I had not planned to do so, but
I'm going to have to leave immediately after I get done preaching this
morning. Shelby called just after I left
the motel room and told me that Brother Bob Pontcher, many of
you know him. If you've ever been to Danville,
you know Bob. Folks forget me and know Bob. But he's a faithful,
faithful deacon. I had taken him to the hospital.
She was on her way then to meet him at the hospital. in prayer
for them. Bob and Sally, dear, dear, dear
couple. Faithful, faithful, many women.
God's given us there and they are among the choice of the people.
I cherish them. And I'm not concerned about him
dying. Oh, no. I'm just concerned about
not being able to say goodbye. All right. Open your Bibles,
if you will, to 2 Corinthians again, Chapter 5. 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. When we came in last night, how
delightful it was to see your faces again. Some of you haven't
seen it in a long, long time. Brother Bob Coffey, after we
chatted just briefly, said to me, when did you first come to
Ashland? And I didn't hesitate. It was in the fall of 1976. I
remember it well. Last night I said it was 36 years
ago. It was 38 years ago. Some of you weren't around, and
some of your mothers and daddies weren't around. I've watched
a lot of you grow up and watched your children grow up, and I'm
very thankful that God gave us the knitting of our hearts together
in the cause of Christ these many years. When I got back to
the room last night, I got to thinking. Most folks don't know
this about me. I'm a kind of tender-hearted,
And I like to think about things in the past. I get a little nostalgic
at my age. And I got to thinking about the
first message I preached to you. And I'm going to bring that outline
this morning. I was able to remember it. I
remember it well. I've preached this particular
outline three times. The first time I was 22 years
old in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, my hometown. Sorry, four times. Second time was at Lookout, and
third time here to you folks in Ashland, and then the first
time I went to Danville. The message will be essentially
the same. So the title of my message is
My First Sermon to You, the Subject to Substitution. 2 Corinthians
chapter 5 and verse 21. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse
21. Paul is urging us to believe
God. He's urging us rebels to be reconciled
to God. He's urging us to believe on
the Son of God. And this is his concluding argument. 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. I have preached from this text
dozens of times all over the world. I always preach from this
text whenever I go somewhere to preach for the first time.
I always do. This subject is the most marvelous
subject I know of in the world, the most marvelous thing revealed
in the book of God, that which I need and you need to constantly
have before our hearts and our minds, that by which sinners
are urged to believe on the Son of God unto life everlasting,
and that which inspires and motivates and comforts and governs the
lives of God's saints in this world. What a profound truth! What stupendous grace! What wondrous
mystery these words declare! He, God the Father, the holy,
righteous, just and true God, God who has He will by no means
clear the guilty. God who always, always acts in
justice. God who always does what is right. God who says, the soul that said
it, it shall die. God, the Eternal Father, hath,
hath, at one time, hath. He hath with justice and judgment
and in infinite mercy made. The word means wondrously, mysteriously
caused to become. He hath made, wondrously, mysteriously. Made in a way no mind can fathom. Made in a way no tongue can express. made in a way no heart can imagine. He hath wondrously, mysteriously
caused him to become him, the Lord Jesus Christ, his darling
son, our blessed surety, our covenant head, our good shepherd,
our substitute, him who knew no sin. Him. who knew no sin. He knew no sin, but Cecil, he's
the only man who ever lived who knew sin. We just don't know what sin is. We don't have an inkling what
sin is, not as God knows sin. This man who knew no sin and
did no sin, this holy, harmless, undefiled one, God the Father
hath made him, his darling son, to be sin. An awful mass of iniquity
and guiltiness and foolishness and perversity. He hath made him who knew no
sin, sin, sin. made a marvelous, wondrous, indescribable,
mysterious transfer of sin and guilt. He transferred to Him
all our guilt, but the text says indescribably more than that. He hath made Him sin for us. for us who are nothing but sin, rebels,
men and women who hate God, men and women who spend their lives
fighting against God. Brother David read the 27th chapter
of Matthew last night and preached to us from it, and he read those
words of men spitting in his face. And speaking, the scripture
says, in his teeth, in his teeth, they stand before the Son of
God as he's hanging on the tree, laugh at him, mock him, deride
him, and say, that's what you deserve. And in his teeth speak
the blasphemy. That's you and me. That made him sin for us. For us. Such hell-bent, hell-deserving,
dirty, corrupt, contemptible, vile, wretched creatures of the
dust as you and me. That we. that we might be made. That doesn't mean, Dale, that
we might possibly be made. But that we might assuredly be
made. Because this is the only way
we could be made. The righteousness of God. The righteousness of God. Now that's not talking about
God's essential attribute of righteousness. You'll never become
God. I'll never become God. What's
he talking about the righteousness of God? The righteousness of
God speaks of that righteousness brought in by a man who is God. That righteousness which the
prophet Daniel said, The Messiah must bring in that everlasting
righteousness. Righteousness performed by the
life obedience of Jesus Christ, God's Son, perfectly obeying
God's will and God's law and God's word and God's thought. From this first breath until
his dying word, it is finished. The righteousness of God. Performed
not for himself. His obedience wasn't, he didn't
need to obey God. He didn't need to perform righteousness. He is Jehovah's Attendant, the
Lord our righteousness. But that righteousness of God
he performed is now made ours. But more than that. More than
that. You see this right here? This Bible right here. I don't
care that it's fixed in the Bible, I run through them pretty quickly.
