It has been a blessing every
time. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 5.
Let's read verse 21, which is strikingly similar. to the portion in Isaiah 53 we
already read. 2 Corinthians 5, verse
21, For he, God, hath made him, Christ, to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him, in Christ. If you were to ask the average
person, religious person that is, in our day, to quote you one verse of scripture
which they felt summed up the gospel, if they could quote you one,
it would probably be John 3.16. Probably. Brother Ralph Barnard,
I quote him often because some of the things he said, most of
the things he said, got your attention. And that's what I
want to do, get people's attention. I want them to hear what I'm
saying. I don't want to just go preach a sermon on Sunday
morning. I want people to hear. Barnard
used to say there's no gospel in John 3.16. He said the gospels in John three
fourteen. I know the seeds of the gospel
in John three sixteen but merely reading that you don't have any
mention of blood. Righteousness. John three besides
our Lord didn't start in John three sixteen he was talking
to a man named Nicodemus and he began back in the first of
chapter three and again talking about you must be born again.
And other things. the Spirit of God, the sovereign
Spirit of God, revealing the truth. John 3.14, he said, "...as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness." Those Jews,
and Nicodemus was very familiar with that story, that people
had been bitten by sin, and they were dying. So there you have
sin, there you have death. The death of the people, helplessness,
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. There you have Christ being lifted
up on the cross, you have his blood shed. Whosoever believeth
on him shall not perish. And then he went down to say
in John 3.16, For God so loved. This is the way God showed his
love to a world of people, by lifting his Son up on the cross.
So you must understand John 3.14. to understand what John 3.16
is saying. But if you were to ask me to give you one verse
of Scripture that I believe summed up the gospel best, I would,
without hesitation, without reservation, immediately quote you 2 Corinthians
5.21. Here in 2 Corinthians 5.21 there
are many things stated and many things clearly implied by this. You have the sovereign purpose
and covenant of God. You say, Where in the world? You're going to see it in the
first three words. You see the holiness of God here.
You'll see the imputed righteousness of Christ, you'll see the fulfillment
of God's justice against sin, you'll see election. Now, aren't
you going a little far with it? No, he says, us. That's election. Because he started all the way
back in the first of the epistles by saying, to the saints of God,
called to be saints in the first epistle. Well, look at it with
me, and ask God to rouse you. Ask God Almighty to quicken your
eyes and ears this morning, OK? If I can find one, I'm going
to preach to you. Look at verse 21, where it says,
For he hath made him. For he. Now, the gospel begins
The gospel begins where everything begins. It begins where we should
always begin in our thinking, in our preaching. It begins with
God. The so-called preaching today
begins with man. It is a gospel made up by man.
It is a gospel about man, all about man. It's the gospel for
man. It's the gospel that begins with
man and ends with man, and you have a little spattering of God
and Christ in the middle. Just a little bit, not much,
but a little bit. It's man. It's man-centered.
It's man-oriented. It's man-thought of. But if you
want to talk about anything, you've got to begin with God,
especially the gospel. You've got to begin with God.
in whom we live and move and have our very being. You're alive
this morning, you're sitting here this morning, because in
the beginning, God. Because God. Because of God. We begin with God, because God,
this thing of the gospel, God thought it, God bought it, and
God brought it. The gospel is all of God. God
purposed it, God purchased it, God applies it. He's called the
author And what? And the finisher of our faith,
and all that's in between. We're kept by God, by the power
of God. So if you talk about the gospel,
you better begin with God. Verse 18 of chapter 5, look up
there, just a few verses up. Verse 18, it says, "...all things
are of God." If you would ask me a byword of all believers,
I would say Jonah 2, 9, salvations of the Lord. Ask me another one,
I'd say 2 Corinthians 5, 18. All things are of God. All things
are of God. That sums it up. Romans 11, 36
says, For of him, through him, and to him are all things, to
whom be glory, both now and forever. And Paul He can't help himself,
he just says, Amen. I just preach the whole truth
of God. The whole truth, nothing but
the truth, so help me God. All things of him, through him,
to him, are all things. All things are of God. You want
to talk about the gospel, you better begin with God. And you
better end with God. And everything in between. Second
Timothy, chapter 1. Turn over there. Second Timothy,
chapter 1. Speaking of this gospel, and you know what the word means,
it means good news. The good news of the gospel,
you're going to have to begin with God, because this is what
God says about it. Second Timothy 1, verse 9, one
of our dear preacher brethren said, The Lord used this to save
him. Use Second Timothy 1.9. to save his very soul. It says
here in 2 Timothy 1, 9, God hath saved us. See where Paul begins? Who has saved us? The preacher.
