Let's open our Bibles to 2 Corinthians
5. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20. Therefore we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God were making appeal through us. We
beg you on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to
be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him. Let's pray. Please. Please. Please. May I preach Christ? Please. Open the eyes and ears of all
of us that we might see Christ. One gift we ask. And we have chosen the best. Oh, God. Christ, Christ, that we might
see Christ. Amen. We are ambassadors. How can it
be? How can it be? It would have
been an astounding measure of grace if He just sent us to hell
for a while, but He's kept us out completely. It would have
been an astounding measure of grace An astounding measure. If He would have put us someplace
neutral where no place could be found for us and just left
us there for an eternity, that would have been grace in light
of our sin. It would have been inconceivable that He would set us on the same
level with angels and make us servants in His court. But He has made us sons. And if that were not enough,
ambassadors, ambassadors of Christ, not of the law, not of the letter,
but of his own dear son, ambassadors of Christ. There's such majesty
in that. There's such beauty, and yet
there is a beauty that is so sharp. that it kills the preacher. It has the power to disintegrate
his mind and shatter his heart in a million pieces. Oh brethren,
you don't need much. You only need an exalted, a greater,
a wider, a higher, a deeper view of Christ. The people of God
around the world today, they don't need strategies. They don't
need the wisdom of men. They don't need clever ideas.
They only need to see Christ, and that is the burden. That
is the terror, the pain, and the beauty of the preacher. Brethren, we are not men of the
people. And although we must love them
and walk among them, we are primarily men of God. And it is our primary
task to be in his courts, to be in his courts, to be on
his doorstep. And to say nothing I've had up
till now is enough. I must have more of Christ. And then to look out over God's
people and see them hungry, and with so little power, and so
wayward, and so distracted, and cry out, oh God, am I not a preacher? Am I not a preacher? then consume
my heart with Christ, that I might stand before your people. And
in the word I proclaim, they have a greater vision of him.
And in seeing Christ, it is enough. It is enough. But then again, that's the pain
of preaching. Why would a man ever take it
upon himself to enter a profession where every time he opens his
mouth he fails, that there is nothing? He is so great, the mind can't
comprehend him. And as Spurgeon always lamented,
whether you have the vocabulary of the greatest orator, whether
you have the lips of a seraph, it doesn't matter. All language
fails. All language fails. And so we
embark upon something this afternoon that will end in failure. Christ, oh that God would show
Him to me and show Him to you. Verse 21, He made Him who knew
no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him. The gospel of this great crown of doctrine,
of this majestic diadem of theology, the center stone that outshines
them all and is the source of the glory of all other doctrines,
is the gospel of Jesus Christ. So many people today discussing
so many things. With regard to eschatology, I
can assure you, you will know absolutely everything about the
second coming on the day that it occurs. But you will be an eternity of
eternities in glory, and you will have not reached the foothills
of the Everest of the gospel of Jesus Christ. unending comprehension of the
great Seraph. It will not end. It will go on
and on and on as we all gaze from glory to glory in what God
has done for us in Christ. And I can assure you with the
authority of Scripture that this is the one cure for everything
that is the malady in preachers and their churches. You, preacher,
go farther and deeper. into the heart of the gospel,
and as you do, everything else will be set in place. The gospel. Know it. Be a man who dwells
in your study, who reads ancient books, who cries out to God in
prayer so that on Sunday when you go to the pulpit and open
up your mouth, you have something to say to God's people, not about
a mere ethic or a morality, but about a person that is incomprehensible
and full of glory, full of glory. And here we have this text. There's
so much to say before we get to this text, but time limits
us. I would have to say, first of
all, that this text, verse 21, you cannot understand it. You
say, yes, Brother Paul, we can't understand it unless we first
