realize just what a grave word that's saying, that God had hidden
these things from the Jews, that that gospel might go out into
all the world, out to the Gentiles, that we might hear the glorious
truth of what our Savior did. Because if they did see him,
if they did recognize him as the Messiah, if they recognized
who he was, Paul said they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. They wouldn't have done it. They knew who he was. If
they believed on him, they wouldn't have crucified him. And if Christ
had not been crucified, then we'd all remain in our sins.
There'd be nothing that we could do in our flesh to put away our
sins. So God in his mercy brought blindness
upon them, that mercy and grace and forgiveness would go out
to us in the Gentile world. Paul wrote to the Romans, through
their fall, salvation is coming to the Gentiles for to provoke
the Jews to jealousy. And our Lord goes on to say to
us brethren, you who hear the word of God and believe, you
who see Christ, you behold him in the scriptures and you believe
on him and trust him. He says, blessed are your eyes
for they see and your ears. or they hear. Brethren, that's
the work of the Holy Spirit. That's not a work of the flesh.
When we're in religion, we think it's just a work of the flesh.
We think it's just, you know, well I chose to believe in God and
the guy sitting right next to me hearing the same message didn't
choose. I guess I'm just a little bit
smarter or a little bit better or whatever it is that we fill
our minds up with and that nonsense. That's not a natural work to
believe, truly to believe on Christ. That's a work of the
Spirit of God. Paul told Titus 3, 5, Not by
works of righteousness which we have done, for no better than
they are. But according to his mercy he
saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord. So that if you see and believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you hear His voice and you trust
Him and rest in Him and only in Christ, and you rest right
there, bless God, because that is not a work of the flesh. If you hear nothing else, just
remember this, that in Christ is all the blessings of God are
in Christ. Outside of Christ, it's all a
curse. It'll do you no good. I don't
care how good you are. It'll do you no good to stand
before God in that day. Christ has sealed up the vision
and prophecy. All right, and our last point,
and to anoint the most holy. Now, Christ, our Savior, he is
the anointed one, right? He's the Messiah, and that's
where that word Messiah comes out of, that word anoint, to
anoint. in which Daniel speaks of the
Messiah, the Prince. So Christ is the anointed one
spoken of here. Our Lord speaking in the temple
from the book of Isaiah said in Luke 4.18, the spirit of the
Lord God is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted
He's been anointed to preach deliverance to the captives and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And our Lord
told his disciples before he departed, he said to them, these
things have I spoken unto you being yet present with you. But
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things
to your remembrance. whatsoever I have said unto you,
so that Christ would anoint his people with the Holy Ghost, with
the comforters, that we might know and understand these things,
and believe these things, and hope in these things, and not
look back to the works of our righteousness, not look back
to the priesthood, not look back to all the things of the flesh,
but say, no more of that, Lord. You've shown me that that's just
worthless, vain, dead works. and show me Christ, that he alone
has put away the sins of his people, that he's done for me
what I cannot do for myself. The Spirit teaches us that. And
in 1 John 2, 27, he said, but the anointing, the anointing,
the pouring out of the Holy Ghost on you, the creation upon that
creation which Christ transforms in his people that new man that
believes and hopes and trusts in Christ. Because it's not this
flesh. This flesh isn't transformed and made better to do a good
work. It's that new man which Christ has formed in us and gave
life to in us. That has been anointed by the
Holy Spirit to do this work. Which ye have received on him
abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you. But as
the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth,
and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide
in him. So our Lord, having been given
all authority, has anointed his people the church whom he has
made holy. So in closing, brethren, Our
Lord fulfilled all that prophetic word there spoken of by Daniel.
It's all fulfilled in Christ. He went up to Jerusalem, there
he was crucified for the sins of his people, and there he put
away our sins. He did all that work for us. He made an end of sins, he made
reconciliation for iniquity, and he's brought in everlasting
righteousness. So that now, as John said, so
I say to you, little children, abide in him, that when he shall
appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him
at his coming. I pray the Lord will bless this
word to your hearts. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we thank you for your mercy. Lord, take these
fumbling words of just a vessel, Lord, just a man. Lord, we pray
that you would bless these words that you would anoint them with
your Holy Spirit, that you would send them into the hearts of
your people. Lord, that you would tend this word with your grace
and your power, that you would give us light and life in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we have nothing to boast
in but in the precious blood of Jesus Christ and what he's
done. Lord, we pray that you bless his people here in Missouri,
that you would send them a pastor, Lord, that you would bless them
establish a church here in this dark part of the world. I pray
this in Jesus' name, our Lord and Savior. Amen.