I can't begin to tell you how
delighted I am to have Joe in this pool pit again. He's been
a dear friend for many years. We met the first time at 13th
Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky in, I would say, probably
79, 80, somewhere in there. And I thought he was Socrates,
the philosopher, the first time I met him. His beard was a little
longer, his hair was a little wilder, and I thought, I liked
him immediately. And I've heard him preach a number
of times, both in person and on tape, and I can say, honestly,
I've never heard him miss the gospel in its purest and plainest
way. He's sweet and precious. We publish
a lot of his articles in our bulletins because he always has
something to say. That's about as much as I'm going
to brag on him because his head's big enough as it already is. Brother
Joe Terrell from Rock Valley, Iowa, come to preach to his brothers. Peel open your Bibles to Leviticus,
the very first chapter. And I do rejoice. Rejoice, that's a word we hardly
use unless we're being religious, isn't it? I'm sure happy to be
here, that's what I mean. It's always a blessing to come
here. I've never come here and not
received more of a blessing than I've given or been. And at least
that's the way it seems to me, but that seems to be the way
about everywhere I go. And I guess that's the grace
of God. People think that the preachers
are a blessing, and the preachers think that the people are a blessing.
And the fact is, it's God that's a blessing, and He blesses both
of us, and somehow or another we get the credit for it like
we did it. But I'm glad to be here, and I do hope, and I have
prayed, that God would say something. Almost said, give me something
to say. And I guess both are true, but I want God to say something. I want Him to say something to
you. Because if we don't hear from God, there's no use hearing
from anybody. And I pray that in these three
meetings that have been scheduled, Each time God will give me something
that will be of benefit to his sheep. Beginning in verse 1 of Leviticus
chapter 1, And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him
out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto
the children of Israel, and say to them, If any man of you bring
an offering unto the Lord, Ye shall bring your offering of
the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If this offering
be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without
blemish. He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord. And he shall put his hand upon
the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for
him. in his behalf, in his place,
to make atonement for him. And he shall kill the bullock
before the Lord, and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the
blood and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that
is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And we'll
stop there. Let me get your attention with
this statement. There is no reason for anyone
here to leave this place with a burden of guilt on his conscience. There is no reason. Now there
may be some causes. There may be pride. Pride will
leave sin on you. and will make sin a burden to
you. And if pride rules the day in your heart today, you will
leave here with a burden of sin on your conscience. Unbelief. And really there's hardly any
difference between pride and unbelief. They are Siamese twins
joined everywhere. Unbelief. You'll not be able to shake off
whatever it is you're trusting now. You know, a lot of people
set forth faith as an easy thing to do. It's not. People have accused me of preaching
easy believism. I said, no, I preach only believism. I preach simply believism. But believing is not easy because
it involves casting off all that in which you formerly trusted. And that, in my experience, is
the most difficult part of laying hold of Christ. It's the letting
go of all else. Now, if God ever gives you grace
to let go of whatever false hope you're clinging to, you will
find it very easy to lay hold of Christ. Just like if you let
go of a rope to which you're clinging in mid-air and there's
another rope nearby, you won't have any trouble laying hold
of that second rope once you let go of the first one. But unbelief, maybe you simply
won't believe it as a matter of fact. There are people that
simply do not believe the declarations of the gospel. They don't believe
the historical declarations or the theological declarations.