understand how vile sin truly is. Yeah, but you can't understand
that. Nor can your people, unless they
understand who God is. That is the first step in the
gospel. It is not the sin of men. The first step in the gospel
is the knowledge of God. You can wrangle with men all
day long. You can try to convince them with all your arguments
about how horrifying, how putrid, how terrible, how loathsome sin
is, but they will never see it. Your task, preacher, is to study
the attributes of God until you burn with them. Reveal God to
your people through the proclamation of the Word, and they will see
their sin. When you're preaching on the
streets, preach the attributes of God. And in that light, in
that light, every dark spot will be clearly seen. And we have before us here, before
we can understand it, we must understand what is the great
dilemma. And I am surprised at this. As I read the ancient books,
particularly the Reformers on through the Puritans, it seems
like on every page they talk about this theme, and I almost
never hear it in modern preaching. And the theme is this. The great
question of all the Scripture, what it all comes down to according
to Paul in chapter 3 of the book of Romans is this. It is a divine
dilemma. How can God be just? How can
He truly be just and yet justify the wicked? It is wrong. How can this thing be done? And before I go to our text,
I want to show you using the Old Testament. Turn with me for
just a second to Exodus 34. Here we have a revelation of
God to Moses in parallels Isaiah 6, 34, 5. The Lord descended
in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the
name of the Lord. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and
proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who
keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression
and sin. Yet he will by no means leave
the guilty unpunished. Can you see within this text
the problem? When he says this, forgives iniquity,
transgression, and sin, it's a Hebrew way of piling one term
upon another to say that God forgives all types and kinds
of sin. And yet this next statement draws
us into great confusion. For he says this, yet he will
by no means leave the guilty unpunished. How can this be true? How can you have both things? in the same passage, relating
to the same God. Now, let's go on. Go to the book
of Psalms for a moment. Chapter 32, verse 1. How blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is
the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. Now, when
you read that, you praise God until you read it in light of
who God is. Listen to what it's saying. God covers sin? I thought that was the strategy
of corrupt earthly judges, to cover sin. How can a holy and
just God cover sin? How? The ethical, moral dilemma,
theological, philosophical dilemma of David. He should die. Adam should die. Noah should
die. Abraham should die. David should
die. They should all die if God is
a just God. How can He cover sin and still
be just? Go to Proverbs 17. Verse 15,
he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous,
both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. We get into the
New Testament, especially Romans 3, on to Romans 4, and what do
we hear? We hear praises of men and apostles
and angels. With regard to what? That God
justifies the wicked. God justifies the wicked. And
so we write choruses about it. We preach about it. We exalt
in God's forgiveness of the wicked. But here's the great problem.
It says in the book, and the Scriptures cannot be broken,
that anyone who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the
Lord. So how does the Lord justify
the wicked? This is the great question of
the gospel. And yet it's neglected today.
People don't understand it today. Not enough of the attributes
of God are being taught today. And then let's go for just a
moment to the book of Micah. And here we will reveal part
of the answer to this dilemma. Micah chapter 7. Verse 18, who
is a God like you who pardons iniquity and passes over the
rebellious act of the remnant of his possession? He does not
retain his anger forever because he delights in unchanging love.
He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities
underfoot. Yes, you will cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea. And we write songs about this.
God has taken our sin off of us, and He has thrown it on the
ground, and He has trampled it underfoot. Our God has taken
our sin and rolled it up in a mighty ball and cast it into the sea,
never to be seen again. And we rejoice! But that makes
no sense whatsoever if it's not interpreted Christologically.
