This morning I brought a message
out of that, verse thirty-one, where our Lord Jesus Christ,
after Judas had went out, Jesus says, now is the Son of Man glorified,
and God is glorified in Him. And if God be glorified in Him,
God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall straightway
glorify him. I talked about the Son being
glorified this morning, and this being His cross, and He called
that His glorification. He knew what He was facing, knew
what He was going through, knew what He would have to face. And
yet He also said, Now shall the Son of Man is the Son of Man
glorified, and God, God, is glorified in Him. God was glorified in
the death of Christ. As Christ was glorified in His
own death, God Himself was glorified in the death and the sufferings
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is the day of man's
glorification. Man is deified today. He is made
to be something so much more, when the scriptures tell us man
of his best state is altogether vanity. But man is so bragged
on, and so glorified, and so magnified, and so, if he has
any kind of credentials at all, I don't know what credentials
mean, but my credentials is a driver's license and a Veterans' cards. Those of them are veterans. That'd
be my credentials and a birth certificate. But credentials,
places you work, things you accomplish, is really, really something today.
This is today when man's free will becomes his God. For man, his morality and his
honesty and his so-called spark of goodness is given the first
place in theology. God is not given hardly any place. And he is especially given man in his glory, man in his
free will, is given the first place in his own salvation. And
this is an awful hour. It's an awful hour. And I'll
tell you this. When Ovi prayed, he said, I don't
know how to pray for the nation. But I do know this. that the
only thing that would save a nation is for the gospel to come. I
don't care what kind of leader we get, it ain't gonna save this
nation. The only thing that's ever honored a nation, and ever,
ever saved a nation. When Moses was right, when Moses
was true, when Moses was honest, and God stood between them and
the nation, God had mercy. no matter how awful they was,
until God raises up men in this country to preach the gospel
of His free and sovereign grace, this nation will get worse and
worse and worse. And this is an awful hour in
which the glory of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is
gone begging. When's the last time you heard
somebody talking about the glory of God? When some preachers come
into town, are they going to have a meeting to win souls,
or are they going to have a special meeting for the youth? They talk
about the preacher, they talk about where he's been, how many
souls he's won, all the awards that the singing group has, but
Christ is not mentioned on any poster. Christ is not mentioned. And when His glory, if He's not
given in the first place, then it's not given at all. If God
don't get all the glory, He gets none of the glory. Because He
will not give His glory to another. But I tell you what, even in
the salvation of sinners, God's glory is not the primary purpose
in men's salvation, to most people. But I, Lord Jesus Christ, and
I know this, and bless God for teaching us, oh, bless His name
for teaching us this, but I, Lord Jesus, in His birth, in
His birth, in His life that He lived for thirty-three years,
And he probably was crucified in October. And he was probably
born either in April or October. If he lived thirty-three years,
he was born in October and died in October. If he lived for thirty-three
and a half years, he was born in April and died in October.
December don't enter into it. But in our Lord Jesus Christ
in his life on this earth, for those thirty-three years or thirty-three
and a half years that he lived on this earth, That life that
he lived, he lived for one reason, one reason only, was to bring
glory to his father. He come into this world, he says,
must you, when he's twelve years old, wish you not that I be about
my father's business? When they come and saw him talking
to that Samaritan woman, they couldn't but still in astonishment.
And they brought him something to eat. He said, here is your
something to eat. He said, I have meat to eat that you don't know
anything about. And the first thing they saw, somebody fainting,
somebody brought him something to eat. He said, my need is to
do the will of Him that sent me and finish the work that He
gave me to do. Now over here in John chapter
8, let me show you this. Excuse me, John chapter 7. John
chapter 7 and verse 14. Talking about our Lord Jesus
Christ glorifying the Father. And the Father being glorified
in Him. He said, if the Son now is the Son of man glorified,
and the Father is glorified in Him. The Father is glorified
in him. He said here in verse 14. Now
about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple
and taught. And the Jews marveled, saying,
How knoweth this man letters, or learning, having never learned?
