I want to speak today on the
subject of redemption. Redemption. Now the Apostle Paul
in this chapter, in the beginning of this chapter, has shown that
all men are guilty sinners in the sight of God. He told us
in verse 10, as it is written, there is none righteous, no,
not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. And then he comes to say here
in verse 19 of this third chapter, he says, Now we know that what
things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God. Now to have our mouths stop means
that we put our hands across our mouths and admit our guilt
in the sight of God as being sons of Adam born into this world
with a nature that's contrary to God, a nature that loves sin,
a nature that is rebellious toward everything that is high and holy,
We are to admit our guilt in the sight of God. We know and
we admit that we have no reason for living the way that we've
lived in utter disregard for what we know to be the truth
of God, and we cease to rationalize or try to justify ourselves,
but we plead for mercy because we sense our guilt before God. Our mouths must be stopped because
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and there
is none of us, no not one, that doeth good and sinneth not. We're
guilty before God, lawbreakers, and our mouths must be stopped. Now in verse 20, We have here
the first conclusion that you come to in the book of Romans. Look at it. Therefore, concluding
that we've all sinned, concluding that we're all guilty before
God, concluding that our mouths have stopped, and that we're
not justifying ourselves anymore, that we're not trying to reason
our way out of our predicament. We're sinners before God and
deserving of the wrath and the judgment of Almighty God, therefore,
by the deeds of the law. There shall no flesh be justified
in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Now,
what this means is that by a man's own effort, no man can be justified. A man is not able to justify
himself or put himself right with God. He cannot do that by
his law keeping or by turning over a new leaf or by his reforming,
for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now you listen to me
a minute. I want you to understand what I'm saying. All that any
law can do for me is teach me my duty. All that any law can
do for me is to make me feel guilty when I do not do that
which is my duty. Now that law can make me feel
mighty guilty, it can burden me a great deal, and it can make
me feel as if that I ought to already be under the judgment
of God in hell fire. Now this law, it cannot change
me, and it cannot make me want to be changed. It cannot. I may
know and feel in my heart, and we sometimes witness this in
our children. We tell them what they ought
to do, we tell them what they ought not to do, and yet that
does not give them the will to do that which we tell them to
do. It does not change their mind
so as to make them willing to do it. And many times we see
them rebel against what we tell them. Well, this is also true
in the case of all men when it comes to the law of God. The
law of God can tell us what we ought to do and it can make us
feel guilty when we don't do it, but the law of God cannot
give us that willingness, that desire to do what we ought to
do. Only the gospel of God's grace
can give us a willingness and give us a love for the Lord Jesus
Christ where we'll obey God and do that which is right in the
sight of God wherever you find us. Only the grace of God can
do that. Now in verse 21, we read here
it says, but. Now we're accused of having a
billy goat religion because we read and make a great deal of
those verses in the Bible that begins with but. And some of
the most important verses in the Bible begins with but and
this is one of them. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Now listen to this. We recognize
as we get to this verse that there are those that do not understand
the gospel and they do not understand the law and they've attempted
to mix the two of them and it's very important that we get to
this. The way to be righteous The way to be righteous with
God is set forth here. The way to be righteous with
God without me keeping the law is what is manifested in the
gospel. Now we know that the Lord Jesus
Christ kept the law. I have not kept the law. No man
here has kept the law. No son of Adam has kept the law
of God perfectly. But Paul says here, but now the
righteousness of God without law keeping is manifested. It's manifested how a man can
be put right before God and the law and the prophets, they bear
witness to this. It bears witness to the way that
God Almighty can be just and justifier of the believing sinner. It states here that there is
no difference. We find that in the last part
of verse 22. It says, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon
all them that believe, for there is no difference. Now the reason
there is no difference is because all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. No man is exempt from this. The
only people that can be saved are those who believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot be saved by works,
your own fleshly works. Even though we cannot earn merit
or favor with God, He still justifies those who believe on His Son. Being justified, even though
we've sinned, even though we've come short of the glory of God,
even though we've lived in rebellion to this hour, Jesus Christ will
justify us as we believe on him. Now in the fourth chapter of
Romans look at verse 4 and verse 5. Now to him that worketh is
the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. The man that would
take the law of God and if he could work himself into merit
and favor with God and justify himself on the basis of his merit
