Open your Bibles with me, if
you will, to 2 Corinthians 5. Thank you, Frank, for inviting
me. I appreciate it very, very much.
And Clay, I appreciate that message. Oh, my goodness. What a blessing. What a blessing. David said,
Lord, I'm poor and needy. Poor and needy. It was made that
way many, many years ago. It ain't changed a bit. It ain't
changed a bit. Thank you for that song. Bridget
Harding was the first one I ever heard sing that years and years
ago. Cheers to you. I've been pastor at Lantana Grace
40 years. And as young and as vital as
I am, I've got another 10 in me. Don't you think? Yeah, I've told them down there,
I said, y'all gonna bury me in here. Some of y'all gonna bury
me in here. I already got my name on my headstone,
so I ain't gotta worry about that. But it's really a wonderful
blessing to be here. It really is. I want us to look
together here and start reading in verse 18. And I want to bring
a message on substitution. Substitution, the heart of the
Gospel. And all things are of God, who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit that God was in Christ,
reconciled the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. The ministry of reconciliation,
word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you, talking about four
sinners seeking men to come to Christ, pray you in Christ's
stead, be you reconciled to God. Three times he's talking about
reconciliation. And this is how God reconciles
sinners. This is how the ministry that
God has given to us, the message he's given to us, told us how
to beseech us, and the message is this, 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. Now let me say, at the outset,
I believe that substitution is the heart of the gospel. I believe
it's the very gospel itself, the very heart of the gospel.
And the Old Testament is full of it. The first time you see
substitution is when God clothed Adam in his nakedness, shed the
blood, covered his nakedness. The innocent died for the guilty.
When Noah was saved in the ark, God said, Come thou into the
ark. God was in Christ. I'm in this thing. This is me
in here. You come in here and you'll be
saved. You'll be saved. And then there
was the Passover. God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. And then when Abraham took his
son Isaac up on the mount, had him strapped to the altar, had
the knife drawn back, and on his way up there, his son Isaac
asked his daddy, he said, He said, we got the wood, we
got the fire, we got the knife. Where's the lamb? God said, I
will provide Myself, Myself, not you Abraham, Myself, a lamb. And when he got up there, getting
ready to draw back that knife, God stopped him. And he turned
around, And where in the world that ram come from, I don't know.
But there was a ram caught in a thicket there. And Abraham
took that ram and put him in Isaac's stand. Substitution. God took Christ, put him in my
stand. Put him in my stand. God's blessed
book, the Bible, is the very words of God Himself. This is the way God communicates
to us is through his book, through his Bible, through his word.
He makes his mind known to us, makes his will known to us, makes
his purpose known to us, and it's written out for us to see
it, to read it for ourselves. The greatest book on the face
of the earth, the Bible, tells us about God, tells us about
how God saves us, Tells us why Christ came into the world. And
I want you to see here, in this verse of Scripture, 2 Corinthians
5.21, I want you to see three things here. There's three people
in this verse of Scripture. Three people in it. He, that's
God. That's made Him, that's Christ.
To be sin for us, that's us. that's us, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. Now I know this without a shadow
of a doubt, that we must know something about all three of
these persons. We've got to know something about
God, got to know something about Christ, got to know something
about ourselves, or salvation would be utterly impossible without
those things, without knowing them. Let's look about God, the
first thing we look at. The first person is God, for
he hath made him to be sin. Well, who is God? It says back
up there in verse 18, and all things are of him, except man's
free will. Except man's own power, man's
own ability. But no, it said all things are
of God. And you know, people say that's
high doctrine. No, that's Bible doctrine. I
don't know the difference between high doctrine and low doctrine,
do you? But I do know this, that he says God, he made all things.
And when we talk about God, I love to talk at him as being sovereign.
One who reigns, one who's got all power, who's got all authority
in heaven and in earth. God is sovereign and he's sovereign
absolutely so. Absolute authority in this world,
in the heavens and in the earth. He has absolute power. No one,
no one, no one has any power but what God gives them. And
he's got all the rights. He has absolute rights to do
what he will in this world. And there's three absolutes as
far as I'm concerned in this world and everybody needs to
be confronted with them. God's an absolute sovereign.