Where did he get his education at? Where did he get his education? Where's his credentials? And our Lord answered them, says,
My doctrine is not mine. I didn't come up with this myself. I just said, you know, and that's
what we talk, that's where heresies come from. When doctrine man
comes up with a doctrine by himself, where he takes out one doctrine
and exalts that doctrine above all other doctrines. Whether
it's baptism, or whether it's speaking in tongues, whether
it's the gift of the Spirit, whether it's the Savior blessing,
I don't care what it is, if you make one thing to be your point
of doctrine, then it becomes a heresy. It becomes a character.
And that's why the Lord says, my doctrine is not mine. I did
not come and dream this doctrine up. It didn't come from me. I
come from Him that sent me. God gave me this message. God
gave me what to say. And everything I say, I say what
my Father told me to say. And that's what He's saying here.
Look what He says. If any man will do his will,
He'll know of the doctrine, know of the teaching, whether it be
of God or whether I speak of myself. Whether I'm teaching
this doctrine or whether it's just something that come out
of me. And watch this, now here's what he says. He that speaketh
of himself comes up with his own doctrine, comes up with his
own truths, comes up and says, Jesus is going to come on October
the 21st. Comes up with this idea, you
know, You said it the other day, you know, I said, well, did they
get him baptized for it up this way? Yeah, they get a fellow
off his deathbed, baptize him in a tub, because, you know,
if he's a Camelot, you've got to be baptized, or you can't
do that. They go in the hospitals and get him out of the deathbed,
and put him in a bathtub, do anything. And that's what he
said, he that speaketh of himself. What's this? He's seeking his
own glory. Why he comes up with these truths of himself, these
doctrines of himself, these heresies of himself, is he seeks his own
glory. But he that seeketh his glory,
that sent him, that sent him, that did not come by his own
calling or his own power, seeking his own glory, the same is true,
and no unrighteousness is in him. Look over in John 5.41.
There's another one. The Father is glorified in Him.
That's why I want to talk about how our Lord glorified His Father. His primary purpose in this world
was to glorify His Father. That's the first thing He done,
was to glorify His Father so His Father could do something
for us. John 5, 41. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, I
receive not honor from men. But I know you, that you have
not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name.
I come in the thrice holy, eternal God of heaven and earth's name.
The God who say He's your God, the Father who you say is your
Father, the God who you say you're keeping His law, the God who
you go and offer sacrifices on His altars. I am come in my Father's
name, and you receive me not. If another shall come in his
own name, him shall you receive. And that's,
well, look what he says here. So how can you believe, which
receive honor one of another, and seek not that honor that
cometh from God only? To seek to please God, to honor
God. And, O Beloved, His blessed cross,
back over in John 13, 31, where our Lord says, Now is the Son
of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, on His blessed cross, and the work he has accomplished
by his death on that cross is not only the basis of our salvation
and the glorifying of the Son of Man himself, but was the greatest
and the brightest manifestation of God's glory himself. Because
when our Lord Jesus Christ was on that cross, all the attributes
All the attributes, all the glory of God Himself, of the holy God,
thrice holy God, was magnified and glorified in the death of
His Son on that cross at Calvary. Now listen to me. I've told you
this and told you this. The primary purpose in the death
of Christ is for Him to satisfy God. And if God's satisfied,
then He can accept us and receive us. And until that's done, He
can't. And so that's why God's attributes, thrice-holy God's
attributes, was magnified and glorified in the death of His
Son at Calvary. First of all, one of His attributes
in which God was glorified when Christ was on the cross was the
very power of God. The very power of God. Now, when
our Lord Jesus Christ was on the cross, God would never manifested
more hatred for God at that time than any time in history. The
hatred for God was so manifest there at the cross. I mean, you
know, you say, bad people don't hate God. They do. They really
do. They don't hate theirs. They
hate Him. Why do you think they call Christ
the devil? Why do you think they call Him
a wine-giver? Why do you think they call Him
a drunkard? Look over here in Psalm. I'll show you what I mean. Psalm, the second Psalm. Man's