They just don't think that's true. Some unbelief is simply
a matter of saying things like, well, I believe those facts are
true, but I am just too sinful to be saved. Preacher, you don't
know the things I've done. No, I don't. And I hope it stays
that way. You and I do not have the ability
to forget the sins of others. We can't forget our own for the
most part, and we don't forget the sins of others. And one reason
we keep our private sins private is because we knew if they were
public, nobody would want to associate with us. And so we
best keep it that way. But I know this, and I'm not
saying this to sound humble or to make some radical point, You
cannot have possibly been worse than me. So if you are despairing in any
way of salvation through Christ, let me tell you at the very outset
there's no use for despairing of Him and salvation in Him. But I said there's no reason
for you to leave here with a burden of guilt on your conscience,
but there may be a cause. And you see there's a difference
between a cause and a reason. A reason is a particular kind
of cause. A reason is a cause that's reasonable. And there's
no reasonable cause for you to leave here with your sin. Because
there is something to do about sin. There is a remedy for that. There's no reason for you to
bear your sin, and if you're bearing your sin, there's no
one to blame but you. Really. Whether you are bearing
your sin in actuality, because through unbelief you have never
called upon the name of the Lord and obtained His salvation, or
if you are simply, as a believer, we all do this, or at least I
know I do, and I imagine you're pretty much the same. You let
the accuser speak words in your ear that bring you into doubt
once again, and lay upon you a sense of condemnation and being
cut off from God. It's not real. You haven't been
cut off from God. You are not guilty in His sight,
but you sure feel that way, and sadly we act that way. I've known some people even make
a religion out of it. Count it virtuous to go around
with a hangdog expression And they think that it's very virtuous
to put doubt on their salvation, and it would be sheer presumption
to have any assurance that the living God has forgiven their
sins and accounted them righteous. Well, that's just not so. It's
never presumption to believe God. It's presumption to believe
something he's not promised. But it's not presumption to believe
all his promises. It's just simply unbelief not
to. Now in this message, I'm going to try to give you a few
reasons to go to Christ and find salvation in him and be free
of your sin. I mean free. And answer a few
objections set forward by the flesh. Objections to salvation
by grace alone. Now, we read this text of scripture
as simply some of the rules regarding the sacrificial system of Israel's
religion under the Old Covenant. And that Old Covenant was set
up for this express purpose to show forth what Christ would
do. That's what it was done for. It was never intended to be a
permanent arrangement. It was entirely temporary, set
forth as a picture and as a way also to hold Israel together
until such time as the promised seed should arrive. And once
that was accomplished, there was no more need for the Old
Covenant. But you and I can still benefit from learning about it
because it does illustrate for us spiritual things. And one
of the things that this illustrates to us in very actually plain
terms is that the mechanism of the gospel is substitution. Now I've heard people call it
the heart of the gospel or the most important part of the gospel,
and I've even said things like that. The truth is there are
no unnecessary parts of the gospel. We don't have to know them all,
because I guarantee you there's parts of the gospel God never
even revealed. But it's kind of like a chain.
Which one is the most important link? Well, if that chain's the
one holding you up, every one of those links is important.
But I suppose that we could say that substitution holds a prominent
position in the gospel just as the mainspring holds a prominent
position in a watch. Now, I realize not anymore. But
I'm looking here and pretty much everybody I think is old enough
to remember the kind of watches you wound up. Now you take off
the back and it is a complicated mess back there. I don't know
if you ever as a kid, like I did, took one apart. But there ain't
no getting it back together unless you're a watchmaker. But if you
carefully take off the back and you watch it, there's gears everywhere.
And there's one wheel moving back and forth that you can see.
The other's moving too slow. What's driving that wheel? that
spring. And we might liken substitution
to that. What do we mean by substitution? Peter described it this way,
just as plain as can be. It is a righteous person absorbing
within himself the wrath of God in behalf of unrighteous people.
He said Christ died or suffered the just, the righteous, that's
an old-fashioned word for righteous, suffered the righteous one in
behalf of unrighteous ones. It is simply someone who didn't
deserve to suffer, suffering in the place of those who did
deserve to suffer. That substitution is not a difficult
concept. Now such a doctrine as substitution
can find no place in sophisticated human religion. And what do I
mean by sophisticated human religion? That religion that men make up,
quite frankly, but in particular those forms of religion which
men make up and consider themselves to be very refined and the best
of humans for being practitioners of it. They are proud of their
religion. And they look on something like
substitution as a remnant of our primitive religion. And they have to look at the
death of Christ as something else. You see, they cannot accept
the concept of substitution because substitution sets forth a just
righteous, vindictive, vengeful, bloody God. And if you don't
think so, just look at the cross. I mean, what's all that about?
If God is not vengeful, what's the cross about? If God is not
bloody, what's the cross about? Now we do well to obey Paul's
instruction, he said, if somebody wrongs you, don't seek vengeance.
He says, leave room for the wrath of God, for he said, vengeance
is mine, thus saith the Lord. So we tell people, now you be
forgiving, you be kind. God said, vengeance is mine.
