Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's go to the book of Exodus
this evening and we'll get into chapter Exodus 21 this evening. Exodus chapter 21. And I'll go ahead and read the
first six verses to you. Exodus chapter 21 verse 1. Now these are the judgments which
thou shalt set before them. If thou by a Hebrew servant six
years he shall serve. And in the seventh, he shall
go out free for nothing. And if he came in by himself,
he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his
wife shall go out with him. On the other hand, if his master
hath given him a wife, and she hath borne him sons or daughters,
the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall
go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly
say, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children,
I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him
unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the
door, and to the door, or unto the doorpost. And his master
shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him
forever. And I'll stop our reading there
with verse 6. Let's ask God to bless as we
go into the Word of God. It is so good of you, Father,
to bring us under the sound of the Word of God again. The Word of the Gospel. the message of glad tidings of
good things. Oh, what good things are in store
for those in whose stead the Redeemer has laid down His life. There can only be good things
for those that you in covenant love joined unto your Son. There shall no condemnation come
to those people. There shall no curse be passed
on those people. They shall forevermore shine
in the beauty of the righteousness of their eternal surety. These
are those that you gave Him. in the covenant of promise. These are those that you entrusted
to Him. He who received us as our surety,
as our Savior. He who is our offering for sin. He who represented us when He
laid down His life He died not for sins of His own, but for
our sins, which were made His in a very mysterious way by imputation. And there, upon the cross of
Calvary, He bore all of your wrath in the stead of your beloved
children. and there is therefore now no
condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, in Him from
old eternity, in Him when He lived, in Him when He died, in
Him when He was buried, in Him when He arose, in Him when He
ascended And even in him, this very moment, joined him by everlasting
grace. Oh God, thank you for our Savior. Thank you for your everlasting
purpose of redemption. We gather this evening to bless
you, to thank you, We meet together to worship you. Thou art our God, our Creator,
our Sustainer, and Thou art our Savior. We honor you, Father. We honor
that one you sent to save us, We honor the spirit of truth
who took the word of the gospel, this incorruptible seed, and
made use of it to such earthen dead vessels as we are. Now we
live to your glory. We thank you that that life which
you gave us in Christ Jesus is a life that will never be snuffed
out. It is indeed everlasting life. And so we thank you. Bless our
time together as we look into the word of the gospel. These
things we ask for your glory in the name of Christ our Savior
and Lord bless us with this word. For Jesus' sake, Amen. The Old Testament Scriptures
are absolutely full of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sure you're
very well aware of that. I was reading earlier this week
in the book of Revelation about the city of God to which we're
going. that city that hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is God, and of that city we read in Revelation
chapter 21, that that city has no need of the sun to shine by
day, or the moon to shine by night, because that city is lit
up by the glory of God. And the scripture says of the
Lamb of God, He is the light thereof. As I thought about the
Old Testament, and you know the Old Testament is without Christ
Jesus, without an understanding of the gospel, of how God saves
sinners. The Old Testament scriptures
are dark, They're foreboding, very mysterious,
and very obscure. But if the Spirit of Grace, if
He speaks to us, and if He opens our understanding, and if He
enlightens us with His grace and by His wisdom, then we will
see that of these dark Old Testament passages of Scripture that the
Lamb of God, He is indeed the light thereof. You see, the Holy Spirit inspired
Moses to write the first five books of the Bible. Genesis is the book of beginnings,
And it starts with the creation. Well, who is the creator? Well,
as you go to the New Testament, you find that the Son of God
is the creator. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. And then we read this in John
chapter 1 and verse 3. All things were made by Him. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. And so the Bible begins by letting
us know that that one who is our Savior, that one who is our
Redeemer, well, He's our Creator. He made us. And then having introduced
Himself as the God of creation, we then learn from His own lips
in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15 that he is the seed of the
woman he is the coming seed because Adam got us in a mess we all
inherited a deadly disease and this one who is the creator he
lets us know that he is the remedy for the disease of sin that is
he is with his work of redemption. And so, the book of Genesis,
all of a sudden, it comes to light. We see Him. We see Him. Not as clearly as
we do in the New Testament, But we do see him in the light of
the New Testament as being our savior. Then we get to the book
of Exodus. Moses wrote the book of Exodus.