hatred for God was manifested at the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We'll not have this man to reign
over us. They told him time and time again,
I've come from the farthest, and they speak of blasphemy. And I'll tell you, and he said,
which of you convinces me of sin? So there was no reason for
him to crucify him as far as what he himself had done. And
here in Psalm 2, that's what he says. Excuse me. Why do the heathen
rage? And in the margin it says, tumultuously
assemble. Tumultuously assemble. Why does
this mob get together? Why did this heathen, why did
this mob get together, and why did they tumultuously assemble? And the people imagined a vain
thing. The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
His anointing. What are we going to do with
this Jesus of Nazareth? If we don't do something with
Him, you know everybody's going to follow Him. He's going to
take our offices. He's got all the power. He's
got all the glory. Everybody's following Him. And
He says that God's going to take away our kingdom and give it
to somebody else. So they got together and they
took counsel. I know what we'll do. Let's offer somebody some
money. Let's make somebody some money. And if money won't do it, then
we'll hire some people and tell some lies. And let's break their
bands asunder. Let's cast God off once and for
all. Let's cast away their corpse
from us. And that's what they's trying
to do here at the cross. And, oh beloved, they did their
worst. They did their worst. I mean,
man, the human race did their worst at the cross. Their Satan
did his very best against God, against God's Christ. But God,
bless His name, laid hell upon one who is mighty, one whom He
chose out of among the people. And no man, our Lord Jesus says,
no man can take my life from me. No man has the power to take
it up. And no man has the power to take
it from me. I've got the power to lay it down. And so our Lord
Jesus Christ, in all of His time on that cross, He remained complete
master of Himself. Everything that went on on that
cross. When He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He had commandment.
Everything He did, He was complete master of Himself. And when He
hung on that cross, how many times did He say that the Scripture
might be fulfilled, the Scripture might be fulfilled, the Scripture
might be fulfilled? And when the final scripture
was fulfilled, he says, it is finished. And the scripture says,
and he gave up, he gave up the ghost. He died according to his
own will. And how in the world could he
have done that had not the power of God, the power of God been
there to uphold him in his great hour and enable him to be so
calm and to be able to Think of all the scriptures that were
fulfilled. Speak to his mother. Speak to
John. Speak to those people there clearly
around them. And oh, we see the power of God
glistening gloriously and upholding our Lord Jesus Christ there in
His awful hour. Let me tell you something else,
too, that God was glorified in. The justice of God was glorified
there. God's justice. And of all the
things There are several scriptures that says this. Over in Exodus
34, it says that God will by no means, no means, clear the
guilty. If a man is guilty, how can he
be cleared? He's got to be punished for his
guilt. He's got to face his guilt. And he said in Nahum chapter
1 and verse 3, he says this, that God will not at all acquit
the wicked. Now to acquit somebody means
to find them not guilty of the crime, so they're guilty and
they're wicked. So here we are. There's Christ on His cross.
Now how in the world is God going to be glorified in that man's
death? God is just. God is so just, and He's immutably
so, that He would not and could not spare His Son when He was
made sin for us. And the Scripture says in Roman
8.32 that He spared not spared not his own son when he delivered
him up for us all. And beloved, and I'll tell you
what, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he was found guilty, why
would God, why did God's justice lay him on that cross? I'll tell
you why it was, because he was guilty. If he was standing in
my place, then he was guilty. We did esteem him stricken of
God, smitten and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgression,
he was bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace
was upon him. And we like all sheep have gone
astray, and yet the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all. So if Christ took our sin and the justice of God, demanded
that he couldn't spare the sinner and acquit the wicked and clear
the guilty, Then if Christ was guilty, then God justly punished
him on that cross. If he got my sin on him, then
since I was guilty and he couldn't clear me, he had to punish me.
And if I was wicked and he couldn't acquit me, he had to punish me.
