A hundred and something, I don't
know how many days in a row, a hundred and twenty-four is
the hottest it got. The last time I felt that this hot was
1968, 1969. You'd get a hundred and nine,
ten, fifteen, eighteen. And it was, ah, you just carried
a towel with you all the time just to keep the sweat wiped
away. You had water dripped off your elbows, off the tiny fingertips,
And if you didn't do nothing, just be. Just be. You know, it's
going to be unusual the title of my message this morning, and
you're going to say, what in the world is on this preacher's
mind? But the title of my message is, The Cursing God. The God
Who Curses. The Cursing God. Here in Deuteronomy
27, verse 12, it says this, Well, Moses says in verse 11,
now when they're fixing to go into the promised land, for God
kills him and puts him away, Moses charged the people the
same day, saying, These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless
the people when you are come over, Jordan, Simeon, and Levi,
and Judah, and Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these shall
stand upon Mount Ebal to curse Reuben, and Gad, and Asher, and
Zebulun, and Dan, and Naphtali." Now here we have God on one side
of a mountain. They've got these men, calls
all names, and they go by, they go and pronounce blessings. Over
on this side, as these people go between these two mountains,
crossing over, over here you've got Men that are going to stand
and pronounce curses. Pronounce cursings. And what
a solemn lesson for us to learn here that blessings and cursings
come from the same mouth. Same mouth. And it's God that
says this, that's pronouncing this. You see, God is light. God is light. And in Him is no
darkness at all. He is light as well as love.
And we're going to see His light before we understand His love.
He's holy as well as gracious. He's righteous as well as merciful. And He's going to be light, He's
going to be holy, and He's going to be righteous before we know
anything about His love and His grace and His mercy. And so when
we, there's the curse on one hand, the blessing on the other.
And I know this much about God from reading His Word and from
what I've learned from my own heart as He deals with this world. God abhors and expresses His
abhorrence to the wicked and at the wicked and brings His
judgments upon them as well as blessings upon His people. He
blesses His people, but He brings judgment upon the wicked and
He's not playing games with them. You see, they're eternal heaven.
and an eternal hell are necessary opposites. If there are those
who enjoy and want to be with God and enjoy God and rejoice
in God, and we enjoy Him here. I enjoy God Almighty. I enjoy
the Lord Jesus Christ. I enjoy His Word. I enjoy His
presence. I enjoy thinking of Him. I enjoy
His love, I enjoy His grace, and I rejoice as much in His
righteousness and His holiness as I do those. I enjoy it, don't
you? I find great joy and peace in
believing. But there's also those who God
has made and put it in their hearts to be with Him, but there
are those that despise Him, they hate Him, they reject Him, they
say, I don't believe Him, they try to disprove His existence,
they curse Him, and the Scripture says God never enters into their
mind. Never enters in this one. My
father, when he lay on his deathbed, tried to talk to Him. And he
says, D.B. He said, D.B. said, me and Jesus,
we negotiated this a long time ago. Made me so angry. It was a righteous indignation.
I said, you know, I show you more respect. I'm your son. And I show you more respect as
a human being to a human being than you show to God Almighty.
And you sit here and talk about you negotiated with Jesus Christ,
negotiated your relationship with God, and you lay on your
deathbed. What kind of fool are you? What
kind of fool are you? And I tell you that eternal hell,
if a man don't want God, God will say, I'll put you in a place
where you'll never have to deal with me again. I'll put you in
a place where you'll never have to face me again. I'll put you
in a place where you don't want me. I'll put you in a place where
you'll have to deal with me ever again. You won't have to deal
with righteousness. You won't have to deal with God.
You won't have to deal with holiness. You won't have to deal with grace.
You won't have to deal with God's people. You won't have to deal
with life. I'll put you in a place where you won't have to be bothered
with God, righteousness, holiness, or heaven or hell ever. You just
go. One fellow said, it's God's garbage
done. And it's an awful thing to think about. And I blessed
God more than I talked about it yesterday. My father perished
without God. That's an obvious fact. I preached
a man's funeral Monday. Perished without God. Perished without God. But bless
His name that God put something in our brain that will not let
us comprehend what hell's like. I cannot comprehend what it's
going to be. And thank God He put it in our brain where I don't
have to think about where my daddy is and what he's going
through right now. But I do know that God's done just right by
him. God's done just exactly what
He should have done with him. You say, well, that's awful hard.