God did not take your sin off of you. He did not take the sin
off of His people, throw it on the ground and trample it. He
didn't take your sin off as an impersonal thing and hurl it
into the sea. The answer to this dilemma is
found in this. God took your sin off of you
and laid it upon the perfect Christ and trampled him underfoot
of the wrath of God. God took the sin off his elect. God removed the sin from his
church. He rolled it up in a ball and
he cast it upon Christ and then cast Christ into the sea of his
wrath. The only way God, according to
Paul, can be just and the justifier of the wicked is because there
is a ransom, because there is a propitiation, there is a sacrifice
so pure, so mighty, so pleasing to God that it satisfies the demands
of God's justice and quenches his wrath. Now in light of that, let's look
at our text. He made him who knew no sin. Now we look at that and what
do we think? What do we think? He kept the law. He was born
under the law. He kept the law. Yes, that is
true, but it's so much mightier than that. It's so much greater. Let me give you an example. What
do you suppose would be the greatest sin? Do you think it might be
breaking the greatest commandment? To love the Lord your God with
all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Now listen to me. There
has never been a human being on this planet Of all the thousands
of years of humanity, of all the billions of people who have
walked this earth, there has never been, of all that mass,
not one person who for one fraction of a second loved the Lord their
God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Think about
it. among the billions of Adam's
seed, not one for a fraction of a second loved the Lord their
God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And yet this
Jesus of Nazareth, there was never one second that He did
not love the Lord His God with all His heart, soul, mind, and
strength. He's absolutely amazing. He's amazing. Shout it from the
mountains, let it tear your heart out of your breast. This is enough
to propel a Christian into countless ages of piety. Look at this man,
Jesus, and what he did. Our victor, our conqueror, our
champion did what none of us could do, not the whole lot of
us could do. And then when it says that he
was tempted like us in all ways, oh brothers, think, Think before
you preach that text. Oh, yes, He was tempted like
us, just like us. He didn't fail. Well, yes, but
you're not understanding. Imagine that there standing beside
me was a world-class powerlifter, and so you put an Olympic bar
on his back, 45 pounds, and you put an Olympic bar on my back.
I'm okay, he's okay. Then you put two wheels on him,
two plates. Now you got 135, you got 135
on me. We're both still okay. Let's
take it up another notch. Let's put more plates on there.
So now he's got 225 and I've got 225. And yes, I can still
squat that way. So I'm okay. But then you go
past and now we've got six plates. We've got 315 here, 315 here. I'm beginning to tremble. I don't
want to go down because I'm not coming up. He is okay. Then we put on eight plates.
We've got 405. He's not even breaking a sweat.
I have fallen to the ground and been broken into a thousand pieces.
The first temptation was laid upon the strongest of us. It
was laid upon him and we crashed. But sin was heaped. Temptation
was heaped and heaped and heaped and heaped upon him. And he stood
and he stood and he stood. What came against Him was infinitely
beyond anything that touched the whole lot of us. And yet
this broad-shouldered Christ, this deep-chested Savior, He
stood His ground in every way. He's a champion. He's a king. And He earned it by His own right
and virtue. He made Him who knew no sin to
be sin. Years ago, when I first looked
at this text, it terrified me. I consulted Calvin and he told
me I was right to be terrified. And he warned me. He warned me.
He said, Don't say too little. Don't say too little. Or you'll
rob God's people of glory. Of knowing their Christ. Don't
say too little, but don't say too much. Don't go too far with
this. This is a dangerous passage.
You can enter into the realm of blasphemy. What does it mean? that he was made sin? I believe the answer, affirmed
also by many, and Martin Lloyd-Jones particularly, verse 21, answers
the question, what does it mean for Christ to have been made
sin? What does it mean for us to be
righteous? Look at the text. He made him
who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become
the righteousness of God in Christ. The moment that we believed in
Christ, did we somehow become infused with such a grace that
our natures were transformed beyond the corruptible and we
became perfect beings? Absolutely not. What happened
to us when we believed in Christ? Righteousness was imputed to
us. Now, listen to my language very
carefully, because I'm going to add a word that is not often
heard. The moment we placed our faith
in Christ. We were legally or forensically
declared to be right with God. And he treated us as right with
him. Do not forget that word treated
because it's important to understanding the cross. The moment we believed
in Christ, we were legally declared to be right before the throne
of God. And God treats us as right with
him. Even when a Christian comes under
the loving discipline of God, it is still in the context of
being treated right with him. It is not a judge, but a father.