And justice does that. And here's what people don't
understand. They think there's a difference between the God
of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. All
of a sudden, the God of the Old Testament's a vengeance-loving
God, and the God of the New Testament's a loving God. But God's the same
in the Old Testament as He is in the New. He always has been
the same. All you've got to do is look
at what happened in Genesis chapter 3, when Adam fell. God's justice
demanded that Adam, the day that he sinned, he had to be put out
of the garden. But God also, he was just to
do that, but he turned around in him gray, slew the animal's
skin, and covered him with nakedness. So God does not clear the guilty
of this idea that God is just an old, tottering old man. And
some way or another loves people so much that he can overlook
their sin. And they take God's justice. And I know this is so
in you all, too. And they take God's justice.
And I know God's just. So what they mean by that is
that He's going to let me get by, because I've got enough good
that way in my bag, and I'm going to get by. If we don't get by... You know, look at how we view
law. Look at how we view law in this
country. Whenever we see people get by with things, when we know
that they're guilty and they get off, it makes it upsets us
to no end. It bothers us to no end. We see
somebody abuse children and get away with it. We see people kill
some people and get away with it. We saw so many people walk
away. that was guilty and wicked and
knew that they was. And yet the courts let them go
because of some technicality or because the jury lost their
minds or whatever. We can't stand that. And so what
would make us think that the God of the universe would not
be any less than what we are when we demand justice out of
our justices and out of our judges and out of our laws and out of
our criminal system? And if we demand justice in our
criminal system, why wouldn't we think that God would not demand
justice in His world? If He finds a man guilty, the
thing about it is there ain't no appeals court you can go to
here. There ain't nobody you can go to and say, well, can
you get me off? Can you get me off? You can't
go and pay and bribe the judge. You can't bribe the attorney
general. You can't do something to get out of it. When God says
you're guilty, there's only one way your guilt's going to be
taken away. It's where justice demands that you're going to
have to be punished. If you get a hundred years, you're
going to pull a hundred years. No chance of parole. And that's
why we're talking about God's justice was so glorified in Christ. You know, righteousness demanded
that the debt be paid, the guilt be punished, the wicked not acquitted. And we wasn't cleared. We wasn't
acquitted. Our crime was paid for. Our guilt was put away. We were
not acquitted. We were absolutely declared righteous
because Christ bore our sin. Arise! full sword against my
fellow, smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."
Oh, look in Romans 3 with me. This is the gospel. Oh, and I
love this gospel. I love it because it... and this
is something that I love. This is one of the things that
God... one of the first things that God taught me when He taught
me the gospel about His justice. Would you change God one iota? To get one of your children by? Or to get somebody you love by? When they got down on their deathbed,
would you bring God down to a man's level to get them through to
glory? Would you change God's justice? Look what he says here in Romans
3, in verse 23. He said, all have sinned. All have
come short of the glory of God. So short that we don't even get
a spitting distance of it. But watch this, being justified
freely. I read to you this morning, they
that hated me without a cause, that's the same word this means.
Being justified freely without a cause, being found in us. How
was we justified freely? By His grace. Why? Through the
redemption that's in Christ. Christ paid the price. He redeemed us. The redemption
left in Christ. Now watch this. Whom God set
forth. Where'd God set him forth at?
Set him forth when he was born. Set him forth all the way through
his life. And especially set him forth on that cross. And
now he's got him set forth at his own right hand. Whom God
set forth to be a propitiation. And a propitiation is when they
brought those sacrifices and put them on the mercy seat. And
beloved Christ is our mercy seat where our blood's put and where
our sins are under that blessed blood and where that mercy seat's
at. And God done this to declare His righteousness for the putting
away of sins that are past. To declare, I say at this time
that God is righteous. He is righteous. Got up righteous,
lived righteous. All the days of His existence
He's been righteous. Never was a moment in time where
God is not righteous. And God said, I declare at this
time my righteousness, that he might be just. And justifier of who? Them which believe in Jesus.
Why? Because God freely, by His grace,
made Him to be our debt payment. Made Him to be our mercy seat.