And of course the book of Exodus is full of redemption. It's full
of redemption. It's full of substitution. And our Lord Jesus is that redeemer
and he is that substitute. We have studied oft times the
blood of the Passover lamb. And there's no question about
it. The New Testament, it tells us
about this mystery. Why all the writings about the
lamb? The lamb who was smitten. The
lamb who died. The lamb whose blood was sprinkled. Why the emphasis on the Lamb? And then we get to the New Testament,
we find out because all of those lambs were directing us to the
Lamb of God. And so then the book of Exodus
suddenly, it's illuminated in our hearts. And we have an understanding
then of Genesis. There's the creator, the seed
of the woman. And then in the book of Exodus
we see that this one who is the creator and the seed of the woman
is our redeemer. He's the one who bought us. And
he bought us out of slavery. We were enslaved to sin and to
Satan. And of course, God's law, it
had a claim on us. It held us for ransom. It demanded
the exact price to be paid for us. Otherwise, it would keep
us forever and put us in the dungeon. But now we understand
through the illuminating spirit of grace that we have a Redeemer. We have one who's already paid
our debt. He's already ransomed us. He's
already freed us. He's already redeemed us. And though we don't know about
it before regeneration, we will learn about it. But we'll learn
that the work of redemption, the work of saving us, the work
of reconciling us to God is a work that's already been done. And
the Spirit of God casts great light upon that work of our Savior. And then we get to the book of
Leviticus. And in the book of Leviticus, we learn this, that
there is a right way to come to God. That's what the book
of Leviticus is about. You can't come to God just any
old way. There's one way. And as you get into the book
of Leviticus, we find out the right way to worship God. Well, let's see, you've got to
have a priest, you've got to have an altar, you've got to
have an animal, there's got to be death, and there's got to
be blood. And you read about that in the
book of Leviticus, and you say, wow, why this emphasis on blood? And then as you read the book
of Leviticus, you find out it's always the blood before the Lord. Those sacrifices, they were for
God. And now we know that that Creator,
the seed of the woman, that Redeemer, He had to die. He had to do something
for God. So that God then would in turn
save us and redeem us and all of our sins were washed away
by the blood of the cross of Calvary. And the Spirit of God
teaches us this is the way to come to God. You come to God
by blood, blood-sprinkled way. You come to God by death path. The death of the Son of God. He is the priest. He is the altar. He is the sacrifice. It is His
death. It is His blood. And then all
of a sudden, this mysterious book of Leviticus, it's like
the Spirit of God just shines the light of illumination on
it, and we see, oh, in Genesis, in Exodus, and then in Leviticus,
the Lamb is the light thereof. And then we get to the book of
Numbers. And in the book of Numbers, We're reminded that all of the
people of God, all of the pilgrims of the Lord, we're wandering
through a wilderness. We're traveling through a wilderness.
Yes, we're going to get to the land of promise. We're going
to get to glory. But there are going to be obstacles
out there. There are going to be crooks
and turns that will be in our way. But we learn in the book
of Numbers, we have a guide. We have someone who's directing
us. Who is it? It's the creator of
Genesis. It's that seed of the woman.
It's that redeemer. It's that one who shed his blood
to save us. He's the way we worship God.
You can't come to God any old way. You come to God through
Christ Jesus. You don't come through a dead
saint. You don't come through the church.
You don't come through a preacher. You come to God by way of the
sacrifice, and that's the Lord Jesus. And this One who died
for us and was buried and rose again because of our justification,
He's the One who leads us. He's the One who's guiding us
through this wilderness. I don't know the way. And you
don't know the way. But our Lord knows the way. He
knows the way through the wilderness because He's led all of His pilgrims
through it already. And He's leading you. And He's
leading me. And then we get to the book of
Deuteronomy and Moses wrote that. The book of Deuteronomy is the
reading of the law of God for the second time and it's full
of Christ Jesus. It's full of sovereign grace. It's full of the people of the
covenant. And we find out as the lamb who
is the light thereof shines in the book of Deuteronomy, we find
out we're the people of God. We're His children. And it's the way it is all the
way through the Old Testament. And if we could learn that, and
I know many of us, we've been taught this for years and years,
but you can't hear it too often, believe me. That in the Old Testament,
it is there as it's going to be in the New Jerusalem. In the city of God, in the Old
Testament, the Lamb is the light thereof. Now these six verses
of scripture that I have read to you from the book of Exodus
chapter 21, I want to show you that the Lamb is the light thereof
in this little brief portion of scripture that we have here. In Exodus chapter 20, there has
been a presentation of the law of God. That's what I was going
to preach about this morning, and the Lord willing, I'm holding
that message in reserve for whatever purpose the Lord didn't have
me preach it today. But the Lord willing, I will
preach at least a version of it next week. By tomorrow, it's
already getting stale in my mind, so I'll work it up again and
do some more studying on it. Like I say, for whatever reason,
God didn't have me preach it this morning, but will next Lord's
Day morning, God willing. That's the beginning of God giving
his law. Now, here's what I want to say.