Your decision? No, God has saved us and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works. It doesn't have
anything to do with you, what you do or will do or are going
to do, what God foresaw you would do. No, of God. Not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Sounds
just like Ephesians 1, doesn't it? Verse 10. God is going to
show, God is going to gather all things in one, even in Christ,
in him. The gospel revealed in God's
Word. Now, that's the only gospel there
is. I know Paul said there's another gospel. There is. A lot
of people preaching another gospel, which is not the gospel, but
it's a perversion. The gospel, in God's Word, the
gospel began in the mind and the purpose of God Almighty.
That's where the gospel story began. When God Almighty, and
when I say God, I mean three people. I mean God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, a trinity, a triune God. When God the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit got together, when God held a council, the Scripture
is full of this word, council. They held a council, the council
halls of God, according to his eternal counsel. Ordered in all
things, ensured. When God held a council, a meeting,
nobody was there. The devil wasn't even created
yet. Just God. God was there. The
triune God. And in that council, the triune
God, the Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, got
together and they purposed between themselves to create a planet
called Earth and to put some creatures on it in the image
of God. It was in the image of God, though,
to create a race of creatures in God's image, and that's the
reason man is higher than every other creature. That's the reason,
I believe, God decided to save him. It was God's most glorious
creation, man in his image. And then in that purpose, after
he decided to create man upon this earth, he decided in his
wisdom And in this purpose, he was going to allow that man to
fall into sin and rebellion, and the consequences of it, to
allow that fall. That's the purpose of God. And
then in that council, when God purposed this, the Father, Son,
and the Holy Spirit made an agreement. In covenant agreement, they all
agreed, we're not going to let all of these creatures fall,
though. We're not going to let all of
these creatures fall. We're not going to let them all
die. We're not going to let them all suffer the consequences of
the fall. We're going to save some of them
for our glory, for our praise. They'll reap the good of it,
and they'll get to be with us throughout eternity and enjoy
us. They're going to get to come
up and be with us. And we'll enjoy them and they'll enjoy
us. Not all of them, but some of them. To the praise of the
glory of our grace. Just our goodness. Because of
our goodness, we're going to do this. And the father said,
well, this is what I'll do. I'll elect them. I'll choose
who I'm going to save. The son said, well, I'll go down
and redeem them. The father said, they're going
to have to Satisfy my justice against their
sin, they're going to have to live a perfectly holy life. I
can't accept them otherwise." The son said, I'll do it. The
Holy Spirit said, and I'll bring them all. I'll make sure they
all get here. The Holy Spirit, I'll bring them
all. I'll convict them. I'll grant them repentance. I'll
wrought a change within them, and I'll make sure they all come
back and they're all with you that you chose, Father. Good!
That's good. That's a good agreement. And
he saw that this thing was good. This is a good covenant. And
they said, so it is spoken, so let it be written, so let it
be done. Done. Dictum, factum. So that's the purpose of God.
That's the counsel. That's the covenant of God. So
the gospel begins with God. You don't begin with man. You
begin with God, right? That's where it began. God's
purpose. And I'm here to tell you that what God purposed, it's
done. It's as good as done. He said, I've spoken it. I'll
bring it to pass. If God will work, who's going
to stop it? So God purposed this whole thing,
and he created man, he allowed him to fall, and in the course
of time, Galatians 4 says, in the poorness
of time, God sent forth the Redeemer. In the fullness of time, at the
exact time, in time, God said, It's time, my son. Are you ready?
I've been ready since the beginning. I've got joy. For the joy set
before me, he said. I'm ready. Send me. All right,
son. Here's this woman named Mary,
a virgin. You're going to have to enter
into her womb, a body, a vessel, grow up as a baby, as a young
man, suffering all these 33 and 30. Are you ready? I'm ready.