And he was righteous in doing that. When those who believe
on Christ, God said, I'm just to receive you, just like I received
my own son. Now listen, where's boasting
been? My goodness, what are we going
to boast about? I take away all my power to boast. What's my part in this? Oh, where's boasting been? It's excluded. Well, by what laws is it excluded?
If we can't boast then if it's excluded by what law? Of works? No, no, you could boast if you
had works. But by the law of faith. You
know what's the principle of faith? You know why it's a faith?
That it might be by grace. I tell you what, if God didn't
in grace bring us faith, we would never be a believer. And that's
why the promise is sure. And therefore we conclude that
a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Lord. Oh my,
God's justice there was glorified in Christ. And I'll tell you
something else, it was the holiness of God, oh it was so glorified
in Him. Habakkuk says this, he says,
God is of a purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and a purer
eyes than to behold evil. And Christ has made a curse for
us to redeem us from the curse of the law. Why did God forsake
His Son on that cross? Well, I'm going to show you.
Look with me at Psalm 22. I'll show you why He forsook
His Son. Why did God, why did Christ cry out, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Why did God forsake His Son on
that tree? because he's holy. But look what
he says, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art
thou so far from helping me? And you notice there in the margin,
it says, So far from being my salvation, and from the words
of my roaring. You hear me roaring? O God, I
cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not in the night season,
and I am silent. But here's why he was forsaken.
With thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
That's why God wouldn't hear him, because he's holy. Because
he's holy. There on that bloody tree, as
we behold the Son of His love, and we hear Him there cry in
agony of mind, agony of body, Agony of soul when he cries,
my God, there we see the absolute hatred God has toward sin. You think God is going to wink
at sin and God doesn't have a horrible, horrible hatred for sin? My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? Because you're holy. You're holy. And that's what's going to be...
Two things are going to be glorified in God. Men are going to be glorified
in God when God puts men. And there's no other way of saying
it, that when men go to hell, two ways God goes... First of
all, He's just, He's going to be glorified. He's going to be
glorified. Men are going to find out that
God is truly, truly just. And secondly, Second, His holiness. They'll find out that God was
who He said He was. They're going to find that out.
And, oh, beloved, God cannot make peace with sin. He can't
do it. You know when we lose our peace?
When we lose our peace, we give it up for what? You know why?
It's your sins that separated you and your God. When you start
losing your peace, and you start having trouble, most of the time
it's the way of the transgressor's heart. And, oh, beloved, God
can't be at peace with sin no matter who He finds it. And that's
why He says, we saw those cherubims around the throne of Christ,
throne of God, and said, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
and holy, holy, holy. And around the throne in Revelation
4, there they are again with those six wings. They cried,
holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. The holy angels, beloved,
the holy angels, and all of their obedience and suffering. But
the holy angels, their obedience and suffering of all the best
men that ever existed, or ever will exist, could not honor and
glorify the holiness of God. Not one of them. How much do
you think we honor and glorify the holiness of God? And here's the sad thing about
it. When people think about God being holy, they automatically
think that they're holy, that they have to be holy like Him
by something that they do. But I understand that. I believe
with all my heart that God is infinitely, eternally holy. That's His nature. But all with
all the obedience and suffering of the best men that ever exist
or ever will exist, from Abel, Noah, Daniel, Joseph, John the
Baptist, Simon Peter, John, none of them, the best men could not
honor, glorify the holiness of God. There are nothing in comparison
to the offering of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to meet the demands
of God's holiness, which sin had outraged." Oh, my, you go
back through the Old Testament, and you see how that the children
of Israel, when they go to murmur against God, God say, Moses,
get out of my way. He said, I'm going to destroy
this generation, and I'll raise up another nation for you. And
Moses, it has to stand in the game. We love this life, Brad. We don't like this water. We
don't like this. We don't like that. Oh, if we'd just left us
in it, you'd never gonna die out here. And I mean one time they killed
23,000 one time. That's how holy he is. You know
why he killed Uzzah for touching that ark? Because God does need
no help keeping his ark and keeping his law and keeping his glory
to himself. He don't need nobody to stay
like he does in this world. Where there is a piece of wood,
he don't need no help. And he said, if you touch it
and everything that's holy that's mine, he said, don't you touch
it. And all sin had outraged God's holiness. And so God, to
take that outraged holiness and honor it and magnify it and bring
glory to himself, he had to have a sacrifice equal to himself. equal to His holiness, that could
satisfy that holiness, honor that holiness, and that sacrifice
was His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was equal to Himself.
