If you will open your Bibles
to Matthew chapter 27. As our dear sister sang that
song, I just thought there could not be a more perfect song for
us to enter into right before we observe the Lord's table.
Did our such love and sorrow meet? Matthew 27, and look with me
at verse 39. Here we have our Lord on the
cross. In verse 39 it says, and they that pass by reviled him,
wagging their heads and saying, thou that destroyest the temple
and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the
son of God, come down from the cross. As our Lord hung on the
cross, the men who crucified him mocked him and reviled him,
ridiculed him. In verse 40 they were mocking
him for something that he told us back in John chapter 2. And that's what I want us to
look at. Turn with me to John chapter 2. This will be our text. John chapter 2. Now here our Lord had purged
the temple, the Jews had corrupted it. They had turned the worship
of God into a local business, a market. And our Lord said in
verse 16, he said, make not my father's house a house of merchandise. We don't come here to buy and
sell and get gain, we come here to worship God. And our Lord
drove them all out of the temple and then the Jews asked him,
What authority do you have to do this? We're the Jews. Who
are you to tell us what to do? And look here in John 2 verse
18, Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest
thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? And here's
what our Lord told them. Verse 19, Jesus answered and
said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up. The answer our Lord gave proved
his authority. He's the son of God. He's God
come in the flesh. But the Jews had no clue what
he was saying. Look at verse 20. Then said the
Jews, 40 and six years was this temple in building. And wilt
thou rear or raise it up in three days? Now see this. But he spake
of the temple of his body. This is the gospel. This is the
gospel. The gospel is that Jesus Christ
must be destroyed and that he must rise again the third day. Now I want to talk to you briefly
about our Lord's body, seeing his body in the temple, the temple
of his body. We have two points. The temple
must be destroyed. The temple must be raised again. The first
point, Christ, the temple, must be destroyed. He must die. Why must he die? I pray God would give us some
understanding, give us a heart to receive this glorious truth. Why must Christ, the Son of God,
die? First, because it is written.
Read the Bible. It's written, Christ must die.
Moses and the prophets wrote of him. The Lord told us this. Christ is the burning bush that
was not consumed. The sacrifice was sufficient.
He is the Passover lamb. When God sees the blood of Christ
covering us, he will pass over us. He is Noah's Ark. There's salvation in the Ark. Only in the Ark. The whole Old
Testament declared the Messiah is coming. The Messiah is coming. Over in Matthew 1, we know this
verse well. Call His name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins. That's why He came. And I want
to point this out. We didn't look at it, but back
in Matthew 27, in verse 42, those mocking Him said He saved others,
or He healed others. They knew He performed miracles.
They said he saved others himself. He can not save. Now they saw no power in him.
They did not believe he was powerful enough to save them, that he
was able. But in their mockery, they declared the gospel truth.
Smite the shepherd so the sheep can go free. Christ died in our
place. The gospel we preach and we believe
is the gospel of substitution. He took my place. He did it all for me. One of
my favorite hymns says, my faith has found a resting place, not
in device nor creed. I trust the ever living one,
his wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. Christ is enough. You remember Jacob, he said,
I have enough. He had Christ. He prevailed with
God, he had Christ. You know, nothing else can possibly
save me. I have no other hope. I can't
save myself. My decision, my commitment, my
morality, my good works, I have none. This flesh, there's nothing
good in this flesh. If there's anything good in me,
it's this, Christ in me, the hope of glory, that's it. That's
it, all my works are nothing but filthy rags. And it's impossible
to please God without the faith that only he can put in me. It is enough that the Lord Jesus
Christ died and rose again for me. How must he die? We see that he must die. Well,
how must he die? Notice that the Lord told these
Jews, he said, destroy this temple. The Lord was prophesying of his
own death. You are going to destroy this temple. Soon his hour was
coming when we would destroy him. when we would cry away with this
man, crucify him, crucify him. The hour was coming, he must
die at the hands of wicked, evil men. But not only that, he must
die according to justice. We heard it earlier, the wages
of sin is death. Well, now hold on. This is the
spotless Lamb of God we're talking about. This is He in whom is
no sin, no guile. How can He die? How could He
die? He who is God, perfect, holy.
