I've entitled this message, God
and Sinners Reconciled. It's taken from this hymn, Hark
the Herald Angels Sing, written by Charles Wesley. The words
of the hymn say, Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn
king. Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled. and that's where it came from.
God and sinners reconciled. How in the world did that happen? Well, this is what Hebrews 2.17
is going to teach us today. I hope you consider this subject,
reconciliation. I hope to consider it with you
today. Using this as our starting text, so let's pray though before
we get started. Our great Heavenly Father, holy,
good in all your ways, even in the troubles that we experience
in our life, We know that you intend good for your children
by them to work all things according to the purpose that you set down
from eternity to conform us to the image of your dear son. And
we thank you that you have the power to do so, that you are
so wise that you cannot do wrong and that your heart cannot fail
to do for your people all that's in it. and that you did actually
do that, and you are working out the effects of that saving
grace in our Lord Jesus Christ for us. We pray, Lord, that you
would teach us from your word today. Bless each one here, those
who are here, both here in our room and online. We pray, Lord,
that you would bless them from your own word, by your own spirit,
out of your own heart of grace, to our eternal salvation. that
we might see by eyes of faith given to us from your hand the
salvation that you've accomplished, by which you've brought us to
yourself, made yourself known to us, and so we realize in that
our own eternal life. Thank you for your grace and
mercy, for your goodness and faithfulness. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen. There's a, and every time we
read scripture, and every time we read of the doctrines stated
in scripture, I always think about how to communicate that
best and most effectively, and it's always been my desire, thank
you, it's always been my desire to do that through the examples
God has given us in scripture. So when we talk about any topic
of Scripture, I always like to draw from what God has said.
And I hope that you become familiar or are familiar enough with the
accounts of Scripture, whether in Old Testament or New, that
whenever God speaks of of our sin and His grace that you will
draw from His own word what He teaches us by these historical
characters and events. And that's what I want to do
today. I want to take these words here, which are words of truth
taught to us by God concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, but also
go back and find in scripture living examples of this so that
it becomes more dear to us, more memorable to us. God uses his
word to give us life, to change our thinking, to see things as
he sees them, and in so doing, to understand things we would
never understand and know and live by faith upon him. And so that's what we want to
do today, is look at this verse here in verse 17 of Hebrews chapter
2. It says, wherefore in all things
it behooved him, it was incumbent upon him, his own heart's desire,
God's will, it behooved the Lord Jesus Christ to be made like
unto his brethren, which means that they were his brethren before
he was made like them. God had chosen them as his adopted
sons to be his sons and therefore the brethren of the Lord Jesus
Christ. to be made like unto his brethren, that he, Christ,
might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining
to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. And
if you were to actually look at this word, the word reconciliation,
it's propitiation. And that's the way God made reconciliation,
is by propitiation. So the word that was translated
for us in the King James Version, reconciliation, actually is the
same word that's normally translated propitiation. But it's a fine
translation. It just means that we have to
think a little bit more when we read it. It's in the margin,
I believe, of your Bible. No, it's not in my margin, but
it is the word propitiation. The Lord Jesus Christ, our high
priest. Now, in the book of Hebrews,
the high priesthood of Christ is a dominant, a major theme.
In fact, it occupies the better part of the book. And it's first
mentioned in the beginning, in chapter one, verse three, where
it speaks of the work of our high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is being the brightness of his glory, the express image
of his father's person, and upholding all things by the word of his
power. He's the creator, the exact image of God, when he,
Christ, had by himself purged our sins. That's the work of
the high priest. Then having finished that work,
he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, according
to the prophecy of the Old Testament that he would be a king and a
priest on his throne. And the priesthood of Christ
is also talked about here in that Christ had to be made a
man. That was according to God's will that he might be the captain
of our salvation. that he might accomplish it and
that he might enter into the victory of it and our inheritance
of it by his own sufferings and death. But here it explicitly
states that he is our high priest. I believe for the first time
in the entire book, but not the last time. And so he talks here
about the Lord Jesus Christ, our high priest, accomplishing
the main work of the high priest. What is the most essential business,
the job of the high priest? It's to make reconciliation.