So God sent forth his son, made of a woman. Great is the mystery
of Godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
God was born of a woman. Made a woman, made under the
law. Now it says, God made him. You see that? For he hath made
him. Now this is not like the Roman
Catholics say, or the so-called Jehovah Witnesses,
the Russellites say. They use this verse and they
use Hebrews 1-4 to intimate that God actually made Christ, that
Christ was a made or created being just like you and I are.
That's not so. That's not so. Christ was not
made in that sense. Jesus Christ is God without beginning
or ending. He is God, very God of very God.
Isaiah 9, 6 says, unto us a child is born. Yes, a baby was made,
a body was made, but a son now is given. The son dwelled with
the father from the very beginning. He came down. That's what John
was saying in 1 John 4 when he said, if any man believed that
Jesus Christ is come, in the flesh, he's born of God. That means
you have to believe that he, you know, to come somewhere,
that means he were somewhere, right? He came from somewhere
to here. A child was born, but the son
was given. A child was born. And this is
what Psalm 40 says. Turn over there to Psalm 40. Psalm 40. Christ said, when he
was come, lo, I am come. Psalm 40, God made his Son a
body to inhabit, a body to inhabit. Why did Christ come to be a man?
Why? Look at Psalm 40. Now, listen
to me. God does all things on purpose. There are no contingency plans
with God. God doesn't do something and
then hope it turns out and then it doesn't and then he reacts
and he has another plan and he keeps doing this and that. It's
ordered in all things, sure. And everything God does and everything
God determined before to be done, everything he does is for his
glory. Everything. The reason he created
the planet, the reason he created man, was for his glory, right? for his glory, to show forth
his glory. But when God created man, Brother
William, when God created man, man fell and came, what does
it say there in Romans, came short of that glory, didn't it? Man fell far short of glorifying
God the way he was supposed to, the way God created him to do.
He fell short of that glory. He didn't glorify God as God. That's what Paul is talking about
all the way through Romans 1. When he knew God as God, he didn't
glorify him as God, but became foolish in his imagination. And
rather, he dishonored God. He refused. He held the truth
in unrighteousness. He said, I'm not going to have
that. God was not in any of his thoughts then. And he decided,
I'll be God. This is a sin God is charging
man with. And he even robbed God of this
glory. He began to take glory for himself
instead of giving it all to God. And God said, I'm going to get
glory. I created you for my glory, and
you're going to show forth my glory, he said. Now you are going
to show forth God's glory. I am. He's either going to get
glory out of you by damning you. Yeah, the damnation of man is
going to glorify God. going to glorify his justice.
But thank God, he glorifies himself by the salvation of some people. I hope you're one of them. Do
I hope you're one of them. But God said, man is to glorify
me. And he said it all the way through
the Old Testament, I'm not doing this for your sakes, you're not
worthy. Remember that? He said it all the way through,
Isaiah and Ezekiel. I'm not doing this for your sakes,
O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake. Why should
my name be dishonored anymore? Why should my name be blasphemed
anymore? The whole world, the whole planet
has got God's name on their lips and their tongues. Blaspheme
in the name of God, he said. My name's going to be glorified. My name's going to be glorified
by a man. And this is when Christ said,
Lo, I'm here. Verse 7. In the volume of the
book, it's written of me. If you don't see Christ in Genesis
1, 1 all the way through Revelation 22, you don't know anything about
the Bible. In the volume of the book, it's
written of me. The Old Testament said somebody's
coming. Who? A man's going to glorify
God. A man's going to come to live
for God, to glorify God. The epistles say, or I mean the
Gospels say, he's here. This man is here. John said,
we've touched him, we've handled him, he's here. The word of life
is here. God's Son is here. Who God has been talking about
from the very beginning, he's here. Want to see God? Want to talk to God? Look over
there. That's God. We hid our faces from him. There's
no comeliness about him, no beauty about him. We don't need him.
That's not God. And the epistles say, he was
here, and he went back there to sit at the right hand of the
Father, the majesty on high. And he's coming again. And this
time, you're going to see his glory. And you're going to bow
to his glory. But today is a day of salvation.