God cannot punish the innocent. He will not punish the innocent.
God will by no means clear the guilty. How did Christ die? He died bearing
the sins of his people in his own body on the tree. He was made a curse to redeem
them that were under the curse. He was made sin to make us the
righteousness of God in him. He laid down his life for the
sheep so that his sheep could forever lie down in his green
pastures. Don't you love that? The Lord Jesus Christ died to
give his people eternal life. Our life is in his son. And the
Lord Jesus died according to the scriptures. For time's sake,
we won't look at it, but you can read it in 1 Corinthians
15. He died and rose again according to the scriptures. Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Christ died, but
he rose again. I love that one, when they came
to the tomb and he was not there. He is not here, he is risen.
Come see the place where the Lord lay. Oh, how glorious, how
glorious. The temple must be raised again.
Why? Because this was the will of
God. This was the purpose of God. He said, I will raise it
up. When Christ says, I will, it's
already finished. He spoke it, that settles it.
I will. He came to do the will of God. What was the will of God? What
is the will of God? When our Lord was in Gethsemane's
garden, As he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood, he prayed,
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. If it
be possible. Praise God, it was not possible. Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as thou wilt. That sorrow that she just sang
about. That's why he prayed that prayer. No man ever endured sorrow
like that sorrow. No man. You see, this is why
he came into the world, to save his people. The faithful saying,
he came to save sinners of whom I'm chief. I wanna show you something. Look over in Acts chapter two. Acts 2 verse 22. Ye men of Israel, hear these
words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which
God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know,
him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain
whom God hath raised up. having loose the pains of death,
because it was not possible that he should be holding of it. This
was all according to the will of God. Wicked men took him,
crucified and slayed him. But it was all according to the
purpose of God from eternity. Why must Christ be raised again? Look at the end of verse 24,
because it was not possible. that he should be holding of
it. Death could not hold him. Death could not hold him because
it is written, thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see
corruption. He could not stay in the grave.
Death could not hold him because he made full satisfaction. God is well pleased with the
sacrifice of his son. That's how he perfected us forever.
God's well pleased. God sees Christ and he says,
I'm well pleased. Death could not hold him because
he was victorious over death and the grave. Look at first
Corinthians chapter 15 with me. First Corinthians chapter 15,
verse 55. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory. through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only was our Lord victorious
over death, He has given us the victory. We are victorious in
Him. He's given us the victory over
death and sin. Death has nothing to say to us.
It has nothing to say to us. The law can't condemn us. No
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. We have kept
it fully in Christ. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. Yea, rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us. Praise God. Praise God. And I want to close by showing
you one more verse here. Turn back a few pages to 1 Corinthians
chapter 3. 1 Corinthians 3 verse 16. Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Ye are the temple of God. You know, one of the most blessed
things we can think about is our eternal union with the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're one with Him, one in Him.
I do want to point out who the Apostle was writing to. We won't
look at it, I'll just quote it to you. In 1 Corinthians 1, verses
1 and 2, he said that he was writing to them that are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, All that in every place
call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. That's who he's writing
to. He says, you are the temple of God. Now what we see there
is that everything Christ did, we did in him. Everything that
he did, he did for his people. When he fully obeyed the law
of God, so did we in him. And that's what we must do. We
must fully obey the law of God. We did in Christ. When Christ
died, we died in Him. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. Why? Because when Christ rose
from the grave, we rose in Him. Now are we risen with Him, seated
with Him in heavenly places in Him. There's the emphasis, in
Christ. That's where all my hope is,
in Him, in Him. What a glorious gospel. What
a glorious gospel. When we take this bread in a
few moments, let us consider the temple that was destroyed
for us. And let us praise our glorious
God that on that third day, he arose victorious. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly
Father, Oh, how we thank you. Lord, we are unworthy. We're undone. We are sinners.
