1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 24. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 24.
You read a verse like this, and the writer doesn't have to stop
and tell us who he's speaking about, because you and I know. who his own self bare our sins
in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins,
should live unto righteousness by whose stripes we are healed. You and I have been looking several
weeks now at the little epistle of Paul to the Ephesians. And
we've taken several Sundays to look at that because Paul's writings
are so deep that you can take one verse and I imagine if we
had the God-given abilities to look at it for several weeks.
But Peter and Paul's writings are so different. Paul was so
intellectual. I think that whole chapter of
1st Ephesians is made up of either three or four sentences. And
Peter's writings here are so simple. They're shorter sentences,
but they both wrote infallibly. Both wrote in their own style,
but they were both moved by the Holy Spirit. And they both wrote. They both wrote. And that's so
important to remember. They were both moved by the Holy
Spirit, but they both wrote. And it's something how the Holy
Spirit used these men, wise men or ignorant men. Intellectual
men or ignorant and unlearned fishermen. He used them to write
in their own style and in their own abilities. And Paul and Peter
is in perfect agreement when they write. We read their writings
and one of the things that you quickly realize, they never contradict
each other. And another thing you realize
is that their pen and their mouth and their hearts is full of this
one person, this glorious person. And they always seek to describe
Him. And they always tell about this
glorious redemption that He has accomplished. And the Apostle
Paul in all his wisdom and all his knowledge and his wide vocabulary,
he does not speak any more highly of the Lord Jesus Christ than
this poor ignorant and unlearned fisherman did. They both exalted
the Son of God. Peter's doctrine is as high and
it's as deep, it's as broad as the Apostle Paul's. because they
both describe this one glorious person, the Son of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And they, like all the writers
of the Bible, Brother Glenn, as I was studying this, I thought
of what you told us a couple of weeks ago, that first and
foremost they are not concerned with the how or even with the
what, but it is the who. Who did what? Not what was done, but it's always
the who. Peter says here in verse 24,
who his own self. Ain't that amazing the way he
writes that? I can't write like that. I would have said who bore
our sins. Or himself bore our sins. But
Peter's heart and his pen is filled with Jesus Christ. He
can't use enough pronouns to describe him. Who? His own self. I'm sure that English professors
have a name for such a phrase as that. I don't know what it
would be. But it's amazing to be able to write like that. Who
His own self, bear our sins in His own body upon the tree. And
you know Peter knew this because the Holy Spirit inspired him
to write it. But he knew it experimentally
too. He experienced something about this body of the Lord Jesus
that was wounded for our transgression. You remember when the Lord was
raised from the dead, and He appeared in there in the upper
room to those disciples that were gathered there? And they
saw Him, and they thought that they saw a spirit, and it scared
them to death. And He said, Why are you so afraid?
Why does all these thoughts arise in your heart? Handle me and
see. Behold my hands and my feet,
that it is I myself." So when Peter says here he bore our sins
in his own body, he knew something about that. He saw that body. He saw the nails in his feet
and in his hands, the holes and the hole in his side. When the
Apostle Peter writes to us concerning the atonement of our sins, he
does not present to us some deep theological discourse that it
would take a scholar to understand. But when he begins to present
to us remission of sins and atonement for our sins, what does he do?
He runs quickly. He runs immediately to the Lord
Jesus Christ, burying our sins in his own body upon that tree. And the reason he does that is
for this, our faith. Our faith must never be in a
system of belief. That would do us no good. Our
faith must be in a person, not in some redemption. but in the
Redeemer, first and foremost and always in a Redeemer, even
Him who bore our sins in His own body upon a tree. It is a
person that we must share. It is a person that we must believe
in. It is a person that you and I
must know. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord, they shall be saved. How then shall they
call on Him? On Him. Not of what? I believe in a what? But on Him. How shall they believe in Him
of whom they have not heard? It's Him. That's where our faith
is. It's in Him. You and I sometimes hear of the
doctrine of the preexistence, or the doctrine of the incarnation,
or the doctrine of the atonement, or the doctrine of the second
coming. And men just talk about these things as some fact. I had a Sunday school teacher
when the Lord first saved me, and he used to say, the gospel
is the death, burial, and resurrection. That's what he always said. I
wish I could talk to him now. I didn't know enough then to
say anything. I shouldn't have anyway. What is the gospel, he
said? It's the death, burial, and resurrection.
