Thank you. That's based on passage
in Genesis, the 22nd chapter, when Abraham said to young Isaac,
the Lord will provide himself a lamb. And he did. The Lord himself was the lamb
of sacrifice, the lamb who was offered And by his death, he
put away our sins. Thank you for the song. I'm going
to begin this morning in Matthew chapter five, and then we will
go back and visit again in the book of Zechariah. But first
of all, Matthew chapter five. Our Lord Jesus, in this portion
of Holy Scripture, He is entering into the very beginning of His
public ministry. And it was very important to
Him to set forth to the great multitudes who gathered to listen
to Him, that He set forth His reason for entering into this
world. And he does that in Matthew chapter
5 and verse 17. He says to all the multitudes,
these are believers and unbelievers, the righteous and the wicked.
It's a vast multitude of A mixed multitude, I suppose we could
call them. Some who believe Him, some who
don't believe Him. Some who is looking for Messiah.
others who were not very concerned at all about Messiah's entrance
into the world. He says to all of them in Matthew
chapter 5 and verse 17, he says, think not that I am come to destroy
the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy. I'm not come to abolish. I'm
not come to do away with either the law of God or the message
of the prophets." He said, I've come to fulfill. He didn't come
to destroy. He didn't come to overthrow. He didn't come to make void either
the law of God or the prophets of God. he came to fulfill, he
came to accomplish, to fill to the full both the law of God
and the prophets. When he spoke of being come to
fulfill the law of God, he's talking about all of the law
of God, and he's speaking about both his life of obedience and
his death of obedience. That's how he satisfied the law. He didn't come to abolish it,
he came to fulfill it. You see, our first representative,
Adam, he broke God's law. He was a lawbreaker. God gave
him one law, and Adam broke it. But here's the thing, he didn't
act as a private individual. That which he did was an act
that affected everybody who would come forth from his loins. That is, all of his posterity,
all the human race. That includes all of us here
this morning. That includes those of you who
are watching. When he became a sinner, we became a sinner.
He broke God's law. Well, God sent another man, the
last Adam. See, the Bible talks about two
Adams. First Adam, last Adam. Last Adam is our Lord Jesus.
He was also a representative man. At first Adam, he represented
all of his posterity. That last Adam, our Lord Jesus
Christ, he came as the representative of his posterity. Who are his
posterity? Those are the people that God
gave him in covenant grace before the world began. And in his obedience
in life, he honored God's law. He fulfilled God's law. In Him
was no sin. He did no sin. He never once
violated inwardly or outwardly God's law. He was the perfect
man. But He was also obedient in another
way, not only in His life, but in His death. Because you see,
we have broken God's law. James says if you break one of
the laws of God, you've broken them all. They all hang together. You break one link, you've broken
the chain of God's law. Our Lord Jesus came in order
to live up to the standards of the law. But something had to be done
about our violations of God's law. Because this is what God's
law says. Now you listen. It says, the
soul that sinneth, it shall die. God's law, you must understand,
it's not bendable. It doesn't show any leniency.
It can't do that. God's law says this, do and live. Disobey, you die. Well, all of
us have been disobedient. There's no question about that.
That's why we read in Romans chapter 3 that by the deeds of
God's law, there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight.
For by the law of God is the knowledge of sin. We've all broken
God's law. Christ came to live up to His
every standard. We had a perfect representative. But His life all alone couldn't
save us because there's that death part. So he laid down his life. He
sacrificed his life under the law of God because the wages
of sin is what? Death, right? Say that. Death. That's the wages of sin. So somebody's
got to pay the wages. Somebody's got to render to God's
justice satisfaction. Satisfaction could only be made
by the death of a God-approved, God-appointed sacrifice. That's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the man Christ Jesus, the God-man. And he died. He died. He died for our sins according
to the scriptures. He was buried and He arose again
the third day according to the Scriptures. He didn't come to
do away with the law. He didn't come to abolish the
law. He didn't come to destroy the
law. He came to fulfill it. That's what He did. And that's
the reason I can say to every believer here this morning and
every believer who's watching me, you are not under the law. Our Lord Jesus has redeemed you
from the curse of the law. The law has nothing to say to
you because the law, because of your substitute, the law has
been silenced and satisfied forever. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. But this verse says something
else. Not only did he say he didn't
come to destroy the law, he said he didn't come to destroy the
message of the prophets. He came to fulfill everything
all the prophets said about Messiah because He is Messiah. He is
the Son of David. He is the Lord who is David's
Lord. And He came to fulfill everything
the prophets said. The message of all the prophets
of God summarized by Malachi in chapter 3 verse 1. Malachi
said, Behold, He coming. He's coming. That's what every
prophet of God said in the Old Testament. They all spoke as
though with one voice. God will send His Son, the seed
of the woman. He will come. He will come. And He will get us out of this
mess that we're in by His substitutionary sacrificial death upon the cross
of Calvary. And all the prophets spoke of
Him. Our Lord said, I didn't come
to abolish what those men said. I came to fulfill what they said.