So how did Christ become sin? On Calvary, the sins of God's
people were imputed to him and he is legally declared guilty
and he is treated as such. Treated as such. Does that make
you tremble? If it does not, because again,
there's a lack of understanding of the attributes of God. For
the perfectly holy God to treat the sinner as a sinner is beyond
terror. And it's not some sort of Dante,
Inferno, perverted, twisted wrath or torture. It is the blinding,
white holiness of God manifested against evil. Do you see? He became sin. Now it is so hard for us to understand
why we were conceived in sin, we were born in sin. We come
from a people of sinful lips. We drink down iniquity like it
was water. How can we understand what it
meant for the holy, perfect Son of God who had always known perfect
communion with the Father? How can we know what it means? To bear sin. Imagine one of your
fine women from this church, and she decides that she's going
to have an outreach among the prostitutes of Los Angeles. And
she's the kind of woman you all know her. She's as pure as any
woman has ever been. She's a dear saint. The slightest
thing offends her spirit, but she goes out to win souls in
the street. But as she's there passing out
tracks, all of a sudden the police come, and they grab the prostitutes
and throw them in the paddy wagon, and they grab her along with
them and throw her in. The prostitutes are sitting in
the paddy wagon, and later in the police office, they're on
their cell phones, they're laughing, they're talking jokes, they're
filing their nails. But this dear sister is over
in the corner. She can't breathe. Her entire
life is dislocated and fractured. The soil of the men touching
her. She's beside herself. She's clearly
hysterical, out of her mind. That doesn't even begin. As a
matter of fact, I wish I had not even used it as an illustration.
It is so pitiful compared to what Christ knew when He took
the sins of His bride upon Himself. Let's go on. This text tells
us that Christ was made sin. And you think, stop, Paul, just
stop. It's enough. He became sin. OK. But then just when we think
it can't get any darker, Paul lights a lamp and takes us farther
down into the dungeon, over to Galatians chapter 3. Look what
it says, Galatians 3. Verse 10, For as many as are
of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed
is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in
the book of the law to perform them. Now, it would take several
lectures to go through exactly what it means to be a curse,
but let me summarize it for you. The sinner, not only before God,
but before every holy creature in heaven, The last thing that sinner will
hear, he is so vile, so loathsome before God. The last thing that
sinner will hear when he takes his first step into hell is all
of heaven, all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God
because God has rid the earth of him. And then verse 13. Yet Christ redeemed us from the
curse of the law. Having become a curse for us. For it is written. Cursed is
everyone who hangs on a tree. I've read this passage so many
times, but I never cease to be shocked at the coldness of my
heart. How can I breathe? in light of this truth, of what
my Savior, what your Savior did for us. You see, gentlemen, Paul
was right when he wrote Timothy, the mystery of godliness. This is the source of salvation,
Romans 1 16. This is the source of all true
piety. If this is not the source, then
your piety springs forth from idolatry. We seek to be pious. We seek to please Him because
of this, because of the gospel, because of what He's done. This
is what makes missionaries. This is what makes street preachers. This is what will not allow us
to be silent. He became a curse. In the Beatitudes, we have the
blessings, don't we? The kingdom of heaven, seeing
God. So in a way, a curse would be the antonym of
what we see in the Beatitudes, wouldn't it? So let's just rewrite
those. Just listen. The blessed are
granted the kingdom of heaven. The cursed are refused entrance. The blessed are recipients of
divine comfort. The cursed are objects of divine
wrath. The blessed inherit the land.
The cursed are cut off from it. The blessed are satisfied. The
cursed are miserable and wretched. The blessed receive mercy. The
cursed are condemned without pity. The blessed shall see God,
the cursed are cut off from his presence. The blessed are sons
and daughters of God, and the cursed are disowned in disgrace. Sometimes we can honestly, if
we're not grounded in the gospel and we're not Christological,
we're not gospel centered, we can become so trite. There are
things the Puritan said that should only be spoken with a
trembling lip. And young men realize this, it's not enough
to have the Puritan theology, you need to have the Puritan
devotion. A trembling lip. And that is
every time I cry out, I'm blessed. Resonating in the back of my
mind because he was cursed. Every favor, every mercy, every
pity, every kindness was bought. That's why every gift of God
should be collected in the box of our heart and sealed with
a seal greater than that that is wax. Everything was bought by His
blood. Everything was bought by His
suffering. And that is why we are the most