No hope. Lord, you've given us your word. You've given us a faithful pastor
and brethren to worship you with. Please, Lord, don't leave us
to ourselves. Don't give us what we want. Don't
let us perish by the wayside. Lord, speak life into these.
sinful hearts Lord these These bodies of flesh we need thee
every hour Lord, please save us Our time on this earth is
so short. It's so brief It's but a vapor
Lord. Would you would you save us?
Would you shed your grace upon us have mercy on us Lord be merciful. I pray Be gracious long suffer
with us Lord. Thank you for that body Prepared
for our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for For sending thy
son into the world to save sinners All our hope is in him Cause
us to To truly give you thanks and praise you from our hearts
Enable us to worship you. I pray that you would now be
with brother Bob As he tells us about that precious blood.
Oh God Comfort our hearts and cause us to rejoice in thee.
And I finished work for sinners. Lord, we praise your name and
we give you thanks. In Christ's most precious name,
amen. Amen to that. Turn this evening
to the book of Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three, our pastor
has been dealing with and teaching us about the attributes of God. Those are the things that reveal
to us who he is and what he's like and the things he does.
One of the attributes we've not yet dealt with is that God is
omniscient. Now that's a big word. It's a
big, big word, but what it really means is simply this. God knows
everything. He knows everything. God knows the things we do with
our hands. He knows the places we go with
our feet. He knows what we think in our
head. He knows what we think with our head, even what we say. and even what we think and don't
say. He knows everything going on
in there. He sees it. God knows the desires
of our heart. He knows the things we want to
do, whether we do them or not. God even knows the things we
ignore. The things we just, you know,
if you get something behind you, you don't see it, right? You
pretend it's not there. Something scares you, you turn
around and it's not there. God even knows the things we
ignore. That is what we ought to do,
but don't do. He knows those things. That means
God knows every sin that each one of us has ever committed.
God knows every sin we've ever thought about committing. God
even knows every sin that we've ever wanted to commit. whether
we did it or not. What if you kids knew that your
parents saw everything you ever did or thought about doing? Wow. Now there's a scary thing, isn't
it? What if our spouses knew everything about us? We would all be forced to admit
what it says in Romans 3. Look at verse 10. As it is written, there's none
righteous, no, not one. Listen, in kid language, we're
all stinkers. We're just stinkers. Verse 11
says, there is none that understands, there's none that seeketh after
good. We're all gone out of the way. We have all together become
unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. Not a one of us do with good. Look at verse 15. And our feet
are swift to shed blood. There's none righteous. No, not
one. That means not even me. Each one of us sitting here needs
to understand this is talking about us. This is personal. Not
a one of us is any good. That is where God brings his
children, his elect, his people, all to that place when he's gonna
save them. If we understand that about ourselves,
it may be the Lord's gonna save us. We're all full of sin. When God
reveals that, in order to be in his presence, we have to be
perfect. We can't have any of this sin
in us. We've got to be righteous, and we realize I'm not, That's when the Lord may begin
to save us. How can that happen when we're
such sinners? With our hands and feet and heads
and hearts, we sin. Here's what God did. He sent
Jesus Christ, his son, to this earth. He became a man. Jesus is the man, child of God
the Father. And he actually came on this
earth and lived. He was born of a woman. The difference is
he lived a perfect life. He never once sinned. Not once
did he sin. And Christ lived this perfect
life and gives that righteousness to each one of his children that
he saves. That's what it means when he
saves them. He saves us from our sin and gives us his righteousness. He gave us his righteousness
so we can go one day to be with him. Perfect. perfect before the perfect, righteous,
holy God. That's called substitution. Cody
mentioned it. We get what Christ deserves. We get to go be with God. We're
perfect. And he got what we deserve, which
is killed on Calvary. Murdered. But what about all
that sin I committed? That's a good question. Well,
our Lord Jesus Christ took that sin, all of it on himself. Turn
over to John 18 and I'll show you when and how. Why do people get arrested? It's
because they break the law, right? That's when people get arrested.
They've done something they should not have done. Now in the scriptures
that's called a sin. It's called a sin. Our Lord got
arrested in the garden of Gethsemane even though he'd never sinned.
He'd never broken God's law one time and he got arrested. Why? He hadn't done one thing to break
any law. But you see he was becoming us.