He brooks no rival. He inhabits eternity. He's the
high and holy one that inhabits eternity. He has to humble himself
to behold the things that are in earth. And then Christ is
an absolute savior. There's no other savior. There's
no other way that God will allow you into his presence. Scott
used to say, God won't be spoken to or allow you to speak to Him
apart from His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It won't happen.
If you want to do business with God, you're going to have to
come to His Son. God won't even look in your direction until
you look to His Son. And I'll tell you, here's another
thing. Sinner is an absolute sinner. There's not a spot you
can find on any man on top side of God's earth that he's got
a good spot in him anywhere. You can't find it inside or outside. Nothing. Man at his best to stay
is altogether vanity. When he says the best you can
do, your righteousness is as a filthy rag, that's the best
you do. So you tell me where you can find a good spot on a
man. You can't find it in his mind. You can't find it in his
heart. You can't find it in his words.
You can't find it in his eyes. You can't find it in his action.
You can't find it in his tongue. You can't find it in his feet.
You cannot find nothing good in a man. He's a sinner. Nothing, nowhere good about him. And let me tell you something
about this sovereign God. His only rule He is His own free
and mighty will. That's the only rule. Oh, listen. He said in Psalm 135, I had our
folks look at it the other day because I quote it so often,
that God does according to His will in the heavens, in the earth,
in the sea, in all deep places. And you know what He said about
man? He said all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. doeth according to his will,
way up yonder in heaven among all them armies, and among the
inhabitants of the earth." Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. He can't do me that way. He can
do what he wants to with you anytime he wills to do it. And
ain't nobody going to stop him. And I'll tell you something else
about him. He explains himself to no man, and he don't explain
his actions. All he has to do is say, I will.
And it's done. Ain't that right? He commanded,
and it stood. And beloved, when he says, I
will, forget about it. It's done. It's done. And that's why you know Paul
said to the Romans, Who art thou, O man, that replies against God? Would the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why have you made me this way? Who in
the world would a man, what kind of worm of this earth, would
think he could stand in God's presence and tell God that I
don't like the way you're dealing with me? But people do it. I did it until he humbled me. and put me down. And I tell you,
let the potions of the earth strive with the potions. Oh,
but woe unto him that striveth with his maker. I tell you what,
beloved, I tell you what, he's the God of predestination. Look
in Isaiah 46. I love predestination. I love it. I was saved because
God predestinated me to be saved. Do you know that? God, I was
born. God loved me and saved me in
Christ before the foundation of the world. Chose me in him.
Christ died for me as the lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. And God predestinated the day that he's gonna cross
my path with the gospel. And he predestinated me to be
a preacher. Everything about my, he numbered
the hairs on my head. They're getting fewer and fewer,
but he still numbers them. I love this God, don't you? I
just adore him. He's to be praised. He's to be
blessed. He's to be honored above all
things. And oh my, look what he said here in Isaiah 46 in
verse nine. Talking about the God of predestination.
Remember the former things of old. Remember all the things
that happened way back yonder? I'm God and there is none else.
And I'm God and there ain't nobody like me. Declaring the end from
the beginning. Now wait a minute. How do you
do that? If you're God, you can. He got up and he said, there's
the end out there. There's the end. I know what
the end's gonna be. I want the end to be this way.
This is the way I'm gonna wind it up. So he got way back here
and he said, I'm going to declare everything that happens between
here and there until I wind it up. And we're just walking, living
in his world, breathing his air, enjoying his blessings, rejoicing
in his grace, ain't we? Look what he says. And from ancient
times of the things that are not yet done, he even talks about
things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel will stand,
and listen to this, and I will do everything that pleases me. Now, beloved, this is the God
we absolutely adore and worship, bow down to. And I'll tell you
something else about him. He is just, he is just. His sovereignty is proved by
the words that He hath made Christ to be sin. But why did He make
Him to be sin? Because He's just. He's holy. He's righteous. The judge of
all the earth, as you said, must do right. And this great salvation
that God in grace and justice provided is devised and designed
to satisfy God and honor Him, and magnify Him, and give Him
all the glory, even in His blessed Son. You know, God's justice
is utterly and absolutely inflexible. Now the death of Christ, do you know what the main purpose
of the death of Christ was for? The first person it was for.