And that brings us to one of the prophets of God, and that's
Zechariah. That's who we've been talking
about, at least been going to the book of Zechariah, speaking
about our Lord Jesus. And I want you to go this morning
to Zechariah chapter 12. You see, all of the men of God,
prophets of God in the Old Testament wrote of Him. You remember when
our Lord was speaking to the Jews who, they had seen Him heal
a man who had been lame for 38 years. They saw that man healed. Our Lord healed him on the Sabbath
day. bunch of religious folks, they
found fault with our Savior that He did this healing on the Sabbath
day and that He said God was His Father, which made Himself
equal with God. They got so upset with Him. And
these were men who studied the Word of God. They studied the
Scriptures. Listen, you think you studied
the Scriptures, you don't even qualify as a studier of the Scriptures
compared to these guys. I mean, every day they just poured
over the Word of God. And our Savior said to them,
you search the Scriptures, for in them you think in reading
the Bible. You think in reading God's Word,
ye have eternal life by what you're doing. You think by reading
a passage of Scripture every day and studying it, that's how
you have eternal life. And our Savior said, you got
it wrong. Because these are they that testify
of me. They missed Him. There are a lot of people I know,
people you know. who read the Bible every day.
Well, that's a good thing to do. I wouldn't in any way discourage
you from doing that. There are a multitude of read
through the Bible in a year. Wonderful thing to do. But, now
listen. If you don't see the Lord Jesus
Christ as being the subject of the book, the message of the
book, Christ and His substitutionary death, you have so far read the
Scriptures in vain. Isn't that something? Our Lord said, you men search
the Scriptures. And that's what He said there
in John 5, verse 39. He said, search the Scriptures.
In essence, He was saying, you are busy searching the Scriptures.
But you missed me. All the prophets of God wrote
of Him and spoke of Him. And Zechariah has identified
Him in his prophecy. We saw last week that Zechariah
spoke of his incarnation. Behold the man who is the branch. And I say to you, behold the
man who is the branch. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world. Look. Look and live. Brandon in his message a couple
of Wednesday nights ago mentioned that brazen serpent of brass
lifted up. And our Lord Jesus used that
as an illustration of the Gospel. When Moses lifted up that serpent
of brass on a pole, it was for people who had been bitten by
the fiery serpents and they were dying. And he said basically three words,
look and live. He didn't say work and live. He didn't say take grandma's
potion and live. He said, look, can you look and
live? You who are bitten by the fiery
serpent of sin, and that's you and me and everybody. If God makes you to know you're
dying, you're sin sick, well, what's the remedy, Jim? Our Lord
Jesus gave forth the remedy in John chapter 3. He said, as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, And then he said,
there's a gospel lesson there. Because he said, as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must, must the Son of Man be lifted
up. That whosoever believeth in Him,
you know what that means? Whosoever looks to Him, that's
what that means. He'll have eternal life. Would
you look? Not work, not study, not labor. Can you look to the children, to the young
people, to all of the adults here, to all of you? Can you
look? Will you look? There's life in
a look at the Savior. Look unto me, Christ said, and
be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth. Zechariah, he said, behold
the man who is the branch. I say behold him, look to him. And then Zechariah, as we studied
last week, he identified him as the Messiah who would enter
into Jerusalem. And that was fulfilled. Our Lord
Jesus, in Matthew chapter 21, made His triumph and entry into
Jerusalem. And the Scripture says, in fulfillment
of what the prophecy of Zachariah said, that the children of God
rejoice. He's coming into Jerusalem. What's
He coming to do? To save. To redeem. To reconcile. He came into Jerusalem to make
things right between this poor sinful man and a holy God. That's
why He came. No wonder three times in that
passage in Matthew 21, it says, Hosanna to the Son of David. Hosanna, be propitious to us. Show mercy on the count of the
blood sacrifice. That's what that means. And then the children took up
saying that. Hosanna to the Son of David. And the Pharisees told Christ,
said, make them shut up. Our Lord said if they was to
stop their crying, rocks and the stones would cry out for
me. Hosanna to the son of David.
