And just following the words
with her as she sang, and indeed a great blessing in the words
and in the presentation of the song. Let's go to the book of
Exodus this morning. Exodus chapter 29. Exodus chapter
29. Let's seek God's face once again
before we go into the message. Lord, we bow before You. Thou art our help and our strength. And there is no greater responsibility
that You can lay upon a man than for that man to stand before
others and set forth the message of your free grace, the message
of your gospel, that delightful record that you have given to
us of your Son and His work of redemption upon the cross. a
work which He finished to your satisfaction. And having done that work that
you sent Him to do, He who died, arose, and then ascended, and
Father there at your right hand, He is seated, our Savior, our
Brother, and our King. We have come together to worship
Him, to set forth His message of redeeming grace and love. Lord, now we ask that Your Spirit
would be with us, enabling me to sound forth a clear note of
the good news of redeeming grace And may the Spirit not only bless
and minister through me, but may He bless these who are seated
before me, and bless those who are watching. Lord, we are beggars of Your
mercy. You owe us nothing but death
and judgment for the wages of our sins. But there is the Savior
of sinners. Lord, we appeal to Him. We appeal
to His bloody death. And we ask You, O Father, to
see the blood of our Savior and forgive us. May we stand in the
beauties and in the righteousness of Your Son. Speak to those especially
who are far off from God. Those who are lost, dead in sins. Lord, a miracle has to be done
within them. And only You can do it. So we
praise You that You're the God who raises the dead. And there
are many of us here this morning, and many who are watching, we're
the evidence that God quickens the dead. And He gives life to
undeserving sinners through the Lord Jesus. So, Father, take
the things of our Savior and show them unto us today by Your
Spirit. These things we ask for the glory
of our Savior and in His name. Amen. I have read these two verses
to you before. but I want to read them to you
again. And that is here in Exodus 29,
verses 42 and 43. And here's my subject. Where
God meets the sinner. Where God meets the sinner. You'll notice even before I read
these words This idea of God meeting a sinner wasn't initiated
by God or by man. It wasn't started by man. It
was initiated, it was begun, it was started by God. Man has
no idea how God can meet with him in mercy and in justice. And so, this is all of God. And he says here in verse 42,
Exodus 29, there shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your
generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation
before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak there unto
thee. And there, And if I may add,
and nowhere else, and there I will meet, God says. What a mercy. What a grace. God says there
I will meet. with the children of Israel. And the tabernacles shall be
sanctified by my glory." Two things that God sets forth
here when He says He's going to meet with them. Two things
were necessary. There had to be an altar. There had to be an altar. And
there had to be a sacrifice. And God prescribes what the altar
will be. He has already given to Moses
the instructions of the building of the brazen altar. And then
God has, and Ron read to us from Leviticus chapter 1, He has also
assigned various animals that He would accept as an offering. Back in the book of Genesis when
God made Adam and then took a rib from him and made his wife. God met with them, we can be
very confident of that, and they met with God. Now, we don't know
how long it was after the creation of man and the making of the
woman from the rib of Adam. We don't know how long it was
before the fall, but we do know that Adam fell. He transgressed
God's law. He had heard, as was stated in
Genesis 2, God said, in the day ye eat thereof, you will surely
die. Of all the trees of the garden,
God put one in the middle. It's called the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. And God said, now you can eat
of every other fruit. That's fine. Enjoy them. Bless
Me for them. Thank Me for them. But of the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, You shall not
eat of it, for in the day ye eat thereof, you'll surely die." And I'm very confident that Adam
shared that command with his wife, whom he would later name
Eve. But I also know this, they had
no idea what death was. God said to Adam, in the day
ye eat thereof. He didn't say if you eat, He
says in the day ye eat thereof. God already knew what was going
to happen. He's purposed all of this before
He made the world. There would be sin. Sin must
enter into this world. Man must fall because only in
that way could God's greatest glory be manifested in the death
of His Son to save sinners. And so God says, death, that's
going to be the penalty. And neither Adam nor his wife
could understand exactly what death was. There was no death
in the garden. Nothing ever died. That's a hard
thing for us to comprehend. There was no death of any animal.