joyful and the most broken people all at the same time. I want to go now to, you don't
have to turn there, we don't have time, but when he talks
about the curse, if we look in Deuteronomy 27 and 28, we find
something unusual that happens with the camp of Israel. And
what is that? The camp is divided. One part
of the camp is sent to Mount Gerizim, and from Mount Gerizim
they are to cry out all the blessings that are to fall upon the covenant
keeper. But the other part of the camp
is sent to Mount Ebal, where they are to scream out all the
curses that are to fall upon the covenant breaker. I do not
think I have to give you a dissertation on radical depravity to know
which camp that you and I belong in. But here's the thing that you
need to understand. Jehovah has only ever had one
servant, one witness. One champion. One son. one covenant keeper. And that
covenant keeper took the place of his brethren, us, nothing
but vile covenant breakers and rebels, the whole lot of us. But in love and according to
the eternal counsels of the Father, The covenant keeper took the
place of the covenant breakers and suffered the curse that was
theirs. Now, what I've done is I've simply
gone into these two passages, Deuteronomy 27 and 28, and I've
pulled it out to show how this applies to Christ. The first
sentence I borrow from R.C. Sproul. Now listen, and the rest
comes from Deuteronomy. When Christ from Calvary cried
out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Dr. Sproul says the father replied,
The Lord, the Lord, your God damns you. The Lord sends upon
you curses, confusion and rebuke until you are destroyed and you
perish quickly. The Lord smites you with madness
and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart. And you will grope
at noon as the blind man gropes in darkness with none to save
you. The Lord delights over you to make you perish and destroy
you, and you will be torn from the land. Curse shall you be
in the city, and curse shall you be in the field. Curse shall
you be when you come in, and curse shall you be when you go
out. The heavens which is over your head shall be bronze, and
the earth that is under you iron. You shall be a horror, and a
proverb, and a taunt among all the people. Let all these curses
come upon you, and pursue you, and overtake you until you are
destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by
keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded
you. Common grace is so overlooked. Every day of the sinner's life,
heaven should be screaming this condemnation at him. Do you understand
me? Every place you go, every step
you take, every breath you draw in and let out, every beat of
your heart, you would only hear resounding in your ears over
and over and over, cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed. And then God's cursing vindicated
on the day of judgment and then cast into hell where you hear
cursed, cursed, cursed. But our elder brother, covenant
keeper, the Messiah, the Son of God, the victor, the champion. He comes and takes our place,
and He bears the curse in our place. I've written here As Christ
bore our sin on Calvary, He was cursed as a man who makes an
idol and sets it up in secret. He was cursed as one who dishonors
his father or mother, who moves his neighbor's boundary mark
or misleads a blind person on the road. He was cursed as one
who distorts the justice due an alien orphan or widow. He
was cursed as one who is guilty of every manner of immorality
and perversion, who wounds his neighbor in secret or accepts
a bribe to strike down the innocent. He was cursed as one who does
not confirm the words of the law by doing them. You know,
it's interesting in the book of Proverbs, just by way of illustration,
it says, like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its
flying, so a curse without cause does not alight. So how did a
curse alight upon the branch? Only because the branch took
my place, took your place. and bore our sin. Again, let's read. The curse did alight upon the
branch, not because of some flaw in his character or error in
his deeds, but because he bore the sins of his people and carried
their iniquity before the judgment bar of God. There he stood, uncovered,
unprotected, and vulnerable to every recourse of divine judgment
against us. David said this, how blessed
is he whose transgressions is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity
and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Yet I have written
here on the cross, the sin imputed to Christ was exposed before
God in the host of heaven. He was placarded before men and
made a spectacle to angels and devils alike. The transgressions
he bore were not forgiven him and the sins he carried were
not covered. If a man is counted blessed because iniquity is not
imputed to him, then Christ was cursed beyond measure because
the iniquity of us all fell upon him. In the renewal of the covenant,
the covenant in Moab, we hear this, there is a warning given
to the nation of Israel. And it goes like this, regarding
the covenant breaker, the one who disobeyed the law of The
anger of the Lord and his jealousy will burn against that man. And
every curse which is written in this book will rest on him.