This is 2395. It's mine. It's mine. I bought it. I paid for it. It's mine. It's got my name in
it. No, it doesn't. This does. It's got my name in
it. It's mine. But it's not me. It's my possession, but it's
not me. It can never be made me. It's just my possession. And
it's not just that He was made said, that I might possess righteousness. He was made what I am. That I might be made what He
is. made the righteousness of God
in him. I don't think I will ever
forget that first visit to Ashland. The first people I saw that night,
that Wednesday night, Brother Hammond and Ruth Adkins. I walked
in the door. I had just walked out of the
office and was walking out just thinking about preaching. And
they came in, introduced themselves, and just a little chit-chat. Ruth looked at me, and she said,
Brother Fortner, how good does a man have to be to get to heaven?
And I'd never heard anybody ask a question like that. I'd never
heard anybody ask that. I'm 26 years old. I'd never heard
anybody ask anything like that. But the answer was immediate.
I said, as good as God. And she just beamed from ear
to ear. That's it. The very righteousness
of God. That's what you must have and
that's what you must be if you would meet God in glory and accept
us in everlasting life. Oh. I keep trying to preach from
this and I pray before I take my last breath on this earth
God the Holy Ghost will give me grace to preach it as it ought
to be preached at least once. This is the greatest transaction
that ever took place upon the earth, the most marvelous sight
man ever saw, the most stupendous wonder ever executed from heaven. Jesus Christ, God the Son, was
made sin for us. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. I don't have anything new, anything
profound, anything mysterious to declare except this wondrous
mystery, and I want to declare it as simply as I possibly can. To that end, let me raise and
answer the seven questions I raised and answered before this congregation
38 years ago. Number one, who was made sin
for us? Who is this one the apostle is
speaking of? Who is this one of whom the scripture says he
was made sin? The text is speaking of our Lord
Jesus Christ, our covenant surety, our substitute, the one who stands
before God in the place of his people, the good shepherd to
whom the Lord God has given all his sheep to save his sheep.
He is that one the Father trusted before the world was as our surety,
the one into whom God the triune Jehovah put all his glory, put
in his hands all his glory, all his purpose, all his will, all
his people had trusted him, in whom you also trusted after that
you heard the word of truth. the gospel of your salvation.
This one who has made sin for us is God. Jesus is God. Not a God, not a representative
of God, not like God, but God. In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, so that in that man Seated yonder in
glory on the throne of grace, the throne of the universe, in
the body of that man resides all that God is, for that man
is God. Either he is God, or he's an
imposter, and you're getting yourself. Either he's God or
all that he did and said was a lie and you are yet without
hope. Either he's God or he is an absolute
fake, a shaman who is a deceiver and never to be trusted. Oh,
but that's not even a thought of possibility. Jesus Christ
of Nazareth is God. That means that everything he
is and everything he did, was and is of infinite value, infinite
merit, and infinite efficacy. Now those are big words, infinite,
infinite, infinite. So big we just can't get our
brains wrapped around them, infinite. What does that mean? You can't
measure it. You can't measure it. It is of
infinite merit, infinite value. infinite efficacy, it must be
that the work he did is the work of God or it would be useless
to you. His righteousness would be of
no value to you were it just the righteousness of a man. His
death would be of no merit to you were his death just the death
of a man. This man is God, God over all,
blessed forever and always eternal God. When he came here on this
earth, he didn't cease to be God. As our brother stated so
plainly last night, fully God. When he nursed at his mother's
breast, he is a real man. And without the milk from his
mother's breast, he'd have died. He's a real man. And he's God
who caused the milk to flow in her breast. He's God and man. a real man, a man just exactly
like you and me. You ought not say God became
a man. That confuses people. Trying
to say something else, you're confusing. The Scripture says
the Word was made flesh. He didn't just act like a man.