That's not the gospel. See what we have to do if we
are not careful? We have to take something that
is glorious about a person and reduce it down to just some fact. Something that we can just say,
well, here is our doctrine and stick it in a pigeon hole. What
is the gospel? Here is the gospel. How that
Christ died for our sin. How that He was buried and how
He rose again. It's not a death and burial and
resurrection. It's the death of a person, the burial of a
person. That's where our faith is. That's
why Peter and all these other writers, they run to this person
who Himself bore our sin. We hear a lot today about the
second coming. Somebody asks you about the second
coming in our day, it's usually because they want to know if
you're post-millennium or pre-millennium or all-millennium. You know, when the Scripture
talks about the second coming, it never uses such things like
that. When the Scripture talks about this, it makes these kind
of statements. This same Jesus that was so taken
up from you shall so come again in like manner as you saw Him
go back. The Lord Himself shall descend
from heaven. It's not a second coming, it's
who's coming. The Son of Man shall come in
the glory of His Father with His holy angels. It's Him that's
coming. You and I aren't concerned with
having a neat little system of theology to catechize people
with and hope they'll receive our little system. Well, here's
the doctrine of the Incarnation. Well, we'll accept that. Yeah,
and on your way you go unchanged. Unchanged. But the Bible does
not speak like that. It speaks like this, unto us
a child is born. Unto us a son is given. A virgin shall conceive and bring
forth a son, and you will call his name Immanuel, God with us. That is the incarnation. It is
not just a doctrine or a fact. that we pull out of our little
pigeon's hole, it's the glorious Person of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, taking unto Himself our humanity. Big difference, ain't
there? Big difference. The writers of
the Bible do not and do they ever sit before us mere teachings
of places and things and events. But they sit before us always,
this glorious Person. this merciful, gracious, loving,
precious, unique person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter
had been talking about it all through this book. And look here
at what he says about him in chapter 2. We often talk about
how Paul's heart and pen was filled with him. Well, Peter's
was too. And one of the most amazing things that he says about
the Lord Jesus He tells us in chapter 2 of the Father's estimation
of him. Now, if somebody is glorious
on the Father's side, and somebody is precious in the Father's side,
you know he's worth something. You know he's worth something.
And he says in 1 Peter chapter 2, look here what he says in
verse 4, We have tasted the Lord Jesus
as gracious. Now we come to Him. To whom coming? As unto a living stone, disallowed
indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious. He is precious to whom? To God. God chose Him. He is God's elect. He is God's servant. God said,
My soul delighteth in Him. God has a soul. He has a heart.
And He says, My heart delights in My Son. And I tell you, Peter
knew this by experience too. Remember when he was on the Mount
of Transfiguration? And Peter said, We were eyewitnesses of
His Majesty. That's what he called Him. He's
not a little helpless Jesus. Peter says, He's the Majesty. The Majesty. That's what they
call kings, ain't it? That's the way they addressed
dignitaries. Majesty! Your Majesty! Peter said, we saw His Majesty. There came a voice from the excellent
glory. God spake and said, this is my
beloved Son. In Him I'm well pleased. That's
God's estimation of it. Peter goes on here in the third
chapter, and look what he says about it. In the third chapter,
in the last verse, Look what he says about this Jesus, God's
blessed Son. He's gone into heaven, and He's
on the right hand of God. They're in that place of honor
and dignity. Angels and authorities and powers
being made subject unto Him. He's the Lord. He's the King. He's on His throne, and God has
put Him there. I've set my King on my holy hill
of Zion. Thou art my Son. Ask of me, and
I'll give you the hill. I tell you, He's precious in
the Father's sight. And look here at another place.
Look here in chapter 5. And look here in verse 4. See,
when Peter talks about these things, he doesn't come up with
a little word or two definition to define these and pull those
little words out to describe them. When he talks about the
second coming, look what he says in verse 4 of chapter 5. When the chief shepherd shall
appear, the good shepherd, Galea, you told us about this morning,
the great shepherd of the sheep, the good shepherd, the great
shepherd, he shall appear. We shall receive a crown of glory. Not away. He's coming again.