It's the way it is. That's the way it is. And that's
why He said here, the sun scorns penthouse blessings, and over
here is the curses. So there's the heaven, that's
the blessing. Hell, that's the curse. Life,
holiness, Righteousness, love, grace, and mercy. And we see
this blessing and cursing in our natural world. Just look
at the world around us. Oh, look at all the beauty. You
talked earlier about the beauty and all the things you, last
night, all the wonderful things you've seen and how that so many
people don't get to see them. We see the beauty of the sun
and the sunsets and oceans and oh my, stand and see the awesomeness
of an ocean. See this, and I live in light
of the Smoky Mountains, and I can see the Smoky Mountains. And you live in all these beautiful
mountains, see that mountain hood, all these beautiful things,
the majestic, and the soft rain coming down to clean the ground
and cause a fruit, and how we delight in these. But the other
side of it is, tornadoes, droughts, floods, earthquakes, All of them
shock and terrify us. So there's both sides of it.
We see it in nature. See it in nature. God said in
Romans 11, 22, said, Behold the goodness of God and the severity
of God. So here they are on Mount Gerizim. They're on Mount Ebal. Blessings
and curses. One can't be without the other.
If there's going to be a blessing, there has to be a curse. All
right, ain't that right? And look with me now. It's in
Matthew 24, just a moment. And that's the way it's going
to be when our Lord Jesus comes. And that's why I say, you know,
and folks say, well, I don't believe in God. I said, I'm sure
He's just keeping Len awake at night, just worried to death
that you don't believe Him. Keep awake at night. But oh, look here in Matthew
24, when the day of our Lord comes, when He comes, it's going
to be this way. Look in verse 34. Matthew 25, excuse me. I'm sorry. Matthew 25, verse
34. This is when He gathers everybody
before Him. Every soul before Him. Then shall
the king say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed
of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. That is the blessing, you blessed
of the Father. Now look down here at verse 41. Then shall he say also unto them
on the left hand, Depart from me, what's he say, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So there it is, when Christ comes
to bless, go in. Curse go yon way. Go that way. Oh my. Well, let's go through
it like I did yesterday. We went through some things about
foreigners. Let's go through some things about God's cursing.
Look with me at Genesis chapter 3. Genesis 3. Genesis chapter
3. Here we have first thing, first
mention we hear about curse is, Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. Look what God said to Adam here, in Genesis 3.17. And Adam, as the preachers told
us this morning, as Brother Norm told us this morning, Adam was
a representative of the whole human race. Every soul on the
top side of God's earth descended from that one man. And here he
is, he was in paradise, he was in this perfect environment,
And God just gave him one thing not to do. And then in Genesis
3.17 it says this, And God told Adam, and he said
unto Adam, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy
wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying,
Thou shalt not eat of it. Now watch it. Curse it is the
ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life. You're going to have heartache
and sorrow and tears and pain and agony, thorns and thistles.
There had never been a thorn before. Never been a thistle
before. And shall it bring forth to thee.
And you're going to eat the herb of the field. You're not going
to live in paradise anymore. And you're going to make your
living in the sweat of your face. And you'll eat bread until you
return under the ground, for out of the dust which you've
taken, the dust you're going to go back to. And Adam here,
when God cursed him and cursed the ground for his sake, Adam
stood as our representative of our covenant head. And all of
us were represented in him. All of us became sinners by Adam's
one sin. Death passed upon us. And when
he disobeyed his Creator, the awful consequences, and we see
that this heat is the consequences of the curse. Ain't that right? He lost all, and not only did
he lose Paradise, and he lost God's fellowship and God's union
and God's communion. But beloved, even the ground
upon which he walked was now cursed. He says, now it brings
forth thorns and thistles. Now he's going to have to go
out there instead of just eating and enjoying the presence of
God, he's going to have to make tools and he's going to have
to go to work. He's going to have to cut down trees to build
a house. He's going to have to work in
the ground to get him something to eat. He's going to have to
rip out rocks so he can have a place to work a garden. I mean,
beloved, when he fell, he put us in a mess. In a mess. And if he hadn't have done that,
we'd all... Now he must toil. Now he must labor. And his face
is going to sweat. He's got to earn what he's going
to eat every day. And let me ask you this. Have you ever seen a perfect
plot of ground? You ever seen a garden that didn't
have weeds in it? You ever seen a flower garden
that didn't grow weeds beside the flowers? Why is that? If you want flowers, you're going
to waiver to have them pretty. If you're going to have a garden,
you're going to get out there and work and work and work to keep
the weeds out of it. Why is that? Curse. Curse. Why do you have to keep your
house up all the time? Curse. You say, whoa, my, that's tough.