There were multitudes of animals and God gave Adam such wisdom
that he named them all. But never did any of those animals
die. There was no death. And of all
the trees and flowers and plants and vegetables and all the things
it grew, all the herbs of the garden in Eden's beautiful paradise,
none of those ever died. And so, I've often wondered what
entered into Adam's mind when God said, in the day ye eat thereof,
you'll surely die. Well, I don't know what concept
he had of death, but when he rebelled against God, and he
ate of that fruit that God told him not to eat of, and by the
way, that fruit, it was just This edict of God, this very
command of God was to remind Adam and his wife that there
is one who is greater than you. I'm God. That tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, that stands continually as evidence of the
fact that I'm the sovereign one. I made you. I made all things
that are in this garden. And I tell you as your authority,
as your creator and as your God, don't eat of it. Because when you do, you'll die. And Adam dared to defy God. This is out and out rebellion.
This is a treason committed against the Creator. And Adam, he sinned. He took the fruit. He willed
to eat. That's where sin first begins
within. He willed to eat and then he
ate. And then he died. He didn't die
physically, not then. But he began to bear the image
of what death would bring him to. He began to age. And he began
to get sick. And then God cursed the earth
because of Adam. But once Adam had sinned, he
and his wife recognized that they were naked. The Scripture
says their eyes were opened. You see, God made them in a state
of innocency, and the state of innocency, or righteousness,
according to the book of Psalms, is likened unto light. And when their eyes were opened,
they realized, they recognized the fact they're naked. And their
physical nakedness is intended to teach us of their spiritual
nakedness. and they lost the very light
of the countenance of God. I think that's how that they
knew that something awful had happened. All of a sudden, the
light went out, as it were. That glory that God gave them,
that innocence that they had, they lost it. They lost it. And immediately, Adam sought
to do two things. Number one, make for his nakedness
an apron. Not a coat, as God would make
them. Not a robe, but an apron. And they made them out of fig
leaves. They did that. You see, man by
nature, ever since the fall of Adam, he thinks he can make himself
presentable to meet with God. That's what we're talking about.
Here's also where God meets the sinner. And Adam immediately
has this idea, as does his wife, The only way God's going to meet
with us, if there is a meeting, is that our nakedness has got
to be covered. And so the first thing He does
is He gets some leaves together and He makes for Himself an apron.
And the second thing He does, when He hears the voice of God
calling, He runs from God. He doesn't even want a meeting.
He doesn't want God to meet with them, and he doesn't want them
to meet with God. He made a garment of his own
making, by his own hands, by his own works, by his own labor. And then he wanted to avoid any
meeting with God, so he ran from God and he hid. But once again,
we see it's God who initiates the meeting. You've got to remember
this now. Where God meets the sinner. He
will meet the sinner wherever he appoints and whenever he appoints. Why her? And when? And he comes
after Adam and Eve. And I say, he does. It's the
Son of God. You say, how do you know this
is the Son of God? Because when God speaks, He speaks
through His Son. God's not going to speak to nor
be spoken to by any son or daughter of Adam except through a mediator.
Please remember that. And we've said that hundreds
of times, I'm sure. And it will be hundreds more
times if the Lord gives us breath to say it. If He ever speaks
to us, if He ever meets with us, He meets with us and He speaks
to us through this mediator, through this advocate, through
this go-between, the Lord Jesus. And the one who spoke to Adam
and to his wife was the Son of God. And then He illustrated what
He was going to do For rebel sinners, many, many
years in the future, about 4,000 years later, there stood Adam
and his wife before him, before the Son of God. The fig leaf
aprons have to come off. You can't wear two garments. You'll either have the righteousness
of the Son of God, and therefore you're accepted in Him, or you'll
be dressed in your own fig leaf apron of your own making. And
then you'll perish. If God's going to meet with you,
He's got to do something about that unrighteousness. He's got
to do something about that fig leaf apron. And He took it off
of them. And there they stood before the
eyes of an all-seeing God, naked. What will God do with us? God said, Adam said to his wife,
he said, God said we're going to die. No hope for us, honey. But there was hope. because God did not just wipe
them off the face of His earth, and He didn't send them to hell.