And Peter's heart and his mouth is filled with this person. I
love the way he says this. Who? His own self. That's amazing, ain't it? That's
amazing. What does Peter say this person
did? Look back over here at our text again in verse 24 of chapter
2. Look what he says this person
did. Who? His own self. bear our sins in
His own body upon the tree. Now, Brother Larry has been reminding
us a time or two about Peter writing this epistle to these
Jews that were scattered. They were scattered abroad. And
I doubt if they had the opportunity to come back here to Jerusalem, to the Day of Atonement, All
of them coveted that day. They wanted to be back and see
the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. The priest put his hands on the
head of that sacrifice and cut his throat and catch some blood
in that basin and disappear behind that veil, knowing that he was
going in there to sprinkle that blood on the mercy seat. They
loved to see all of that. But they were scattered abroad.
weren't able to come back up here and see that. Now Peter
writes this to them and he says, you don't have to be here. There's
nothing special about this place anymore. I know he said you love
these shadows and these types, but he said you have the real
thing. We don't look to the blood of bulls and goats or the ashes
of a heifer or an earthly priest. We have Him of whom these things
only picture. We have the reality. We have
the Lord Jesus Christ. And what did He do? He bare our
sins in His own body on the tree. We've got the reality. You notice very carefully this
text and the way it reads. If you'll just simply look at
this verse of Scripture without any preconceived notions, without
coming here with any prejudice in your mind or not having jumped
to any conclusion, if you'll just read this verse, if you
and I will just take this verse and read it in its simplicity,
I think here is the conclusion both of us will come to. Let
me read it like this. Let's look at it like this. What
did our Lord Jesus bear? Now just look how plain this
text is. Look how simple Peter puts it.
He was a simple man, right into simple people like you and me.
He does not want us to be deceived about this. He wants to tell
us something that our faith can get a hold of, so He puts this
in such simple terms. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
bear? Look at this. He bore our sins
in His own body. Well, one says He bore the punishment
for our sins. Is that what that says? Now,
let's be honest about this and read it just for what it says.
Well, he said he was made a sacrifice for our sin. But is that even
what that says? That is true. I know that's true.
I know he was punished. I know that he was made a sacrifice
for sin. But what does this Scripture
say? It's plain, isn't it? He bare
our sins in his own body, the tree. He bore our sins. That's what He said. He bore
our sins. He bore all kinds of sins in
His body. If He bore our sins, I know,
brothers and sisters, if He bore my sins, then He bore all kinds
of sins. I've got more sin in me than
I can describe. And it seems like every day I
get a little deeper in that filth. If He bore your sins, you feel
the same way. He bore all kinds of sins if
He bore your sins. He bore actual sins. He bore
original sins. He bore open and profane sins. And He bore secret sins. He bore
sins against God. He bore sins against Himself.
He bore sins against law. He bore sins against man. Sins
of motive. We can sin with our motive. Sins
of thought, sins of word, sins of deed, He bore all kinds of
sin. Listen, He bore the sin of unbelief. He had to. That had to be atoned
for. He bore the sin of pride. He
bore the sin of backsliding. He bore the sin of adultery and
idolatry and covetousness and drunkenness and fornication and
incest. Oh, surely not incest. Do you
ever know of a believer that committed incest? Anybody that's ever committed
incest, if they're going to be saved from it, Christ had to
bury it. Vought did, didn't he? You say,
well, he was ignorant of it. Well, though he was ignorant
of it, he's guilty, and somebody's got to bear the punishment of
it. Christ bore sins in his own body. Foolish thoughts, murders,
sins I can't even think of. We could categorize sins all
day long, and we'd miss some. Sins, all kinds of sins, Jesus
bore. Bruce, you don't know what I've
done. No. But He bore it. He bore it. I never dreamed that
I could think what I just thought. Well, He bore that thought. That
sinful, miserable thought. He bore it. If it's a sin, He
bore it in His own body. All we like sheep have gone astray,
and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. But it goes farther than that.
It goes farther than that. In bearing the sins, he must
bear all that is in sin, all that belongs to sin, or all that
arises out of sin. The wise man says, if you take
fire to your bosom, you're going to be burned. When the Lord Jesus
took sin to Himself, It had an effect upon them. It had consequences. Can our Lord Jesus take the sins
to Himself without suffering the consequences that arise from
those sins? What is the first one? What about
filth? What about filth? You know the
Bible calls sins filth. Filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Listen to this in Isaiah chapter
4 verse 4. When the Lord shall have washed
away the filth of the daughter of Zion. What is that? It's sin.