Before he gets back, today is a day of salvation. Bow, kiss
the sun, lest ye be angry. And you perish from the way when
his wrath is kindled but a little. If the very word of God created
the earth, what do you think the voice of God, the hand of
God, when God stretches out his hand upon the planet, what do
you think it'll do? If God just spoke and things
came into existence, what do you think the hand of God will
do to this earth and this universe? He said he'll show forth his
strong arm, his mighty arm, his hand. A man came and said, Lo, I come
in the volume of the book that is written of me, verse 8, I
delight to do thy will. Oh, God! I'm telling you, I'm
reading your salvation right now, if you're a believer. This
right here is all of your hope of acceptance with the Holy God,
Jeanette Barry. Kevin Barry, if you're one of
his. Ed Barry, if anybody in here is one of his. This is all
of your hope of being accepted before a holy God, is that Jesus
Christ said, Lord, I come! God, hear me! I come to do thy
will as a man, spare your wrath against mankind! Spare your wrath
against Terry Kensler! Spare your wrath against Deborah
Huff! Spare your wrath against Bertie Jones! Spare your wrath
against Sherry Anderson! Spare your wrath against these
ungodly, God-hating sinners who don't give a flip about you!
I come to do thy will, that I may not descend to their charge.
I delight to do thy will, to establish a righteousness as
a man, more than a doctrine in me. I bear a standing before
a holy God. God's angry with the wicked every
day, the Scripture says. And we're wicked. How about you? He said the unrighteous shall
not stand before me. What do you think unbelief is? Unbelief is saying, I'm not interested
in you, God. I'm not interested in Christ.
I'm not interested in any of this stuff. Christ says, I come to
do thy will. I'm interested. I'd like to do thy will, O God. Now, lay not this sin to their
charge. Pour out your wrath on me. I'm
coming. I'm going to live perfectly."
He didn't have to. I'm going to live as a man. This is the mystery, people.
This is the mercy and the grace of God in sending a man down
here. All of your salvation is in this. God made him. Who knew no sin? Our text says. He who knew no sins. The Scripture
says, In him is no sin. I delight to do thy will. I must
always be about my Heavenly Father's business. And we don't give our
Heavenly Father thirty seconds out of every day. Thank God Christ
did. He said, I must always be about
my Father's business. Why, that's what God demands
of us. You ungrateful wretch. And if
God spoke to us as He should, He'd say, You ungrateful wretch.
You didn't even think about me today. You didn't even thank
me today for what I've done for you. You spent a whole week,
as a matter of fact, not even thinking about me. I haven't
been in your thoughts. And I do all of this, all your
lives." He said, I've nurtured the children, Isaiah 1. Raised
up a children, rebellious children. All the day long I nurture and
do for them. They go on about their business
like God doesn't exist. Christ said, I came to do thy
will, O God. I must always be about my Father's
business. God made him who knew no sin. He never committed sin. He never
even thought of sinning. The sinless one in heart, word,
motive, yes, motive, and deed, holy, sinless. Christ stood before
man and devils. Jesus Christ stood before man
and devils. He said to men, which of you
convinces me of sin? And they brought up all manner
of witnesses against him, and none of them could agree. And
even Pilate, who wanted to find something wrong with him so he
could accuse him rightly, said, I find no fault in him. I want
to, I've tried, I've brought all these witnesses up, but I
can't. I find no fault in this man. Why? Because there is no
fault in him. And he stood before the devil.
Who is the accuser of the brethren? The devil! And it says the devil
came to him, tempting him. I'll get him, this representative
of men, this gift of God, I'll get him, I'll destroy God's plan,
I'll find something to make him sin. He couldn't find anything
in him. And Christ laughed at him. You
can't tempt God. Go on back to where you came
from. I'm stronger than you. He who knew no sin. Psalm 24
says who's going to send in the Holy Hill of the Lord? Who's going to send in the Holy
Hill of the Lord? People think, well, if I just go to church,
if I just clean up my life, I'll just get real more. If I get
religion, you know, if I accept Jesus as my personal Savior,
God's just going to wipe out everything, every blasphemy and
every wicked and hell. and thought I've ever done, just
for accepting Jesus as my personal Savior and attending Sunday school
for all my day, God's going to accept me into his holy presence. God is a consuming fire. Who
shall ascend unto the holy hell of the Lord? Huh? The Scripture
says, He that hath clean hands. Show me your hands. Anybody willing
to stick up their hand and say, these hands have never sinned?
