Let me begin by telling you why
I'm bringing this message. First and foremost, I trust for
the glory of God. I want, oh God let me be honest, I want more than anything in
this world to glorify God my Savior. in all things and above
all other things in the message that I preach from this pulpit
and any other. Preaching is for God's glory. Preaching is for God's glory. Would to God this generation
would learn this. Preaching is for the glory of
God. The purpose of preaching the
gospel first and foremost, is to exalt the triune God in his
person and his work, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as revealed
in God's great accomplishments of grace in redemption by Christ
Jesus. Second, I'm preaching this message
because I hope God the Holy Spirit will use the words that I deliver
to you. to inspire your hearts, you who
believe God, you who are born of the spirit to inspire your
hearts. With gratitude and love and confidence. In our Lord Jesus Christ, I. I want our hearts to erupt in
devotion. Would that be wonderful? As you
hear the word, God, the Holy Spirit will just draw our hearts
out to our savior in utter devotion. And that's a constant struggle
of my soul. We we find ourselves here for
an hour or so, three times a week, and our hearts are lifted up
and we no sooner leave the building than our minds and our hearts
are consumed with everything but our Redeemer. Would to God
our hearts might erupt in devotion to our Savior that continues. Such devotion in the knowledge
of Christ that we continually give ourselves entirely to the
Son of God. And I'm bringing this message
thirdly for you who do not know our God. Will you listen to me
for a minute? I think particularly of you young
people who are yet without faith. Perhaps some of you older ones
yet without faith in Christ. I want you to know our Savior. I want you to experience God's
grace. Oh, that you might leave here
today thanking him for saving your soul. It's been now 46 years since God saved me. 47
years. And I think I know more today
than ever the debt of gratitude I owe to him for the wonder of
his grace in saving me from myself. May God be pleased to do that
for you. Give you faith in Christ Jesus,
the Lord save you by his grace. Now to that end, I want to do
three things tonight. First, I want us to take an honest
look at ourselves. And second, I want us to see
the Lord Jesus as he's revealed in this book. And then third,
I want to describe for you God's people as they are in Christ. All right, let's begin in first
John, chapter one, first John, chapter one, verse eight. And let's take an honest look
at ourselves as we read these verses together. First John chapter
1 and verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, now please
understand that's not talking about coming to the front of
the church or going to a confessional booth. and telling a man that
you've done some bad things. Telling somebody you lied or
stole watermelons or stole apples from his tree or you committed
other things. That's not it. If we confess
our sins, that is to open up our hearts before God. Ron doing business with a man
is easy in comparison with this. Confession of sin is doing business
with God. Open our hearts to God. Open
our hearts to God. Lord, cause your light to shine
in the deep recesses of these dark, depraved hearts and see
what we are. If we confess our sins, God is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned
in anything we do, at any time. If we say we have not sinned
or no sin in that, we make God a liar and his word is not in
us. Now, I'm going to tell you some
things about myself that frankly, I'd rather not tell you about
myself. I'd rather keep them to me between
me and God, but I am certain that speaking honestly about
myself will benefit you. For some of you, you'll be shocked
by what I'm about to tell you. Others of you will identify with
what I'm about to tell you, for I'll be describing you too. I
want us honestly now before God to open the dark doors of our
dark, depraved hearts and acknowledge what we are in ourselves. It's not a pleasant task. It's
not a pretty sight. Open your heart now. God, open
my heart and behold what creeping things, what loathsome, foul
creatures, what abominable, frightful monsters reside Right here, let
me tell you what I see. In my heart, this heart of sinful
flesh, I see every evil thing that has ever been done by any
man and all men in the history of humanity. Every evil thing. Allen Kibbe, nothing accepted. Nothing. Out of the heart, our
Savior said, proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemy. That's what oozes from my heart
all the time. In this depraved heart, I see
depravity itself. I learned the doctrine of total
depravity early on. I learned the doctrine before
I knew God. I learned the doctrine being
taught well by faithful men in Sunday school class when I was
just a boy. But this matter of total depravity
is something more than a doctrine I've been taught. It is the everyday experience
of my wicked heart. The one standing before you is
depravity. Just depravity. Evil. Vile. corruption, every abominable
thing. Before God saved me, I really
thought things would be different now. I knew my sins would not
be eradicated. I was better taught than that.
