If you turn back to John chapter
19, I want to bring a message this morning titled The Double
Cure. I get that from verse 19, I'm
sorry, verse 34. One of the soldiers with a spear
pierced his side and forthwith came there out blood and water. We had both blood and water,
and that's the double cure. And we're all very familiar with
that song, Rock of Ages. Let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flowed be of sin the double cure, save
from wrath and make me pure. And I can't tell you how many
times I had sung that song and had had knowledge, but maybe
not a full understanding of just the wonder of what that means,
that double cure. And I pray that the Lord would
give us some insight and that we would look at that double
cure provided by our Lord Jesus Christ with the wonder that it
deserves. So as we start, first of all,
why do we need a double cure? Well, we need a double cure because
we have two great needs. Our first need is that we need
to be delivered from the guilt of our sin, but we also need
to be delivered from the power of that sin. We need to be made
righteous. As I was studying, I was listening
to various sermons, and Todd Nybert uses an illustration often, and
you may have heard it. You're gonna hear it again, because
I'm gonna steal it from him, because I can't think of a better one.
a man, an evil, vile, wicked murderer who's been sentenced
to death. All his appeals are done and
he's going to be executed in 24 hours. But he also has a horrible
heart disease. And if he doesn't have a heart
transplant in 24 hours, he's going to die. If he gets a pardon
from the governor, he still has that heart disease. it's gonna
kill him, he's gonna die. If he gets that heart transplant,
but doesn't get that pardon for his sins, he's still in the same
situation, he's gonna die. And that's where we are with
our sin, that's our sin problem. We've got to be delivered from
the wrath of God for our sins, but we've also need to be made
pure, we need to be made righteous. So let's just look at that those
two great needs. So, to be saved from the guilt
of our sin. Well, that's the work of the
blood, right? We've been justly convicted.
We're absolutely 100% guilty. We deserve to be put to death
for our sin against God. And scripture is very clear on
that point. We've been taught that very clearly. Romans 3.23,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Are
you one of all? Are you one of the all? I am. Ezekiel 18, 20. The soul that
sinneth, it shall die. The wage of sin is death. We
need God's mercy. We need God to not give us what
we deserve, the death that we deserve. God cannot lie. He's told us,
the soul that sinneth will surely die. We need the effectual blood
of the substitute. We need the God-man, the Lord
Jesus Christ. I can't explain it. The fullness
of the Godhead came to earth in a body. He was raised as a
child, lived a sinless life. Our sin was put in his body. and put the death on that tree
that we just read. And that blood, that blood was
shed, that's, well, let's turn it over to Hebrews
10. Just, I wanna read Hebrews 10, verses 11 and 12. And every priest standeth daily
ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies he made his
footstool. So save that place right there.
I want to come back to that a little bit later. But Christ, when he
cried, it is finished, He gave up the ghost. Life, he whose
life, put aside his life and left that body and went to be
with his father, to sit at the right hand of his father. And
that work was done. It was finished. We were chosen in God before
the foundation of the world. And that lamb was slain from
the foundation of the world. That's eternal, like John said,
eternal in the past. Well, we need that justification. We
need to be justified from our sin. And as we go through life
and we experience things, that's the first thing that we see that
we need in that double cure, right? And that's what we pray. That's what we pray for our children.
That's what we pray for ourselves. That's what we pray for our loved
ones. to get that glimpse of our sin and our need. That's
the first need that we experience, because we can see the sin in
our bodies, right? We can see our sin. If we look
inwardly, even the person that has no thought for God, if they're
honest with themselves and look at their motivation for anything
that they do comes near good, they know that they're full of
sin. We just know our sin. And that's,
you know, we pray that for our children because that conviction,
that conviction is part of, that's the first step, if you will,
in knowing our need and causing us to run to Christ. You know,
that murderer, he was convicted long before that death that became
certain to him, right? He was convicted of that sin. In that blood that we talked
about, that's the blood of the Passover lamb, right? In verse
30, he gave up the ghost. His life wasn't taken from him.