You know, some of these idiots say that, don't they? Liquors never touch these lips.
That's the reason Barnard used to say, they ought to take a
bath in it. Liquors never touch these lips. I've never smoked
a cigarette in my day. Well, I'm so proud of you. clean
hands, never, ever perform one act of sin or unrighteousness.
It goes a little deeper than that, doesn't it? Who hath a
pure heart? Everything you've done, every
deed you've done, better have been with an absolutely pure
and holy and sinless motive, a motive for the glory of God.
Without ever one thought of selfishness or pride or vainglory, without
ever one He goes a little deeper than that. He never lifted up
his soul unto vanity. You've never gone after anything
but God all your life. You've never gone after anything
but God. You've never sought anything, never coveted anything,
because covetousness is idolatry. You've never coveted anything
but God. You've always wanted God from the minute you were
born to the minute you die. You wanted God. You sought God.
You sought to please God. That's who's going to ascend
to the holy hill of God. And never sworn deceitfully.
Never spoken one word, never one idle word. You know a man
will give an account for every idle word that comes out of his
mouth? Especially religion, especially in the songs we sing in hypocrisy. Scripture says grace poured from
his lips. He never murmured, never complained.
Do we ever do anything but murmur and complain? And I'll remind
you, that's the reason God sent the Israelites. That's unbelief. Murmuring, complaining. We never
do anything but murmuring, complaining. But Christ never, one time, in
thirty-three years, muttered a complaint. Nothing but praise and glory.
Praise God. A man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. He said, is there any sorrow
like unto my sorrow? Somebody say, nobody's sorrowful
like I am. Nobody's been afflicted like
me, wherewith the Lord has afflicted me. But I'm not complaining,
because it's the Lord, he said. It's my Heavenly Father, and
I'll take whatever he dishes out. Who is going to sin in the holy
hill of the Lord? He. God hath made him who knew no
sin, made him. God sent Christ down here who
knew no sin. Look at verse 21, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. Now, did you hear
everything I said about the holy spotless, sinless Son of God?
That he lived a holy life, has a pure . . . and we're everything
opposite of that. He knew no sin. We are a sinner. We do nothing but sin. That's
a pack of lies for a preacher to say God loves the sinner but
hates his sin. We are a sinner. We are what
we do. You do what you are. Your nature
determines what you do. What you do is merely the outpouring
and the manifestation or revelation of what's in you, right? A man drinks liquor because he's
a drunk. Somebody steals things because
they're a thief. And Jesus Christ was holy, perfectly
holy. And John Cheesley, you heard
this before, but you're going to hear it again, buddy. made
us what he was. God took what he
did for thirty-three and a third years and worked hard. Nobody
has ever worked like he worked. He didn't go out in the day for
eight hours and slay and get a few whiskers on his hand and
go home and bed and go to sleep. of God's Word to think about,
to fulfill it perfectly. Every jot is hidden. He better
not slip up in one point. And the Scripture says, God said,
I'm well pleased for His righteousness sake. He took the law, it says,
and magnified it and made it honorable. And God couldn't contain
Himself from heaven twice and said, I'm well pleased with this
man. I'm well pleased with this man. You want to come up and be with
me? I'll be with you, man. You're
a well-pleasing man. You're a holy man. You're a spotless
man. You can just walk right up into
heaven itself and sit down on the majesty of high and kiss
God on the cheek. You can be with me, and I can
be with you because you're a holy man. Do you want to come up here?"
He said, Take what I did, Father. Take that life I lived, and by
this time he was thirty-three years old. Sammy was thirty-three
years old by this time. I guarantee you, he looked sixty-three
years old. Haggard, drawn, bent over, stooped
down. A man of sorrow, as the Scriptures
say, who, acquainted with grief, emaciated his body, afflicted
For the sake of man, a man is just absolutely drained. And he says, no, take this life
I've lived, this perfect righteousness as a man, that I live, and give
it to that God-hater, John Davis. You see, everybody look at it.
That's the right to say it's a thief, a murderer, and a God-hater. Christ said, the holiest father,
son of God, he says, give this to him. Give this righteousness to him.