Well, that's just, you know, that's the consequences of sin.
And we're paying for it. And bless God, bless His Holy
Name, that the only curse I'm ever going to have to deal with
is on this earth right here. And oh, now look over here in
Jeremiah 17. Curses is the ground. And even in my fields, look at
Jeremiah 17, in my fields at home I fight thistles, I go out
every spring, I go out, just the other day I got chiggers
all over me going out trying to get rid of old hedgerow shrubs,
hedgerow Roses that they used to make
fences out of. Bought them over here from Ireland
or England or something. Man, you can't get rid of them.
They're awful. And I go out and get rid of horse
nettles, thistles, and I mean you know how to do it? Matic. Take a matic. Boom! Dig down. Then I take my shovel. Got my
truck out there. Pull them in there. And I get
a truckload of them things. Sweat disaroming. But if I'm
going to have a field that's going to be fit for anything
to use, that's what I've got to do. I couldn't let it go and
next thing you know I've got black pine growing in it, blackberries
growing in it, sage grass growing in it. And folks would walk by
and say, that's the sorriest place I've ever seen. Why don't
that fellow take care of that place? A little sleep, a little
slumber, and your place grows over. But now look what he said
here in Jeremiah 17 and 5. Thus saith the Lord. God speaking
again like you said. God speaking. This is the Lord
speaking now. It's not the preacher. Cursed
be the man that trusts in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and
whose heart departeth from the Lord. Cursed be the man When
he says that trusteth in man, what does that mean? That means
that puts all of his trust in himself, or in some other man. Puts his, you know, my confidence
is in that fella. I'm going to put all my eggs
in his basket. I'm going to trust him. That
trusts in man and maketh flesh his arm. You know when you talk
about making your flesh your arm, that means you're going
to make that your strength. You're going to make that your strength.
You're going to make that the one you lean on. You know, you lean
on something. And He said, you're going to make flesh your strength?
You're going to make flesh that's cursed your strength? You're
going to make man your strength? You're going to look to some
man and make... You're going to look to the governor
to be your strength? You're going to look to your
governor to be your strength? You're going to look to the king
to be your strength? Are you going to do that? That's
what he's saying here. Are you going to make flesh to
be your arm? To give you all your strength
to do what you want? And then look what he says there.
Whose heart, heart departs from the Lord when you make man to
be trusted in. When you make flesh to be your
strength. When you make your heart then
departed from God. And the Scripture says, only
a fool trusts in his heart. And to seek protection, to seek
patronage of a man, that's an offense to God Almighty. To put
your confidence in men, to put your confidence. And I tell you
what, you do it a time or two and let them fail you. Do it
a time or two and then lean on them real hard. And when they
fall, you go down with them. And to put seek protection and
patience, you know that a man is an offense to God Almighty.
What you're doing is you say, I'm going to put confidence in
the creature. I don't care about the Creator.
I'm going to put confidence in this man right here. I'm going
to put my confidence in him. I believe that he's the one that
can do what needs to be done. And I said, well, that creature
right there. And oh, look with me with Psalm
146. I quoted this last night, but look with me in Psalm 146. You know, that's why, you know,
I see churches or organizations, they go to the world to raise
money. Have rummy sales to raise money.
bake cookies and go out and raise money, wash cars and raise money
for the church. That's trusting man. That's looking
to man. Can not God feed us? Can not
God meet the needs of the congregation? If a believer ever has to once
go over the world to get anything, he's done went too far. I know
you all got to work. God gives you a job and you've
got to work. But beloved, He gives you that job in order to
make the means to support His gospel, to support His people.
And if you have to go, and then these people that go sell clothes
and sell cookies and wash cars, that's leaning on the flesh.