He laid it down. In fact, in verses 32 and 33,
I want to go back and forth, the Jews in verse 31. You know, they're very religious. They were preparing for the Passover
and for the Sabbath, and they were looking at that law in the
Old Testament, and they didn't want that body left hanging on
the cross. They didn't want those bodies
up there. So they went and they implored the Romans to break
their legs. Well, when someone's crucified,
they're hanging there, it's a long, agonizing death. And eventually,
their strength gives out, but with their heel, with their feet,
they're able to raise up and get some breath into their lungs. And the reason that they break
their legs is to hasten that death. So they wanted to break
those legs so that they would die and they wouldn't be up there
to ruin their religious day, their Sabbath. that they're still
looking at the law. They didn't want that to mar
the law. But then when those soldiers
went to break those legs, when they came to Jesus, they saw
that he was already dead. And that wasn't a coma. That wasn't just passed out in
agony. He had truly given up the ghost.
He was dead. There was a Roman soldier an
executioner, a professional in death, who'd done this many times,
said, he's dead, there's no need to break his legs. But that's
a fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. That a bone should not be broken,
that's referring to the Passover lamb. That was the instructions
for that Passover lamb whose blood was put above the doorpost,
above the lentil and on the doorpost. In Exodus 12, 46, I'll just read
it to you, talking about that Passover lamb, and this was the
fulfillment of that scripture. In one house shall it be eaten,
thou shalt not carry it forth out of the flesh abroad out of
the house, neither shall you break a bone thereof. And then
in Numbers, it says, they shall leave none of it until the morning,
nor break any bone of it, according to all the ordinances of Passover,
they shall keep it. And Psalm 34, 20 says, he keepeth
all his bones, none of them is broken. And John tells us again,
he refers to those scriptures that these things were done,
that the scripture should be fulfilled, a bone of him should
not be broken. So that's a very clear picture
that Christ was the Passover lamb and he was slain and that
blood took the wrath of God for our sin. But the second part
of that double cure that I really wanna look at is that we need
to be made clean and righteous. We need the righteousness of
God. It takes a little longer in our
experience to get there. We see our sin, but we don't
see, we can't imagine being righteous, right? to be truly holy, to be
sanctified, to be sinless, to sin no more. And that's the work
of the water. That's God's grace giving us
something that we don't deserve, giving us that righteousness
in Christ. Now, you know, many people think that that water
represents baptism, that when you're baptized, that that's
a a cleansing of the flesh, that's a regeneration that's necessary
for salvation. But we know that cannot be. Anything
that a man does is not contributing to salvation. That baptism, that
is evidence of salvation. And if a child of God is saved,
they're gonna know it and they're gonna wanna confess God in baptism.
But we don't have to read very, In Luke 23, 42 and 43, we see
there's a thief on the cross, right? And he wasn't baptized. But the Lord told him, well,
he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom. Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee, today
shalt thou be with me in paradise. So we know that we can't produce
that righteousness that God requires. Romans 3.10 says, as it is written,
there is none righteous, no, not one. So that's our second
need is for that righteousness of God and Christ. And you know,
we think we have a righteousness that's just, that's part of our
nature, right? We think we have a righteousness,
but Isaiah told us that our self-righteousness is filthy rags. It's not clean,
it's filthy. And Matthew 5.20, Christ teaches,
he says, for I say unto you that except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, ye
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Well, don't
let our understanding and what we read in the New Testament
of the motivation of those scribes and Pharisees cloud what Christ
is teaching in this when he says this, right? We see those scribes
and Pharisees, and we think, well, they were evil men. They
were out to kill Christ, and they were. They were evil men.
But don't fool yourself into thinking that you could have
a righteousness that exceeds their righteousness. When Christ
was preaching that, and the people he was talking to, those Jewish
people, those scribes and Pharisees, they represented the best that
man had to offer. They had the righteousness that
the normal people couldn't attain, right? They had all those religious
duties and all that religion, and they were the best thing
that that religion could produce. And what Christ is teaching in
that is that we have to have a righteousness that religion
can't produce, that there's no way for any man, even the best
of men that you're seeing out here, We can't produce that. And I worry sometimes that when
we see that, we, yeah, I can exceed the righteousness of those
scribes. No, you can't, you can't. Nothing
you can do in religion. And even if you could, you couldn't
satisfy the righteousness of God. And, you know, thinking
that we can produce that righteousness, that just reveals our ignorance
of God's righteousness, right? In Romans 10.3 it says, Paul's
praying for his brethren in the flesh, the nation Israel, and
he says, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going
about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted
themselves to the righteousness of God. So we see that any time
that we think that we can produce a righteousness to satisfy God,
that's because we don't understand the righteousness of God, right?