reconciliation, he says here, for the sins of the people, to
make propitiation to God for the sins of the people. And so
this is what we want to consider from scripture here, that the
Lord Jesus Christ has made a propitiation for the sins of God's people. Now, propitiation is not a word
that we often use in our own speech. And it's interesting
how the world has diverted the true meaning of words if you
look in a dictionary from what they truly are and have historically
been used to mean something else. I happened to look this morning
on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary at the word atonement,
for example. And they'll talk about modern
usage of that word, atonement, having nothing to do with the
work of Christ. They've ripped the word from
its original meaning by God in scripture, and then they've applied
it in the second and tertiary meanings that men have used in
novels and in plays and they're everyday, and they'll use it
in ways where it's never intended to be used. But that's the way
this word propitiation is. It's so rarely used in modern
speech that it occupies a unique place to us because it's used
in scripture. If you were to look at Romans
chapter three, verse 25, you'd see the word propitiation. He's
been set forth, Christ has been set forth as the propitiation
for our sins through faith in His blood. And again, in 1 John
4, verse 10, this is the way we know the love of God, that
He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The Lord Jesus
Christ, we think of propitiation as an act. But in 1 John 4.10,
he speaks of propitiation as being the Lord Jesus himself. I'll read this to you. In verse
9 of 1 John chapter 4, in this was manifested, or made known,
evidently set forth, in this was manifested the love of God
toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the
world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that
we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, was sent forth by the Father to be the propitiation
for our sins. And when the publican prayed
in Luke chapter 18, verse 13, God, be merciful. to be the sinner. That was the
word propitious. Look upon the sacrifice offered
and sprinkled, the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat, the place
of propitiation. In the Old Testament, there was
an ark, and on the ark, there was a lid made of pure gold,
and on that lid, the high priest, once a year, would enter into
the holy place and sprinkle the blood that made atonement on
that altar, that mercy seat. the propitiatory, the place where
God was propitiated. God received in the sprinkling
of that blood a satisfaction. It was a representative satisfaction
then, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, an actual satisfaction to his
justice. And that's how our reconciliation
to God is made. And so I want to consider this
first in the way that God teaches it to us, how it was made, and
then look at these examples in scripture. Look at Romans chapter
5. First we'll look at Romans chapter
3, because that's where this word is used. First, in Romans
3, he says this, now the big question of eternal days in our
own history is how can God be utterly just and yet justify
the ungodly? That's a question that could
only be answered by the revelation of God himself to us. We couldn't
discover it, we wouldn't figure it out. As Spurgeon used to like
to say, had it not been revealed, it could not have been imagined.
And so it is here in Romans 3, God reveals to us after spending
the first three chapters of convincing us of our utter sinfulness and
helplessness before God. He says this in Romans 3, verse
24. Being justified. Justified by
God. Being justified freely by His
grace. No, nothing in us, no part, that
we contributed, but freely, all by motive God found in Himself,
having no dependency upon us in what we were or what we would
do or be someday, but being justified freely by His grace through,
on this ground, the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The
redemption means that we as lawfully imprisoned debtors by our crimes
against God and His law, were under the sentence of imprisonment,
having to pay God's justice and eternal damnation in our own
person, Christ by His blood ransomed us who were lawfully imprisoned
as captive under the law of God, subject to its curse. He ransomed
us by His own blood and delivered us from the curse of the law,
from our own sins, And from all of the calamities, the consequences
of our sins, Christ did that by his redemptive blood, whom
God has set forth. He's declared him. He set him
forth in history to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. The
propitiation, now that's the word here that is going to be
used as the basis of our reconciliation. Look at chapter five. Romans
5 verse 9, much more then, being now justified by his blood. Now there's many questions that
we need to ask in order to better understand this. What does it
mean to be justified? Who does this? First of all,
it is God that justifies. On what basis does God justify
us? Not on the basis of our works.