Whenever they bring in these big gospel singing groups and
they say, oh, these folks here are going to get everybody interested
in you, we ought to get them to the front. That's leaning
in the flesh. If we could just get this preacher
here, I believe we could get a lot of people. That's leaning
on the flesh. God have mercy on the man, God
have mercy on the people that would do such a thing. I'll go hungry before I ask the
world anything. I will, I'll go hungry before
I go to the world, before I even ask. You know, we're God's people. And you talked about Sennacherib
this morning. Oh, Hezekiah, when that big army
got around there, Oh, Sennacherib sent in a letter and said, you
know, surrender else. Oh, Hezekiah just laid that letter
before God and said, God, here's what they're saying about what
they're going to do to you and me. That's the thing. We go to God. If I got any needs,
if I got needs, I never tell the church. I tell God about
it. If we need money, I tell God about it. Somebody's sick,
we talk to God about it. We're not going to lean on the
flesh. We're not going to lean on our own reasoning. It's not
going to do it. It's not going to do it. And
then people say, well, how do y'all get anything done? We don't
if God don't provide it. Tell them to come to our congregation. This is the last time you're
going to have to hear me for a long time. So put up with me for a
minute if you can. He come and he wanted to be a
preacher bad. Oh, he wanted to be a preacher
bad. And he was trying to raise support. Had a little sign on
his car, you know, the ministry he had. And he said he believed
in the grace of God, and he came a while, came a good little while,
and going around to different meetings and trying to raise
a little support and he had a wife and three kids and his wife was
a nurse and she made a good living. He's out here trying to raise
enough money to get in the ministry, to become a missionary, whatever
he's going to do. After a while, he wasn't nobody
giving him any money. I said, now Mike, let me tell
you something. If God wanted you in the ministry,
He'd provide for you. He not only would provide your
living, but he would open a door for you. There's no doors open
and there ain't no money. I said, I think it's time you
went and found you a job, don't you? And you know what he done? He said, I believe you're right.
And he went down to Dayton, Tennessee, got him a job in the Lazy Boy
factory, building Lazy Boy rockers. You may have sent one of his
rockers one of these days. But he did. He finally said,
well, you're right. Out here trying to stir something
up. You can't stir nothing up if
there ain't nothing to stir. This is Psalm 146. This is what
I'm talking about. Leaving on the arm of the flesh.
He says there in verse 2, While I live, will I praise the Lord. I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being." I'm not fixing to sing praises to
men. Praise men, bless men, and all
that. Put not your trust in princes.
And princes means men of power, men of prestige, men of eminence. And what's this? Nor in the Son
of Man. Any Son of Man. Why? In whom there is no help.
And that no help means no salvation. Here's the reason why. He's just
like you. His breath goes forth. He's breathing
like you. And then when that last breath's
gone, He's going back to the dust of the earth. And the day
that happens, His thoughts go with Him. So why in the world
do you want to do that? Alright, let's move on. Let me
show you another. Malachi. Malachi is the last book in the
Old Testament. If you went to Matthew and went
back one book, you'd be in Malachi. Oh, trust in man. Don't put your salvation, hope,
and trust in a man. That's why, you know, talk about
people trying to get the preacher to give them assurance or something.
That's going to the flesh to try to find it. If God saves
you, He's going to want to give you assurance. Well, you know,
God's the only one who gives me assurance. People say, well,
I don't know how many times I've been told that you're a devil,
that you're a cult leader, that you're a blasphemer. One fellow
told my daughter, said, your daddy's been responsible for
more people going to hell around here than anybody else by the
lies he tells. I've never been responsible for
one soul going to hell. I don't have the keys. I don't
know how to get there. Christ got the keys for him.
They've been saying, oh, you send yourself to hell. No, you
don't. Christ does it. But that don't mean nothing.
That just absolutely don't mean anything. But he looks at the
flesh. Look here in Malachi now, 2-2. God's talking to the priest,
and he says there, oh, now, oh, you priest, this commandment
is for you. Fellows running the tabernacle,
running the temple, offering the sacrifices, leading the people,
instructing the people. If you will not hear, and if
you will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, saith
the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I'll
curse your blessings. Yea, I have cursed them already,
because you do not lay it to heart. Now who's he talking to? He's talking to the preacher.
He's talking to the preachers, he's talking to the priests,
he's talking to these fellows wearing the robes, wearing the
caps, wearing the hats, wearing the peace suits. Oh, he says, if you don't give
glory to my name, that's the thing, give glory to my name.
If you don't bring glory, if you don't say, attribute everything
to me, if you don't say, to God be the glory, great things He
has done, Great things He hath taught us through Jesus His Son.