The law of God given on Mount Sinai was one law. One law, one body of truth. But it was one law with three
divisions. I think we can say it that way,
three divisions. The divisions would be the moral
law, then the civil law, and then what they called the ceremonial
law. Moral law, of course we already
read, we did so last week, Exodus chapter 20, the Ten Commandments. summarized correctly in the New
Testament, that thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbors as yourself.
There it is. There's the moral law of God.
There's a summation of it. And those laws, those ten commandments,
the Decalogue, they are very, very demanding. They demand exact obedience,
which you can't render to it. But that's what God demands.
Perfect obedience. This is the moral law of God.
It's good. It's a good law. I'll talk to
you more about that next week. Only one man ever kept that law
perfectly. that One who came from heaven
above and was made under the Law. Why was He made under the
Law? To redeem those that were under
the Law. in order that we would receive
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself. The first phase of the law, the
first division of the law then, is the moral law. And then there
is what we'd call the civil law, and that's what's set forth in
chapters 21, 22, and 23 of the Book of Exodus, and it pertains
to the social, conduct, the interaction of the
Israelites with one another, chapters 21, 22, and 23. And
then you get to what is typically called the ceremonial laws. That's the religious aspect of
the law, the worship of God, which is especially set forth
in the book of Leviticus. So the moral law of God says
forth, God demands upon Israel pertaining to God, and also pertaining
to others, and the basis of those laws is God's own authority. He's the creator. What right
does God have to tell me what to do? What right does God have
to lay down these ten statutes and then demand these must be
kept? Or death would be the result. Well, He's God. That's the reason he can set
these things down. He has absolute authority over
all people, places, and things. And the civil laws then have
to do with the social life of Israel. The ceremonial laws have
to do with the worship of the Lord. Now here in Exodus chapter
21, the first six verses, here the Lord begins to set forth
the civil laws that he gave to Israel, which is what these next
three chapters are all about. I want to look at this first
one tonight, the Law of the Hebrew Servant. The very first civil
law was given to Israel, or that was given to Israel, is a glorious
picture of our redemption and of the grace of God given to
us in our Redeemer. It's a gospel lesson in this.
Remember, the lamb is the light thereof. Really, when you get
to any portion of scripture in the Old Testament that you have
difficulty with, always go back to that very statement that I
have given you out of Revelation 21. Remember this, the Lamb is
the light thereof. And that applies to every portion
of Scripture. I'm telling you, He is the light
thereof. Now we know that this servant
that I've read to you, that I've read about, is a type and a picture
of our Redeemer. After all, all of the law is
fulfilled in Him and by Him. And all the law points to Him. And so we're always to be looking
for Him. And we can, if the Spirit of
God would enable me to say a few things that would kind of cause
the light to shine or the Spirit of God would use them, I would
be ever so grateful because what I want you to see, no not what
I want you to see, who I want you to see is the Lamb of God. Because there's life in a look
at the Lamb of God. The Lord said, look unto me and
be ye saved. All the ends of the earth. John
the Baptist, he came forth preaching and there in John chapter 1,
two times in two days he used the same theme. Behold the Lamb of God. This
is what every preacher of the gospel wants For his hearers,
we want you, I want you to behold the Lamb of God. That's what
brother Henry wanted for you. Behold the Lamb of God. That's
what brother Bill wanted for you. Behold the Lamb of God.
And that's what brother Jim wants of you. Behold the Lamb of God. This is our message. He's our
message. He's the love of our hearts.
And he and his work of redemption, that's the gospel. The message
to you is not what you must do for Him, it's what He must do
for you, and really, what He has already done for His people. For His people. Alright, let
me get into this. Five things I've given to you
quickly. Number one, He, Christ, is the voluntary servant. He is the voluntary servant.