He didn't just put on the body of a man. He didn't just put
on the characteristics of a man. The Word was made flesh. That means John Chapman, God
Almighty, stepped into manhood as real as you are, a real man,
with the same feelings, the same passions, the same desires, the
same needs, the same pains, as you know in this world, no exception,
except sin. He knew no sin. This man never
had a sinful passion in his heart. He never had a corrupt thought
in his mind. He never had an unguarded word
come out of his lips. He never did anything evil, never
thought anything evil, never imagined anything evil. He is
holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Our Lord
Jesus is such a substitute as we need. He is that one who is
the embodiment of purity and virtue. As a man, he was made
under the law, but he owed nothing to the law. They took him to
the temple to circumcise him according to the law when he
was a baby. He was made under the law, but he owed nothing
to the law. He's the one who made the law.
He owed nothing to the law, yet he perfectly fulfilled the law.
He was capable then of standing in the room of sinners because
this man is under no obligation of his own. All that he did,
he did for us. I don't know how to say this
like I want to say it. I don't know how to say it. to
communicate what I know to be so. Everything that Jesus Christ
the man did, everything that God man did, from the time that
he said as he came into his mother's womb, Lord, I come to do thy
will, oh my God, I did in him. It's not as though I didn't,
I did it. I'm one with Him, in Him. We
are one with Christ Jesus. So that all that He did, He did
as our Father, our Head, our Representative, our Substitute,
our Servant, and we really did in Him. You say, what's this
hand? Boy, did you see that hand pick up that glass of water?
Oh, dummy Don picked that glass of water up. Yeah, but he used
his hand to do it. Because that hand is part of
me. The hand can't do anything without me. Anything I do, the
hand is involved in. Watch this now. This hand is
going to give me some water. Well, John did that. Ibn Hayy
did that. You can't separate the two, because
that hand is part of this body. You can't separate you, my brother,
my sister. from Jesus Christ. He said, Father, that they may
be one as we are one. You can no more separate God's
elect from God's Son than you can separate God's Son from God
the Father. All right? Here's the second
thing. Who made Christ's decision? deliver him from going down to
the pit, God says, of his elect. I have found a ransom. Psalm 89, 19, Thou hast laid
help upon one that is mighty. Thou hast exalted one chosen
out of the people. Turn to Isaiah 53. Isaiah chapter
53. God the Father laid our sins
on his well-beloved son, made him sin. And when he made him
sin, he justly charged him with our guilt, Isaiah 53, 6. All
we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him. The Lord hath made to
meet on him. God gathered all the iniquity,
transgression and sin, all the deeds and thoughts and
all the corruptions of heart of all his people into one indescribably hideous
heap and made them to meet on His Son, and made Him sin. He hath borne
in His body our sins on the tree. Verse 12, or verse 10, rather. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. Sometimes people rant and ridicule
us, speaking of God's election, God's predestination, God's sovereignty. They say, well, God has no place
in the death of the wicked. Who ever dreamed that God laughed
when the wicked died? Who ever dreamed such a thing?
Oh, no. God has no satisfaction in the death of the wicked. And
this is not talking about something that God is happy now to crucify
his son. God's happy to make his son sin.
God's happy to put our guilt on his son. Oh, no, no. It pleased
God. It satisfied him. Satisfied his
holiness, righteousness, justice, and truth. It pleased the Lord
to bruise him. He hath put him to grief when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Now I'll give you a
homework assignment. Everybody loves homework. Go
get your concordance and look up the word sin-offering everywhere
it is used in all the Old Testament scriptures. Look up the word.
Every place the word is found, sin-offering. Every place. While the word is referring to
an offering, the word sin-offering every single place in the Old
Testament is this word, sin. every single place. The Apostle
Paul writes by inspiration, and he's quoted from Isaiah 53, verse
10, and he says, as he quotes Isaiah 53, 10, he hath made him
sin, not a sin offering, sin for us who knew no sin. Doesn't
say he reckoned him to be sin, doesn't say he treated him as
though he were sin, doesn't say he pretended that he was sin,
he said he hath made him sin. Now I'm going to tell you something.
Brother Dan, this is shocking to folks. This is shocking. I
don't know why it's shocking. Y'all remember when you were
a little boy, a little girl, and you used to play let's pretend.