He was substituting for us. And this is the point in time
where He took on Himself our sin. Look at it in John 18, verse
12. It says, Then the band and the
captains and officers of the Jews, this is the police, they
took Jesus and they bound Him. Today, you kids would know this
as they handcuffed Him. They tied His hands and take
Him away. Verse 13, And they led Him away
to Annas first, to the judge. For he was father-in-law to Caiaphas,
which was the high priest that same year. So we see that, look
down in verse 24. Now Annas had sent him bound. He was still tied up, handcuffed,
unto Caiaphas the high priest. This is the one who's gonna judge
him for what he's done. You say, well, he never did anything
wrong. Oh, he did. You know who he is right now?
He's his people. If you're one of his, he's you.
He's you. He's going in your place right
now, before Caiaphas. Boy, he's got a lot to answer
for if he's going in me. Look at verse, turn over, chapter
19. Christ here is being treated
as a lawbreaker, as the sinners we are. This is substitution.
He's taking our place. In chapter 19, verse 1, we read,
Then Pilate, this is like the governor got involved in this
case. And Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him. Now that
means he had him take a cat of nine tails and strip his back
and beat him with it. And they beat him with it. And
I'm gonna say a lot of things about blood here, kids, and it's
not to frighten you or to scare you. If, you know, if it's our
blood, it's kind of scary. But this, we have to see that
the blood of Jesus Christ is the best substance in the whole
world it ever was. But they beat him with this whip
now until his back just bled and it was covered with blood.
The blood ran all down him. Do we see that? Then look at
verse two. And the soldiers planted a crown of thorns, and they put
it on his head. They took these big thorns and jammed them on
his head. And if you've ever seen anybody bleed from a cut
up, it just ran everywhere. His whole head's covered with
blood. It got on his shoulders and down his chest. And he was
covered up here with that blood. Look at verse 16 of this chapter. Then delivered he them therefore
unto them to be crucified. and they took Jesus and led Him
away. And He bearing the cross went forth unto a place called
the Skull, which is in the Hebrew called Gatha, where they crucified
Him. What they did, that means they
put Him on a wooden cross and they drove nails in His hands.
And it was, you know, we bleed a lot here when that happens.
And He's laying on the ground and they're driving those nails
in His hands. The blood gets all over His hands. And they
drive nails through His feet. You get blood all over his feet
now and as they're moving him around, it's just getting all
over him everywhere. We understand now when they raised
him up, he is now almost totally covered in blood. And I'm not
trying to be gross or scare you, but it's just really what happened.
Then look at verse 34. But one of the soldiers with
a spear pierced his side and forthwith came out blood and
water. What that means is, so you can
see, is they took a spear and ran it up under his ribs into
his heart so that the last bit of blood that was in him, it
comes out and covers whatever part of him is not covered. All
his blood now is all over him. So what happened to all the sin
of God's people? It was put on Jesus Christ. And
God the Father punished Christ for all that sin, the sin of
God's people. I turn over to 1 John 1. And
I'm going to try to explain the unexplainable. God knows he's omniscient. God
knows everything. He sees all. And do you know
he's made one special substance that he has chosen not to see
through. When God looks on me, he gets
in, he can see through my hair and my head and my skull and
he sees my brain, he sees what I'm thinking, he knows it. When
he looks through this flesh here and my ribs and into my heart,
he knows what I wanna do. He knows I'm a sinner. Do you
know there's one thing God has chosen not to see through? You
know what that substance is? It's the blood of Jesus Christ.
Let me show you that in 1 John 1, 1 John 1, verse 7. But if we walk in the light as
he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But
if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If
we say that we've not sinned, we make him a liar and his words
not in us. What we just read there and what God pictured in
Egypt. You remember in Egypt when God
said, I'm going to come through and I'm going to kill the firstborn
in every family. Why? Because there was sin there.
He said, I'm going to come through and kill them. But he told his
people to do what? He said, kill a lamb, catch the
blood, and take the blood and put it on the side door posts
and over the top. Why would God do that? You know
why? That pictured the blood of Jesus
Christ and the wrath of God was coming through to punish sin.