It wasn't for us. The death of Christ wasn't first
and foremost for us. That's what the free willers
say. That's what the Armenians say. That's what man thinks. He thinks he's so important and
so powerful and so good that surely, surely God loves me and
gonna do something for me because I'm so good. But the first reason
that God sent his son into this world was one reason only, first
and foremost, to satisfy him. to glorify Him, to honor Him. The death of Christ, the first
foremost reason for Christ to come into this world was to be
a sacrifice, a satisfaction to His Father. And if Christ hadn't
died, God would never be satisfied and not one soul on this earth
would ever be saved. Do you reckon, let me ask you
this, do you reckon any of us, any of us has ever done one thing
that God could look at and say, well, that's good. That's good. So the death of Christ first
is for God. It's to satisfy Him. It's a propitiation. That's why God, when I said,
I see the blood, I'll pass over you. He entered once into the
holy place. into God's holiness and entered
into the holiness of God and there put his own precious blood
in God's sight. And I tell you what, God said,
I saw, I saw the travail, the anguish, the pain, the labor,
the sorrow, the grief of my blessed son. I saw what he went through. And he said, I am satisfied. I'm satisfied. God's satisfied? Yes. Oh, bless His name. God's satisfied. Now for us, for us, after God's
satisfied, then consider us. Do you know the only thing that'll
quieten a conscience and give peace to a conscience? is when
you understand that you've got a sacrifice that satisfies God.
If it satisfies God, then your conscience will go to rest when
it satisfies God and believes God. And oh my, for us, He's
a substitute. For us, He stood in our place.
For us, He bore our sin. Now I know that some are deceived
by sin. into believing that God won't
punish sin. That's the first thing that Satan told Eve. He
said, you eat that fruit, you're not going to die. God's not just. You're not going to die. He's
not going to deal with you that way. He's loving. Well, she found out. Some think
he can be pacified with just a few good works. A few good
words. Use a few good words in prayer. But now listen to this. You listen
to this. The God of the Bible is as severe
as if He were not merciful and as just as if He were not gracious. And yet He is as gracious and
merciful as if he were not just. Now how can that happen? How
can that happen? Let me give you the third thing
about God. Sovereign, great, omnipotent, just, holy, and righteous. And He's not going to let His
standards down for nobody. And then there's the God of grace.
The God of all grace. Paul called him in 2 Corinthians
1.3, he called him the father of mercies. The father of mercies. What a wonderful title. And this
God who must punish sin, never forgives sins, never pardons
sin without punishing it. He cannot do that. But this God
is a God of an eternal, infinite, glorious love. And you know what,
God said, I heard Bruce Crabtree preach on this one time at our
place and maybe you can find it. God said, He said, and Ezekiel
said, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I have no
pleasure in it. And I'm certainly thankful he
had no pleasure in me perishing. But God, the God of all grace,
grace chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Grace provided us a lamb. to stand in our place. Grace
come and called us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is gonna
keep us till we get all the way home. Now when we talk about
the God of grace, He's love. God is love. Ain't that what
the Bible said? He is love. He's not the God
of love. Whenever somebody says my God's
a God of love, what they're saying is that I got a standard that's
called love and God meets whatever my standard of love is. But when we say God is love,
that's just what He is. And love must be expressed. You cannot have love and not
express it. You husbands go home and don't express love to your
wife and see how long that lasts. That don't work very good. But
all I tell you, He loves. And He delights in mercy. And
He is full of grace. And gives grace for grace. And this is the God we worship.
Sovereign, just, gracious. And it's this God who made Christ
to be sin for us who knew no sin. Look at the second person.
That's God. Second person is the Lord Jesus
Christ. For God made Him to be sin for
us who knew no sin. Look what it says back up there
in verse 19. God was in Christ. Verse 18, God hath reconciled
us to Himself by Jesus Christ. God did beseech you by us in
Christ's stead. So this whole thing here is about
the Lord Jesus Christ. When we talk about God in Christ,
we're talking about the only begotten of the Father. He wasn't
created. Our Lord Jesus Christ, there
never was a time that He did not exist. He's always existed. This is the mystery of the Godhead.