Let's pretend. I liked to always pretend I was
Charles Atlas. Some of you folks don't remember that. Let's pretend.
Let's pretend. I was bigger than everybody else.
I liked to pretend I was king. Let's pretend. Let's pretend.
God never plays let's pretend. God never pretends something
is so that is not so. God never pretends something
is real that is not real. God never pretends. He made his
soul sin. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul
sin. He shall see His seed. He shall
prolong His days. He will live again. And the pleasure
of the Lord, all the purpose of God shall prosper in His hand. God the Father gave His Son up
to die in the place of sinners. For God so loved the world. For
God so loved the world that He gave His Son his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life." Now, don't ever imagine that there
is some sense in which God loves everybody. Go ask Esau about
that. Just go ask him. Go ask those
folks who perished in the flood in Noah's generation about that.
If God loves everybody, he's got a strange wish on him. No,
no. No, no. He loves his elect wherever they're
found throughout the world. Men and women in every nation,
kindred, tribe, and folk. Men and women of every rank and
society. Men and women of every race.
God's elect scattered through all the world. And that's precisely
what our Lord's words mean in John 3, 16. People talk about
common grace. I'll tell you something about
common grace. Common grace is useless grace.
It's useless grace. I had folks write to me every
now and then. Folks don't generally say things
to me personally, but you know, it's a bird that comes and tells
me. And they say, well, it causes
it to rain on the just and unjust alike. It causes the sun to shine
on the just and unjust alike. He does. He does. Well, that's
common grace, is it? Is that right? Well, that means
that when the tornado comes through Newcastle, Indiana, and goes
down by Supreme Court and wipes out your neighbor's house and
your house, that's common judgment. If one's so, the other's so.
Oh, no, no, no, no. No, no. I'll tell you why your
neighbor gets raided. See what's raided on those folks
all around here? Because you live here. If you didn't live
beside them, they wouldn't get any raid. I'll tell you why the
sun shines on them, because you live next door to them. Oh, if
folks only knew. what they get in this world because
of God's elect living around them, they come begging you to
let them cut your grass for you. Everything God does is for his
people. Everything for his elect. God
loved the world of his elect to this degree that he gave his
son to die at Calvary for us. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that he loved us. and sent his son to be the propitiation,
the justice satisfying sacrifice for our sins. Number three, when? When did God make his son sin
for us? Well, that question is answered
for us three distinct ways in this book. First, God did it
from eternity. from eternity. Because we are creatures of time,
we have a tough, tough time even thinking about eternity. It's
like this. Who can measure eternity? We talk about the endless ages
of eternity. That tells you how dumb you are. We talk about forever
and ever in eternity. That tells you how dumb I am.
No, no, no, no. We can't imagine eternity. We
live in time. Our God inhabits eternity. With God, everything is forever
present. No beginning and no end. And
the scripture in Revelation chapter 13, verse 8, describes Jesus
Christ as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. But he wasn't reading. Let's
see. When were we accepted in the
beloved? What does the book say? Before the world began. When
did God look on us and bless us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ? What does the book say? Before
the world began. And God did it in him who was
slain, sacrificed, and accepted as our substitute before the
world began. Is that real? That's real. That's
real. Did Abraham really sacrifice
Isaac? Did he really do it? Did he really? God said, sacrifice your son.
And Abraham went up there and took his knife and stuck a dagger
in his heart. No, he didn't. Ask God whether
or not he did. God said, you've not withheld
from me your son, your only son, whom you dearly love. Because
in his heart, it was done. Man commits adultery, looking
on a woman lusting after her. It's as real as if he stole a
fellow's wife and ran off with her. Just as real. Just as real. God Almighty, from eternity,
sacrificed his son for us. accepted the sacrifice as a result
of the sacrifice, gave His Son dominion over all things as our
covenant surrogate, and blessed us in His Son. And then, in the
fullness of time at Calvary, Jesus Christ bare in His body
our sins on the tree. 1 Peter 2.24. He was made sin. He was made sin. And then when the sinner is converted
by the grace of God, given faith in Christ, when God gives you faith in Christ,
Christ has made sin to you in the sweet experience of His grace. There was a day But I was terrified of God. And
I spent months and months and months terrified of God. Terrified. I tried to straighten
up, start living right. Didn't help much. Didn't help
any. I started reading the Bible. Started going to church. Started
praying. Started bargaining with God.
Promising he'd let me live through the night. I'd serve him tomorrow.