but our puny minds can't understand that. And that water cleansing,
that's nothing new. That goes all the way back to
the Old Testament. We see the blood in the sacrifice,
the mercy through that blood, but that water cleansing, back
in Exodus, when they talked about the sacrifice, Aaron and his
sons, there was a labor of water outside when they came in to
give in the presence of God in order to give that blood sacrifice,
they had to wash themselves first. They had to be made clean. They
needed that double cure, even that that was pictured even all
the way back in the Old Testament. The next is 30, 19 through 21.
I'll just read it for you. And Aaron and his son shall wash
their hands and their feet there at when they go into the tabernacle
of the congregation, they shall wash with water. that they die
not. They've got to be clean. Or when
they come near the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire
unto the Lord, so they shall wash their hands and their feet,
that they die not. And it shall be a statute to
them forever, even to him and to his seed throughout all their
generations. So Christ fulfilled that picture,
that Old Testament picture, with the water and the blood. I want to turn back to Hebrews.
I told you to save that spot. If we could go back to Hebrews
10, we see where Christ did fulfill that. We had read verses 10 through
12. Let's look above at verse 9,
though. Then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second, By the which will ye are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Sanctified, that means made holy. We're made holy through that
sacrifice. Not only are we saved from the
wrath of God, we are made holy through that sacrifice. And then
down in verse 14, for by one offering he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. We are made perfect in our Lord
Jesus Christ. We are made holy, we're sanctified. Just a few other scriptures talking
about that. 1 Peter 2.24, who his own self
bear our sins in his body on the tree, that we being dead
to sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed.
And then Philippians 3.9, and be found in him, not having mine
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, by
the faith of Christ. We have that righteousness of
God. So it's very clear, and you might be saying, Dan, why
didn't you understand that? Why did you say you don't fully
grasp that double cure? I think, I hope it seems plain
to you, but in my defense, as Jonathan said, you know, we see
darkly. We just see a glimpse. And truly,
I don't think any of us can fully comprehend the glory of that
double cure. But my real problem is that like
Paul's brethren, I was ignorant of God's righteousness. I knew
I couldn't establish that righteousness myself, But I didn't understand
that this old flesh can't be made righteous. I didn't understand
I needed a new birth. And that's where the full understanding
of that. The gift of grace is to be born
again. It's a true understanding that
the righteousness of God. And if I had known that, I'd
know that I needed to be born again. 1 John 2.29 says, if ye
know that he is righteous, if you know the righteousness of
God, Ye know that everyone that doeth righteous is born of him. We need that new birth. It's
not a righteousness of Christ pasted on this old flesh and
given to this old body. It is truly a new man who never
sins, who's completely righteous. That's the gift of grace that
we need. And I just want to look at that just a little bit. Let's
turn to John 3. We saw this man show up a little
bit later in what John read for us. This is when Nicodemus came
to our Lord in the night. John 3, starting in verse 3. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus answered and
said, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter in a
second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered,
verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water,
there's that cleansing water, the water and our double cure
that we're born of, and of the spirit, you cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
I must be born again. So here we see that this flesh,
this born after Adam's seed, that old man, it can't be made
righteous. We need the new birth, we need
to be born again of the spirit in order to enter glory. And that old flesh is gonna die,
but that new man is gonna live eternally in Christ. I think,
John, I think you might have read this. Well, in 1 Corinthians
15.22, for as in Adam, all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive. Romans 5, 19 and 21. For as by
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. That as sin reigned unto death,
Even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by our Lord, by Jesus Christ our Lord. So that flesh that
from our father Adam is gonna die. It's gonna be left behind
just like that body, that human body was left behind on that
cross. But our spirit, that new man, in us, born of Christ, to
see eternal life. And that new life is through
the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. This is what Jonathan
read, actually. Well, this is what we have in
our bulletin, right? If we look on our bulletin, this
is the creed of this church. For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Let's not leave out that righteousness. We get so caught up, we know
that he was made sin for us. But that's like the story of
Henry when Brother Barnard years ago asked him to read Romans
8.28, and he stood up and said, well, we know that all things
work together for them, for good to them that love God. And he
sat down, and Brother Barnard said, you didn't finish it, right? Oh. to them that are called according
to his purpose, right? Let's not get so caught up in
the sin that we forget the righteousness. Let's not stop it, for he hath
made him to be sin for us who knew no sin. Let's remember that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And that's the
work of the water. That's the work of the spirit.