That the Son and the Father is eternal. As old as the Father is, that's
how old the Son is. Whenever the Father was, the
Son was. They're equal in every way. They
existed for the same length of time. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
broke in in time, He still was God. He's the same as the Father. As the Father Almighty, so is
the Son. The Father is infinite, so is
the Son. As Clay said, He's the very God,
the very God. Philip said to Him, show us the
Father, and that will satisfy us. That will be enough. He said,
Philip, have I been such a long time with you, and yet you've
not seen me? He that hath seen the Father
hath seen me. And you know, that's one of the
reasons the enemies hated him, because they said, why are you
going to stone me? He said, for what good work are
you going to stone me? We're not going to stone you for a good work.
We can do all the works you want to do, heal all the people you
want to do. But we're going to stone you because you blaspheme.
Boy, they'll blaspheme about it. You being a man, make yourself
to be God. That's why they want to stone
him. But not only is he God, but he's also the son of Mary.
A man like unto us. Made of a woman. Made under the
law. Now when we talk about him being
made like unto us, the scripture said he is made in the likeness
of sinful flesh. He looked like us. Walked like
us. Bone of our bone. Flesh of our
flesh. But he did not have our nature.
He had a holy nature. He had God's nature. And then
he had man's nature. And I tell you, he was subject
to the infirmities of a man. He got thirsty. He got hungry. He got tired. And he was a man of suffering
and woe, acquainted with grief and sorrow. He said this, is it nothing to
you that pass by? Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of the fierceness of His wrath. Oh my! He knew what it was to be tired. He knew what it was to be tempted.
He knew what it was to be tried. He knew what it was to die. Taste of death by the grace of
God. Let me tell you about this Lord
Jesus Christ, this man that God made to be said. He is God and
man. He wasn't God humanized. Wasn't God humanized. Not just
a wonderful teacher, not a moral example. Not God humanized. And He wasn't man deified. He's
God. Purely, eternally, essentially
God. Man, purely, purely man. And once he became a man, he'll
eternally, eternally be a man. We're gonna see the man, Christ
Jesus, when we get into eternity. And we're gonna worship the God,
Christ Jesus, when we get into eternity. Ain't that right? That's the only God we're ever
gonna see, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know that he'll
still, when we see him there, we'll see the nails in his hand.
You know how we... He's got all the marks that he
left this world with, he had in his body, that's what he's
going to have when he gets up there. We're going to see that.
We'll see him as a lamb as it had been slain. And we'll love
him with unsinning hearts, and we'll see him with undimmed eyes,
and nothing will ever stop us from worshiping him who loved
us and gave himself for us and washed us from our sins in his
own blood. Oh, what a day that's going to
be. I'm praying for a couple of people.
Lord, take them home. I'm praying every day. Lord,
take them home. Take them home. Take them home.
And you know what? I'm jealous of him when he does.
I want to go too. Let's do like old Thomas did
when they said Lazarus died. So let's just go die with him. Let's just go to, oh, one of
these days we're going to be sitting around the meeting like
this. All of a sudden we're going to hear a big trumpet. This trumpet's
going to just fill the heavens. And this building will be like
it's not even here. We'll just go up and meet the
Lord there. Be changed just like that. Oh, I don't know. But oh, what a Savior. What a
sacred union is our Lord Jesus Christ. Of this God in Christ,
it says he knew no sin. Knew no sin. We get accused. I don't know why they do it.
I don't have any idea how they come to this conclusion. But
some men seem to think that we make Christ to be a sinner. But it said he knew no sin. It
didn't say he did not sin. He knew no sin. He had no acquaintance
with sin. Now he knew the effects of sin
on humanity. He knew the consequences of sin. And He knew what it was for His
Father and His hatred for sin. He saw sin in others, but bless
His holy name, He said, I prayed for you that your faith fail
not. Huh? He did not sin by experience
and know nothing about it until He went to the cross. And we
read it over there that He did not impute them, their trespasses
unto them. Where did He impute them at?
Where did He put them at then? If He don't impute them unto
us, where did He impute them? Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. And so if He didn't impute the
world our sins unto us, where did He put them? Oh my, no sin, no way, no how. He was pure, He was the spotless
Lamb of God, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.
And He said, which of you convinces me of sin? Our Lord Jesus Christ,
what a blessing. Hallelujah, what a Savior. And
then the third person, look at that third person there. God,
He hath made Him. Be sin for us who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Well, who's us? Us. Who's us? I'm looking at you. I'm looking
at me. Us. Made sin for us. Oh, you wonder who he is? Just
look. Just look at yourself. And we
were sinners by birth. Sinners by birth. Let me just
give you a little aside here. If there wasn't an age of accountability,
as Armenians and freewheelers and them say, you know, that
there's an age of accountability. Most people think it's 12 or
something like that. If there was an age of accountability
before man could be held responsible for his sin, there would nobody
die until they got to that age of accountability. Is that right? But why do babies
die? Men only die because of sin.