or worth, but freely by his grace. But what righteous grounds, what
grounds of God's justice could he use to justify us? How could God possibly justify
a sinner? We have to understand this. God's
justice is inflexible. Nothing can be done that God
does not hold every creature accountable to
his justice. His justice will not be deprived. God will bring justice on every
creature. Angels, men, it doesn't matter. And God's justice has no regard
to the person who has offended him. It doesn't matter if you're
an infant, or ancient, if you're rich or poor, if you're an angel
or even the Son of God in our nature, God's justice will have
its due. And that's the first thing we
have to understand about God's justice. It will not be compromised. Can God pervert judgment? No. He will be just. In fact, to
justify the wicked or to condemn the just is an abomination in
the sight of God, Proverbs 17, 15. So to be justified by God
has to be done according to strict justice, and God's nature is
the measure of justice. There is no justness except who
God is. This is true of every attribute
of God. What is holiness? What is holy? God is holy. What is just? It's the way God
thinks. It's His character, His nature.
It can't be compromised. God cannot change. And He has
been eternally just and will forever be just. and his justice
won't be compromised. Now, much more than being now
justified, God in heaven, the holy God, who cannot change and
will not compromise his judgment, has justified a people. God did
it. On what basis? How did he do
it? Here it is. Being now justified
by his blood, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is where
justice has been satisfied, in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is this speaking here of something
that, an attitude change in us? something that we brought to
God about our repentance? Is it speaking here of an infused
righteousness in us or some kind of a payment of sorrow and shame
on our part? None of that contributed to our
justification. There's nothing in us that could
Contribute to our justification, we were, as it describes us here,
look at verse six, when we were without strength in due time,
Christ died for the ungodly. That's our condition. When did
Christ die? When we were ungodly. Our condition
was sinner, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die.
Someone who keeps the law, someone who's upright. Scarcely for a
righteous man will one die, yet perventure for a good man, a
real loving, nice, upright man. Some would even dare to die.
But God, in contrast, commendeth his love. He made known, he set
it forth. He displayed it and declared
it, accomplished it. He made his love known in this.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In contrast, And
now, much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through him. You see, God's justice holds
his wrath as the payment that he will pay all who offend his
law. all that will offend his requirements.
And justice in God demands this. God himself demands this. And
there's only, something has to be done in order for God to accept
a sinner. Something has to be done satisfactory
to God's own nature and his law, which is an expression of his
own character. And that one thing, there's only
one thing that can satisfy God's justice. One thing that can bring
to God a satisfaction, one thing that can meet the requirements
God places on us, the death of God's own Son, the blood of Christ,
you see. How difficult is it to justify
a sinner? incredibly, unspeakably difficult,
the blood, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only
way, and God required this to justify us. Now, I say that in
order to drive us back to what's said in Hebrews chapter 2, a
very important part here of verse 17. He says, Wherefore in all
things it behooved him, Christ, to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God. You see that? Things pertaining
to God. In order for God to justify us,
God required something. Something had to be given to
God for us. And what was that? A propitiation,
a satisfaction to his justice. God in his own character and
nature had to receive a full compensation for us from us or
from Christ. And we couldn't give it, so he
designed for his son to give it. And this is what Christ did. He is a faithful and high priest
in things pertaining to God. to God. It's God word. We couldn't
be saved unless Christ as our high priest offered to God what
God required to receive us. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
did that. And so back in Romans chapter 5, in the verse that
follows, verse 10, it says this. Verse nine, again, much more
than being now justified by his blood. In other words, God received
what he required in order to justify us, and what he required
was nothing less than the death by shedding of his blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Justice had to come upon him,
God's justice. The wrath we deserved had to
be poured out in unmixed, merciless, you know, spent on Christ. He had to endure it. And it came
upon him because he was made sin for us, even though he knew
no sin, and being made sin for us, God's wrath was poured out
on him. That's what substitution is, that's the gospel. And so
he says in verse 10, for if when we were enemies, We were obstinately