He stripped them of their garments that they had made, and He made
garments for them Himself. And the way He did it was He
killed two animals. Blood was shed. Adam, do you want to know what
death is? Look what God did to those animals. And I suspect lambs. I don't think that's a far-reaching
idea there. I don't think that's out of the
question. And they watched as our Lord in pre-incarnate form,
as He killed A lamb and then another lamb. One for Adam and
one for Eve. And they watched that life, that
life flow going out of the lamb's blood. Where is God going to meet the
sinner? He's going to meet the sinner
at the sacrifice of blood. That's where He's going to meet
the sinner. He killed those animals and He
skinned them. Adam, come over here. Yes, Lord. And He puts His skin around him
and hugs him, I'm assuming, and says something like this, I love
you. But for you to live, an innocent
victim's got to die in your stead. And this is a picture of what
is going to happen to me. I'm going to die for sinners
just like you, Adam. For all those the Father gave
me in covenant grace, I'm going to die in their stead. And they'll
be covered with my righteousness. Oh, thank you, Lord. Oh, thank
you, Lord. Eve, come over here. She's just shaking. Eve, here's my garment I provided
for you. You didn't have anything to do
with it, did you, Eve? No, Lord. This is all my work,
isn't it, Eve? Yes, Lord. I love you. It's a picture of the righteousness
I'm going to establish by my obedience unto death, even the
death of the cross of Calvary. And they lived. And God right there established
that He would meet with sinners. But it would only be by means
of the sacrifice, the bloody sacrifice of one who was altogether innocent
of any guilt. God Almighty required blood. And for the Lord to abide the
presence of Adam and Eve, there had to be bloodshed. And then
He would meet them there at the east of the Garden of Eden. where
the angels of God were with swords blocking the way back into the
garden. And most every commentator of
any value says, that's where God had an altar. That's where
Adam and Eve came to worship. That's where Abel came to worship.
Abel came and brought the firstlings of his flock. God says, this
is where I'm going to meet you. This is where I'm going to meet
you. I'm going to meet you right here at this altar. And I'm going
to meet you at the blood of sacrifice. And from Adam up to Moses, men
who wanted to worship God would first of all put some stones
together for an altar, and then they would kill an animal, shedding
its blood. And thus we learn, without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. When Noah came out of the ark,
he did two things immediately. Number one, He built an altar. Number two, he offered a sacrifice. He wanted God to meet with them. And he wanted to worship God.
He wanted to adore God. As soon as it got off, as soon
as it got off the ark, first thing, pile some rocks together. And then get those, you know,
he brought several clean animals. And he killed them and offered
them to God. And all the way up to Moses.
That's how men worshiped God. Wherever they wanted to worship
God, they built an altar. That's what Abraham did. It's
what Isaac did. It's what Jacob did. On and on,
up to the time of Moses. And the children of Israel were
in Egyptian bondage. And when they came out, God taught
them through the giving of His law, This is where I'm going
to meet you now. I initiated this. I began this
back in the garden. But as it was back then when
Adam fell and the way I met with him, that's how I'm going to
meet with you. That has not changed. God said, I'll meet you at the
brazen altar where the blood sacrifice is there before me. That's where
I'll meet you. And I hasten to say this, we
have today an altar and we have a sacrifice that has already
been sacrificed, a blood sacrifice. The altar is our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no altar in a Baptist
church, a Catholic church, a Presbyterian church, any other kind of church.