Sin is filth. And if the Lord Jesus is ever
to wash us from it, then He must bear it. The filth of sin. Listen to some of these passages
as I read them to you. Job 15. The heavens are not clean
in His sight, How much more abominable and filthy is man who drinketh
iniquity like water." Man is filthy. Why? Because he is a
sinner. Sins does that. Psalm 53, 3,
God looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if
there were any that did understand and seek Him. They had all gone
back. They had all together become
filthy. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. In that familiar scripture in
Isaiah 64, 6, we have all as an unclean thing, we are all
as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. Our self-righteous deeds that
we do are like filthy rags. Sins are filthy. Sins are pollution. That's why they're called stinking
wounds and purifying sores, and this purifying sores, and this
is what the Lord Jesus said in Psalms 38 and verse 5. My wounds stink and are sore
corrupt. Ain't that amazing? I sink in
deep mire where there is no standing." That is what he said when these
sins were put upon him. He said they are like a stinking,
filthy sore, and I sink in it like stinking mire where there
is no standing. Here is another effect of sin.
Shame and guilt. See what happens when he took
sin to himself. He bore our sins in his own body. But there has to be an effect
of that. And the second one is shame and guilt. He endured the
cross, despising the shame. You mean he suffered shame? Yes,
he suffered shame. He felt it. Listen to Psalm 69,
7. For thy sake, he says to the
Father, I have borne reproach, and shame hath covered my face. My confusion is continually before
me, and the shame of my face has covered me. Thou hast known
my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor. The days of my youth
you have shortened, and you have covered them with shame." Listen
about the guilt. Listen about the guilt. Not only
the shame, but the guilt. O God, Thou knowest my foolishness,
He said, and my sin, my guiltiness, my guilt is not hid from You. If you know anything about your
sins, you know they produce these two things. There are two things
that go with the knowledge of your sin. One is guilt and the
other is shame. You felt that, didn't you? And
when Peter says he himself, bear our sins in his own body, he
had to bear also that which arises out of sin. Pollution, filthiness,
guilt, and shame. That all went along with it. And thirdly, the punishment.
The punishment. A body which was so evident,
for there he hanged. upon the cross of Calvary. But
he tells us that his soul was made an offering for sin. That
even God smote him. Is it nothing to you, he says,
that pass by? Behold and see! Is there any
sorrow like my sorrow, wherewith God hath afflicted me in the
day of his fierce anger? I was reading one time a fellow. Sort of a popular commentary.
And he denied that God smote Christ. But we have to deny many verses
of the Bible. He was smitten, stricken, of
who? Of God. And afflicted. Why did
God smite him? Our sins was upon him. And he
smote him to death. And he tasted death. Thirdly, how did the Lord Jesus
bear these sins? In what sense did He bear? Well, somebody would say, in
pretense. That God pretended our sins were
upon Him. And God treated Him as if they
were upon Him. What does Peter say? Read this
just like a child would read it and understand it. If you
never read this before and you had no preconceived ideas or
preconceived notions about this, and you just read this, where
would you say that our sins were put? In His body. He Himself, bare our sins, were
in His own body. He didn't put them upon a goat
or a lamb. He didn't put them upon anybody
else. He just didn't take them from us and throw them away.
Where did He put them? In His own body. In His own body
itself. Where? He says here on the tree,
on the cross of Calvary. So there He hangs on the cross with more sin in Him and on Him
that can be numbered. All kinds of sin. And there he
hangs in his filth. There he hangs in the pollution.
There he hangs in the shame. There he hangs in the guilt.
There he hangs under the wrath of God until he lifts up his
voice and says it's finished and gives up his ghost. Now somebody
is going to say, Bruce, you went too far. You have gone too far. There is no way that Jesus Christ
could have so taken our sins and the consequences as you have
just described. There is no way that he could
so identify with us in that manner. And besides, Peter says he offered
himself to God as a lamb without spot, and it was the just for
the unjust. That is so. That's so. That's absolutely so. And we
need to stress that. When the Lord Jesus Christ took
our sins and took all these consequences, He never ceased to be what He
was. But He was made something that
He was not before. At no time did the Son of God
cease to be what He was before. Yet at the same time, he was
made something that he was not before. That ship that was going across
the Sea of Galilee in that awful storm, and who was it asleep on that
pillar? Who was that? That was Jesus
of Nazareth. That was the man Christ Jesus.
Yes, but he was more than that, wasn't he? Was he not God? No, he couldn't have been God.
Why not? Because he was sleeping. God
neither slumbers nor sleeps. But that was God. He went to the city of Sychar
and their own Jacob's well, and he sat down. Why? Because he
was weary. Who is that that's weary? Who
is that that's grown tired in His journey? That's Jesus of
Nazareth. Yes, but who else is it? That's
God. And go there to the Garden of
Gethsemane and listen to Him as He cries and groans and watch
Him as He fears and He trembles until He sweats drops of blood.