opposed in hostility in our minds against God. When we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. God did
this. God did this. How did he do it? The death of his son. God did
this. God took the initiative. God
provided what was necessary. God found a way in his wisdom
out of his heart of grace, to make peace in himself, to bring
to his own character and nature a full satisfaction. That delighted
him, it pleased him. And Christ's offering is described
in Ephesians 5.2 as a sweet-smelling savor to God. As the animal sacrifices
were burnt up, It signified that in Christ bearing our punishment,
the full pouring out of God's wrath upon him that was due to
us, God took satisfaction to his justice and did so so that
the grace of God and the mercy of God and the blessings of God
could be given to us as he gives them to the one who is perfectly
and holy and righteous in his character, in his life, in his
thoughts and words. Everything is given to us because
Christ stood for us and made a propitiation. He himself was
that propitiation to God. So God received that. Now, when
we think about this, sometimes we can't help but think of it
in terms of human terms. There's some things that are
true of God that make it complicated for us to understand the gospel
truly. One of them is the fact that
we are finite and we live in time, and God is eternal, and
he's outside of time. Another one is that we change,
but God never changes. So we might ask these questions,
well, was God, in fact, you hear, I've heard, there's been books
written like this, God isn't mad anymore. And it makes us
think about God in human terms, that God was angry with us and
then his anger was taken away. And somehow there was a change
in God. And we wonder, well, how do we reconcile the fact
that God is both eternal and doesn't change, and yet here
we see a satisfaction brought to God in the death of Christ
for his people. that makes it so that God looks upon them and
justifies them and now they can be reconciled to God because
God has removed the barrier. How does this happen? In time
we know it happened at the cross, but all of this complexity is
resolved when we understand that God did this in purpose and will
in his own mind from eternity. There was never a time when Christ
was not the Lamb slain. You see, in God's covenant of
peace, as it says in Ezekiel 37, 26, there was a covenant
of peace. And in that covenant of peace, God, in the Godhead,
agreed. The Father and the Son agreed
that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son, would become our high priest.
And as our high priest, he would offer himself and make a propitiation. He would bring pleasure to God's
justice. in his own substitutionary wrath
bearing for us, so that God's justice then could justify us. And all of God's grace would,
even though in our own experience was pent up, it was reserved
until Christ came, and then it flowed from God, from his throne
to us in the declaration of what he has done, but all this was
always in God from eternity. so that it could be said with
truth that from eternity God loved his people, and from eternity
in the Lord Jesus Christ he saw them as holy and blameless before
him in love. but he predestinated them to
this. He willed it so that in time, in our own experience,
even though when the Lord Jesus Christ was ordained to be the
Lamb slain before time, we weren't even born. We hadn't sinned.
Yet God speaks about it in our own experience as those who were
under the curse of his law because we were sinners and Christ died.
But when we try to put it in a chronology order, it becomes
confusing to us. But God lowers Himself to our
own time state, to our own experience, because He says these things.
He declares them to us as if we experienced it and it all
happened in a sequence according to our fall in Adam and our own
sin and our restoration, our reconciliation in Christ. And
so look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5. This is, we can never lose
sight of God's eternal purpose of grace and how that Christ
pledged himself and God received from Christ as our surety before
the world began a full compensation to his justice in pledge, and
yet it had to happen in time. The Lord Jesus had to become
a man, which couldn't happen unless there was a history, unless
there were a people, flesh and blood, right? And so God unfolds
this to us in our own infirmity of our finite minds, and he shows
it to us as in our experience. And so in some sense, we want
to set aside God's immutability, his unchangeable nature, and
his eternal character, and we want to look at it in our own
experience of grace. And so he says in 2 Corinthians
5, verse 18, all things are of God. This is the very first principle. All things are of God. You didn't do this. You didn't
initiate it. You didn't bring it to pass.
But it's all of God, who hath reconciled us to himself. We were the enemies. We were
the rebels. We had gone astray. We had turned,
each one of us, to our own way. He has reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ and has given to us, now the Apostle Paul speaks
in his own experience then when he writes this. He has given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. Our service to Christ is a service
to God the Father. It's a ministry of reconciliation. It was in the Father's heart
from eternity. This was his chief business.