So His holiness, then, was glorified because now God's holiness has
been magnified when He wouldn't even come to the aid of His own
Son. When He says, My God, my God,
Thyself. He's calling for a life in this
heaven. He's calling out to His God. And I'll tell you another
attribute that God was glorified in, the faithfulness of God.
Oh, His faithfulness. Oh, the soul that sinneth, it
shall die. But I'll tell you who, first and foremost, God's
faithful to. He's faithful to Himself, faithful to His own
nature. If He's not faithful to Himself
and faithful to His own nature and faithful to His Word, then
He is an immutable. We couldn't trust Him. And when
the Lord Jesus, that sinless water, offered to receive the
full wages of sin. You know what the full wages
of sin is? Death. Death. Death. When the Lord Jesus,
the sinless One, offered to receive the full wages of sin, God the
Father Himself showed the universe that He would rather the blood
of the Son of His love be shed than one till of his word to
fail." You see, he made it known all the way through his word
that his son was going to come into this world, that his son
was going to suffer, that his son was going to die, that his
son would be forsaken, that his son would cry out from the cross,
that his son was age-thirsty, that his son would be mistreated.
he'd be hated and despised, that he'd be rejected of life, he'd
be a man of Charles and Quain would grieve. And God, because
He's faithful to His Word, and He made known all the way through
His words the suffering of His Son, and He brought into pass
in proof that God cannot lie, I will not lie. And, oh, beloved, that's why
when you look through the Scriptures, there's only one man in history,
one man in history, One man in history. There have been a lot
of Christ rising. There have been a lot of messiahs come up
down through history. There have been a lot of them.
There's one showed up the other day. Time to take a shot at Obama. And he said he looks like Jesus. But he, you know, he thinks it's...
There have been a lot of Christ coming. There have been a lot
of messiahs coming. A lot of them coming. But there's
only been one kind that was crucified outside Jerusalem 2,000 years
ago, that these Scriptures right here identify Him clearly and plainly. And He's the only coat the Scriptures
will fit is Him. Nobody else. Now, you go through history and
find out, even in our Lord's time, men would come and they'd
say, yes, this is Messiah. And people would go after Him. And people are still doing that. But God says, you know, I said
my son was going to suffer. I said I was going to forsake
my son. I said that he's going to be despised and rejected.
I said he's going to be a sin offering. I said he's going to
be the Lamb of God. I said that I was going to pour
out my wrath. And beloved, he's done just exactly what he said
he would do. He's faithful. And oh, beloved,
and in the wisdom of God, let me hurry. the wisdom of God. Now, I want you to look at something
with me in Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. The wisdom of God. Isaiah 45 and verse 21. Oh, the wisdom of God was glorified
in our Lord's death on the cross, the way to honor and satisfy
his holy, righteous nature, and yet make rebels and sinners as
righteous as himself." That's how God's wisdom was glorified.
Look what it says here in verse twenty-one. "'Tell ye, and bring
them near. Yea, let them take counsel together.