Everywhere he saw sin, he was going to kill the firstborn child.
And God came through and here's these homes in Egypt. He's killing
the firstborn and he comes into Goshen where the Hebrews are. And he comes up on this house,
and I tell you, that house is full of sin, just like the houses
over there in Egypt. But he came up on this house,
and what did he see? The one substance he has said,
I won't see through that. He comes up on the blood, and
he passes on over. And he comes up to the next house,
his children are there, and they put blood out, and he sees the
blood, and he passes right on over. Do we see the point of
that story now? If the blood of the Lamb is over
us, God doesn't see our sin. He doesn't see it. He will not
stop there. He will not condemn. Whether
it's the sins of our hands and feet, Let me tell you, when the
nails went through those hands and feet, the blood shed, God
doesn't see those sins we do that way. If they're sins of
thought, the crown of thorns pierced his head, God doesn't
see what's in our head, doesn't see those sins that we thought
of the heart. Even the sins of ignorance, that's
why they whipped his back. Even the things we should have
done, we didn't do. They're all put away. They're covered in
the blood of Jesus Christ. And one last scripture turned
to Hebrews 10. Our sins, all of them are covered,
covered with the only thing God says he won't see through the
blood of Christ. Hebrews 10 verse 16. This is the covenant. This is
the agreement. that I will make with them after
whose days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their hearts and
in their minds, I'll right them. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of these
is, there's no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest, how? By the blood of Jesus Christ. It's a new and living way. which
he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his
flesh. That's the reason God can have
mercy on us is he had wrath on Christ. And I'll tell you what won't
work. What won't work because God sees everything. We can get
to that day where everybody comes before him and we can say, I'm
here. because of the blood of Jesus
Christ. God doesn't see our sin because it's gone. It was paid
for by Christ. It's under his blood. Or we can
come in there and say, I did a lot of good things. I did the
best I could. You know what? God sees through that. He sees
through that. We can say, I gave a lot of money.
God sees through that. Do we see how important it is
to be under the blood of Jesus Christ? Let me give you an illustration
real quick. I don't know if any of y'all can, can any of you
see that little spot? in my hand, little dark spot. You know how I got that? It was
in the first grade. We used to have pencils, we didn't
have pens back then. And that teacher in first grade
made us all go use his pencil sharpener one time so we wouldn't
be doing it all day long. And I was up there sharpening
my pencil and I took it out and the person behind me bumped me
and jammed that pencil into my palm. And I pulled it out and
looked at it, and I was so afraid I was going to get in trouble
over it, I put my finger over it like this and walked back
to my chair just like nothing was wrong. Well, it was two or
three days before my mother noticed, what's that in your hand? I didn't
want to tell her, but I did. And she said, ooh. And she took
me to the doctor, afraid something really bad would happen. He said,
ah, no. He said, it's no big deal. But you know what he asked
me? Did it bleed? And I said, No, sir. And he said,
How come? I said, I went like this. He
turned to my mother and said, Well, if you let it bleed, there
wouldn't be any stain there. If we're under the blood of Jesus
Christ, there's no stain in us. There's no sin. God doesn't look
at us and go, Oh, I remember the time you did this. And I
remember the time you thought that. And you know what he does?
You're white as snow. That blood has cleansed you just
as white as snow. If Christ bled and died for me,
for you, we have no stain. Our sin is gone. Let me make
this last point. The scriptures teach us to do
what we're about to do right now in remembrance of him. in remembrance of him. We're
grateful for the blood of Jesus Christ, and we can say what I'm
about to say, and we all understand what I mean. We can say we're
saved by the blood of Christ. We know what we mean by that,
don't we? But actually, I want you children to understand there's
a subtle difference here. We don't do this in remembrance
of the blood. We do this in remembrance of
him whose blood was shed. That's how Christ gets all the
glory in all of this. Let me read this verse of a psalm. Dark the stain that soiled man's
nature, long the distance that he fell, far removed from hope
and heaven into deep despair and hell. But there was a fountain
open, and the blood of God's own Son purified the soul and
reaches deeper than the stain is gone. Let's bow together.