To God be the glory, not to us, not to us, not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto Thy Name give glory. When they say, We're
now sure of God. Our God is in the heaven, and
He does what He pleases. What is sure of God do? He does
what He pleases in the heaven, in the earth, in the deep seas,
in all deep places of the earth. And then they get up and say,
you know, God would like to. God wants to. God would if you
would. If God gives you the opportunity,
if you'll cooperate with Him. He's got no hands but your hands,
no feet but your feet. Listen, that means that He's
in a wheelchair. If He ain't got no feet but mine,
He ain't going nowhere. But just in funny little ways,
right? And he said, and I will send God's jealous of His glory. He said, I will not give my glory
to another. And this was addressed to the
priest of Israel. And how in the world when you
see, how does God manifest? He said, I've already sent the
curse. How does God manifest His curse of those who minister
publicly? How does He do it? First of all,
He blinds their minds. Blinds their minds. So they can't
see the Scriptures, can't understand the Scriptures. Then He hardens
their heart. Hardens their heart. Then He sears their consciences
where they're not moved or touched by anything. Can you imagine
somebody going home and sleeping after they've talked a bunch
of 5 or 6 or 7 year olds in a vacation Bible school into accepting Jesus?
You know if a child is old enough to be saved at 5, you know they're
old enough to be lost at 5? Folks don't understand that.
If you can get a child to accept Jesus into his heart at four,
you've got a child old enough and understanding enough to go
to hell. You think about that before you
try to talk these children into anything. Don't look at me like that, I'm
telling you. It's just scary. You know, we,
you leave them children, you teach them, you instruct them,
pray for them. There's no such thing as an age
of accountability. You pray for them, you love them,
you keep them under the sound of the gospel. And all of you,
all of you, you treat these children like they're your children. You
love them, you instruct them, and cherish them, and instruct
them in the scriptures, teach them when they're wrong, discipline
them when they need discipline. But you leave them just like
I leave you and we leave one another, leave them in the hands
of God. Yeah, leave them and God will
do for them just what He does for you. Huh? And oh beloved, and you know
you're the man that gets these people, how seared must his conscience
be that can talk somebody into something and then go down, lay
down at night and feel like he's done something wonderful. Conscience
never bothers. They come in, and they stay in
six or eight months, and I've got them folks converted, and
they go back to the world. It constantly never bothers them.
Oh, they're still saved. They're just not living for Jesus
anymore. They love the Lord. They just
don't want to attend the services anymore. They got it converted,
and they just... I went to a place one time. I
know I've got to hurry up, but I went to a place one time years
ago in Goodlessville, Tennessee. The preacher of the place, and
there was only about 25 people in there, and this preacher told
me, he said, you know, we got about 1,500 church members. I said, what? He said, yeah,
I got about 1,500 of them. He said, you know, they're all
backslidden. You know, backsliding. is only under the law that you
cannot backslide. Can you undo your birth when
you're born? Huh? Backslide is not something that
happens in the New Testament. People don't backslide. We're
in a covenant of grace. We're new creatures. We've got
the nature of God in us. What are you going to do, undo
your birth? Undo your relationship? Hogs go back to the maula. Dogs go back to their vomit.
Sheep lay down in pastures where Christ lays them down. And ain't
that right? And that's why these fellows,
they've got such a seared conscience and hardness of heart. And oh
beloved, He speaks to those here and said, now here, here, here. Well, let me go to another one
real quick and I'll hurry. Look in Galatians chapter 1.
These preachers, I'll tell you what. There's a preacher down
home, a Church of God preacher. And you know, those are the fellows
that are just preaching, Oh, you've got to live it. Boy, these
Pentecostals, you've got to live it, man. I mean, whatever it
means. I mean, you've got to live it every day. What in the
world does that mean? You get right where you've got
to and stay right. If you sin, oh my goodness. This
go on and on, you better live right and all that. Well this
fella here, this guy's a big builder and built lots of houses
and he built him a big church and had a lot of people in there.
One day him and his wife got into a fight and he went off
and got drunk. Somebody seen him in a honky-tonk
and he said, well I seen no so-and-so laying on the floor in the bathroom
drunk. A fellow comes to me and says,
what do you think about that? And I said, good, that's the
best news I've heard in a long time. That means that fellow
is going to quit lying on God. The best thing that ever happened
was a man quit the ministry. Ain't that right? That's the
best thing that ever happened to him. Get him out. God kill
him. God knock him in the head, do something with him, shut him
up. Henry Mayhead made this statement
at the first meeting he ever came to our congregation. He
said, and his son Paul was a very young man, he said, I'd rather
my son be a bartender as to be a free will Baptist preacher.
