Instead of handing out a handout
like I normally do, I'm just going to proclaim the truth of
this. I will tell you that we will
be looking at four texts of Scripture, and I'll give you those. It'll
be Proverbs 26, first of all, so you can find that in your
Bibles, because as I go through this and I mention the text,
you may be turning to it and I'm already gotten on into the
explanation of it, and you're playing catch-up. So, turn in
your Bibles to Proverbs 26, and then also find Daniel, the ninth
chapter, and then also Galatians 3. Proverbs 26, Daniel 9, and
Galatians 3. And then finally, we'll be bringing
forward what's taught in 2 Corinthians 8. So you've got those four places
that you know in advance that I'm going to be going to. The
first one is Proverbs 26. Now, the book of Proverbs is
beneficial to us in many, many ways, but I think one of the
most obvious is when it makes a statement of truth, it's just
like a powerful, blunt, no-holds-barred statement. It's just pure truth. And you really have to try to
miss the point of it. And in this second verse, it's
the last phrase that I want to bring our attentions to. It says,
in total, as the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying. These
are two natural things that happen in nature with birds and the
swallow and by flying. So the curse causeless shall
not come. When God says he will do something,
that means he will do something. And when he says something shall
be, that's another story. It shall be. It is what it is. And it won't ever be any different.
The curse causeless shall not come. Then in Daniel 9, verse
11, we read, Daniel observes, Yea, all Israel have transgressed
thy law. You remember Daniel, where is
he when he makes this statement? He's in captivity to the Babylonians. He's got it a little better than
Ezekiel. He's been there five years longer
than Ezekiel. Daniel was taken out of Jerusalem
when God brought the conflagration on Jerusalem through Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonians made a habit
of taking captive and not just killing outright. They're conquered. They wanted the choices, servants,
They wanted the smartest people, the best looking. Their assessment
of judgment, which is purely of the flesh. Nebuchadnezzar
came in and of the first wave of captivity, Daniel and his
friends were taken. And the book of Ezekiel reveals
to us that the Inhabitants of Jerusalem that weren't taken
looked at themselves as being spared. When in actuality, the
destruction of Jerusalem came in stages. And what God was doing
was rescuing his people. Those being spared were those
in chains and being led out of the city. And then when Five
years went by and Nebuchadnezzar came back through Jerusalem and
he took 10,000 more. Then Ezekiel was in that group.
And Ezekiel, his heart was broken to be taken. He was being groomed
to be a priest in the temple of Jerusalem. Jeremiah had been
prophesying the destruction of that temple. But no one believed
Jeremiah, that old prophet. the weeping prophet, the prophet
of sorrow. And doom, doom and gloom was
all he preached. It's because that's all God gave
him to preach. Ezekiel, his career as a Jew, his career was centered
on the priesthood. And now he's being taken, marched
a thousand miles away to Babylonia as a captive. Well, a priest
can't be a priest apart from the temple. He didn't realize
the temple's destruction was certain, sure and certain to
take place. In fact, in Ezekiel's experience,
his wife dies. He and his wife are planted,
and he doesn't have the privileges that Daniel did, by the way.
Daniel was recruited into the very court of the king. to be
a cup-bearer. So he lived in the lap of luxury
by comparison to Ezekiel who was forced out between the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers on the plains to live in tents and to till
the ground. And none of these poor Judeans
understood Chaldean and understood Babylonian, and they were commanded
in a foreign language. And if they didn't do the command,
they were poked with spears and mistreated with whips. This was
a very grave situation to be in. You can imagine yourself
being forced. Let's say the Chinese overtook
our country and we don't understand Chinese and they're commanding
us to do these things. And we can only learn the hard
way what it is they're communicating to us. And we're beaten if we
don't respond. This was Ezekiel's life. And
he's placed out there between these things. And when his wife
died in captivity, God told Ezekiel, don't mourn for her. Don't weep
for her. I'm doing through you. I'm making
you a prophet. God had revealed this to him
on the banks of that Euphrates River when he had that very unusual
vision. It was the vision of the sovereignty
of God. That He's sovereign over all
of creation. And over the circumstances of
individuals, all the way down, all the minute details, he has
absolute sovereignty. He's going to make him the prophet.