And the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. Then
the Lord will single him out for adversity from all the tribes
of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant which
are written in the book of the law. Sometimes when I'm witnessing
or I'm preaching on the streets, And some sinner waxes bold with
me. I say, you're pretty bold, man,
because the group you're standing in. But on the day of judgment,
you will be singled out for adversity. Show me the strength of your
knees on that day. Make boast on that day. I'm not
afraid. Sir, listen to me. You will melt
before him like a tiny wax figurine before a blast furnace. with
none as your advocate, unless now you run to Christ. There's a passage, the Aaronic
Blessing, it's beautiful, but again, we sometimes miss the
point. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine
on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance
on you and give you peace. We teach that to God's people
without telling them. This is impossible. How can God
do this to sinners? And it's only because on the
cross, the only one who deserves such a blessing from Yahweh,
was the one who carried the curse that we might be blessed. Let's go to the garden now with
the time that we have. This is a travesty. Do you realize because of evangelistic,
evangelical preaching, most people think that somehow our sins were
atoned for because the Romans beat up Jesus? Easter is coming and I dread
it for the sermons that we are going to hear. The preacher will
say things like this. Christ said, let this cup pass
from me, let this cup pass from me, let this cup pass from me. And they say then, they usually
go on and say, in his omniscience, he looked forward and he saw
the cat of nine tails coming across his back. He saw the crown
of thorns and the mockery. He saw the nails in his hands
and his feet, and it caused him to sweat as though great drops
of blood. Well, let me tell you something.
The physical agony of Christ was absolutely essential in the
atonement. And I'll take nothing away from
it, but if that's all you tell your people, you are not telling
them about Calvary. And I'll prove it for the next
three centuries. Read everything you can on martyrdom. The little
disciples, the little sheep of Jesus, were carried off to crosses. Some of them crucified upside
down. Some of them set on fire. And yet the history of martyrdom
tells us that they went to those crosses with their chest out,
playing the man, singing hymns, counting it a majestic privilege
to die like their Lord. So are you telling me the champion
of their salvation is now cowering in a garden? What was in the cup? Psalm 75, for a cup is in the
hand of the Lord, and the wine foams. It is well mixed, and
he pours out of this. Surely all the wicked of the
earth must drain and drink down its dregs. Jeremiah agrees, for
thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. He says to me, take this
cup of the wine of wrath from my hand and cause all the nations
to whom I send you to drink it. They will drink and stagger and
go mad because of the sword that I will send among them. I remember
one time teaching in a school. It was a school founded upon
the tradition of the Reformation. And I went there to preach in
chapel. And they said, who am I preaching to? And they said,
kindergarten through the twelfth grade. And I said, I was going
to preach on propitiation. And the headmaster said, there
won't be a problem here, sir. And so I began to teach, and
as I got to the cup, I asked the student body, I said, what
was in the cup? What was in the cup? And in true
Reformed tradition, this little nine-year-old girl raised her
hand. I called on her. She stood beside her desk and
put her little hand on the top of her desk and stood there straight
as an arrow. And she said, sir, the wrath
of Almighty God was in the cup. That's beautiful. That's marvelous. Think! Preachers, you oftentimes
assume too much. That your people understand the
cross. But I can tell you, all over the world I've had people
come up to me in tears and say, Brother Washer, for 15 years
I have rolled upon Christ. I have trusted Christ. But I
never could figure out in all this preaching how the fact that
Romans and Jews beat Him up somehow atoned for my sin. But tonight
I understand. He was crushed. It pleased the
Lord to crush him, to crush him. Imagine you're in a little village
and you're just an eighth of a mile away from a dam. And you're
at the very bottom of that dam on a river. And the dam is 1,000
miles high and 1,000 miles wide. And it's filled to the brim.
And one morning you wake up to a sound like the world cracking
in two. And you run to the window of
your house. And you see that the dam is broke. And a wall
of water higher than heaven is coming toward you. Your strength
of stroke doesn't matter. How fleet a foot you are, does
not avail you. You are going to die and no one
will hear from that moment. Know your name. You will be gone.
You will be removed from this earth. And before that mighty
wave hits you, the ground opens up and drinks it down so that
not one spot of water reaches your sock. So did Christ, our
mighty champion. on Calvary, take our sin and
bear the wrath of Almighty God. And I hear men say, this is cosmic
child abuse. My heart, I don't know whether
to cry or go to battle. It is the most precious truth
to me because my sins are so high. that only a work like that
can save me. Once I was preaching at a secular
university, and as I was preaching on the atonement, this student
stood up and he said, I got a question for you. I said, what? How can
one man suffering for a few short hours on a cross Save a multitude
of men, a countless multitude according to you, of men from
eternal judgment." I said, son, you meant it for evil, but God
will mean it for good. Thank you for that question.