Now, are you talking about turning a hose on a bunch of people? But that's the truth. People
just don't understand what an error it is. Now, look here in
Galatians 1.8. There's another curse. We're
going to give glory to His name. Galatians. I'm in the wrong place
myself. Galatians chapter 1 and verse
8, about the gospel. Paul writing to these Galatians,
and he says, But though we or an angel from heaven preach any
other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you,
let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
you have received, let him be accursed." Now what is he talking
about here? Well, there ain't but one gospel.
Just one. And it's the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace in Christ. And it's the ancient gospel.
God promised it before the world ever began. It concerns His Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. And God is jealous of His Gospel
because it's His very glory in His Gospel. And the Gospel declares
the righteousness of God. And what do I mean by that? That
God shows, declares that He is righteous, and the only way He
can be righteous and save you and stay righteous is for His
Son to be cursed in your place. God's not going to save us at
the expense of His, and the Gospel declares His righteousness, that
He is righteous. Now how can He be just and righteous,
and me who am a sinner, born a son of Adam, how is He going
to take me, the sinner, this person who's got a heart against
Him, how is He going to take me, and if He's righteous, and
save me and stay righteous. How's he going to do that? How's
he going to do that? There's only one way for him
to do it. That's to take his son and make him the sinner in
our room instead and give us his righteousness. That's the
only way it can be done. And the gospel declares his righteousness
is how God can make us right and stay right himself. You see,
the Gospel. That's why Paul said, don't bring
another one. The Gospel makes known the only true way of salvation,
by substitution. And to corrupt substitution dishonors
God, who is the author. And it's deadly, deadly to the
souls of men. I'm going to give you an illustration
over in Genesis 22. Genesis 22 about substitution. Here's a perfect type of substitution.
Genesis 22. Everybody knows about Abraham
taking Isaac up on the mountain. Everybody knows about that. You know, God says, take your
son, now your only son. And here's the one whom the promise
was. Well, the promises of God are in Christ. And this assured
us that if Abraham would be willing, and he was just doing what God
told him to do, he was obeying his Creator, obeying his Sovereign,
obeying his Redeemer, obeying his Savior, that if Abraham was
willing to do this, then God Almighty showed us how he would
give his son. And then it says here, Verse 5, and they're going up
on the mountain of the Word. Him and the ladder going up there.
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it
upon Isaac his son. That's the Father laying on the Son, the
cross, the wood. Watch this now. The wood of the
burnt offering, where the wrath of God, the fire that comes and
burns that offering, typical of the wrath of God that comes
and consumes sin, consumes the sacrifice, which means that the
sin is gone. The wrath destroys it. And watch
this now. And he took the fire in his hands
and a knife. The knife represents the sword
of God's justice. I mean, it's going to be plunged.
And so as he spake unto his father, Abraham, he said, Father, Father,
and he said, I'm here, son. He said, we've got the fire,
we've got the wood, we've got everything we need for a burnt
offering, but where is the lamb? Watch it now. Abraham says, my
son, God will provide Himself a Lamb for a burnt offering. Not only would He provide Himself
a Lamb, but He Himself would be that Lamb. So they went, both
of them together. The Father and the Son went together.
And the Father and the Son went together to the cross. The Father
and the Son went together for that offering. The Father and
the Son went together to pour out that burnt offering. The
Father and the Son went together to that cross. And all beloved,
they came to the place which God told him of, and Abraham
built an altar. And he laid the wood in order,
put the wood down under it. Now watch this. And he took his
son, bound his son Isaac, and his son, now this ain't no twelve-year-old
boy, this boy's twenty-one, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-three, and
he laid, he was so obedient, so willing to do what his father
said, he laid himself down, and he led his father to tie him
to that altar. He obeyed his father, he loved
his father, and I know my father's going to do right. And he stretched forth his knife
and his hand to slay his son. And the reason he'd done this,
the scripture tells us, he said, I'm the latter, go yonder and
worship. God said, he understood that if the Messiah was coming
through this son, that God, if he slew him, that God was going
to raise him again from the dead. He's coming off that mountain.
That's the confidence he believed God. Now watch this. And the
angel of the Lord, there's Christ again, called unto him out of
heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, he said, here am I. Lay not your
hand on the lad, neither do anything unto him. I know you fear God.