And he uses his prophets to be living examples of what he is
teaching through them. And Ezekiel was commanded to
not weep for his wife, just like what God was going to do with
Jerusalem and the temple. And then word came shortly after
that that the temple had been razed to the ground. His hopes
of being a priest were forever lost. He was called to be a prophet. Daniel makes this point in Daniel
9.11. Yea, all Israel have transgressed
thy law. The word transgressed comes from
a Hebrew word that means to rebel. Transgression then is any time
we rebel against the sovereignty of God, the circumstances that
are providentially fallen upon us. There's none of us that control
a cloudy day, a stormy day. Joplin couldn't control that
tornado when it went through. And there's much transgression
that has no doubt happened down there in Joplin amongst those
people. How could there not be? They're fallen. And it's only
natural. They would rebel against what's
providentially taking place. That's what's amazing about the
experience of Job. He held true. He saw this as
coming upon him from God and not the devil. He saw this coming
upon him Justly from God. Even though he couldn't pinpoint
any particular sin in his own life. His friends were quick
to point out the sins. And in the end, God justified
Job. But all Israel, all Israel have
transgressed thy law. Even by departing that they might
not obey thy voice. Now, this phrase in the Hebrew
means to hear intelligently with the intention of heeding the
voice of God. They didn't want to hear it.
They don't even want to hear the voice of God. They intentionally
stayed out of the hearing of the voice of God, which was coming
through his prophet Ezekiel and through Daniel in these dark
days of captivity. Therefore, It is written, the
curse is poured upon us in the oath that is written in the law
of Moses, the servant of God. And what's that talking about?
Moses deliberated unto the nation of Israel at the end of his days,
after he had given all these commands unto the nation of Israel,
he told them. If you obey the voice of the
Lord in keeping these commands, blessing will overtake you. You cannot outrun it. Blessing
will run you down. That's the good news. And overtake
you. And you'll be blessed in the
city, in the country, wherever you go. And then he says, but
if you disobey. If you forsake the Lord your
God, cursing will overtake you and you'll be cursed wherever
you go. And this is what is mentioned
here, what's brought forward. They are experiencing the cursing
overtaking them because we have sinned against Him. So in this
particular context of Daniel 9, 11, the consequences that
are sworn by God to take place, that is written In the law of
Moses, Moses, the servant of God, the bond slave of the word,
when it says servant of God, the word for God there is Elohim,
that means triune God. He's a bond slave of triune God. Moses is performing a function
that he did not want to do, if you recall. Don't send me back
there. Don't send me back to Pharaoh.
I'm not the leader. You don't need me for this job. And the Lord said, I certainly
do. And you will do it. See, our relationship is not
anything different. When Christ comes into our life,
we're His bond slave. That's what that means. When
Jesus says, take my yoke upon you, don't you know what a yoke
is? Do you have free will with a
yoke around your neck? No. You've got to go wherever
the leader directs you. And a bond slave in New Testament
days was a person who was bought and paid for by his master. He didn't have a job like a hired
hand, like a servant. There's a difference between
a servant and a bond slave. Servants, in essence, submit
resumes. Here's what I do. I don't wash
windows, but I will sweep the floor. And then the hiree, his
employer, expects him to perform according
to those stipulations. A bond slave is entirely different. He'll wash windows, he'll clean
toilets if the master tells him to do that. He does whatever
the master says. And the master is responsible
to care for him, to feed him, clothe him. Even if he gets married
and has a family, he's got to feed and clothe his family. Jesus
told his disciples in John 13, you call me master and Lord and
you say rightly. I am your, and he reversed it,
your Lord and master. And he makes the point in doing
that. I'm first of all, your Lord. I'm your master, but I'm
loving, I'm kind and I'll take care of you, but I'll treat you
Not like a bond slave, but like a son. Like a daughter. Moses had this same kind of relationship,
even though he's in the Old Testament days. And he's acting out a part
of the history of redemption that was only revealed through
types and shadow. And Moses himself was a type
and a shadow of the time when the Messiah would come. But what
was written in the law of Moses, the bond slave of Elohim, the
triune God, will surely take place because we have sinned
against Him. This is what Daniel brings forward
in Daniel 9.11. Then may I direct your attention
to Galatians 3 and verses 10 through 14. If I were to title