Get up in the morning and cuss him. and terrified to go to sleep,
terrified to get up, terrified of going to hell, terrified to
think of meeting God. Until one day, God calls me to
hear the word of His grace. He calls me to hear about a divine
substitute. And God the Spirit sprinkled
my conscience with the precious blood of God's Son. I tried to
do, and tried to do, and tried to do, and tried to do, and my
conscience screamed, not enough! Not enough! Not enough! And I
looked away to Christ, the Son of God, and lifted my heart to God in
heaven for the first time in my life with no fear or dread,
no terror. No uneasiness, no guilt, no shame,
no sin, because Christ has taken away my sin. When he was made
sin in my soul, in the sweet experience of his grace, so that
now I'm no longer afraid of God. Isn't that wonderful? I'm not
afraid of God. Oh, I fear him. I fear him with
loving reverence. Afraid of him? Oh, no. Oh no,
I'm not afraid of God. Looking forward to meeting Him. Face to face. Looking forward
to standing before Him. I'm looking forward to that day
when all things will be made manifest, aren't you? Looking forward to that. Oh,
aren't you afraid God's got an explosion of sin? Oh no, no. He hadn't just hit it, He put
it away. He'll search for it. It says it shall not be found
because Christ was made sin for me. When did God do this? Before
the world was. At Calvary and in the experience
of grace. What was done with God's Son
when He was made sin for us? The Lord Jesus goes out to Gethsemane's
dark brow. And he falls on his face and
he cries, Oh my God, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me. His last temptation, Satan's
last assault was in Gethsemane's garden. And I don't pretend to
know all that was going on in our Lord's mind, but he said,
now is my soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. And he fell
on his face and cried. Hebrews 5 says he cried, prayed
with tears in that he feared. What was it? It wasn't the prospect
of dying. He came here to die. It wasn't
the prospect of dying on the cross. He came here to die on
the cross. He would not let the Jews stone
him. He would not let them throw him off a cliff. He set his face
like a fish from eternity to go to Calvary's hill and die
for us at Calvary. But suddenly, Satan cast in his
mind the horrid thought of being made sin. That thing at which you and I
laugh and make jokes, he so looked upon that the thought
of being made sin crushed his holy soul. And he cried a second
time, nevertheless not my will, thy will be done. And a third
time he went and fell on his face and cried to God in the
same words, And his heart broke within him as he anticipated
being made that obnoxious thing called sin. He said, reproach had broken
my heart. I'm not able to look up. Shame
has covered my face. He said, Lord, You know my guiltiness. You know my guiltiness. And his
pores of his skin poured out with blood from his crushed heart. And after that time was over,
Peter, James, and John slept through it. Oh, how could you do that, Peter,
James, and John? I know how. I've done it so many
times. He woke them up, and you know
what he said? He said, come on boys, let's be going. Going where? The hour has come. The son of
man must be betrayed. The hour has come! I must be
sacrificed upon Golgotha's ugly heel. And they took him out and
nailed him to a tree and dropped his cross in that socket in the
ground and his body wrung with pain, indescribable pain. pain, pain such as nobody's ever
known. The sun was dark from 12 o'clock
to 3 o'clock in the afternoon and he broke the silence of that
thick darkness with this heaven-rending cry, my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? And you can hear the answer reverberate
from heaven because God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. God the Father abandoned his
son at the apex of his obedience. I wasn't the kind of son any
mother or father would want, but I remember on a couple of
occasions Two distinct occasions. I decided to do something just
to please my daddy. I'll tell you about one of them.
He drove a truck most of the time. And he had a little tool
shop in the basement of our house. It wasn't much bigger than just
a walk-in closet. That's where he kept all of his tools and
nails and screws and saws and hammers and drills and that kind
of stuff. And I decided to clean it up. That's where he hid his
bourbon, too. But I decided to clean it up. And I went in there
and, man, I worked half the day, just cleaning that thing up.
I knew he was coming home. And he had all these boxes of washers
and nuts and bolts and screws and nails and other stuff, just
box after box, lined up along the workbench. And I thought,
that's taking up a lot of room. So I got a big box and just dumped
them all in there. And he got home, I was so anxious
for Daddy to see what I'd done. Would you like to see the reward
I got? But to beat him. The beating
was incomparable to another pain. When I tried my best to please
Him, I was punished with severity
for the deed. The Son of God, when He took our iniquity, and made it his own, in obedience
to his father, was forsaken of God. Who can imagine the pain expressed
in those words? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? God Almighty delivered His Son
into the hands of His own infinite holy justice. And He cried, Awake,
O sword, against the man that is my fellow. Smite and slay
the shepherd. There's another question. For
whom? For whom? He hath made Him sin for us. We who hated Him, and mocked
Him, and esteemed Him justly stricken, smitten of God, and
omitted. who would have nothing to do
with him. We who despised him, who now, by his own gift and
work of omnipotent mercy, can pack believe him. He made him sin for me. For me. How do you know? How do you know when God is great?