Yes, He did. Remember, He said, vengeance
is mine, I will repay. He didn't just say, I have the
right to repay. He said, I will. People don't
think God is offended by sin. They have a view of God much
like a grandfather, and any of you that have grandchildren know
exactly what I mean. You'll forgive your grandchildren
of anything just willy-nilly. You know, you didn't do it for
your children, but you'll do it for your grandchildren, you
know. And, you know, the old bless his heart thing, you know.
I remember Henry once talking about he came home from a day
over at the study and there was something broken. I can't remember
what it was, but some deal that normally was on the coffee table
had been pulled off and broken. And Henry right away kind of
got his ire up that the thing had been broken. He said, who
did that? And Doris said, your grandson Luke. And Henry goes,
well, bless his heart. That anger just was going right.
God's not like that. God has never let a sin, an offense,
go unanswered, and he never will. Now that's not sophisticated
man's way of thinking about God. They like Grandpa God better.
And they think that he's, well, in as much as that's the kind
of God they believe in, they think they are superior to us,
who believe in a vengeful God. But he does take vengeance. Sophisticated
religion cannot accept substitution because substitution sets forth
a version of man as a creature so sinful, so corrupt, so far
gone, that nothing less than the brutal slaughter of the Son
of God could save him from the vengeance of God. It's so silly when people take
pride in trusting Christ, as we shall see in detail later
on. But when we trust Christ, what are we saying? We're saying,
I am such a wretch that the only way God could save me was to
slaughter his son like a helpless lamb at the temple. Nothing less would do. Men don't want to look at the
death of Christ as a substitution, but as a demonstration of God's
love. Well, it sure was. God commended His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
There's no question. It is a demonstration of love.
You know what else it is? It's a demonstration of hate. It's a demonstration
that God hates sin, and He hates the sinner. People say, well,
God hates sin, but He loves the sinner. I understand what they
mean by that, but you know something? Everybody who was not in Christ
the day he died shall be treated like Christ someday. God will
deal with them just as he dealt with his son when he bore the
sin of many. And it will not be God commending
his love, it will be God demonstrating his vengeful hatred towards those
who were in rebellion against him. Even to believers, the writer
of Hebrews issues this sobering caution, our God is a consuming
fire. They don't want to view Christ's
death as a substitution, rather they want to see it as a victory
over our enemy. Well, they're right. It was a
victory over our enemies, but it was a victory over our enemies
by means of a substitution. What was our enemy? Now, here's
the thing. People don't know who their enemy
really is. They think their enemy is the devil. Well, if you're
a believer, he is. I'll tell you who your enemy
was. God. In that, it says that while we
were enemies, I've never been an enemy of God. If you haven't,
it's only because you haven't met Him. Really. You may think
you are not at enmity with God, but if you have never been at
enmity with God, it is simply because in your heart you've
never been confronted with Him. Because He is everything contrary
to natural thinking. Everything the flesh thinks,
God thinks exactly the opposite. Man is full of pride, God is
full of self-glory. And that puts us in opposition
right away, doesn't it? God says, I'll not share my glory
with another, and quite frankly all of us are saying the same
thing. Yes, it was a victory over our
enemies, and it was even a victory over Satan and all that are with
him, because, what is Satan called? the accuser of the brethren. People think that Satan just
wants to make everybody act sinful. There's one reason that Satan
wants people to sin. So that they will try to fix
their sin with their own righteousness. Now if he can just get you to
play righteous, he's already got you. He doesn't have to make
you sin. But he likes to accuse. Because if he can accuse you
in your conscience, and make it stick, he can rule you with
guilt. Which he does. Now it may be
that the folks drunk in the bar are under the dominion of the
devil. I can grant that, that's wrong.