this message, it would be either The Magnitude of the Curse of
the Law or The Magnitude of the Divine Substitute because they're
one and the same. If you look at it from the standpoint
of the perspective of the curse, we see all the negative things
that the Savior had to become on our behalf. If you look at
it from the standpoint of the magnitude of the divine substitute,
we see all the grand things that we are destined to realize through
Jesus Christ. Galatians 3, verses 10 through
14, it says, for as many as are of the works of the law are under
the curse. Wow, that's a powerful statement. The Holy Spirit inspires the
apostle to make this part of the meat of his message. He lived
this message. He taught this message. As many
as are of the works of the law are under the curse. And then
he says, for it is written. I want you to not miss the impact
of whenever the Scripture says it is written. This phrase, it
is written, contains the very fabric of divine predestination. Think about that. For it is written. It's predestined. It will be
true. It cannot be avoided. And this
rankles people to imagine even such a thing exists. They demand
their freedom. And we are free. We're free to
act within the realm of where our master, our slave master
would direct us. We're not independent of these
things. You're not ever independent of
it is written. This book is not a prescriptive
book, per se. It's a descriptive book. Descriptive. You open up this
Bible, it tells you everything about yourself, wherever you're
at, whatever your life has since your birth to this day and time.
It's describing you and I in graphic detail. Whether we're
a saved one, redeemed one, regenerated one, on our way to heaven, through
faith in Christ, by His power, according to His will and purpose,
according to the circumstances and providence that He directs
us to, this book describes us. All our failures, and we see
that all our victories are in Christ. We praise Him. We learn more and more. We grow in grace more and more
of our Lord and Savior. He's our Lord and Savior. Peter
says, but grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. It's the last thing he wrote
before he disappeared from the scene of fallen humanity. 2 Peter 3.18. It also describes in graphic
detail if you're not one of God's. It also describes in graphic
detail if you are not one of God's. It reveals where your
unbelief is. And it's always going to be revealed
if the Holy Spirit's involved in it, and He always is. Jesus
says you'll know when the Holy Spirit comes. because he will
convincingly convict. It's the word we prove in the
King James. It means to convincingly convict. You're convicted of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. And then he said, of sin, because
you don't believe on me. And he told this to his disciples.
It's the last sermon, last instruction that he made. This was between
the Passover table and the cross. You'll know when I send the Holy
Spirit to you. You'll convince the world of
every nationality. Convince all nationalities of
sin, righteousness, and judgment. Of sin, because you don't believe
on me. Now, that couldn't have set very well with the boys.
Because they've been walking with him for three years. And
Peter especially. Peter, in fact, this is the occasion. This was said to him shortly
after Peter says, why, I'll go to my death for you. And Jesus
says, why, before the rooster crows twice, you're going to
deny me three times. Then he said immediately after
that, let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid. You
believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are
many mansions. And Peter acted out. Exactly what was predestined,
what Christ said, and what we have now, it is written. And
he grieved over it severely. He went out and wept bitterly,
Luke says, in his rendering of that. Luke also tells us that
when he made that last denial, the Lord turned and looked on
Peter. And Peter, it's like simultaneously, Peter just commits that deed
and it fulfills to a T exactly what Christ said. And he looks
over and runs out of the company where he was at and weeps. This book describes everything
about us. And here at this point, when
it says, for it is written, it's going to support the statement
that is brought forward by the Holy Spirit. As many as are of
the works of the law are under the curse. Cursed is everyone
that continues not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do them. Cursed is everyone that does
not persevere perfectly in doing all the things that are written
in the book of the law. Cursed. Then verse 11. but that no man is justified. No man is rendered by judgment
call from the bar of God innocent. No man is declared righteous
by the law, it says. Literally, it should be in the
law. Now, the in phrase, that prepositional
phrase where in is used, from the Greek can be instrumental,
which is one reason why the translators put by. You're not justified
by the law. And that's true, you're not.