Now sit down. You want to know how that one
man dying alone for a few short hours on a tree can save a multitude
of men from an eternity in hell? Because that one man is worth
more than all of them put together. You take mountains and molehills,
crickets, and clowns. You take everything, every planet,
every star, every form of beauty, everything that sings, everything
that brings delight, and you put it all in the scale. Then
you put Christ on the other side, and He outweighs them all. He outweighs them all. Brethren, this is the one we
chase after. Go to your studies. Go to your
studies. Flee there, not to become smarter
than the next man, but to behold his glory until it hurts you and disintegrates you and reconstitutes
you and makes you a preacher. One of my favorite writers of
all of history is John Flavel and his Meditorial Glories of
Christ. He says that he writes as one who writes by moonlight.
He can't paint him properly. And there's a passage in that
first volume, and I've retitled it, he'll forgive me in heaven,
but it's called I call it The Father's Bargain, and I want
you to listen to it. So concisely, he puts gospel. The father speaks in eternity
past and he says, My son, here is a company of poor, miserable
souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lies open
to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction
for them or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. What shall be done for these
souls? Man, that's that's truth. Christ returns. Oh, my father, such is my love
to and pity for them. You know, there are so many fads
in Christianity, even in reformed circles. One of them, which is
a spectacular truth. But needs to be understood is
God has done everything for his own glory, and that is true,
true, true. But sometimes I hear especially
young preachers using that in a way that would diminish the
love of God that he set up on his people. God has done everything
he's done for his own glory. Israel asked basically in Deuteronomy
7, Why do you love me? And God answers with a tauntology.
I loved you because I loved you. It is for His own glory. And
yet He has set His love upon us. And the most special thing
to me is that Christ went to Calvary out of love for sinners. Out of love for His bride. And
that's what Flavel is saying. Oh my Father, such is my love
and pity for them. Then rather they should perish
eternally, I will be responsible for them as their surety. Who
can say that but deity? I, Father, I will be responsible
for them. And then he says, listen to this,
Father, bring in all thy bills that I may see what they owe
thee. And then he says this, Lord,
bring them all in. And listen to this, listen. Lord, bring them all in that
there may be no after reckonings with them. Did you hear that? No after reckonings, free, free,
perfect atonement, perfect sacrifice, free. Free. No more payment. All the bills
are paid. Lord, bring them all in, that
after there may be no after reckonings with them, at my hand thou shall
require it. I would rather choose to suffer
the wrath due them than that they should suffer it. Upon me,
my Father, upon me be all their debt. And the father responds,
but my son, if thou undertake for them, Thou must reckon to
pay the last mite. Expect no abatements. When we
would be going down the Amazon in an open boat, and you would
see this cloud burst on the horizon, and you would pray because you
knew, I've got just a few minutes to get to shore, and if I do
not get to shore, we're sunk. And you would pray that that
cloud would abate, that somehow it would divide in two, that
one would go one direction, the other the other, and you would
be safe, and the waves would be coming over the bow of the
boat. You're praying for an abatement, but he says this. Expect no abatement,
son, if I spare them, I will not spare you. Content, Father, let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I am able
to discharge it, and though it prove a kind of undoing to me,
and though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures,
yet I am content to undertake it. Content to undertake it. I'll finish by saying this. One
of the greatest and it was mentioned two days ago, one of the greatest
narratives of the Old Testament is Abraham commanded to carry
his son Isaac to Mount Moriah and to sacrifice him there. And
let me repeat what was said. Listen to the language. Take
now your son, your only son, whom you loved, Isaac, and go
to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering
on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. And the burden
was laid on the old man. And you can see him as in obedience
and yet great sorrow. He makes his way toward the mountain. He prepares the altar, prepares
the wood. lays his son, stretches him out, uncovers the flint knife that
may have been the very knife he used to circumcise the boy. He rears up, draws back his hand,