But I did think I'd get control of them. I did think I would
improve a little bit as I went along. I really thought that
Sin would be less, weaker, not so troublesome as it is now. Those things that I find in experience are not
as I had dreamed. I was shocked to wake up one
day. I mean, literally shocked to wake up one day and find that
this evil heart of flesh was unchanged. I call on you who are without
Christ to believe on him, but I make you this promise. I make
you this promise. If God's pleased to save you
by his grace, your old nature will not improve. It will not
change. God will give you a new nature,
but that old man of flesh, that old man, Adam does not change. Doesn't change. I don't know
a better way to state what I'm saying than to illustrate how
I was shocked by this. As most of you know, before God
saved me, I'd been kicked out of school. And I went back to
high school. God made it possible for me to
finish all of my high school in one year. Took all three years
in one year. Only time I know of in history
it could have been done, but that one year they changed the
school system just for me. And I went back to school. And
for the first time in my life, I had a black teacher. And nothing
wrong with that, but this one was cocky and arrogant. He was cocky and arrogant, and
he pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. And I sat right in
front of the class, and one day, he was pushing pretty good. And I forgot exactly what he
was doing. But he had been pushing me just
about all I planned to take, and I wasn't accustomed to taking
much. And I jumped up out of my seat
and pulled my fist back and I was about to pop him in the jaw.
I said, damn you. And I realized what I'd done.
And Merle, my face turned red and I sunk to my seat and just. Oh, God, what have I done? What
have I done? Suddenly, I realized nothing
had changed in my old nature. I was just as vile just as hot-tempered,
just as violent, just as barbaric as I'd ever been. Let me ask
you, before God saved you, did you ever dream it'd be possible
for a saved person to love Christ so little and love this world
so much? I never dreamed it could be.
I never dreamed it would be possible for a sane man to trust Christ
so little as I trust Him and to fret so much. I never dreamed
it would be possible for a sane sinner to have a cold, cold heart
of indifference to the things of God, as I most of the time
do, and such a lively spirit toward things of this world. We generally, me particularly,
we generally get far more excited talking to people about the differences
between liberal and conservative politics, or talking to people
about football and basketball, or talking to people about hunting
or fishing, or talking to people about the latest style of one
thing or another. We get more excited and get more
heated in those things than we do thinking about and discussing
the things of God our savior. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. You couldn't have convinced me
of that when I was 17 years old. You could not have convinced
me that'd be the case. But here I am 62 years old and I find
it the case. I never dreamed that a believer,
a child of God, one washed in the blood of Christ and robed
in his righteousness, born of his spirit, could find reading
this book such a hard thing. I'm not talking about reading
the words. If you learn to read, you read words. I'm talking about
reading this book, paying attention to it, reading the word of God
with concern and interest. I never dreamed it would be possible
for a believer to be so impatient, so murmuring, so resentful of
God's providence as I am. Big things we handle pretty good. We have a way of preparing ourselves
for heavy trials. But one of the old writers once
said, it takes as much grace to bear patiently The breaking
of a piece of fine china as it does to bear the loss of an only
child. Little things. Little insignificant
things just get the best of us. Because there's nothing in us
by nature but sin. In myself, honestly, I see no
good thing. Nothing righteous, nothing holy,
nothing good. The pastor, don't you pray? I
do. But I weep over my prayers. Have trouble praying. Because
my prayers are mostly me and mine. Selfish, self-centered. Have little to do with God's
glory. little to do with God's will. I ask God to give me what
I want, do what I want him to do. Sound familiar? But pastor, don't you don't you
read the word of God? I do. I do. I spent the last
47 years every day studying this book. I do read this book. I
desire to believe it and obey it. But as I read this book in
my most devoted studies when I am focused on a passage of
scripture and trying to get God's word into my heart, seeking a
message for you. When I read this book, my mind
wanders to a thousand evils, not here and there, not once
in a while, all the time, all the time. But don't you love
the Lord? I do love him because he first
loved me. Lord, you know all things. You
know that I love you. But my love for Christ is shameful. Shameful. Shameful. I love my wife. I really do. Love her dearly. But when I think
about her love for me, I don't talk much about my love for her.
Because it's shameful. And that doesn't compare with
my relationship with my Redeemer. I do trust God, my Savior. I trust the Savior. I rest on
Christ alone. But my rest is restless. And
my faith is mixed with unbelief all the time. I don't have to
trust God. David, I don't have to believe
God. If I did, nothing would bother me like it does. I don't have to believe God like
I should. What about you? What do you see in yourself? Sin and nothing but sin. John Newton put it this way.