But more importantly, I want you to understand what's being
presented here. Here's the book of the law. What
is written, this shall be. And you are not declared righteous
in this book. You are not innocent of sin in
this book. You are, in fact, cursed by the
law to pay the consequences. In this book, you have no justification
before God. That's why it says no man is
justified in the law, in the sight of God. It is evident. And then the Scripture says,
for the just, those who are declared by God to be righteous in Christ,
that's the only ones that can be the just. The just can either
be referring to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, revealed in human
flesh, who could not sin. Or it refers to all those that
are in Him. And by virtue of his being their
substitute, his being the propitiation, there's no other way that you
could be included, that I could be included in this statement.
The just shall live by, and here again, it should be in, or I
take it back, this word by is ek, out of faith. Those who are
declared by God to be righteous in Christ shall live by, or out
of, ek, out of faith. It's also, they translated this
by, and it's a different preposition. But, out of faith. Now this causes us to have to
examine where faith comes from. What is faith? And for the sake
of filling in the gaps on that, I'll just make this statement.
Faith is a grace. Faith is something bestowed.
God does not offer His grace to sinners. Won't you please
take it? He bestows it. The sinner doesn't
have anything to do about it. He doesn't have anything to say
about it. God bestows His grace. What a great Savior we have.
Ask Paul about his conversion experience. Did Jesus show up
on that Damascus road and say, now look here, Paul, I'm going
to give you a chance. I'm going to make this easy for
you. You want some grace here? I've
knocked you all three down on the ground. These guys are terrified.
I'm louder than they hear me. They just see the light. But
I'm talking to you, Paul. Now, do you want this or not?
And Paul didn't go, oh yeah, I'll take some of that. No, God
just blessed him. Whoa! That's the way he works. He comes and he invades your
space as a sinner. And changes take place as a result. Major changes. Life-changing
things. The just shall live out of faith. And this is all setting us up
to a truth that verse 12 brings forward when it says, And the
law is not out of faith. The book of the law that God
delivered in writing through Moses was not intended to feed
our faith. It's not out of faith. That's
why Romans 3 tells us by the law is the knowledge of sin.
What is the purpose of the law? To show the justice of God. It vindicates God. God would
have been perfectly vindicated, wouldn't He, if up on Mount Sinai
He knew what was going on down there in the camp. His man for the priesthood, Aaron,
was working his magic on the golden calf. Get out of the way,
Moses. I'm going to destroy them and
I'll raise up a righteous nation from you alone. Moses, I'm sure,
inadvertently became an example of Christ our substitute. In
the face of holy justice, he interceded for those people. Still didn't deliver them. from the righteous judgment of
God of the wilderness wanderings until the next generation was
grown up and ready to go into the promised land. All of that's
a very interesting part of the scenario. But the law, Galatians
3.12 tells us, is not of faith. But then it comes back. It says,
But the man that doeth them shall live in them. I want to share with you, all
these are quotes. Paul is teaching us the Bible
here. And even though he gives us a
phrase, he does not intend for us to bypass the context. In the 18th chapter of Leviticus,
we read, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the
children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the Lord your God. After the doings of the land
of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do." After the doings,
the way of life, the habits, The way they filled up their
time, what they worshipped, what they judged to be good things,
bad things, the doings. That just paints a broad stroke
on the whole life and character of the Egyptians. And he says,
after the doings of the land of Egypt. They weren't even in
the land anymore. God reiterated why he delivered
them out of that land, out of the environment of it. Shall
ye not do, or after the doings of the land of Canaan, whether
I bring you? Shall ye not do, neither shall
ye walk. And how does God begin this commanding
statement? It tells Moses, Tell them, I
am the Lord your God. Whether I bring you, shall ye
not do? Where they were going, where
the Canaanites were. In fact, God commanded that all
the Canaanites be destroyed from the face of the earth. That was
the commandment. And we know they didn't keep
that commandment. And I got food for thought for
you. God commanded that. And he meant what he said? If
that had been fulfilled by these poor, wretched, miserable sinners
that were his people, Israel, in the event of the Canaanite
woman that came out of Tyre and Sidon, two cities that Jesus
said, you guys minister for me, when he sent the seventy out,
don't go into these cities. just stayed within Israel's borders.
She heard about Jesus. Her daughter was demon possessed.