There is no altar here. Our altar is in glory at the
right hand of God. He's our altar. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 10 says
that. We have an altar. And this One who is our altar,
He offered the sacrifice of His own body upon the altar of His
deity. What did God demand? Death. That's the penalty for sin. God
said that to Adam way back yonder. Death. What's going to satisfy
God? You think God is so loving and
tender and kind and merciful that He'll just pretend sin never
happened? That there was never any attack
upon His sovereignty? Do you think there was never
any attack upon His authority? Every sin is an attack against
God Himself, against His sovereign authority. David said, against
thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. God's got to be appeased. Something
has to be done about His wrath. The wages of sin is death. And the wages of all of God's
people, the wages of sin that everybody
who believes in Him had been paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, God Almighty requires
blood. Either yours, you think about
this, either yours or a suitable substitute. But it's got to be
a substitute suitable unto God, He's got to be suitable to us
too. He's got to meet all of God's
requirements. He's got to be perfect. He's
got to be obedient. He's even got to know the mind
of God and the attitude of God towards sin. Nobody knows what
sin is and the hideousness of it and the awfulness of it, save
God Himself. The Son of God knows. And the Son of God, He became
incarnate, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Man. And He knows our neediness. He knows. He came down here and
He walked on this earth for what, 33, 34, some people say nearly
35 years. He saw the effects of sin. He saw what man had become. He saw the needs of His people. And He knew what had to be done.
Why, He knew what had to be done from before the foundation of
the world. And He came to do it. He came to be the altar. He came
to be the sacrifice. And now, hear me, God says, that's
where I'll meet you. You want God to meet with you?
It's got to be an altar, and it's got to be a blood sacrifice.
Dad just chiseled it in stone. It's just got to be that way. Our Lord Jesus is the altar, and He is the blood sacrifice.
You see Him dying upon the cross of Calvary, shedding His blood
to His death, That's what God demanded. And
that's the work He came to do. So often during His ministry,
He talked about the work that the Father gave Him. And then He said, it's finished.
I have finished that work You gave Me to do, Father. It is
finished. The brazen altar, the first piece
of furniture we met at the tabernacle. It was the largest piece of furniture
and the first one you'd meet. It had to have fire on it all
the time. And if we read the rest of the
verses around this, and we have already, It especially sets forth
the fact that there was a morning sacrifice and an evening sacrifice. And stressing the fact that this
is where God says, I'll meet you, but it's always going to
be in association with a sacrifice. The picture we had before us, I would put it this way. Here's
a guilty Israelite, and he wants God to meet with him, and he
wants to meet with God. So he goes out to his little
fenced-in area that he's got outside his tent, because he's
worshiping God, wants to worship God. They're all in tents and
they have some kind of make-do pen for their animals, for their
cattle and for their flock. And he goes out there and he
finds him a lamb. It's a male of the first year.
in the very strength of his life. No blemishes, no spots, nothing
that he can observe is wrong with that lamb. He picks out
the very best one. He says to his wife and his children,
now this is for God. This is for God. Christ is the perfect sacrifice. Who did no sin, neither was any
gall found in his mouth. God chose the sacrifice. And
then the Israelite, he brings his sacrifice to the priest. And the priest inspects it, makes
sure it's worthy to be a sacrifice, suitable for atonement. And our
Lord Jesus lived in this in this life, in this world, under the
watchful eye of the Father, who inspected His every move, who
listened to His every word, who read His every thought. He must be perfect, you see,
to be accepted by God. And God's God's conclusion. He's perfect. He's perfect. And right before He was to die,
Pontius Pilate said, I find no fault in this man. That's it. No fault. He's got to be a no
fault lamb. He's the Lamb of God without
fault. And then here's the third thing
that's got to happen. Go back to that Israelite. He
goes and he picks out a lamb, then he brings it to the priest,
and the priest inspects it. Yes, you brought me a good one. He said, well, it's the
best one I've got. I'll tell you that. A handsome little lamb. Third
thing. Then that Israelite with his
family, he laid his hand upon the head of that lamb. What was the meaning of that?
A symbolic transference of guilt. There wasn't any transfer of
guilt because that lamb couldn't put anybody's sins away. Hebrews
10 says the blood of bulls and goats could never put away sin.