You didn't even hold your son from Him. Now watch, here's what
happened. This is what God does for us. We were Isaac, put in
that place, God had the knife brought back, he had us on the
altar, he had the fire going, and we were fixing to be consumed.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind
him a ram, that's the male lamb, a ram caught in the thicket by
his horns. How in the world do you reckon
he got there? And Abraham went and took the
lamb, and offered him up for a burnt offering, and here's
what substitution is, in the stand of his son. God took us
and took Christ and put him in the stand of his elect. And the fire consumed the sacrifices
under the law, but Christ's sacrifice consumed the fire. And there
ain't no more fire. Huh? Ain't that right? And oh,
it's impossible. It's impossible. When we talk
about, and he says that law or grace. These people here were
being brought back under law. And it's impossible to mix law
and grace. Can't do it. Let me show you
this in Galatians 3. I know I'll take it. I'll hurry, I'll hurry. You got to clean up and go home.
But you can't mix law and grace. Can't mix flesh and spirit. It's
either going to be all of grace or all of law. Ain't that what
he says here? Galatians 3.1.3. That's why he
says this is why we preach the gospel. We're not going to mix
it up. Oh foolish Galatians, who has
bewitched you? Who has come and enticed you
and bewitched you and worked on your mind that you should
not obey the truth? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ
has evidently been set forth crucified among you. I want to
know this. They've seen Christ. They've
heard Christ. They've had the gospel preached to them. And
this only what I learned of you. Did you receive the Spirit by
the works of the law? When the Holy Spirit came to
you and made Christ known to you and revealed your sin and
regenerated you, was you doing works when that happened to you? Was you working when that happened
to you when you got the Spirit? Huh? Did it come by your free
will? Or when you were sitting here
and somebody preached the gospel, hearing a faith, is that when
the Spirit came to you? Now watch this. Are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit come and began to
do the work in you, now you think your flesh is going to make the
work of Christ better? No. That's what he says. Whenever
you try to bring the flesh in with the Spirit, lull in with
grace, You're bringing another gospel, which is not another
gospel. Ain't that right? Well, I'm going to quit right
there, but I'll tell you, I'll tell you, look at chapter 5,
verse 1. You know, this business of, you
know, that's why I say, if Christ, Christ Jesus the Lord, you read
Isaiah 53, you get home, you read Isaiah 53. If Christ was made a curse for
me, if Christ was made under the law for me, if Christ was
made sin for me, if Christ bore my judgment, if Christ bore my
punishment, then what a dishonor to Him,
what a shame to Him, how wretched, what a horrible thing to think
that I could do anything to make His work any better, any purer,
or any more affectionate. I told Mike last night, we rest. When you're rested, you're not
working. Now the Lord said, come unto Me, and what did He say?
I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and then
not only will I give you rest, but you'll find that it is rest. And he that's entered into his
rest, he's quit working. You go off to get home from work
and you pop down in your chairs and you say, I'll go as far as
I'm going to go. You're resting. So do that in
Christ. The old timers called it reposing
in Christ. And that meant that reposing
in Christ, that means you sit down in the chair and you do
this right here and you repose. That's what I'm talking about.
When I'm doing this, I'm absolutely doing nothing but reposing. And
that's what we're talking about salvation in Christ. He did it
all. He did it all. There's nothing but a man to
do but by God's grace believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
say, Did you do that for me? You mean you bore my sin? You
bore my curse? You took my sins in your body
and God punished you for my sins? And you were sinless? And you'd
give me your sinlessness? You'd give me your righteousness?
And you'd count me righteous and accept me like you would
your own son? Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, thank God! I don't have to work to get God
to accept me anymore. I don't have to do anything to
get a blessing from God. I don't have to work anymore
to get God to do anything. He's already done everything.
Now I'm going to worship Him. I'm going to adore Him. I'm going
to bless Him. I'm going to praise Him. I'm
going to submit to Him. I'm going to follow Him. I'm
going to know Him. I want to worship Him. I want
to fall at His feet. I want to embrace Him. I want
to kiss His cheeks. I want my arms around Him. I
want Him more than I want life itself. Because I know Him. Huh? That's why Paul said, don't you
dare bring another gospel. You know, Ephesians 1, 3 says
this, He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. How many is all? You reckon that
means? Does that leave out, does that exclude any? No, no, no. Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look
full in His wonderful face And the things of earth will grow
strangely dim In the light is glory and grace And it will,
won't it?