And she came into where He was. She crossed the border. And she
came up and she prayed, made a plague of herself, the disciples
saying, oh, Lord, just do what she asks and send her away. This
this woman's persistent. She's bugging us. She's crawling
around on her knees after us for crying out loud. And Jesus
just ignored her, didn't even acknowledge her until finally
the disciples pressed upon him to do so. And he just makes this
one statement. It's not good to take the children's
bread and cast it to the little dogs. And Christ did that to
bring to the foreground the reality that's incomprehensible for us.
Our finite minds can't get around this. When you keep the big picture,
this Canaanite woman is so cursed by God, she isn't even supposed
to be in existence anymore. The Canaanites were supposed
to be wiped out way back in the Old Testament, a thousand years
before, under Moses. And Joshua. But they didn't fulfill
the Lord's command like they didn't fulfill any of the Lord's
commands. They're sinners. And God intended
that because he's going to resurrect this woman to the family. She doesn't, she isn't a little
dog like she put herself. Yeah, but the little dogs under
the tables feed from the crumbs that the children throw to them.
Oh, woman, great is your fate. You do have a place sitting at
the table. You're a child of God. And when she got back home,
everything that she was wanted in this life, which was her daughter
being rescued from demons, she found it to be true. What an
example of the mysteries of providence in the history of redemption.
God crosses every line for His elect. Even where it's written
in the book of the law, these people are so evil, they don't
deserve to exist. My people are holy people. Go in and cut them down by the
sword, man, woman, and child. These are things that stretch
our comprehension. But this is the place in the
scriptures when he says, you shall do my judgments and keep
my ordinances to walk therein. I am the Lord, your God. He closes
this out. This is a chiasm here. It's a
very plain one in scripture. He begins with tell him I am
the Lord, their God. And then he ends, I am the Lord
your God. And then he says, Ye shall therefore keep my statutes
and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. Unfortunately, the reality is,
man won't live in them. Because man doesn't do them.
And this phrase is brought forward here in Galatians 3. The man
that doeth it. Man that doeth them. The word
doeth is the key word. It's the same word that Jesus
uses in Matthew 7 when he makes the correlation. He says, a good
tree bringeth forth good fruit. Okay, got it. A corrupt tree
bringeth forth evil fruit. And a good tree cannot bring
forth evil fruit, and a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good
fruit. By their fruits you shall know them. Right before this
he says, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's
clothing. But inwardly they are ravening
wolves. They're out to get you. They've got the destruction of
your soul as the target, as the ultimate end. And you know what? The Scripture teaches us that
even these false prophets have deceived themselves. They're
so deceived in themselves, they don't believe that that's true
about them. Oh, we're so dependent upon the
grace of God. And Jesus is giving fair warning.
He's setting up the statement that even more forebodingly,
He declares, not everyone that calls me Lord, which is the Greek
word Kyrios, the high word for Lord, that Corinthians, the Holy
Spirit tells us from Corinthians, if any man called Jesus Kyrios,
Lord, it's by the Holy Spirit. No man can do that except by
the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us not everyone that
calls me Lord which tells us something about how close we
can come. We can come educationally to
understand, know what that word Lord is, and recognize Jesus
as that word for Lord. But that's not the same thing
as it's being revealed to you, and it's experientially imparted
to you. And by the Holy Spirit, you recognize
Him as Lord. And the key is, there's no natural
pride in recognizing the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a natural
humility, humbleness. Not everyone, Jesus says, that
calls Me Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that
doeth The will of my Father which is in heaven. Not doeth the will,
their own free will, what they willingly choose because it's
the right choice to make. He doesn't even put us in the
equation. It's the will of the Father.
The word doeth is the same word. It's the same word for bring
forth. There in Matthew 7. He uses that in that example.
When he says, bring forth, it's the same word for do it. It's
by the motive and the intent and the natural outflowing. It's
not just a word for do that we often refer to as a work that
is done. That's another word. This particular
word connotes the natural outflow. The man that doeth them naturally. From his heart. Jesus Christ
is the only one that fills the bill of this. The law has no
judgment or condemnation on Christ. But it has all kinds of judgment
and condemnation on us. Because we are born infractors. We don't do them at all. Then verse 13 comes forward as
a shining bright light. The gospel comes forward to us
in all of its glory when it says, Christ has redeemed us. That is, eternally redeemed us
from the curse of the law. How? He has bought us. We've been purchased by Him.