But I'll tell you who's under the worst dominion of Satan than
even those who live as drunkards. And that, it's those who are
drunk with their own righteousness and scrupulously attending church
two, three times a week and listening to a message in which their own
righteousness and their own will is being promoted and they leave
the church buildings patting themselves on the back that they
have done what is required to make peace with God. And they are sewed up tight in
a bag. And they think they're free. But the accuser has bound
them up in self-righteousness by accusing them of sin and they
run to some kind of hope other than Christ. They think of Christ's
sacrifice as a martyr, martyrdom, and indeed it was. What is a
martyr? It's someone who dies for his
testimony. That's what a martyr is, dies for his cause. And Jesus
Christ died because of his testimony. Now God put him to death for
a different reason, but those who called for his crucifixion,
they did so because of what he said. They were mad that he had
made nothing of them and everything of himself. And so they killed
him for what he said. So he was a martyr in that sense
of the word. However, he is not a martyr or a mere example of
how we ought to lay down our lives for one another. He was
a sacrifice. a victim of divine justice. When we look at the cross, we
are beholding the work of a holy and just God who would not budge
one inch in the negotiation over the payment of sin. Not a bit. The only change that God was
willing to make in the judgment of sin is the one on whom the
judgment would fall. When God raised his hand in judgment
on the Lord Jesus Christ, he did not raise his hand against
him for sins that Christ had actually committed, for he knew
no sin, no deceit was found in his mouth. He said, I do always
those things which please the Father, and he did. So far as
I know the father has only spoken audibly twice. And both times
he said this is my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased. So
God the father speaks only twice and both times he declares his
pleasure in his beloved son. So obviously Christ had done
no sins worthy of what he suffered. But God was willing, and I'm
not saying this as though we set this forward to him and God
consented to it. It wasn't really that he was
just willing. He willed that the punishment which should rightly
fall on his elect would fall on his first elect, his son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in so doing, he did not mitigate
his wrath one bit. He did not say, this is my son,
so I'm going to hold back. He did not say, what a marvelous
thing for my son to do, to bear the penalty due unto others,
and on account of that, I'm really not going to let go with the
full force of my fury. It'll just be a token representation
of what I will do to sinners in hell. No. On that day, God
let go with a pent-up fury of an infinite God. You and I with
the eyes of the flesh can behold a crucifixion and that's bad
enough. But only the eyes of a newborn
spirit can even begin to understand the sufferings that our Lord
endured, spiritually speaking. And I honestly don't think we
understand much of that. was not afraid of anything on
earth. But he was in such a distress
of soul the night before he was crucified that he swept great
drops of blood. And of all the agonizing things
that have been said in this world, nothing carries the weight of
sorrow And pain and soul agony is our Lord's words when he says,
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We might think, we who are believers,
might just like David, think at some point that God has forsaken
us. When David wrote those words in Psalm 22, I know he wrote
them out of his own experience, even though the Holy Spirit was
working in him to write prophetically of Christ. But it arose out of
his own experience. But you know something? God never
forsook David. David felt like he had. David couldn't sense
his presence. David couldn't see the kind of
evidence he thought would be evidence of God's goodness to
him. But let me tell you this, if you're drawing breath, God
hadn't forsaken you. If your heart's still beating,
God hasn't forsaken you. But He did forsake His Son. You
say, what does that mean? I don't know. I honestly don't. But I can think of some pretty
bad things. And that's worse. You gather up all the horrors
of hell as much as you can imagine it. And I guarantee you, to the
Son of God, this was worse. The doctrine of substitution
permeated the sacrificial system of Israel's worship. It was all
through it. Whatever else you can say about the temple, you
can say this, it was a bloody place. We make our models of it. We
draw our pictures of it. But I doubt any of us have really
grasped what that place looked like. Can you imagine what it
was like on any of the three feasts? to which all the men
were required to go, as thousands upon thousands of households
represented by the men showed up with a sacrifice. And thousands
upon thousands of animals were slaughtered at that one spot.
Blood everywhere. We think of the priests walking
around in nice clean robes. They walked around in robes dipped
in blood. It was a mess because it was
a slaughter. spotless animals sacrificed in
behalf of sinful men. Now we know that nobody's sin
was ever taken away by those animals, but it was picturing
a sacrifice that would take away sin. Now all religions involve
sacrifice, but in all the man-made religion these sacrifices are
simply designed to satisfy the bloodlust of the God they worship. Their gods are vicious, not just. They love death. Those gods do. They do not offer sacrifices
because they feel they have sinned against their god. They offer
sacrifices because they know that their gods love blood. They
delight in the death of him that dies. And therefore they slaughter
their beasts, they slaughter one another, all in the presence
of their god. For they have made gods in their
own image. And man is a vicious beast. But
Israel's God was not and is not essentially a God of violence.