He has come. And then as we studied last week,
behold his betrayal. Though he has come, he was rejected. See, that's what that selling
of the Savior for 30 pieces of silver, that's what that betrayal
indicated, rejection. Who entered into that conspiracy? Judas and all the major religious
leaders of Israel. They all hated him. They said, we're not going to
have this man rule over us. Not this man. We know who you
are. You're the son of Joseph and
Mary. We know you're brothers and sisters. You say you're the
son of God? You do these miracles by the
power of Beelzebub. That's what they said of him. They rejected him. And I ask
each of you, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? So he's David's son. And he's
David's Lord. He's the Son of God. And he's
the Son of Man. And then, Zacharias, he led us
to behold the sacrifice of Christ. You hear in chapter 12, he said
in chapter 13, verse 1, In that day there shall be a fountain
opened. Look at 13.1. In that day, there should be
a fountain open. In what day? The day of redemption. The day of our Lord's sacrificial
death. In that day, a fountain's going
to be open. Who's it going to be open to?
The house of David. Listen, when you read the house
of David, why don't you do me a favor? When you read, especially
in Zechariah, the house of David, think of it this way, the household
of Christ. Because you see, so often in
the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, when we read David's
name, the Spirit of God means for us to understand David's
son and David's Lord. So in that day there shall be
a fountain open, not for everybody, but for the household of Christ. That's who the fountain's open
for. It's for the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
God's people. What's it open for? For sin and
for uncleanness. What is this fountain? There
is a fountain filled with, what's the next word? Blood. Where did
it come from? Drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Now, listen to this part. And
sinners plunged beneath that flood. You know what happens? Lose all your guilty stains.
Can you look? Can you take the plunge into
the royal bath that God Himself has drawn for poor, unclean,
filthy sinners? Oh, God, give me a willingness
to look and to just immerse myself into the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, Christ only. He's our hope in me. Christ only
and His death. Several things I wrote down.
I don't want to take too much time. I'll tell you several things
about the death of our Lord Jesus, the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus.
Number one, it was a purposed sacrifice. He wasn't by accident. He died on purpose, according
to the eternal purpose of God. He's a lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. Number two, it was a pictured
sacrifice. That which Abraham said to Isaac,
my son, God will provide himself a lamb. His sacrifice, which was a ram
caught in the thicket. Remember the Lord told Abraham
to release Isaac and kill the ram in his stead. That pictured the sacrifice of
our Lord Jesus. God will provide himself a lamb.
The lamb was pictured. Number three, the lamb was predicted.
Read Isaiah 53 again. Read Psalm 22 again. Read any
number of passages of Scripture that predict the sacrifice of
Messiah. And number four, He was a promised
sacrifice. Throughout the Old Testament,
promise after promise after promise that He was coming. that he would
lay down his life. I'll tell you something else,
fifthly is a perfect sacrifice. Leviticus chapter 22 verse 21
says this about the sacrifices offered to God. It shall be perfect
to be accepted. God said, don't you bring me
an imperfect sacrifice. And our Lord Jesus, He was the
perfect sacrifice, and by His one offering, He perfected forever. And they were sanctified. He
perfected us. Number six, it was a precious
sacrifice. Didn't Peter say in 1 Peter 1,
you were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ? I'll tell you something else,
number seven, it was a penal sacrifice. What's that short
for? It was a sacrifice that was the
penalty of sin. So the old timers called it a
penal sacrifice. Make no mistake about it. Our
Lord Jesus, in His death, He bore our penalty. He took that
on Himself. And he suffered all the consequences
of the awfulness of our sins, which he bore in his own body
on the tree, death. And I'll tell you something else,
the death of our Lord Jesus, it was a pardoning sacrifice. You getting the idea? I started
all these with P. In whom we have redemption through
his blood. the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of his grace, Ephesians 1, 7. It was a pardoning sacrifice. And another one, it was a propitiating
sacrifice. Propitiation means satisfaction
of divine justice. It satisfied God. 1 John 2, he was a propitiation
for our sins and not for ours only, John said, but for the
sins of the world. And then, the death of our Savior
was a pleasing sacrifice. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. What does that mean? It satisfied all of God's justice
to bruise Him. Therefore, we read in Ephesians
5, 2, His sacrifice was a sweet-smelling savor to God. But here's what
I want to do this morning. I want to show you that our Lord
Jesus, as being set forth by Zachariah, who finished the work
of redemption our Lord did, He ascended and then He sent His