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made or
having become, which is what is communicated from the original,
a curse for us. For it is written, here we are
again, The very fabric of absolute predestination of all the details
that God has ordered the course of this whole age from its inception
to its end. All the details of it. It is
written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. Christ hung
on a tree. And then the apostle is led to
bring the great big picture into the foreground. He says that
the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. All this
talk about the law of God in this section. And then he takes
us back to 430 years before the law was ever even on the timeline
of fallen humanity, formally. The law has been there. The teaching
of Scripture about the law says it's always been there, because
it's a part of God's rule. You can't escape. It's His holiness. It's the holy law of God. The
law is holy, just, and good. But before that ever formally
was introduced to us, I mean, we can say, well, that's before
the law. That doesn't get you out from under it. You're born
under it. This planet is encompassed by
God's law because God is sovereign over all creation, heaven and
earth. But in the timeline, in the scheme
of things, verse 14 takes us back and blows our mind a little
bit. That the blessing of Abraham,
what's the blessing of Abraham? Abraham believed God and it was
imputed to him for righteousness. The blessing of Abraham in you
shall all families of the earth be blessed. Every family. I believe that with all my heart.
There's going to be somebody from every single human fallen
family found among the elect. Even Jeroboam. Remember him? God totally cursed him. He sinned
against the Lord so bad that there's not going to be a survivor. If anybody in your family, and
Jezebel was a part of his family, by the way, if anybody in your
family dies in the city, the dogs are going to lick their
bones. If they die in the country, the fowls of the air are going
to... But nobody's going to have an honorable burial. Not in your
family. You're all cursed. But one. There's one child. It's in the
13th chapter of 1 Kings and tells of Jeroboam's baby. After God had communicated to
him that curse, the child got sick, nigh unto death. And they spent their money and
their time trying to find a physician that could heal him. There was
none. Jeroboam knew of a prophet of
God, so he commissioned his wife to disguise herself. Whatever
you do, don't go down there to this prophet and let her know
you're my wife. Sneak up on him. Be just like a regular peasant.
Come in there with that sick baby. And he'll have compassion
and heal. He can heal the child. It's supernatural.
He's got the power of God. Jeroboam, he doesn't realize. He can't hide anything from God.
There's no secrets. No, not with the sovereignty
of God. God told the prophet that she was coming. When she
knocked on the door, he said, Hello, Mrs. Jeroboam. Come on
in. He knew who she was. She was
found out. The prophet had control of the
conversation from the first to the last word. He says, Jeroboam's
ploy isn't going to work. And the sad news is, as soon
as you set your feet back through the gate of the city, when you
go back home, the child's going to die. But, but, he has found
some favor with the Lord and will be buried. And the word
for favor is directly connected to the word for grace. So even
to that end, every family of the earth is going to be blessed
through Abraham. And why Paul brings that up is
he's writing to Galatian Gentiles. He's evangelizing a whole world
of Gentiles who have no ethnic connection with the Jews. that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles, or that the Gentiles might become
included in the blessing upon Abraham, in his election of him,
in his justifying him, in his regenerating him. And it will
be done through, or literally again, in Jesus Christ, that
we might receive the promise of the Spirit through the grace
of faith. through faith. Now the word of
God references by description the curse as being the curse
of the law. The curse of the law. The holy, just, and good law
of God is the source of the curse. Sin is the cause of the curse,
but the law of God is the source of it. God's perfect holy justice
dictates the unchangeable reality of this premise. The doctrine
of absolute predestination permeates and accentuates the magnitude
of this all-governing premise. We need to be delivered from
the curse of the law. Praise God, we have been delivered
from the curse of the law through Jesus Christ. God becoming man
in the incarnation of Christ is truly a remarkable revelation. It is remarkable and then it
connotes the reality, even the predestined reality. Now I'm going to bring this predestination
thing into a territory that is equally mind-boggling because
the eternal, holy Son of God of the divine triumvirate of
God, His becoming the curse of the holy law of God, was predestined. Was absolutely predestined. And
it was predestined that He would do this by divine design, so
as to be a representative, a mediator, a substitute a propitiation for
all the sinful actions and infractions of His law, consciously or unconsciously
committed by all those chose by God to be redeemed through
His representation of them as an eternal sacrifice for them
to secure their eternal salvation. Now let's look at 2 Corinthians
8 and 9 in closing for this morning. 2 Corinthians 8-9 brings this
right to our front door. It descriptively, it descriptively
declares. Paul writes the Corinthians,
he says, for we know. Gnosko is the word. That is the
learning experience that we're always undergoing and never reaching
a culmination point. It's learning things. For we
know, we have learned and we are learning, but we haven't
learned it all yet. We're still learning. The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now that describes your regeneration
experience, and from that regeneration beginning, It's ongoing and it
will go on and on and on, even transcend your time in this world
and on into the next. It's glorious! For we know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet
for your sakes He became poor. Yet for your sakes He became
totally indigent. That's what that word means.