And we find that to be astounding, that something could occupy God's
highest purpose, but this was it. Reconciliation through His
Son. The glorification of His Son
in our reconciliation. He says, He has given to us the
ministry of reconciliation, to it, that God was in Christ reconciling
the world to Himself. And we might wonder, is that
every individual in the world? No, because not every individual
is reconciled. Reconciling the world to Himself,
not imputing their trespasses to them, He wasn't charging them
with their iniquities. Why? Because, he goes on to say,
he's going to charge them to Christ, but he says, and he has
committed to us the word of reconciliation. We, as finite sinners, we hear
this word of God, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world
to himself, not imputing their trespasses, and we naturally
raise the question, how? He goes on, now then, we are
ambassadors for Christ. The king has sent us in his name
to bring the message of the king to those designated by the king.
In this particular way, to preach this message of reconciliation
as though God himself did beseech you by us. We pray you. in Christ dead, Christ isn't
here, but we're praying you, we're beseeching you, be ye reconciled
to God. And we wonder, on what ground?
How do we come to this state of the barrier that we raised
by our sin, how does this get removed between us and God? So
that we can actually believe the love that God has for us.
He goes on, this is the object of it. For He, God the Father,
hath made Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, sin for us, the Lord
Jesus Christ who knew no sin, that we, who knew no righteousness,
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Now we hear God's
view of things, but He directs us to what He sees, to what He
provided, to what He looks upon. And what does He see? God made
his son to be sin for us. It behooved him in all things
to be made like unto his brethren so that he might be made sin
for us who knew no sin. That he who was made sin might
suffer the outpouring of God's wrath and remove the cause of
his justice to withhold from us the blessings of God, so that
God received to his justice a full satisfaction, and his wrath,
which is just and is rightly against us, was taken out of
the way by God himself. Psalm 85 verse 3 says, Thou hast
taken away thy wrath. You did it, Lord. How did He
do it? He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. God saw His Son
from eternity. The Lord Jesus Christ from eternity,
in love to his Father and for his people, pledged to take their
place, to stand for them, and give an answer for them in himself,
a full answer to God's justice. And then God declares to us what
he did, what he purposed in Christ, and accomplished at the cross.
And every eye is pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ, how God was
in Christ, you see. And so this is the truth of it,
and we see it. And we're, as sinners, having
no hope, no strength, and knowing that God's wrath should come
upon us, he points us to Christ and said, God has expended his
wrath on his son. He's made him to be sin. He died
the just for the unjust to bring us. He himself is the faithful
and merciful high priest. who in things pertaining to God
has made propitiation for the sins of his people. That's what
Hebrews 2.17 is saying. God by his blood has justified. He received Christ's blood. He
justified us. We had no contribution here.
We didn't weigh in on it. He did it. And it's something
he accomplished. Now I want to take you to a few
texts of scripture to show you the illustrations of this that
God has given us. What does this mean? Look at
1 Samuel. We're just going to go through
a couple of places in scripture. It's important that we understand
how dear, 1 Samuel chapter 29, how dear this is to God. How dear this is to every believer. And in my own experience of my
own life, I've seen this, the truth of the way that God reconciles
us to himself. I've seen the effects of this
because this is our hope, right? This is the way we live our life. We live as believers in Christ.
This is ever before us, that God has determined to lay upon
His Son all that His justice demands from us, all that His
righteous law requires of us, and has justified us in the righteousness
and the obedience of His Son for us. This truth is at the
center. It's our full view of the gospel,
the substitution of Christ for us. God justified us for His
obedience. God's wrath is removed from us
for His suffering, our transgressions. In 1 Samuel 29. It was a battle about to begin.