Now I'm not saying a baby sins, but he's born just like I was. He come from two parents that
wasn't worth the biscuit that salt went in their biscuits.
And I tell you, I know you love your children, but they come
from you. And that ought to tell you everything
you need to know about your kids. Ain't that right? I tell you, I'll tell you everything
you need to know about your children. They come from you. And I'll
tell you everything you need to know. And they're not only
sinners by birth. You never teach your children
to lie. Never teach them to steal. Nevers teach them to let them
be a rebel, but the first word they learn is no. But sinners by birth, sinners
by nature, and then sinners by practice. We practice sin. And you know what's the sad about
it is? We're just proud of it. Proud of it. Boy, I tell you,
you wouldn't believe what a good time I had last week. I've done
this and I've done that, and the people are proud of it. But
this is who Christ became sin for. Us. Us. Now let's go. Let's go by God's
grace. God calls us up to the bar of
justice. God does. And if you've ever
been in a courtroom, you know, and the judge, he opens the door,
and the bailiff stands up, and the clerk stands up, and says,
everybody stand. His honor comes in, that's what
they call him, his honor. He comes in, he stands up, got
his robe on, and you don't sit down until they tell you to sit
down. If that's that way in this world, imagine what it's like
when you face God. He says, come here, Donnie Bell.
Come here. And I stand there. God's gracious. He's full of mercy. Full of mercy. And he says, oh, I want to save
that man. I want to save that man. He's
a poor man. He's a needy man. He's a sinful man. He's a rebel.
I want to save him. But justice stands up and said,
I can't do it. I cannot let you save him. I
can't do it. Truth says, I cannot let you
get by with your sin. I can't do it. And as he stands
before this bar of justice, if the verdict comes back guilty,
he's going to be brought drug out of there and cast into outer
darkness. But God says, listen, I'm full of mercy. I'm full of
love. And oh, my. God said, oh, I love
him. I love him. I love him with an
eternal love. But justice will not let me reach
out and express my love to him. Justice stands up and says, I
can't. I've got to destroy him. Grace comes out and said, I want
to give grace to him. I want to give grace to him.
I want my grace to come out on him. I want to save him by my
grace. Justice and truth says, no way, no way. He's got to die
for his sin. He's got to be punished for his
sin. He got to have the fullness and fierceness of my wrath put
upon him. He's got to have it. It's got
to be done. Oh. Wisdom stands up. Said, I found a way. I believe
I found a way. We'll send Emmanuel. We'll send
Emmanuel down there. Son, will you go? Will you let my wrath and justice
be poured out on you for them? Would you die for them? How can He punish a guilty sinner
in one stroke and in the same stroke save him? How can He do
that? How can He do that? Christ Emmanuel
stood up and said, Father, take me. Take me. Take me. Set him aside. Take me. And I tell you what you do. All
the sins that he's ever committed and ever will commit, charge
them to me. Give them to me. And then take
out your sword of justice and plunge it as deep as you will
into my heart. Come down with the fierceness
of your wrath and beat just as hard as you possibly can. Punish me and take me even to
the point where I die for their sins. And then grace will be able to
flow to them. Love will be able to flow to
them. Mercy can come out in big ways. I can embrace them now
with my love. I can draw them to my breast.
And I can speak to them and they can speak to me. Now, since you've done that,
put your sword back in your sheath. I've held your law up and I've
honored and I've magnified it. And he did all this for us. No wonder, no wonder we say an
amazing grace. No wonder we say what a wonderful
Savior. is Jesus our Lord. What a wonderful
Savior to me. I've got to have Him, don't you?
I've got to have Him. I need Him. I need Him desperately. I need Him desperately. Our Father, thank you for your
great, great mercies and grace given us in Christ. Oh Lord,
blessed be your name. Blessed be your holy name. Thank
you for your gospel. Thank you for your grace. Thank
you for your son. Thank you for bearing our sin
away in your own body on that tree. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Blessed
be your name.