Not just poor by comparison. He became totally indigent. Why? Beloved, I don't care how much
money you got. That's you. That's me. And I don't have much
money. I'm poor by comparison. But I'm
totally indigent. But Christ became, for our sakes,
that total indigency. that you, through his poverty,
might become rich. So to put it in perspective with
this graph, just shortly before that cross on the timeline of
fallen humanity, we could put a dot which would represent the
actual invasion of Christ, of the Christ, into our space. When light came into this dark
world that's made up of sunny days, rainy days, and we think
we know what light is, and we know what night is, and we don't
realize the darkness that even permeates the sunniest of days,
The spiritual darkness. That that dot would represent
the incarnation of Jesus Christ coming to this world under the
curse of the law. And he became the curse of the
law for us. He delivered the law on Mount
Sinai. He wrote it. He's the law giver. And now, he's an example. of the curse of it. He became
that for our sakes. And He spent everything of value
that He had for our redemption. He paid the ultimate. The total
price demanded in full. Didn't make installments like
we have to do in this world to buy things we can't afford. He
paid the full price. Cash on the barrel for the salvation
of our souls. He, which was His own flesh and
blood, He laid down His own life. Now, what we're going to see
as we attempt to unfold the magnitude
of this, we're going to see that the poverty that our Lord literally
became when he came into this world under the law and actually
became a curse of the law, was what he had to become. It's what
he had to become for the sake of all whom he was representing
for their eternal salvation. This included all the worldly
afflictions as a result of the curse. You know what they are,
aren't you? Don't you? You work and you get tired. You
work and you don't get done. You work and you can't do it
perfectly. It's where you suffer sickness. You suffer thirst. You suffer hunger. It's where
you grow old. And the older you get, the more
apparent the curse becomes. You can't escape your fallenness. You'd like to. You'd like to
be shed of it, wouldn't you? You're grown under it. The Bible
tells us this. I'm just giving you a paraphrase
of the descriptions of the word. You sin. And with your awakened
heart, you realize what a sinner you are. And you can't help but
sin again and again and again and again! Even when it's been
brought to your regenerated understanding The magnitude of it. But God
is gracious. God is good. Jesus suffered these
same afflictions. It was a curse that he was predestined
to be subjected to when he, the Son of God, from eternity, entered
by physical birth into this age of time, into the historical
realm of fallen humanity, under the curse of the law. The imputed
sin. of all those he came into the
world to save became his burden. And we'll pursue an understanding
of that as we go forward. May the Lord bless this this
morning, this delivery of this presentation this morning to
the benefit of your soul. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Our gracious Heavenly Father, we're sober to contemplate the
descriptions of the Word, of exactly what you sent your Son
to do and to be. And we are further taken aback
when we see from your Word how willingly He came and became
for us all that you had commanded Him. He fulfilled obediently,
perfectly, everything that is written. Holy Spirit of God,
bring this home to our hearts, each one of us. I pray for the
blessing of your presence and the demonstration of your presence
in the understanding of these great things, that the glory
of Christ may be honored, adored, and worshiped. Amen. I think it's more of a, more
of a personal thing than a physical thing. I think it's more of a
personal thing.