The Philistines were going to finally meet King Saul in battle,
and his life would be taken from him in the battle with his son
Jonathan. But at this time, David is with
the Philistines. He's in the place where one of the Philistine
kings named Achish was there, and he had earned the trust of
Achish, this Philistine king. And so all the Philistines are
gathered together to go up to war against Israel, and David
said, I'll go up with you. I'll fight with you. And the
Philistines were not at all confident that he wouldn't turn against
them. And they said this in verse 4, the princes of the Philistines
were angry or full of wrath, were wroth with him. with Achish,
and the princes of the Philistines said to him, make this fellow,
speaking about David, return. So Achish had trusted David. Achish was the king in the place
where David was staying in protection. And now they're saying to Achish,
their fellow king, they say, no, you turn David back, make
him return. Make this fellow return, that
he may go again to his place, which thou hast appointed him,
and let him not go down with us to battle. Why? Lest in the
battle he be an adversary to us, for wherewith should he reconcile
himself unto his master, should it not be with the heads of these
men? So they understood that if David, who killed Goliath,
their mighty champion, and had gone out and killed so many Philistines. They couldn't believe that now
he was a sincere supporter of them. So they said, you turn
him back because we know what he'll do. In the battle, he'll
become our adversary and he'll reconcile himself to King Saul,
his master, with our heads. You see, how would Saul be appeased
in his anger and wrath toward David? David would bring to Saul
something that would satisfy him. He would reconcile himself
to King Saul with the lives of his enemies. He would kill his
enemies and bring them. And Saul would be pacified towards
David and embrace him. You now are so dear to me. He would do this. He would reconcile
himself by bringing to Saul what Saul would require. You see,
so that our reconciliation to God is by God receiving for us
what God required to take away the offense our sins caused to
Him. And what was that? It was the
blood of Christ. But we didn't bring it. God provided
Him. And it was God in His wisdom
who initiated this payment to His own justice, you see. And
so look also at 2 Samuel. Chapter 14, another example.
And I'm just going to tell you the history because I don't want
to take time. You can go back and read this yourself. But King
David had several sons. One of them's name was Absalom,
and he was the most handsome in all of Israel. His hair was
so thick and heavy that in his self-admiration, he had it weighed
every year. What kind of a boy that is. But anyway, Absalom had a sister
and another brother of Absalom, who was a brother by another
wife of David, named Amnon, had done something to Tamar, Absalom's
sister, and Absalom was going to take revenge on Amnon. And
he did that by instructing his own servants to kill Amnon. He
invited all the king's sons to a gathering and they all came
and Absalom had his servants kill his brother Amnon. And David
learned about this. And so David banished Absalom. He couldn't come. David is the
king. And he said himself in 2 Samuel
23, he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of
God. So to act like nothing happened
with Absalom would be to set justice aside. And yet his heart
loved Absalom. David loved Absalom, but he couldn't
compromise his justice. Now Joab was the captain in David's
army. And all of Israel was troubled
because King David had banished Absalom because of this event,
having killed his brother Amnon. And David couldn't accept him
back in peace without the whole nation being compromised in their
justice. It would be like in our own country.
when lawlessness abounds and no justice occurs because of
that. You see people plundering and
killing and stuff, and justice just sits by like, eh, we don't
want to get involved here. It's politically incorrect or
something. That's what's happening in our country today. And this
was about to happen here if David, but he was wise enough to know
he couldn't do that. So Joab, in the captain of David's
army, he found a wise woman and he told her, let's go to the
king with this message. And the message was a long tale
about how this woman was a widow. She had one son. and had two
sons, and the two sons had an argument, and one of them killed
the other one. And now, being a widow, having only one son
left, she's told King David in this story that Joab concocted,
that if the nation, the people, were to kill her only son left,
because he killed his brother, then her inheritance would be
taken away. Her life would be snuffed out. And so this was
a great complex problem. How would David solve this? Well,
the woman told this to King David at the behest of Joab in order
to get David to think how he could reconcile Absalom to himself. And in verse 14 of 2 Samuel 14,
this is the conclusion of the matter. The woman is speaking
to David. The Joab had hired her to go
to David, a wise woman. She says, for we, meaning the
people of Israel, the nation, we must needs die, and are as
water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again,
neither doth God respect any person. It doesn't matter high
or low. or any position, justice must
be done. God doesn't respect any person.
He doesn't play favorites when it comes to his law and justice.