Now let me read verse one again. Now these are the judgments,
these are the statutes, these are the laws, God says to Moses,
which thou shalt set before the Israelites. Alright, here they
are. Now here's the first one. If thou buy a Hebrew servant,
six years he shall serve you, and in the seventh he shall go
out free. What does that mean? For nothing. That's what it says. Free for
nothing. Kind of sounds redundant, doesn't
it? Free for nothing. But that's it. He has served
his time of servitude. And he goes out free for nothing.
Now understand this. This business of slavery in Israel,
it wasn't started by Moses. But this sort of slavery was
not at all like the slavery that we read about, for instance,
in our own country many years ago. It wasn't that kind of slavery. The slavery that we commonly
hear about, much of it is inhumane and ungodly. It's not that kind
of slavery. You see, God mercifully ordained
that the demanded servitude could only be for six years. Then whoever the slave was, they
were free to go. Free to go. All right, let's
look at verse 2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant,
six years he shall serve. He's got to work for six years.
I don't know how he's become a servant, don't know what happened
to put him in debt, perhaps it was because he's got too many
bills he can't pay them or perhaps he stole something, maybe from
this master, from the owner, and now he's got to serve the
owner for six years and he doesn't have money to pay him back so
he's got to be He's got to work for this man for six years. I
don't know what it was that put him into this position of being
a slave, but he's got to serve as a servant, as a slave, but
he can serve no longer than six years. Here's the law of God
for Israel pertaining to slavery. He can't serve as a servant,
as a slave, for more than six years. And in the seventh year,
he shall go out free. He's done. He's paid up. He's served his time. Whenever
the servant goes out, he's free. And guess what? He doesn't even
go out empty-handed. No! Hold your place there and
turn with me to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 15. God made provisions. Provisions for this issue of
slavery. Servitude. Look at Deuteronomy
chapter 15. Look at verse 12. And if thy
brother, in Hebrew, man, or a Hebrew woman, Deuteronomy chapter 15,
verse 12, if he be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years,
then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out
free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty. See, it
isn't just, okay, you served your time, now you're free to
go. You've got the clothes on your back. Go ahead. Go. No. No. God made provision. Look
at verse 14. Thou shalt furnish him liberally,
liberally, out of your flock, out of your floor, out of your
winepress, of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed
thee, thou shalt give unto him. Look down at verse 18. It shall
not seem hard unto thee when thou sendest him away free from
thee, for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee
in serving thee six years, and the Lord thy God shall bless
thee in all that thou doest. Well, what is the reason for
this? What is the basis for this? Well,
look at verse 15. And thou shalt remember, you were a bondman in the land
of Egypt. You didn't have anything. And the Lord God redeemed thee
by the blood of the Passover lamb. Therefore I command thee
this thing today. And then the Lord said, and then
give him abundant, liberally. Now you see, you and I, we have
been redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus. We're free. But the Lord not only has freed
us from this awful servitude to Satan who held us captive
at his will, brag about man's free will all you want to, Satan
laughs. Because he knows man doesn't
have a free will. Satan holds man's will in his
own hand, as it were, in bondage. He has to be, the sinner has
to be liberated by the will of God. Thy people shall be willing,
when? In the day of thy power. In the
day of thy power. And the Lord liberates us. And
He sends us out free. But guess what? He blesses us
liberally. Liberally. Like the Israelites
did when they left Egypt. As they were leaving Egypt, their
pockets were empty. They didn't have anything. And as they were leaving, The
Egyptians said, do you need anything? Need any money? Need any silver? Need any gold? Well, yeah. Well, here, take it all. Take
it all. We just want you to leave. Whatever you want, you can have.