Who is that? Is that merely Jesus of Nazareth?
Yes, it's Him, but He's God. He's God. And He was 100% God
in all of these situations that I just described to you. He never
ceased to be what He was before He came into this world. He was
always God. And He was God when He came into
this world. But here's the mystery. He became
something that He was not before. And yet He never ceased to be
what He was. And people say, now we can't
go one step further and say, here He's taken our sins and
all the effects of it and all the consequences of it, all the
pollution in the field. They say we can't go that far
because that makes Him something that He's not. He cannot be holy
and spotless as the Lamb of God and yet at the same time be a
partakers of this awful sin and the consequences of it. Why can't
He? He did that when He left heaven
and took our humanity. And He can take our sins and
call them His own and suffer the consequences of it and the
filth of it and yet not cease to be what He was before. The
Holy Lamb of God. Yes, He was that, but He was
both of those. He's God and man. And He's a
holy sacrifice, but He's a sacrifice that was made sin for us. that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's a mystery,
isn't it? One dear man said, when you take
the mystery out of the gospel, you have no gospel. When you
have a gospel that you can understand without faith, you have no gospel. It's not so much our intellect
that lays hold upon the gospel, it's the faith that enters into
these things. Who can enter into God becoming
a man without just believing? Who can see the Holy Son of God
hanging up on a tree, cursed of God, God cursing God, without
only faith entering into such a thing? Someone said that Martin
Luther said for hours one day, look in his Psalms 22-1, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he just sat and he looked
at that, and to hear him mumbling under his breath, My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? And finally he rose up and he
hit the table and he said, My soul, who can get a hold of such
a thing? God forsaken God. And how do we enter into that?
We believe it. Faith enters into these things.
You and I weren't there. when He took our sins and made
them His own. But I believe it, don't you?
I believe it. He hated them. They made Him
ashamed. He despised them. He tasted them. He tasted death for them. And
in His death, He suffered the full consequences of them and
the full consequences for them. And He put them away. He put
them away. And that brings me to my fourth
point in my text. What's the consequences of this?
He bore our sins in His own body upon the tree that we, being
dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. There's the consequences. There's the effects. We are dead
to sin by His death to sin. What does it mean to be dead
to sin? It means to be free. Paul said,
He that is dead is free from sin. If you're a slave and you can't afford Buy your
freedom, and nobody else can buy it for you. One way you can
be free for sure, and that's to die. If you die, you're free. They can't harm you, they can't
beat you, they can't curse you, they can't abuse you anymore.
If you're dead, you're free. But you say, Bruce, we're not
dead. No, but our substitute is. And we're free by virtue
of Him dying in our place. His death freed us from sin. That is what Peter is saying.
Listen to Romans chapter 6 and verse 10 and 11. For in that
He died, He died unto sin once. But in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God, likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Paul said, when Christ died to sin, you reckon you died to sin. Somebody said, just reckon it
to be so. I can't understand that. Just reckon it to be so. Well, that's the way God sees
it. Well, Brother Fortner is often telling us the way God
sees it is the way it is. And if He sees you dead to sin,
free from sin, that's the way it is. The reality of this and
our ability to comprehend it are two different things. The
reality is you're dead to sin, Glenn. The reality is you're
not condemned anymore. The reality of the issue is you
have nothing laid to your charge. You are free from sin, from all
its effects, its eternal consequences. You are free from it, just as
a dead man is. That is the reality. He that heareth my words, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall
never come into condemnation. Shall never come into condemnation. A believer can no more be condemned
than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He was condemned one time, but
he'll never be condemned again. And if he died for you, you're
without condemnation in Jesus Christ. That's the reality. Here's
our experience. We feel the working of sin within
us. Our faith is weak, and we go doubting and fearing and questioning. That's our experience. And there
is a vast difference between reality sometimes and our experience. And it should teach us to live
by faith upon Christ. Faith in His Word. When do we become dead to sin?
When we believe. When we believe. Listen to Paul
again in Romans 6, verse 17-18. God bethanked that you were the
servants of sin, but you have obeyed from your heart. You believed from your heart.
Believe what? You believed in Christ. You believed
He actually took your sins in His own body and expired and
atoned and was punished for them. You saw Him lifted up in your
place. You believed that doctrine which
was delivered unto you, being then made free from sin. You became the servants of righteousness. It's only believers who have
this union with Christ and receive His benefits and the blessings
that come from His sufferings and resurrection. And the stronger
our faith is in Him, the better servants we'll be to our God
and our Father. And the more we will enjoy Him,
and enjoy serving Him. We joy in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ by whom we have received the atonement. I don't know how this works.