He does not love death. He takes no pleasure in the death
of him that dies. God's violence is always a response
to our wickedness. God made the world and everything
in it was good and there was no violence. God did not walk
into the Garden of Eden before sin and set up a sacrificial
system. He didn't say, Adam, I like blood,
and you've got to offer me something every day. He didn't say that.
There was never any blood shed until there was sin. That began
the shedding of blood. Several things are necessary
to an effective substitution. There must be a suitable substitute. Someone that men may approach
and God can accept. And that's no small order. You know, an engineer, whether
he's a mechanical engineer or a chemical engineer, an industrial
engineer, whatever it is, he is given a set of parameters,
a problem and then a set of parameters or conditions that must be met
in any solution. And that is a very difficult
set of parameters. someone men can approach and
God can accept. And there must be a place for
the sacrifice to be offered, a place appointed by God and
yet a place that men can go. If God said, in order to find
my favor, all you have to do is sacrifice a lamb on Mars,
well, you might say, well, that's a pretty small price to pay.
It's gracious of Him to offer salvation on such simple terms.
But then again, I can't go to Mars, so it's useless. So it
has to be a place appointed by God, and yet accessible to men. And then for any sacrifice to
be useful, there's got to be a priest to offer it. There's
got to be someone who can stand in the presence of God and offer
that thing. Well, I can. No, you can't. You
come into the presence of God with a sacrifice, that means
you're coming in His presence as a sinner. And you may have
the sacrifice in your hand, but it's already too late. You're
in the presence of God and you're sinning. You're dead. It just
can't be done. There must be someone who is
essentially spotless, yet carries within him in the substitute
all the sin that has been laid on him. Someone who can approach
God and survive the experience. In the Gospel, Christ is all
of these things. Paul says in the book of Colossians,
Christ is all. And He is. He's all. God neither requires nor accepts
anything else. Everything God requires is in
Christ. He doesn't require anything outside
of Christ, and if you try to offer anything outside of Christ,
He won't have it, and it will ruin anything that you tried
to offer that was in Christ. That's what Paul means when he
said, if you be circumcised, Christ profits you nothing. You
try to offer anything outside of Christ, nothing in Christ
will be of any use to you whatsoever. Christ is the Lamb of God. My brother read from a story
familiar to anybody that has listened to the gospel for any
significant amount of time. Abraham told to offer his son,
and instead, a ram was offered. And when they asked Abraham,
or Isaac asked him, they're going up the hill for the sacrifice,
and Isaac's obviously been trained in what God is like, and he says,
you know, I'm carrying the wood here, And, Dad, you have the
fire, the tinderbox with the fire in it to get a sacrificial
fire started. Where's the lamb? And he said,
God will provide for himself a sacrifice, a lamb for the sacrifice. And that same word was used to
describe that mountain, Jehovah-Jireh. In the King James it says, In
the mountain of the Lord it shall be seen. Really what the word
means is, He'll see to it. Provide comes from Latin words
pro and video, which means to see, to see to something. Now
thousands upon thousands upon thousands of animals were sacrificed
at the temple, the tabernacle. In fact, you read of when Solomon
built that temple, the day that they dedicated that thing. Wow, what a slaughter, just from
the ones Solomon provided. Blood flowed everywhere, and
not one sin was ever put away in that place. For the blood
of bulls and goats, even if they be thousands, of the prime cattle
cannot put away one human sin. They are the lambs and bullocks
of men. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God,
and that made all the difference. I don't know exactly how many
years there was between Abraham and Isaac, and then the time
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But for all those years, there
had been lambs offered which could not take away sin. Jesus
showed up, and John the Baptist pointed to Him and said, Behold,
look there! There's the Lamb of God. There's the providio
one. There's the provided Lamb, and
He'll take away sin. This is a Lamb that can get it
done. That's why when Daniel says he'll make an end of sin,
I believe that means he'll make an end of the sin offering. He'll
bring it to its conclusion because he'll actually get it done. And
once the thing's done, you don't have to do it anymore. Every
year they had to go through that same cycle of sacrifices in Israel
because it was never done. Christ came and by one sacrifice
He has perfected forever them that believe. There's nothing
more to be done and there's nothing more that needs done or can be
done to even improve upon what's already been done. He is God's tabernacle, the place
where God and men can meet. The only place where God as He
is can meet people as we are and we survive the experience
of it. We can meet in Christ. You're not just in Christ as
a person, but Christ in Him crucified. That's where we meet. That's
why Paul said, God forbid that I should boast, should glory
in anything other than the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. Now he points to the historical
event, but that historical event merely serves as the focal point
of all that Christ is and all that he did in the putting away
of the sin of his people and establishing for them an everlasting
righteousness which is completely impregnable and can never be
violated nor polluted. They are before God, perfect
in every way, flawless and complete. And nothing can change that.