Spirit into the world. He gives His Spirit to work in
the hearts of folks like you and me. Here in chapter 12, And verse
number 10, the Lord says, and I will pour upon the house of
David, that is upon the house of Christ, the household of Christ,
and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, God's people, the spirit of grace
and of supplications. And they shall look upon me That is a very key word in this
passage of Scripture. Because the one who's speaking
is the Lord God of glory. This is Jehovah speaking. He
said, I'm going to pour upon the house of Christ, and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the city of God, the Spirit of
grace and of supplications. And they shall look upon Me, We're back again. We've kind
of come full circle to looking to Christ to live. They shall
look on Me. What will be the result of the
working of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women
and young people? We will look to Christ. That's what we'll do for everything. And of course, people who dare
to deny the deity of our Lord Jesus, they have great difficulty
with this. And they should have great difficulty
not only with this, but a multitude of scriptures. Because this is
the Lord speaking. The Lord is speaking. And He
says, as a result of the work of the Spirit of grace and of
supplications, and I'll get to that in a minute, they shall
look upon Me whom they have pierced. And they
shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be
in bitterness for him. as one that is in bitterness
for His firstborn. Our Lord Jesus came and did the
work that God gave Him to do, which is to save His people from
their sins. He went away from His disciples
and He told them, He said, if I go not away, if I don't go,
if I don't go to redeem, If I don't go to die, if I don't go to reconcile,
if I don't go to pay your sin debt, the Spirit won't come. Won't be any reason for Him to
come if I don't do my work. There'd be no Savior to look
to. There'd be no Redeemer for the Spirit to point out to you. He said, if I go not away, the
Comforter won't come. But if I go away, I'll send Him. And our Lord Jesus, having accomplished
the work of redemption He was sent to do, having died, was
buried, He arose again. Forty days later, He went back
to heaven. And he told his disciples before
he left, said, now y'all just stay together here, and you're
anxious to preach the gospel, but wait till I pour out my Spirit. And you'll know when that happens,
and they did. And all of you have read, I'm
sure, Acts chapter 2, when the Lord Jesus sent the Spirit and
the fullness of His power He referred to the Spirit of God
as the promise of the Father. He said, I'll send you another
comforter, one like unto myself. I'm not going to leave you comfortless,
he said. And what that means is I'm not
going to leave you as orphans. While there's somebody equal
with me, the third person of the Trinity, I'm going to send
him. He'll comfort you. He'll be with
you. and He's going to lead you into
all the truth that you need to know. He teaches us the gospel. He
teaches us how God can be just and justify the ungodly. Let's look at it virtually phrase
by phrase. He says, and I will pour. The
Lord says, I will pour upon the house of Christ. I will pour.
Doesn't the word pour indicate an abundance? The Lord is not
a, He doesn't give in a miserly way. If He gives, He's got to
give in an abundant way. I will pour, I will pour. Oh, the work of the Spirit of
God is certain. Because our Lord Jesus has been
glorified and He sent His Spirit. I will pour upon the house of
David, upon the house of Christ and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the Spirit of grace, the Spirit who teaches you grace. Listen,
all of the grace that God has for sinners is in Christ Jesus. We know that. Well, how do we
learn of that grace? By the Spirit of grace. He teaches
us. He teaches us, not by your works, not by your obedience, not by
your church attendance, not by morality, not by living by the
golden rule, but by grace you're saved. That's what the Spirit
of God teaches. By grace, you see, He pours out
grace into the heart. Grace floods the heart. By nature,
you see, we all think the more I do for God, the more God will
do for me. That's the way everybody thinks,
by nature. And then the Spirit of truth
comes in and He teaches us, not by works, not by the deeds of
the law, but by His grace and mercy God saves. And He just
pours in the grace. And grace floods the soul. I'll tell you, after that happens,
you'll say, I'm saved by grace. That'll be your song. Your song
will be, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch
like me. I once was lost, but now I'm
found. I was blind, but now I see. I
owe it all to grace. The Spirit of God, He is the
communicator of grace, you see. Grace isn't just a word that's
out there somewhere that we've never experienced it. Grace,
the Spirit of grace, He pours grace into the heart. And you
become a grace believer. Somebody starts talking about
works to you and say, no, no, no, no! I'm a graced man! I'm a graced woman! What happened to you? The Spirit
of grace come into your heart. And the Spirit of supplication. I'll tell you something, when
the Spirit of God comes into your heart, He causes you to
be an entreater of God. That is, you become a beggar.