Yet, yet, even though he doesn't respect any person, yet doth
he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him. This
was incredible wisdom. This woman is telling the truth
of heaven here. And David knew it, that God himself
devises a way to keep his banished from being expelled from him.
And what is this speaking about? But our reconciliation to God
by the death of his own son. So in this event here, God is
setting forth the impossible situation that how could David
both love Absalom and be reconciled to him when Absalom was a murderer?
And he does this. He finds a way. She points him
to how God himself does this. Now I want to take you to Hebrews
chapter 12, one more. And before we get to the last
example here, Hebrews 12. You know the story of Cain and
Abel, don't you? Abel offered to God an excellent sacrifice
because it pointed to Christ. And God accepted Abel's sacrifice
because it pointed to Christ. Cain brought a sacrifice which
was of no blood. He brought the fruit of his labors
from the ground. God accepted Abel. God rejected
Cain. Cain was full of wrath because
of his envy that God would accept Abel and not him. And he killed
his brother out of envy. Abel died and God told Cain after
he killed his brother Abel, what have you done? Your brother's
blood cries to me from the ground. What was that cry? Vengeance,
justice. Cain, God told him, you have
killed your brother, you're gonna have to pay. Hebrews chapter
12, he says this. We're come to all these things,
but notice the verse 24. We're come to Jesus, the mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh
better things than that of Abel. What did Abel's blood demand?
Justice. And what does the blood of Christ
demand? Abel's blood cried for vengeance.
What does Christ's blood cry for? mercy, grace, blessing. You see, how much better is the
new covenant than the old? As much greater as the blood
of Christ cries out for our reconciliation to God in comparison to the blood
of Abel that cried for vengeance and justice. From the beginning,
before time began, it was God who devised this plan. God was
the one we offended by our sin. God's own character and nature
and justice demanded our punishment. God's wrath coming upon us was
the right thing to do. But in his wisdom, God found
a way to not only withhold His wrath from us, to reconcile us,
to bring His banish back so that we're not expelled, but to reconcile
us to Himself in justice so that God's justice was pleased with
us and justifies us in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
now look at Luke chapter 15. Given all these things, that
the Lord Jesus Christ, God did this, God offered up His Son,
remember? He, this is how we know love,
1 John 4, 10, that God sent his son into the world to be the
propitiation for our sins. God in his love did this. The
father offered. He did not spare his own son.
He delivered him up for us all. Isaiah 53, he has made him, has
made his soul an offering for sin. God the father has done
this. He reconciled us to himself in the death of his son. All
these scriptures come to bear. God was in Christ, you see, but
it was Christ appointed by God the Father as our high priest
to offer himself up. So we see them both, the Father
and the Son. And here in Luke 15, what we
see is the Father. And I just want to read through
this with you from beginning at verse 11. And he said, a certain man had
two sons. The younger of them said to his
father, father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.
And he divided to them his living. And not many days after, the
younger son gathered all together, all that his father had given
him, and he took his journey into a far country. And there
wasted his substance with riotous living. Everything his father
gave to him, he wasted it. not just wasting it by spending
it unwisely, but actually living a profligate life. And when he had spent all, there
arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself
to a citizen of that country. This faraway country represents
not the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of Satan. And he joined
himself to a citizen of that country who would have been a
preacher of that kingdom, a false minister of the gospel, a false
gospel. And he sent him into the fields
to feed swine. Remember, the dogs return to
their vomit in a swine to its wallowing in the mire. This represents
those who revel in false religion, man's religion. So here the prodigal
son, the son of his father now, He's sent out to try to find
food among the swine and the food that was fed to swine, who
loved to wallow in the mire. Swine can find nourishment from
filth and from food that men cannot. And the boy, the son
who was profligate and wasted his father's living, who was
hungry now, he would fain have filled his belly with the husk
that the swine did eat. and no man gave to him. He was
completely without nourishment. He was starving to death because
he couldn't find nourishment in false religion. And when he
came to himself, we know how that happened, don't we? It was
the grace of God. How many hired servants, he said.