So the blood of that lamb is not going to pay anybody's sin
debt. It's not going to put away the sins of that Israelite nor
his family. But it symbolizes a transference
of guilt. But when our Lord Jesus died,
there was a transference of guilt. Our guilt became his guilt. What do we get in this transaction? A perfect garment. Righteousness. That's what we get in this transaction. A Bible word is reckon or impute. Our guilt imputed to Him. His righteousness imputed to
us. Wow! What an exchange. It's like Adam and Eve when they
walked away. Adam said to Eve, what do you
think of this garment? Sure beats that little apron
of fig leaves we made, don't it? Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. And we come to Christ Jesus,
believing Him, looking to Him for salvation, and our fig leaf
aprons fall off, and we're robed in the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God Himself approves. Because
it is a garment of His provision. God will receive that which He
has provided. Always remember that. So he lays his hand on the Lamb.
Symbolic transference of guilt. And we, as it were, lay our hand
on the Lord Jesus. Confess our sin. I bow to you,
Lord. I'm a sinner. I deserve to die. But I lean all my hopes on your
Lamb. The Lamb of God. That's what
faith is. That's what faith is. And as that man watched the lamb, he then took a knife. As he looked
at that lamb, he took a knife. I suppose the priest gave it
to him and he killed that lamb. And blood started spurting out,
squirting out all over the place. And the priest takes that bloody
lamb and lays it up on top of the brazen altar. There's a fire
roaring up there. He pushes it back. The fire's
consuming the lamb. And I'll tell you what, our Lord
Jesus died. But before He died, He endured
the very heat of God's wrath. Now with that lamb that the man
offered, the fire consumed it, burned it up. They'd take the
ashes away later, outside the gate and put them in a place
where no ashes had been poured. But our Lord Jesus, He endured
the very fury of God's wrath and He satisfied God. He consumed
God's anger against our sins. He consumed our guilt and God's
vengeance. And as it were, the fire went
out then. As far as God's people are concerned,
there's no fire. There's no wrath. There's no
vengeance. What does all this mean? What's
the significance of this solemn ceremony? Why was it done? It
was done to picture our Lord Jesus and His sacrifice for sin. God says, this is where I'm going
to meet you now. Now, you want to meet with God? You want God
to meet with you? I do. And you see, that's one
of the reasons I'm preaching this message this morning is
because I want God to meet with us. You there who are watching
by way of the Internet, I want God to meet with you. This is
the only way He will meet with anybody. There's got to be an
altar. There's got to be a sacrifice. Christ is both. In that passage of Scripture,
Ron read to us the animals, the various kind
of animals that God said you can bring to worship Him. A bullhook. That picture is our Lord's strength.
He's mighty to save. He labored for the salvation
of His people. Salvation, is it by works? Yes,
it's by His works. Not by works of righteousness,
which we've done, but by His mercy He saved us, and by His
labor upon the cross of Calvary. The bullock pictured the very
strength of our Lord Jesus. God said, I've laid help upon
one who is mighty. And then He read to us about,
if you sacrifice me from the flock, a lamb, harmless, meekness,
innocence, that's our Savior. Lay it as a lamb to the slaughter. And a goat. It could be a goat.
Goat was useful for food and for milk. Christ is meat and
drink to us. He's the one who strengthens
us. And then, for the very poor, the Lord said, you can bring
turtledoves. Harmless. That's our Savior. He's harmless. The Savior said
to His disciples, be ye as wise as serpents and as harmless as
doves. That's our Savior. The Scripture says our Lord Jesus
was holy and harmless. Holy tells us what Christ was. God-ward and harmless. That's what Christ was manward. Holy and harmless. The turtle
dove. Or He could bring two young pigeons. That's what Mary and Joseph brought
in Luke chapter 2. Pigeons were so numerous, so
abundant, why anybody could grab hold of a pigeon. My friend, Christ Jesus is the
Savior for sinners. Are you interested? Are you interested? Oh, may God begin a work in you. See, this meeting with God, it's
of God and of God only. This is all His. Salvation's
of the Lord. He begins it. and He ends it. And He gets the glory. That's
why we love to sing, Glory to His Name. Get your psalm books
out, would you? And let's turn to 489, I believe
it is. Number 489. And we're going to
sing, Glory to His Name. And this will be our final hymn
of the morning. It has been good to be here this
morning. I believe God has met with us
because we've It set forth the altar and the
sacrifice of His Son. So let's stand and sing glory
to His name, 489. glory to