I've made a few attempts at righteousness. I don't know that I ever achieved
it at all, but if I did, it wasn't everlasting. I can guarantee
you that. He brought in an everlasting
righteousness. And Christ is the priest that
offers the sacrifice. The Bible says he offered himself
without spot to God. In a very real sense, Christ
did not die and then offer himself to us as what we may offer before
God in order to be saved. Quite frankly, he skipped us
altogether. People say you've got to accept
Christ. I say you can't because he was never offered to you.
It's the salvation of God's elect. It's not whether they accept
him, it's whether God accepts him. And if God accepts him,
he's accepted. And if he's accepted, everybody
in him is accepted. It's that simple. He offered himself as a spotless
sacrifice, not to us, but to God. But all of this leaves out
one important aspect of the sacrificial process found in Israel's religion. Isaiah 53 verse 6 says, all we
like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 2 Corinthians 5 21 makes a statement
that's kind of enigmatic. I don't think it's nearly as
complicated as people think it is, but it says Christ was made
sin. And if you don't want to know what that means, it's real
simple. All you have to do is look at the last part of the
verse. It says we are made the righteousness of God in him.
Which, without a lot of explanation, I think that refers to everything
in salvation when we are made like Him. So Christ being made
sin, whatever that was, it results in us being made like Him in
time to come. So Him being made sin is whatever
it took to accomplish that. It's simply that. But I know
it involved this. Our sin being charged to Him.
Being laid on Him. God did it. God laid the sin
of his wandering sheep on his provided lamb. And that's a marvelous thing
to consider. Why did he, the offended one, provide the sacrifice
to put away the offenses? That's why John Newton said amazing
grace. Why did God lay our sin on Christ? Because we never would. We wouldn't. Say, how do you
know that? Because we don't. Because the gospel is set before
men and so long as it's set before them in their utterly natural
state, they will not lay their sins upon Christ. Instead, they
will try to set their righteousness before Christ. It's more than this. We never
could provide a sacrifice God would accept. Well, this has all been done
by God. But what is done by God must be played out in Earth's
history. The land slain from the foundation of the world must
be slain in the world. You know, in the Lord's Prayer,
the Lord taught us to pray, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. And most people think that that
means to pray that people will start obeying God on earth like
they do in heaven. I don't think that's what it
means at all. And here's why. They don't all obey Him in heaven.
Remember the first sin ever committed was committed in heaven when
the devil rebelled against God. And he keeps showing up there
pestering God about his people. The word actually that is translated
done is by the way the very same word that talks about us being
made the righteousness of God in Christ. But it's a word that's
normally used about the creation of things or the birth of things.
And here's what I believe Christ was teaching us to pray. God,
your will is already accomplished. It's already real in heaven. Christ is the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. That's been done before the world
existed. Before a man ever sinned, there
was a Savior. It was done. Everything is done
in heaven. And we pray, Lord, what has already
been realized in heaven, realize it on earth. And He did. That
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world came in time and
he bore within his body the sins of his elect upon the cross of
Calvary. It was realized historically.
But one thing that this scripture teaches us also is that this
must be realized by us in experience. Sometime in our life, within
our hearts, Our sin must be laid on Christ. We must see it. In fact, in a very real sense,
we must do it. For it says that when they brought
the sacrifice, he didn't just come and hand that sacrifice
to the priest. He put his hands upon that, the
head of that animal, confessed his sins over it, and killed it. Then the priest
took it and laid it on the altar and set fire to it. There must
be a time, if you are to be received by God, there must be a time
in your life when you lay your hands on Christ. You confess
your sins upon him, knowing full well it's going to kill him. You see why there is no virtue?