You see, God gave to those servants, those servants who had been redeemed,
He gave to them liberally. And then they went out. And they
had more than enough to meet any need that they had. And our
God has released us from our servitude to the evil one. But He didn't only release us,
He gave us all things in Christ Jesus. We're blessed with the
riches of God's grace. He could not give us anything
more than He has already given us because He's given us all
things in Christ Jesus. Having given us the Son of His
love, we have all things in Him. All
things. So, Here's what I see in this
passage of scripture. The voluntary servant that is
Christ Jesus. He chose to be a servant. A servant
of Jehovah. In fact, the Lord even says in
Isaiah 42 and verse 1, Behold my servant. That's exactly what
he said. Behold my servant. And in Isaiah chapter 52, Terry
read to us there in verse 13, God's servant. And in chapter
53, his righteous servant. That's what God called him. My
righteous servant. He's the one that does everything
right. You know, you and me, we do everything wrong. And there's that natural sinfulness
about us that even when we seek to do right, it comes out wrong. Because everything we do is polluted
by our own sinful nature. Even when we seek to honor God
and worship God, it isn't fit for God until it goes through
Christ our Mediator. Nothing is. You've never, and
I've never, thought anything, done anything, had any motive,
spoken any word, prayed any prayer, preached any sermon. We've never
said, done, or thought anything that is presentable and worthy
for the God of all glory, except it goes through Christ Jesus
first and He washes it. And I kind of think He puts the
fragrance of His own righteousness on it. And then, because he is
well-pleasing to the Father, that which we present to God
through Christ Jesus is well-pleasing to God. Our Savior became the voluntary
servant of God. This is the way it's put in the
book of 2 Corinthians. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and you know that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor,
that you, through His poverty, might become rich. Philippians chapter two, you
recognize this passage of our savior, who being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made
himself of no reputation. And guess what? Took upon himself
the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man. and being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Wherefore God has highly exalted
him and given him a name which is above every name, a name to
which every knee shall bow. Every knee in heaven, earth,
and under the earth shall bow to him. proclaim that Jesus is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. He's a voluntary servant. He volunteered for this service
in this sense. He was willing to do all this
for us. It wasn't like the Father had
to force him into this position of being a servant, not at all. Listen folks, He loved us. He knew what it was going to
take. He knew what it would cost Him to save us. He knew the requirements. If I could put it this way, He
entered into this with His eyes wide open. And He received us as a gift
from the Father. All of the elect, all of the
chosen ones, He received them as a gift from the Father. I received them, Father. I love
them like You love them. And I stand good for them. Whatever
they're accountable for, look to Me. I'll make satisfaction
for them. That's exactly what He did. He was our substitute who came
into this world and he obeyed God's law fully. I don't care
whether you're talking about the moral law or that part of
the law called the civil law or the ceremonial law. All of
it, he obeyed. Why did he do that? He's a voluntary
servant. He loved us. He loved us and
gave Himself for us. Here's the second thing. His
service. Our Lord entered into this service of being the servant
of God. Actually, He entered into it
before He ever created the world. While He became our surety. And in that, of course, there
wasn't a moment. It's always been that way. But
He's always been the debt remover. He's always been our substitute
and God's sacrifice for sin. No wonder the Father said there
in Isaiah 42, 1, Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in
whom my soul delighteth. This is my beloved Son, the Father
says, in whom I'm well pleased. hold your place here and turn
to Psalm 40. It just would not be right to
preach here from Exodus 21, the first six verses, and not make
reference to Psalm 40, which is all about our Savior. Psalm
40. Here's this servant and his service. Psalm 40. Look at verse 6. Sacrifice and offering thou didst
not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened or
digged like that willing servant. Took him to a wall or a door
post and put an awl through his ear, bored a hole through his
ear. And the Savior said, that's me! That's all about me! I'm the willing servant! burnt offering and sin offering
thou hast not required. That's not going to do the job. The blood of bulls and goats
could never put away sin. Then verse 7, Then said I, Lo,
I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O God. I delight to serve you. Yea, thy law is in my heart. I preach righteousness in the
great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness
and thy truth from the great congregation. I have revealed
the great truth to your congregation. Oh, here's his service. No wonder he said to his disciples,
I came not to be ministered to. You men misunderstand. I didn't
come to be ministered. I didn't come so you'd do something
for me. Well, what can we do for Jesus? Nothing. The question is, what must Jesus
do for you? He said, I didn't come so you
could minister to me. I came to minister for you. I
didn't come so you could do something for me. I came to do something
for sinners. to reconcile them to God. After
all, how can God be just and justify the ungodly? And the
Savior could say, through me and my death upon the cross of
Calvary, through my substitutionary atonement. And he served God faithfully. And here's the servant's choice.