Psalm 22 that I read before, we see many statements of Christ
on the cross, and he cried out, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? He's dying under the wrath of
God for our sin. But that ends, well, in verse
23, it talks about Ye that fear the Lord, praise him. All ye
the seed of Jacob, glorify him and fear him. All ye the seed
of Israel. That's that new birth. That's
that seed that was born of God, not of Adam. And it ends in,
if we read verses 30 and 31, we see the fulfillment of that. It's not Adam's seed. It's the
new seed. It's a new birth. It says, A
seed shall serve him, and it shall be accounted to the Lord
for a generation. They shall come and shall declare
his righteousness unto the people that shall be born, that he hath
done this. He hath done this. That new birth
comes from Christ. So that's where I was going wrong, right? I was
thinking that that righteousness, that Christ, that was a legal
matter. He's righteous because I'm righteous, so I'm saying
he has my righteousness. But that's not what, it is a
new birth in Christ. And I can't explain that, but
I can wonder at it. And I pray that you all can wonder
at it too. I just want to read just a few
more scriptures to close this out. Because I want us to not
neglect the preaching of the word. Because we're here today. I'm a clay vessel and I pray
that the Lord would give something to you all through what he's
given to me for today. But God uses the means of preaching
to bring about that new birth. So I implore you, you can't make
yourself be born, right? You can't even ask for it. You're
dead. You can't ask for that birth,
really, any more than you could for the first birth. If you do,
it's evidence that you've been born. But in 1 Peter 1.23, it says,
being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed,
And how? By the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. The word of God incarnate, our
Lord Jesus Christ, and that word preached of our Lord Jesus Christ. In John 3, seven through eight,
back here when Christ was talking to Nicodemus, he says, marvel
not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit." That wind, that's the preaching, right? We stand
and we preach, and we don't know where it's gonna go, but it's
gonna be effectual to someone, and it's gonna be born, and they're
gonna be born again. We can see that effectual. John
said, in our text, verse 35, and he
that saw it bear record, and his record is true, that he knoweth,
that he sayeth true, that ye might believe. This was recorded
that we might believe. And that's what that preaching
is. It reminds me of Ezekiel 37, when the valley of the dry
bones, right? And he was told to prophesy and
prophesy that there's no hope for them. And those bones assembled
and flesh came on them and they looked alive, but they weren't. And the Lord told him to prophesy
to the wind, told him to prophesy to the wind, come from the four
winds of breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live.
And that's the preaching of the word. Don't neglect the preaching
of the word because that's how we're born again. And I just
wanna read one more scripture. If we would turn to 1 John 5. I wanna read one through eight. Whosoever believeth, that Jesus
is the Christ, is born of God, and everyone that loveth him
that begot, loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this ye
know that we love the children of God, when we love God and
keep his commandments. For this is the love of God,
that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not
grievous. The only way that the commandments of God cannot be
grievous is if we have a new and perfect righteousness, because
we can't meet those commandments in our old flesh. For whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh
the world? But he that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God. This is he that came by water
and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water
and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth
witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that
bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one. And
there are three that bear witness in the earth, the Spirit, the
water and the blood, and these things agree in one. We need
that double cure. We need the water and the blood. And I pray that the Lord would
show that to you, that maybe this has been some comfort. I'm gonna just read one more
section of scripture here from Isaiah 40. Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins. May the Lord bless his
word. Heavenly Father, Thank you for
bringing us here this morning. Lord, we pray that you would
cause us to continue to seek our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray
that you would give us that new birth in Christ.
You would not leave us to our own understanding, Lord, but
that we might have a glimpse of the righteousness of our Lord
Jesus Christ. We're so thankful that through
the water and the blood, we can come into thy presence. Lord, bless your word, bless
your people. It's in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ we pray.