He said, I am nothing. I have nothing and I can do nothing. So if I come to nothing, nothing
will be lost. I can identify with that. How
about you? I hear people talk about getting
the victorious life and living the victorious life and all that
whoopee stuff. Religious people are taught to
talk about. I don't know anything about that. I don't know anything
about that. All right. That's as honest as
I can be about myself. I hope you know what I'm talking
about. Next, let's take a careful look
at the Lord Jesus as he's revealed to us in Holy Scripture. Look
at John chapter 1, John chapter 3, 1 John 3 and verse 5. And you know. That he was manifested. The son of God was manifested
in the flesh, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, God.
came down here in a body of humanity and presented himself to us as
a man who is God. He was manifested to take away
our sins. And in him is no sin. Though he was made sin for us
when he hung up on the cursed tree, bearing our sins in his
own body, our Lord Jesus had no sin of his own. I can't say
that firmly enough forcefully enough often enough. He did no
sin. He knew no sin. He had no sin. He had no original sin. He was
born of the Virgin. He's the firstborn who opened
his mother's womb being born of a virgin. He was born without
the aid of a man conceived in the Virgin's womb by God the
Holy Spirit our Lord Jesus. had no original sin. He had no
Adamic nature. He had no actual sin. He never
performed any kind of sin. Not in thought, not in word,
not in deed. No wicked passions, no evil thoughts,
no cold malice, no hot anger. Our Lord Jesus was without sin. Though he's the only man who
ever lived who truly knows what sin is. He knows how God views
sin because this man is God himself. Yet he knew no sin. He was holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. He ate and drank with sinners,
but he was never corrupted by them. He received sinners, but
he was never influenced by them except to do them good. He was
himself infinitely separate from sinners. For this man is perfectly
holy, both as God and as man. I repeat, this is very, very
important. It's important that we see this
because in order to redeem us, our Lord Jesus must be a suitable
sacrifice for sin. It was necessary that our Savior
be altogether without sin. Brother Ron read to us in Hebrews
chapter 8 just a little while ago in the office. It was a necessity
that he has somewhat to offer. It was a necessity. A necessity
only if he would be our Savior. A necessity only if he would
put away sin. A necessity only if he would
fulfill his obligations as our covenant surety. And it was necessary
that he who is our substitute be without sin. altogether without
sin. The substitute for sinners must
be personally innocent, personally righteous, personally holy, and
that perfect. Perfectly righteous, perfectly
holy, perfectly innocent. He must be a man, else he could
not suffer for men. But this one who is our substitute
must also be an innocent man. A man with no sin of his own
for which to give him satisfaction. A man with no sin of his own
for which to make atonement. It must be perfect to be accepted.
And he must be a man who is God. A man who is God. Only the God-man
is of infinite worth. Only the God-man could offer
obedience to God that is infinite worth. Only the God-man could
offer a sacrifice to God of infinite worth to satisfy the demands
of God for all the people he represented as their surety.
But in order to redeem us, in order to save us from our sins,
in order to justify us, in order to make us just before God, the
Son of God, the darling of heaven, the Lord of glory had to be made
sin. Made sin. Made sin. By marvelous, mysterious, infinitely
wise transfer of guilt and of sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's
darling son, the holy God-man, was made that he might take away sins.
He was manifested to take away our sins, but he could not do
this except he be made sin for us. Well, brother Don, it's as
though he were made sin. I wish we'd quit talking like
that. I wish he'd quit taking like this. When the scripture
says we are just, That doesn't mean it's as though we were just.
It means we are. When the scripture says God is
holy, it doesn't mean it's as though he were holy. He is holy. And when the scripture says he
was made sin, the word does not mean he was treated as though
he were made sin. It means he was made sin. Made sin for us. Now, this is
what the book says. I'm going to read to you just
the language of Holy Scripture. Our sins were made His. And because He was made sin,
our sins were imputed to Him, charged to Him, so that He bear
the guilt of our sins before God. Our guilt was transferred
to Him and became His. Our shame became His shame. Our
reproach, he took to be his own reproach. Our foolishness, our
perversity was made his foolishness and his perversity. How could
that be? Merle, I don't have a clue how
that could be. I don't know how God could become a man, but he
did. Don't know how the word was made
flesh and dwelt among us, but I know we did I don't know how
God said let there be light and there was light. I just know
it's so and I don't know I don't know and I refuse I Refuse to with my polluted
hands I Refuse to try to tear apart the mystery and find out
how Christ could be made sin I don't know. Was it real? More real than anything you've
ever imagined. More real than anything you've
ever experienced. Listen to the word of God. 2
Corinthians 5 verse 21. Just listen while I read these
to you. I jotted them down so you could just listen. He hath made him to be sin for
us. who knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. First Peter 2, 24. Christ his own self bear our
sins in his own body on the tree. He bear our sins in his body. Not bear our sins pasted on to
his body. He bear our sins in his body. that we being dead to sins should
live unto righteousness. By whose stripes ye were healed.