Who hath declared this from ancient time, who hath told it from that
time, have not I the Lord?' And there is no God else beside me,
a just God and a Savior, and there is none beside me." Now,
wait a minute. How can He be a just God and
a Savior at the same time? How can He be just and a Savior? Were we not rebels? How can He
save a rebel and be just? Were we not sinners? How can
He be just and save us? Were we not God-hearers like
everybody else? Yes. How could He be just and
yet be a Savior? I'll tell you this much, when
you can answer that question, you'll know the gospel. And I'll
tell you what the next verse says. Look unto Me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth. And when you find the answer
to how easy it is to adjust God into saving, you know what you'll
do? You'll look unto Him and you'll be saved. And you'll look
from the ends of the earth all the way to glory itself. And
there's none beside Him. Oh, beloved, see, that's how
it can be. Because the wisdom of God took
Christ, made Him to be us, that we might be made healed.
He took our sin, and He gives us His righteousness. He justly
punished him, and then justly gave us His righteousness. Oh,
my. Now, God provided the answer
to that question in His Son upon the tree. And then, last but
not least, the love of God was manifest, glorified in Christ
on the cross. The love of God. God so loved
the world. So loved the world. Floyd used
to say that, said the word, the major, the word in that whole
sentence is in the word so. The emphasis on the word so.
So, how can you go and plan the depth of so loved that He gave? Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us. Now, under the law, Whenever
they'd take the sacrifices and put them on the altar, the sin
offering, the burnt offering, the fire would consume. That
fire emblematic on that brazen altar, the fire emblematic would
consume that sacrifice. But in Christ on that cross,
and I heard this from Scott Richardson, and this just never got over
him. Christ on that cross, that sacrifice on Calvary, when God's
wrath fell on Him, Instead of the wrath consuming him, the
wrath fell on him, and he consumed all of it. And he'd come out
of the fire of God's wrath. It's reported unto men once to
die, and after that, the judgment. That's what goes with men. That
Christ bore the judgment, and then he died. And the wrath of
God on that cross, when the wrath of God fell on him, It's just
like a fire, and Christ took all that fire into Himself and
took all the judgment upon Himself. And there's no fire for us, no
judgment for us. Oh, the love that drew salvation's
plan. Oh, the grace that brought it
down to a fallen man. Oh, beloved, the light of the
sun's always the same. but it's always the brightest
at noon. And the cross is the noon of God's love. We see it
all the way through the scriptures, but it's the brightest at the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blood flowed from His holy hand
because of our sinful thoughts. Blood flowed from His hands because
of our sinful works. Blood flowed from His heart because
of our sinful hearts. Blood flowed from His feet because
of our sinful, sinful walk. Why? Because He loved us so. Why? Because He just willed to
do it. Huh? Listen to this. Oh, when we view God's grand
design to save rebellious worms, how vengeance and compassion
join in their sublimest forms. Our thoughts are lost in reverent
awe we love and we adore. The first archangel never saw
so much of God before. Here each divine perfection joins,
and thought can never trace which of the glory brightest shines,
the justice or the grace." And that says here in verse thirty-two,
if God the Father be glorified in the Son, then God shall glorify
Him in Himself, in His Son, straightaway, in a special way, by raising
Him again from the dead. Oh, God is faithful. The Son
glorified, the Father glorified in the Son. Oh, gracious, gracious, gracious
Father in heaven. Lord, we just read, there's no
God beside me, there's none like me, but just God and the Savior. Look therefore unto me, and be
ye saved. Lord, I look, I look, I look,
I look, I look as they looked at that brazen serpent. I look as you hung on that cross.
I look even now. I look to You. I look to Your blood. I look
to Your righteousness. I look to Your power. I look
to Your grace. I look to Your love. I look to
Your faithfulness. I look to Your wisdom. I look
to You, Lord Jesus. And Your great willingness, Your
great love were with You, loved us. Oh, bless Your holy name. I want to be saved. I want to
be saved. I want to be saved. I want to
be saved today. I want to be saved tomorrow. I want to be saved throughout
eternity. I want to know you. I want to enjoy you. I don't
want to ever belittle you in any way, to honor and glorify
you as you are, to speak of you the way you are. Oh, God, we
look. We look. We look. Enable someone else to look.
May a heart cry out right now, Lord, I look too. I look. I look. I look. I look. Would you enable to do it for
Christ's sake? Amen.