How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to
spare and I perish with hunger. Oh, where was the father all
this time? He was still on his estate, still the father of this
boy, still waiting his return. And so he says in verse 18, I
will arise and go to my father and will say to him, father,
I have sinned against heaven and before thee. and I am no
more worthy to be called thy son. You see how the grace of
God first brings us to our senses? We think of our father, we think
of our sin, and we think how we're unworthy. And if only by
God's grace, he would allow us to be in his house at the lowest
level, we're content with that. So he says in verse 18, I will
arise and go to my father and will say to him, father, I have
sinned against heaven and before thee. All the while the son doesn't
realize, as we know now, that this was God drawing him to himself
again in the parable. And so he says, I'm no more worthy
to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.
And so he arose and he came to his father. And when he was yet
a great way off, his father saw him. and had compassion and ran
and fell on his neck and kissed him. How did the father see him? You know he was standing and
looking. Because in the purpose of God, there was a time appointed
when we would be brought again and be reconciled to God because
of the death of his son. And so he comes to him. He had
been his son, profligate all the while he was still his son,
even though in his own experience, he was left with nothing. And
he came back to his father and he said, the son said to him,
father, I have sinned against heaven. His father is kissing
his neck, is falling on his, and what is he? He is compelled
to tell him all. Father, do you know how I've
lived? I've wasted everything. I've sinned against heaven, showing
us that our sin is against God. As David prayed in Psalm 51,
I've sinned against heaven and in thy sight. He needed to pour
out his heart to God, his father, and I am no more worthy to be
called thy son. That's true. But the father said
to his servants, and these are the preachers of the gospel,
bring forth the best robe and put it on him. That robe is the
righteousness of Christ worked out in his own blood. and put
a ring on his hand. That ring is the infinite love,
the eternal love of God the Father for his children because of Christ.
It's the ring of sonship. And put a ring on his hand and
shoes on his feet. The gospel. The gospel which
leads us into the way of truth. How God could be just and justify
the ungodly. How our foot won't slip because
we stand on the rock Christ. The gospel by which we live upon
Christ, eating and drinking of his shed blood and his broken
body for us. And so he tells the servants,
and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat,
because the Father takes delight in Christ crucified for his people. And the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
takes delight. And the servants live upon Christ,
whom they're declaring to this prodigal son. And the prodigal
is made to feast on Christ and him crucified, you see. And let
us eat and be merry, for in the Lord Jesus Christ we have been
reconciled to God. Our high priest, it behooved
him. It became necessary for him because
of his own desire to give himself for his people to reconcile them
to God. And it was required, it seemed
good to God from eternity because of his own nature and his own
eternal will. His thoughts of his heart had
to be carried out. And so he designated his son
and received from his son from eternity and at the cross. And
so Christ offered himself to God for us. He returned the banished
of God to him again when there was no other way. He took away
the wrath that was due to us and he expended it fully upon
his son. And now having made Christ sin for us, we are made
the righteousness of God in him. And he declares this to us and
he says, I beseech you. Look upon Christ, like Romel
told us earlier, look upon Christ and see what God has done. He's
reconciled us to himself in the death of his son. Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for being our great, merciful, and
faithful high priest, offering yourself, obtaining our redemption,
whereby God, in justice, can justify us according to the mercy
and grace that is in His character. Sovereign mercy and free grace
to justify us in Your own blood. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Thank
You, our Father, that You would, from eternity, design everything
to have us for Yourself at the cost of Your own Son. We pray,
Lord, that only, we know that only you can, so we pray that
you will teach these things to us in our heart. May we meditate
on them daily and live upon our Lord Jesus and look for him who
loved us and gave himself for us. And may we treat one another
with the same humility, the same condescending grace that our
Father has bestowed upon us so that we would forgive as we've
been forgiven. We would give ourselves as servants
gladly in order that sinners might be reconciled to God. And
we pray that you would receive glory, and we might be given
this highest of all privileges, this greatest of all gift now
to look upon Christ by faith, and this greatest of eternal
privileges to be surrounding your throne and praising our
Savior for His grace, whereby He saved us from our sins. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.