In being a Christian, you kill someone else for your sin. You sacrifice the Lord for your
sin. You must lay your hands on the
sacrifice and endure the reality that someone else must bear the
penalty of your sin. That's why you cannot be proud
of that. All of us probably take a certain
amount of pride in providing for ourselves. This is one area you can't provide
for yourself. God must provide and you must
humble yourselves and lay your hands on that sacrifice and let
Christ as it were, not just let, pronounce upon Christ. your sin
and your death. This is what the confession of
sin is. It's not merely admitting that you've done some things.
It's admitting that what you've done is worthy of hell and you're
going to set it on Christ. These men that laid their hands
on the sacrifices did so knowing the consequence of what their
actions were, knowing the consequence of their actions, that that animal
was going to be taken away and slaughtered. Yea, that they were
going to slaughter him. Faith involves us making someone
else responsible for our sin. The gospel calls on us to defile
Christ with our filth, charge Him with our iniquity, and let
Him suffer for our crimes. And you say, well that was all
done a long time ago. Don't get caught up in theological
abstractions. It's got to happen in your heart.
You must lay your hands on Christ, knowing full well that in doing
so, you condemn him to the wrath of God. And if God ever gives you grace
to do that, you will praise him forever. Is there anything to boast about
that, to confess your belief? This involves confessing your
belief that He is up to the task of doing what needs to be done.
I make Him responsible for my sin, and yet I do so knowing
full well He's equal to the task of putting them away. It will
be a work such as no other work has ever been done before, but
He can do it. We do not lay upon Him a burden
He cannot bear. It's awful to bear, but He can
bear it. He is able to save to the uttermost them that come
to God by Him. It is to lean upon Him. In fact,
that's what the word means when it says lay the hands on Him.
It's not a light touch. It is to put the full weight,
the full burden of your sin upon the Lord Jesus Christ. For most
of us, sin isn't a burden. Righteousness is. We find sin
easy to live with. If God ever convicts you of sin,
it will become a horrible burden. And we roll it off upon the only
shoulders that can bear it. be done with religion, it'll
do you no good. It will distract you till you
fall into hell. It will sing you sweet songs
until your doom is sealed. Sin is on you and if it stays
on you, it will kill you as assuredly as it killed Christ. Put on him the weight of your
sin and do so in the place that God has ordained, Christ. Do so publicly, because this
was done at the door of the temple where everyone can see. Say,
well I'm going to trust Christ, I'm going to keep it a secret.
Then you ain't trusting him. I'm not saying we go around making
a big boast about the fact that we trust Christ, but if we're
ashamed of the fact that we trust Christ, that is a shame before
men, we haven't If we're ashamed of Christ, we don't know anything
about Him. And do it from the heart. Not
just as some repeat-after-me prayer. Not some decision card
in the pew rack that you signed at the end of a service. From
the heart, truly and honestly, charge Christ with your sin.
And let Him take what you deserve. And own up to it that that's
what's happening. Why should we be willing to lay our sin
on Christ? Because he can handle it. You
can't. My uncle, my dad tried to witness to him
on several occasions. Finally, as he came near the
end of his life, dying of lung cancer. Dad tried once more. And my uncle
said, it just wouldn't be fair. I've lived my life rejecting
him. It wouldn't be fair for me right
here at the end of it. Take the easy way out. Pride. Rather go to hell with
his pride intact than admit he's a helpless sinner and let someone
else take his wrath. He can handle it, the full weight
of it. And what's more, he is willing. He is willing. He will not shrink
back from your filthy touch. If you saw a leper, I mean an
honest to goodness leper, and he reached out to you, what would
you do? You'd back up. Christ does not back up from
the leper. Even though he knows the touch
will make him unclean. And it did. But no matter how filthy you
are, If you reach out and touch Him, He will absorb your uncleanness
and you will be clean. He won't shrink back from your
filthy touch. He will not resist the death
that flows from your sin. He is able and He is willing. There is no reason for you to
leave here with your sin. If you do, it's your pride. And it's your unbelief, which
is utterly unreasonable. Why go to hell? It will be scarce
comfort to you in hell to say, well, at least I didn't make
somebody else bear my sin. I'm just coward enough to let
Christ take the rap. And I will glorify His name forever.
And may God give you grace to do the same. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow No other fount I know, but nothing but
the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Father, embed these words in
our hearts and minds. Cause us to know it so. Give
us faith to believe and help our unbelief. We pray in Christ's
name. Amen.