Listen to Psalm 40 verse 12. This is the son of God speaking.
Innumerable evils have compassed me about. Mine iniquities. Mine iniquities have taken hold
on me. so that I'm not able to look
up. You remember that publican in the temple? He beat on his
heart, beat on his heart, beat on his heart, and he would not
so much as lift his eyes to heaven, crying, God, be merciful to me,
the sinner. The Savior says, mine iniquities
have taken hold on me, and I'm bowed down. I cannot look up. They're more than the hairs of
mine head. Therefore, my heart faileth me.
Psalm 69 verse 4. They that hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy
me being mine enemies wrongfully are mighty. Then I restored that
which I took not away. O God, thou knowest my foolishness
and my sins are not hid from thee. Now listen carefully. When Christ
was made sin for us, he became totally responsible for all the
sins of God's elect in the eyes of God's holy law and was rewarded
accordingly. He was made to suffer and die
under the furious unmitigated wrath of God without mercy because
he fully deserved to suffer the hell of God's wrath when he was
made sin for us. Justice, only justice was exercised
toward him. God did not heap upon him what
he did not deserve. God's law is always right and
God's justice is always just and when Christ died He died
under the justice of God because he was made sin for us Now the
first John 3 5 again Here the Holy Spirit declares he was manifested
to take away our sins He was manifested to take away our sins. That's the reason Christ came
here was to take away somebody's sins. And all our sins made his
when he had suffered all the fury of God's wrath until justice
was swallowed up in his holy soul. Until with one tremendous
draft of love, he drank damnation dry. The Lord Jesus Christ now
has put away our sins. put away our sins. All who are
redeemed by His blood have the forgiveness of sins. All for
whom He died have no sin. Their sins have been put away.
The Lord God has removed our iniquities from us as far as
the East is from the West. Our sins were made his sins.
And when he died for our sins, he put away the sins of his people. Now, once in the end of the world,
hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself,
the scapegoat. You remember on the day of atonement,
there were two goats, the Lord's goat and the scapegoat, because
it took two to show the picture. One goat dies under the fury
of God's wrath and is offered as a sacrifice to God. The other
goat goes out into the wilderness carrying the sins transferred
to him out into a place where no man is. And the sins are carried
away forever. So it was with our Savior. He
appeared to put away our sins. This is the basis of our hope
before God. This is the basis of our confidence
with God. In Christ Jesus, we have no sin. So thirdly, we've seen ourselves
by nature. We're nothing but sin. We rejoice
to see Christ who was manifested to take away our sins. Now let's
look at ourselves in Christ. And ye know that he was manifested
to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. In him is no sin. Well, this is talking about the
Lord Jesus personally, it sure is. And it's talking about the
Lord Jesus representatively as our substitute. as our mediator. In Him is no sin. And we are
in Him. Oh, blessed place to be found.
Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus. And in Him is no sin. Are you getting the picture?
In Him is no sin. Bob Duff, we're in Him. and in
him is no sin. You mean, Brother Dodd, God's
people in Christ Jesus have no sin? Well, what does the book
say? In him is no sin. Are you in him? I'm in him. What does this mean? It doesn't
mean that God's not aware of our transgressions That would
be a denial of his omniscience. It doesn't mean that God is not
displeased with our sins. The thing which David did in
the matter of Uriah displeased the Lord and God showed it. That
would be a denial of God's holiness. Because God is aware of our sins
and displeased with our sins, he chastens us because of them. But not as a judge, not as a
judge, rather as a father. who loves his own and chases
them. God will never punish Don Fortner for any transgression. It never happened. He punished
me to the full satisfaction of justice for all my sins in his
son, my substitute. Now, how does he deal with my
sins? He calls them diseases. Isn't
that amazing? Matthew chapter 8, He bare our
sicknesses, our diseases in His body. What do you do with disease? What do you do when somebody's
got a disease? Well, you send them to prison. No. You punish
them. No. You get mad at them. No. No. No, you heal them. God, our Father, looks upon the
sins of his people not as crimes to be punished but as diseases
and sicknesses to be healed. And he deals with us only as
our Father in Christ Jesus the Lord in whom we have no sin. Only the sickness of this present
frame and it chastens us to correct us of the evil that's in us.