I can't explain how this works. I really can't. I have thought
of this. This is one of the most difficult things for me to understand,
how that Christ dying upon the cross frees me personally from
my sin. and the desire to serve Him.
And the more I believe what He's did on my behalf, the more I
hate my sin. And the more I want to serve
my Father and glorify Him and His cause in the world. I don't
understand how that happens, but I know it by experience that
it does. Did you ever serve God one day
in your life until He made you free? You didn't, did you? As long as you were under the
bondage of the law and felt yourself under the wrath of God, you didn't
love Him and you didn't serve Him. All you're concerned about
is going to hell. That's all it was. When the fear
of hell was gone, you was gone. And when He showed you that you're
free in Christ, that He's not angry with you anymore, that
He's forgiven you all sins for the mere sake of His dear and
blessed Son, oh, how you loved Him then. Now you just fell head
over heels to do something for His glory and to serve Him and
His people. Why? Because you're free. How
did you become free? Because He tucked your sins in
His own body upon a tree. I told you about that old pit
bull in my neighborhood. I never will forget that. When
I used to walk around the neighborhood, we had a new neighbor moved in,
and he had a pit bull in his yard, but she was tied behind
this fence. And boy, she'd come out and she'd bite that chain
link fence and pull it and hit on that chain. I thought, boy,
if she ever breaks that chain and comes over that fence, I'm
a dead fellow. She'll eat me up. He tucked the
fence down and lengthened the chain. And I will forget, she'd
come almost out to the street. And I thought, I'm not coming
back through here anymore. Boy, she'd lunge at that chain. Big
pit bull with them big old jaws. After walking up the hill one
day to his house, I thought, oh no, I wasn't going to come
through here anymore. And then there she stood right
in the middle of the road. Didn't even have a collar on. And the
very time she saw me, I saw her. And here she come. I didn't know
what in the world I was going to do. I mean, I saw her, but
she was violent. And she ran right up to me and
stopped and licked my hand. I was amazed. I just stood there
amazed. This can't be the same dog. Do you know the difference?
He set her free. Stuck her out behind that fence
that it had to drain. Took that chain off of her that
choked her down. He set her free. But you think
that just gave her liberty to go out and eat somebody up. That's
what you think. Tell a poor sinner, you're free,
walk through this world, love God and do as you will. Well,
you tell him that and he's going to live according to the lust
of his flesh. You might think so, but they don't. As the Lord set me free, oh,
how I love Him. Just put my ear to the post and
nail that auger through it. I love my Master and I'm going
to serve Him the rest of my life. I love God, don't you? I enjoy
Him. And I praise Him for setting
me free. Christ has made you free. It didn't cost us anything. All it cost us was coming to
Him. Believing in Him. It cost Him everything. And lastly
is this. He says there in verse 24, by
whose stripes, You're healed. Brother Mike Walker's
wife died, Sister Debbie. Some of you know Mike. You've
heard him preach about Brother Don Fortner. Debbie died just
after I went down to preach for Brother Rupert. Brother Mike
is a pastor there north of where Brother Rupert is. He preached
Debbie's funeral. He sent me the CD of the funeral. Debbie was very, very sick for
about a couple of months or so. There at the funeral, this lady,
she's mixed up in this healing, healing things, God healing everybody,
just because you asked Him to, He had to do it. And she came
up to Mike's 16-year-old daughter. And she said, you know, I was
just convinced that God was going to heal your mother. And you know what that 16-year-old
girl said to that woman? He did. He did. She's healed. And He's healing us, ain't He?
Every time you sin, He forgives you. He washes you. He puts His
precious balm into that wound and heals it. And there's coming
a day when He's going to make us whole. He's going to heal
us completely. Old Charlie Payne used to call
me some. Deacon Knight, Brother Henry,
had a bad heart. They said, Charlie, we're going
to do surgery on you. We give you about a 50% chance
of making it. He said, well, I'm going to come
out of that operating room half whole. I'm not going to come
out of there and I'm going to be completely whole. I'm going
to be healed. I'm going to be well. That's
what Christ's drops have done for us. And He ain't going to
stop applying that balm until He's completely healed us of
everything. And He'll do it Himself. He don't
start a work and leave the rest to you and me, does He?