And I'll go quickly, look at the end of verse 2. The seventh
year shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he
can go out by himself. Goodbye, here's all these goods,
here's all these supplies that you're going to need, and you
can set yourself up in a house. If he's married, when he came
in, his wife can go out with him. But if his master has given
him a wife, and she's borne him sons or daughters, a wife and
her children, they belong to the master. And if the servant
says, I'm leaving, that's good, but you're not taking your wife
and your children with you. If you go out, you're going to
go out like you came in, by yourself. But if the servant plainly says,
I love my master, can't you hear the Son of God saying, I love
the Father? Whose will I came to do. I love
my wife, the bride that He's given me. From old eternity I've
come to redeem her. and my children. I'm the everlasting
Father and I have everlasting children predestinated unto the
adoption of children by me. I love them. I'm not going to
leave them. I'm not going to leave them.
Servant's choice. So he fourthly refuses the freedom,
he refuses. You see, our Lord Jesus, he kept
his commitment to the Father in the covenant of promise, in
the covenant of grace. Simon Peter, when our Lord was
on the way to the cross, and here come the servants after
him, A high priest servant came after him and Simon Peter drew
out his sword and he cut off the servant's right ear. Savior picked up that ear and
just put it right back on his head. Didn't even leave a scar. He told Peter, he said, put your
sword up. Put your sword up. He said, if I don't die, how
are the Scriptures going to be fulfilled? What Scriptures? Led as a lamb
to the slaughter, as a sheep before her shearers is done,
so He opened not His mouth. How should the Scriptures be
fulfilled? In that song, He could have called
10,000 angels. But he died alone for you and
me. I suppose you could say he had
the ability to call 10,000 angels, but there's no possibility he
would have called 10,000 angels. Because he was born to die. He's a lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. Freedom refused. I love the Father. I love my
bride. I love my children. I'm staying. I'm staying. And it's a willing
servitude. So verse 6, his master brings
him to the judges. It's going to be done publicly.
Not going to be done in a corner. He shall also bring him to the
door, to the door post. His master shall take an awl
and take a hammer right through the ear. He bores a hole. Serves him forever. Serves him
forever. When I think about forever, I
think about our Lord Jesus having brought in a righteousness that
lasts forever. It's called everlasting righteousness. And He gives to us forgiveness
that's forever. Everlasting forgiveness. He put
away sin with a sacrifice of Himself. And I know He put it
away because the tomb is empty where He is buried. That tomb's empty. And God the
Father told the angel, roll the stone away. He's coming out of
the prison. The fact that he's coming out
of the prison. He didn't break out. Somebody said he could have
pulverized that stone. Well, there's no question about
that. He made that rock. He could have sure pulverized
it. But that might indicate to somebody he broke out. No. He didn't break out. Release
Him and let Him go. He served His time and the time
for all of those in whose stead He died. He paid the debt. Justice
is satisfied. Justice doesn't have one more
word to say about the Savior and all those in whose stead
He laid down His life. Release Him. Let Him go. And I tell you, when God the
Father let Him go, we were let go too. Because we were in Him. Don't you see that? We were in
Him. Oh, and at times He sends His
Spirit to regenerate these redeemed ones. And He rules the world
from glory for the good of these redeemed ones. And one of these
days, He's coming back, the servant
of Jehovah. He's coming back to gather His
elect from the four corners of the earth. And our bodies are
going to be made new. And then He's going to present
us to the Father. Behold, Father, I am the children
that Thou hast given Me. And we're going to be trophies
of His grace. You say, well, how many trophies
am I going to get in heaven? No, you're not going to get any.
You are a trophy. You're a trophy to the sovereign,
free grace of God Almighty to you in Christ Jesus. That's the
servant. That's the faithful servant.
Our Father, we bless You. We thank you for our great Savior,
your faithful servant, who served you faithfully and perfectly,
something we could never do. But that which your law demanded,
he fulfilled. And that penalty for sin that
your law required, he fulfilled that too. Because the wages of
sin is death, He died. And the gift of God is eternal
life to us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh, He's the servant,
the faithful servant. His is the only faithful service
that's ever been rendered to you, Father. And in His service,
we have a part. Not in serving you, but we were
in Him. because He represented us. And we honor Him. We believe
Him. Help us to believe Him more fully.
And we love Him. Help us to love Him more fully. And we serve Him and help us
to serve Him more fully and more willingly. We honor You tonight,
Father, for the Son of Your love, the faithful servant, the righteous
servant, Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name I pray, Amen.