What does John's statement mean? In him is no sin. It means that
our sins had been completely expunged from the record books
of God in the court of heaven. Completely expunged. I had been arrested a couple
of times in my youth. And all of that's taken care
of. And those crimes will never come up against me again. But
the record's still there. The record's still there. I spent
a night in jail twice. The record's still there. Since
I've been in Danville, I've had one speeding, one traffic violation.
Actually, I wasn't speeding, but I've had two. One where I
was speeding, one where I was sitting in the parking lot. Traffic
violation. And I paid the fines. And you could go to a courthouse
here in Boyle County and find the record. I don't owe anything,
but the record's still there. It'll never be taken away. Never
be taken away. Not so with my sins. God Almighty,
by the blood of His Son, has expunged from the records in
the books of the court of heaven all my sins. They're not even a record. They're
not even a record. It's not just as though we never
sinned. We never sinned. Christ, the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world, has taken away
our sins, removed them from us as far as the east is from the
west. God says, I blotted out as a
thick cloud thy transgressions, as a cloud thy sins. Return to
me, for I have redeemed thee. It means that God will never
Remember our sins against us That's his covenant promise in
Rome in Hebrews chapter 8 Jeremiah chapter 31. I Will not remember
their sins anymore forever I Will not remember their sins I I Try to be forgiving of offenses
I And forgiving offenses, I try never to deal with the offender
because of the offenses made. But I'll tell you what I can't
do. Tell you what I can't do. I can't forget. Now, I can forget
your name wrong, but I can't forget you doing wrong. That's
horrible. I just, I can't forget. Neither
can you. The whole world's backyard. They're
always back yarders. And as long as they're remembered,
there's a sense in which you deal with the offender because
of the offense already forgiven. You can't forget. Have you ever
forgotten any evil done against your daughter? And you can't
do it. Will you hear this? God Almighty. Has forgotten. And refuses to
remember. Our transgressions. How can that
be? He knows everything. He can't
know what is not. And he's removed our sins from
us as far as the East is from the West. He's taken them away. When John says in him is no sin,
he's talking about a just and righteous and absolute non-imputation
of sin to God's elect. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin I turn back to this passage in the book
of Numbers Numbers chapter 23 Numbers 23 Verse 21 Listen to
this word that God put in the mouth of Balaam a false prophet I want you to read it. Numbers
23 verse 21. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob. Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob. I can show you all kinds of stuff
Jacob did that were evil. But God hath not beheld iniquity
in Jacob never at any time because Christ is Jacob's Redeemer from
the foundation of the world neither hath he seen perverseness in
Israel now he's not talking about that physical nation obviously
He's not talking about that physical man, Jacob. He's talking about
you, James Jordan. Your name's Jacob, Prince of
God, Israel, God's people. And God says, He hath not beheld
iniquity in Jacob. Now, if you want to go talk to
Ada Jordan about James Jordan, I expect she could let you in
on some things. I just expect she could. She
might not do it, but I expect she could. If you want to talk
to Diane about Lindsay, I'm just fairly sure she knows something
about it we don't know. I'm fairly sure she could let
you in on some things. But not God. Never! Because Christ has put
away our sins from eternity. Neither hath he seen, never at
any time, perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him. Now, let me wrap this up quickly. I pray God the Holy Spirit has
blessed and will bless this to your soul. In the covenant of
grace before the world began, God promised to forgive our sins
because before the world began, He had forgiven our sins. By
the sin-atoning sacrifice of himself as our substitute, the
Lord Jesus has completely put away our sins. And now, believing
on him, believing on Christ, we are freed from sin. Perfectly righteous before God
without sin. Turn to Romans chapter 6. Let
me show you this. Romans chapter 6. Verse 7. In our baptism we confess that
we died, we crucified with Christ. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. Now what does that say? He that is dead is freed from
sin Now if we be dead with Christ We believe that we shall also
live with him Now look at verse 11 Romans 6 verse 11 Likewise
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin But alive under God through Jesus
Christ our Lord God the Holy Spirit says to Rex
Bartley you reckon like God reckons God reckons you free from sin
reckon yourself free from sin for Christ was manifested to
take away our sins and in him is No, say it. Wouldn't you like to be able
tonight to lay your head on your pillow with no guilt, no sin to answer for? No judgment,
no condemnation, no hell awaiting you. Perfect before God. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. Old things are passed away. I can't forget the past, Merle.
I just can't forget it. God won't allow it. But God did. Old things are passed away. And
behold, all things are become new. He was manifested to take
away our sins. And in Him is no sin. Believe on the Son of God and
go home with a conscience completely
purged of guilt and sin by the blood of Christ. Amen.