Because I believe it. How do you know He chose you? I believe
it. How do you know the Spirit's called you? I believe the Son
of God. And faith is the evidence of
things not seen. Isn't that a marvelous language?
When you read the scriptures and you run across words that
are preceded with definite articles. Don't imagine that definite article
is meaningless. Oh, no, no. The scripture does
not say faith is an evidence of things not said. It says faith
is the evidence of things not said. Sometimes, sometimes, we
have rapturous, fleeting moments when we feel near our God, don't
we? So sometimes we had just brief
mountaintop experiences. But most of the time, most of
the time, we're in the valley. Most of the time, we're in darkness.
Most of the time, our hearts are hard as steel. Most of the
time, we can't work up any kind of emotion in our souls toward
God. Do I speak the truth or not?
Most of the time you come and sit here and the word goes in
one ear and out the other and you may just have an elated moment
and before you get out the door you're talking about a baseball
game or a football game. Most of the time. Is that how it is?
And your mind's full of lust and corruption and guilt. Well,
where's your evidence? My evidence is yonder in glory! Jesus Christ crucified. That's
all. That's all. Not my works. Not
my love for you. Oh, no. No, no. To pretend that
that's an evidence of faith is utter foolishness, because I
don't have that kind of love for you. Not my love for God. My love for God is not worth talking
about. Oh, but faith. Faith in Christ is the proof. He loved you. He gave himself
for you. Faith in Christ declares me to
be the Son of God. That's the gift of God. Number
six. What are the results? Turn over to Jeremiah chapter
50. I can say many, many things. Let's just look at this one thing.
I'll quit. Jeremiah chapter 50. What's the result of Christ being
made sin? justice is satisfied. The law
of God is ended. It's silenced forever. The law
has nothing to say against me. My sin has been put away. Look here. Jeremiah 50 verse
20. In those days, and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity, let me read that like like I
like to read it, of Don Fortner shall be sought for. Ask me about it, I could tell
you a bunch. Ask Bruce Crabtree about it,
he could tell you a bunch. Ask Shelby, she wouldn't tell you,
but she could sure enough tell you a bunch. The iniquity of Don
Fortner shall be sought for in the record books of God in the
day of judgment. shall be..." What does it say? None. None. Blood on the map? It's all cast
into the depths of the sea of God's infinite forgetfulness.
He says, I will remember their iniquities no more forever. How can God not remember? God
knows everything. He can't remember what isn't.
And it's gone. None. And their sins have gone
forth, and they shall not be found. And here's the reason.
For I will pardon them whom I reserve. Here's another wondrous, wondrous,
wondrous result. We who believe of the Son of
God now are made the righteousness of God in Him. God reckons us righteous. Yep,
He sure does. And He says you reckon yourselves
to be righteous, dead to sin and alive to God. God's reckoning
is right. He has made us the righteousness
of God in these two ways. First, he has given us righteousness
in free justification, so that all our record before God himself
is justice, righteousness, and truth, all of it. And second,
he's given us a perfectly holy, righteous nature in the new birth,
in regeneration, imparting righteousness to us. so that we are made the
righteousness of God as really and truly as Christ was made
sin. When Christ was made sin, why
did God kill him? Dale Simpson, why did God kill
him? Because justice demanded it. He made sin. And God said the
soul that sinneth it shall die. And when you stand before God
in church, And the Lord God says to you, well done, thou good
and faithful servant. Enter into the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation. Why would he do that? Well, he's
gracious, he is. He's merciful, he is. He does
it because it's right. Fully earned it. Fully deserve
it. Made the righteousness of God
in him. One more question. Why? Why? Because this is the only way
he can be a just God and a Savior. Because of his infinite, indescribable,
unsought, unimagined love for my soul. because God, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost love me infinitely, immutably, eternally. He hath made Him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made at last and glorious
resurrection bodies, the very righteousness of God in him. Oh, now may God burn this into
your heart, give you faith in Christ, comfort you with this
knowledge, and inspire your soul to devotion and consecration
to God, who made his son sin for you. Amen.