And then give him what I've got coming to me. Accept him in me,
on my behalf. Make him righteous. Clothe him
in this life. I was born a doctor. I wish I
could preach this for once in my life. More than a doctor,
he's a person. A person did this for you, John. Not a doctor, the person who
had all this coming to him. Would you like to not get what
was coming to you? What if you worked 33 years on
it and it never does get you? You say, give it all of this
unworthy cause. Give it to that hell-bound drunkard
down in the middle of the ghetto. Give it to him. Give him all
my money. That's what Jesus Christ did. Do you see? Somebody in here
see that? Somebody, can somebody say, praise
God Almighty. Praise Jesus Christ. And then
you know what he did? Something else. And I can't preach this, I might
as well quit. He was made sin. And the reason you right now
can't enter into this is because you don't know what God thinks
about sin. Reason that man, when I said that man said, I'm not
saying the reason that he does not believe that he can do something
about it. When you see what God Almighty thinks about sin. And this is what this rebellious,
wicked generation thinks. They think smoking, drinking,
you know. Cussing, chewing, stealing a watermelon. And I've given
this illustration before. But it's a good one. I got it
from my pastor. He may give it tonight. If God Almighty is going to send
us to a lake of fire for eternity, where the worm
dieth not, eternal misery and agony and separation from God
Almighty for smoking a cigarette, that's the most unjust thing
I've ever heard of. It would be like you and me going
to a traffic court with a speeding ticket. of five miles over the
speed limit, and he says, I sentence you to the electric chair. He
says, it's a little severe, isn't it? The punishment doesn't fit
the crime, Your Honor. That's right. The punishment
of hell doesn't fit what they're saying about sin today, and that's
the reason nobody needs this bloody sacrifice called Jesus
Christ today. They need a sugar daddy. They
need a fire escape. What we need is a bloody sacrifice
for sin. We need his soul to be made an
offering for sin. Why? Do you know what sin is? Sin is a principle within here. Do you know anything about sin?
David said, My sin is ever before me. Would to God the Holy Spirit
would make you know what sin is. Sin is everything unlike
God, everything that hates God. Do you love God? Come on now.
All your life you've loved God? No, you altogether want to dismiss
God from our thoughts. It's hating God. And when God
came down to earth to show us what He's really like, we killed
Him. We like sin. We don't like holiness. We like
sin. It's everything evil. It's everything
wicked. It's everything rebellious. It's
everything God hates. Hating holiness is despising.
It's a principle within. Like I said, it's unbelief. It's
God sending down His Son down to this earth to do that ignominious,
horrible thing called crucifixion, and people say, I'm not interested. That's what God's going to send
people to hell for—not interested. You see, the Scripture said—turn
back to Isaiah 53 and I'll play it—it says there, We did esteem
him smitten and stricken of God. People looked at him, and that's
what they jutted out their lips. That's what it says about the
Romans, so that God's getting him now. Oh, no. He's holy. God's doing this to him. He must
have done something awful bad for God to do this to him. Don't
you hear that about people? Something happens to God. He
must have done something awful bad. And that's what they said
about Christ hanging on that cross. He must have done something
awful bad for God to do this to him. No, he didn't. He was
wounded for our transgressions. He said, We did esteem him smitten
and stricken of God, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him,
as to esteem him as not worthy of our recognition. He's not
worthy of our recognition. That's what unbelief is. That's
what people say when they don't attend the worship service. They
say, He's not worthy of my time. And he came out here for thirty-three
years, and died like this, and people
say, he's not worthy of my, he's not worthy of thirty-three minutes
of my time. You see why there's a hail? Surely he hath borne our griefs
and our sorrows, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was
made sin. That's the reason in the garden
before he even got to the cross, he said, I'm going to die right
here. Esther, he said, I'm going to die right here. Father, if
it be possible, would you take this cup from me? He was praying
in the garden, and the scripture says he sweated as it were great
drops of blood coming out of his pores. Not just sweat, blood! He'd been awake for about four
days, hadn't eaten anything in that long. Praying to the Father,
thinking about what it's going to be like to be under the wrath
of the Holy God. Being made sin. He saw the Father
send the angels to hell. I forget now what this person
said. He saw Him throughout time send people to hell. Weeping
and wailing and gnashing of teeth. He said, I'm going to have to
be made this. He knew what separation from
God was like, eternal agony, misery beyond understanding.