Oh yeah. You make supplication to God.
Like there in Luke chapter 18, I believe it is, where the publican
and the Pharisee were in the temple. The Pharisee bragged
about what he was and all he had done. Glad he wasn't like
everybody else. Especially glad he wasn't like
that publican. All the publican could do was
stand afar off and beat on his chest. He said, Oh God, hear
his supplication now. This is a supplication the Spirit
of grace put in his heart. God, be merciful to me. I'm the sinner. Who put that
cry in there? Who put that supplication in
there? The Spirit of grace and of supplication. Lord, show me mercy. Oh God,
I deserve nothing from You, but I'm a beggar. And I wait at Your
nail-scarred feet. Oh God, show me mercy on account
of Your sacrifice. You make supplication to the
Lord. See, that's what happens when the Spirit of grace and
of supplication comes to you. And then we'll look to Christ.
That's when we'll look. As a result of the work of the
Spirit of grace. They'll look upon me, but now
he's got more to say. Whom they have pierced, as one mourneth for his only
son and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn. What is he talking about here?
He's talking about repentance. Repentance. I know that there's a general
repentance that the Lord brings us to. We're sorry for all of
our sins, and we turn away from our sins. We turn to Christ.
We turn from our idols. We turn from our works. We turn
from all those things we thought were good deeds, and we turn
from the bad deeds and the bad thoughts and so forth. But that's
not a full understanding of repentance right there. What is it that really causes
the soul to weep? It's when you are made to realize
that the reason Jesus Christ was pierced was not because of
what Herod did, not because of what Pilate did, not because
of what the Roman soldiers did, not because of what the Sanhedrin
did. He died because of my sins. That's why he died. My sins pierced
him. That's a whole other ballgame
there. People talk about who killed Jesus. My sins did. Your sins did. See, that's real repentance.
They shall weep. Look at it. They shall look upon
me whom they pierced and they shall mourn. They shall mourn
because they're made to realize by the Spirit of truth, the reason
Jesus Christ had to die on the cross and suffer the wrath of
God was because of my sins. Turn to Acts chapter two. Let
me show you this, Acts chapter two. And all of you will recognize
this is the portion of scripture that tells us of the coming and
the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter begins to preach to them.
He talked about the death of our Lord Jesus. Every gospel
preacher does. That isn't merely the theme of
our message. Christ and Him crucified is our
message. There's nothing else worth saying.
There's nothing else worth preaching. Nothing else will honor God.
Nothing else will do the souls of men and women and young people
any good but Christ and His sacrifice for sin. I hope you see that. Peter said this in verse 36. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly, Acts 2.36, that God hath made this, that
same Jesus, and he sticks it to him again. He puts the knife
into him again. Whom ye have crucified, you killed
God's Son. But God's made him both Lord
and Christ. Now look at verse 37. And when
they heard this, They were pricked in their heart.
They said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and
brethren, what shall we do? We have pierced the Son of God. What shall we do? And then Peter said unto them,
In light of the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the sins of his people that made his death necessary, repent. I'm telling you, repentance must
be true repentance will always be attached to a sight of the
wounded, bruised, bleeding, pierced son of God who died for your
sins. That's what will break your heart. And if that doesn't break your
heart, nothing else will. Peace said repent and then acknowledge
that by being baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ because of the remission of sins. True repentance is grief in the heart Now turning
from sin, because you understand this, it was my sins that nailed
him there. You see that? Every believer,
you need to see that, and you do. My sins put him on that cross.
And I'll tell you, when you see what your sins did to him, you'll
weep, like somebody who weeps for their only son. That's what
Zachariah said there in chapter 12. And he makes mention, and
I won't go into it in detail, he makes mention of something
that happened in a battle. King Josiah, who was the last
godly king of Judah, He was wounded seriously in a battle and they
took him to Jerusalem to try to help him. And he died in Jerusalem
and all of Judah wept and mourned because they knew King Josiah. He died, he died in the service
of his people. It broke their hearts. And it'll
break your heart when you see that Christ Jesus hung on that
cross and suffered, bled, and died on account of your sins. But now wait a minute. Unlike
Josiah, our Lord Jesus came back from the dead. And he ever lives
to make intercession for his people. The man who is the branch. Look
to Christ. Look and live. That's the message. Look and live. Let's get our
psalm books and we'll sing one verse of our last song this morning,
which is, All hail the power of Jesus'
name, number 42.