and his will gives in to the will of God. And at that moment,
his hand is stayed. And then Abraham is told Jehovah Jireh provided a ram. I don't want to be bold and I
want no laughter from this statement, but in my presence, don't ever
use the terminology Jehovah Jireh with regard to a house or a Mercedes
or prosperity. Because my dear friend, you will
have a fight on your hands. He will provide a ram. And all of us hear that story
and we're just. What a beautiful ending to that story, what a
beautiful ending. No. It's not the ending. It's the intermission. Century
after century after century rolls by. A curtain is closed and then
2000 years ago it opens again and there hangs God's son, his
only son, whom he loves. And he takes the knife out of
Abraham's hand and he thrust it in the breast of his own son. One poet said, offer up the sacrifice. All creation sends forth the
call. Offer up the sacrifice, one life
to pay for them all. Offer up the sacrifice, the innocent
one, the righteous one must be slain. Offer up the sacrifice
and bring man back to God again. We are ambassadors. of this pearl. We are ambassadors of this treasure. How can it be, brethren? Flee
from here. Flee from here and go to your
studies. and seek him out, and seek him
out, and seek him out, that you may reveal more, and more, and
more of him to your people. And to the degree that they grasp
this, if their hearts are truly regenerate, they will grow in
holiness, they will grow in devotion, and then go out into the streets.
Don't wrangle about politics. Don't fight with men about certain
ethical standards. Proclaim who God is and what
God has done. Go tell it on a mountain. But
before you go to the mountain, make sure that when you open
up your mouth, something comes out. And know this, all the knowledge
in the world, apart from prayer, All the knowledge in the world
without the spirit of the living God will avail you nothing. Men, when I was first called into
the ministry, my pastor was an amazing man. He looked at me
and he said this, Boy, can you be alone? And I thought that
what he meant was this, If I preach the truth, no one would like
me. That's not what he meant. He meant while all the other
boys are going on Christian retreats and hanging out in bachelor packs,
running with the crowd. Would you, could you be alone
with God? Can you make him your dwelling
place? Can you be a rare bird? Can you stay with him for a while?
Men, men, men. The world needs Christ and a
revelation of Christ, and you have been given the privilege
of preaching Christ. Now do your work. And for some of you, it may be
necessary, as it has been for me throughout many times, to
shut my mouth and open my ears and study and read. And cry. Every time we walk out in a pulpit. We are not movers and shakers,
we are not marketers. We are Ezekiel. And God says to us in the middle
of that valley of dry bones, because it's all dry bones. Can
these bones live? We will not deny Him in unbelief
and say no. And we will not presume upon
Him and say yes, but we will respond, You know, O Lord. You
know. Then prophesy. Prophesy. Everything, about everything
in the kingdom is supernatural. Not this flimsy, silly supernatural
of contemporary evangelicalism. Real supernatural. Men are only
converted by a miraculous work of the Spirit, and the Spirit
has most promised to work when we prophesy. Not some silly idea that we caught
on the wind, but the written Word of God. Take your hymn books. We're gonna sing this acapella,
but it is a great response to what we've just heard. Just stay
seated. Just marvel in the deep love
that God has for us. Page 80. Page 80. You know this
hymn. So we are capable of singing
it acapella, and it will let nothing get in the way except
what we sing, and that the message might go deep into our heart,
and that it might be in response to the message that we have heard
that we would cry out, how deep is his love? How deep the Father's
love for us, How vast beyond all measure That He should give
His only Son To make a wretch His treasure! How great the pain of searing
loss Now verse two is what we just
heard preached. Sing those words carefully. I stand upon the cross. I sit upon his shoulders. Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice. It was my sin that held him there
until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought
me life. I know that it is finished. I will not boast in anything. No gifts, no power, no wisdom. I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all my heart,
His wounds have paid my ransom. God, we thank you for the message. May our hearts be moved, our
understanding be deepened by these truths as we meditate on
all that we have heard May we be men who can be alone, men
who would preach these truths with utter clarity so that others
would erupt and sing such songs. How deep is your love? That is our prayer in Christ's
name. Amen.