He understood it. And when he knew he was going
to hang on that cross one day and have to cry, God blessed
me. And just thinking about it in
the garden, he sweat blood. The closest thing I can illustrate
this thing to, that Christ didn't make sin for us, Rick Williams has three daughters. All three of them are precious,
sweet little girls. Let's take Sarah. She's four
or five. Sweet, young, blonde-headed girl.
Pure as far as children go. You know, young children. I know
they're partakers of Adam's sin and fall, By human standards,
they're innocent. You know what I'm saying? Very
naive and innocent. But we do our best to shield
these young girls from this perverse society. I hesitate to even let
my daughter watch a commercial on TV. It's so wicked and perverse,
I don't want her precious little mind to see all this crap that's
going on in this world, this hellhole called planet Earth.
I sealed her from that. It would be like taking her,
sweet, precious little five-year-old virgin, Christ being made sin. It would be like taking that
little girl and putting her on a bus to New
York City and telling the bus driver, let her off in the ghetto
at one o'clock a.m. And along comes a street gang.
Have at her. Just do what you will with her. Perish the thought. Perish the
thought. Your daughter? What would you
do? Jesus Christ did that. That's
the closest thing we can come to understanding what it was
for Jesus Christ to come down to this earth, to be made sin.
God made him. This one who never thought an
evil thought, all of a sudden God laid on him all manner of
evil and iniquity. It was fire, all this. Do you
know how it vexes your righteous soul when you see this stuff? was made sin, and God Almighty
came to him, hanging on that cross, and said, There's sin. I hate it. There's the sin of
Barbara Ross. There's the sin of Charles Ross.
There's the sin. There's all the sin, and not
just ours, the iniquity of us all. Heap up sin. Isn't yours enough to start another
hell? Let's heap it all together. Let's heap all the bad deeds
and the bad thoughts in one pile, it would be bigger than planet
earth, and lay it on his shoulders. Made sin. Who knew no sin? Yet, verse 10 says in Isaiah
53, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. God put him to grief. Why? Why? Jesus, the helper, the healer,
the friend. Why? Tell me why. Was he there? He didn't have to be. Because
all my iniquity on him was laid. He bore them all on the tree. When God saw him, he made his
soul an offering for sin. And this, I can't preach on that.
I'm sorry, let somebody else do it. It's soul and offering
for sin, not just his body. It says he's to see his seed,
though. You'd better believe people. And this is what, oh,
this angers me more than anything. This absolutely angers me more
than anything, and I guarantee it angers a holy God. For people
to say that he did that in vain. For people to say he shed that
blood, that God did this to his son and it might not accomplish
anything. That's charging God with foolishness. That's charging
God with injustice, isn't it? Isn't that charging God with
being a monster? Isn't that being a monster? Oh,
no. Isaiah 53, 10 says, He shall
see his seed. Christ said, Give me what's coming
to me now. John, when he first said that,
he said, Give John what's coming to me while I live this earth.
And then when he hung on the cross, he said, Give me what's
coming to John while I'm hanging on this cross. And then when
he arose from the grave and went back to heaven, to the portals
of glory, he said, Now give me what's coming to me. Give me my people that I died
for. Give me the glory which you promised me. Give me that
name which is above every name. Give me the universe. Give me
the heavens. And God said, It's yours. It's all yours. And that's what
I preached out. That's the reason we're going
to be singing unto Him. Glory to God in the highest.
God made Him. Unto Him. Mama didn't bring me
through. My decision to him who was made
all of this. People, I don't get tired of
singing about that now. You know, I don't really, I don't
get tired of singing that now. And Buddy, when I see him as
he is, and behold his glory, and see that lamb, as it were,
that had been slain, sitting in the middle of the throng.
You ain't going to shut these mouths. This mouth, huh? There nobler, sweeter-tongued,
I'll sing, thy power to save. Unto him that loved us, and washed
us from our sins, in his own blood. What a bloody death. Why I won't be singing that one,
but why, why, why, why, why, why? Even so, Father, it seemed
good, and I'm so glad it seemed good to you under him, under
him, under him. Would to God that he would allow
us to sing it once here, to enter into this once here. One time. One time. Let's try anyway. Let's sing
110. One hundred ten, Sherry. you