That man, well God would owe him a debt and therefore his
salvation would be of debt. But now what did Abraham, how
was it with him in verse 3? It's what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
And so in verse 5 it says, but to him that worketh not. But
to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. The way that
a man is put right with God is through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, not by law works, not by his obedience unto the law. We're justified freely by his
grace. We're told in verse 24, and this
is a very, very important verse of scripture. I believe that
if you want to understand the Christian religion, if you want
to understand the gospel, verse 24 is the best explanation of
the gospel that you will find any place. Being justified freely,
that means without cause on our part. Nothing in you and I could
cause God to justify us. Because all that was in us was
sin. Paul said, I know that in my
flesh there dwelleth no good thing. But here it says being
justified freely. Without cause it means on our
part. There was no reason to be found
with us. Nothing in us to merit esteem or give the Creator delight. It was God's sovereign will and
purpose that moved Him toward our lost and dying souls. It
was God's grace and mercy, it was God's great heart of love
that moved Him to save a sinner like me. And so that's what this
means. Now it says that by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now it is through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This is how God could
save a sinner that had broken his law and come short of his
glory. This is how God can justify, give a sinner a standing before
him just as if he had never committed one sin. This is how he does
it. He does it through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. Now the word redemption, as we
said earlier, is one of the most important words in the scriptures. The Lord Jesus Christ is spoken
of as our Redeemer. He is known as the Redeemer of
sinners. He redeems his people from their
sins. Now the whole understanding of
the gospel Your understanding of the gospel will be determined
by your understanding of the meaning of this word, redemption. If you're ever going to understand
the gospel, you must understand the meaning of the word, redemption. This word is used a number of
times in the New Testament. The word means this. It means
to buy by paying a ransom price. We mentioned last Sunday morning
Paul said in 1st Corinthians 6 that you're bought with a price. There was a price that was paid. Now it means to buy back by paying
a price. That's what it means. Now the
price has been paid for the redemption of God's people. It has been
paid. The old account has been settled. Payment has been made in full.
It was made by our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now to
help to illustrate this in your mind, I heard a story one time
of a little boy about the size of Kent here or Benjamin. who
lived by the seaside and his father made him a little ship,
a little boat. And this little boy took this
little boat that his father made and he put a string on it and
he would let it drift out into the sea and then he would pull
it back and he played with it several days and one day the
string broke. And he couldn't get, he couldn't
retrieve the little boat and so it went on out into the sea. And in a day or two while there
was a couple of fishermen that found this little boat just drifting
along and so they picked it up and they brought it in and they
took it to a pawn shop. And they sold it to the pawn
shop for two dollars. And in a few weeks the little
boy was walking down the sidewalk in this particular village and
he looked in and he saw this little boat and he said, there's
my boat. And so he went in and he told
the pawn shop owner, he said, this is my boat. And I want it
back. And the pawn shop owner said,
no, you can't have it back. He said, this is my boat now.
He said, I paid $2 for this, and if you're going to have this
boat back, it's going to cost you $5. And so the little boy
said, well, he said, it was my boat. But you lost the boat,
and now it's mine. And so he went back, and his
father told him, said, well, now you get busy and earn the
money. And then you can go buy the boat back. And so the little
boy went to work, and he earned the money, and he went to the
pawn shop, and he bought the boat. And as he was going out
the door, he was crying, and he said, now he said, you were
mine, and I lost you. And you were lost. And now, he
says, I bought you back. And so you're mine twice. My
Father made you, and I lost you, and now I brought you back. You're
mine twice. Now, beloved, this is the message
of the gospel. This is the meaning of the word
redemption. Now, I was the Father's by the
right of creation. He made me. I was His by the
right of creation. He made me. I'm His and so are
you. Whether you know it or not, whether you believe it or not,
whether you feel it or not, or whether you like it or not, He
has written eternity in your very soul and down in your heart
of hearts you know that you belong to God by creation and that you
are accountable to Almighty God. Now you do all you can not to
think about it or not believe it, not to let it bother you,
but it's the truth and you know it. You know it in your soul
that you belong to God by creation. Now beloved, you belong to God
by the right that he made you, by the right of creation. He
is the creator. We are the creature. Now the
Christian is one who belongs to God twice. He was made by
God and then we were lost and then God Almighty brought us
back by hanging His Son on a cross outside the city of Jerusalem.
He brought us back by the price that Jesus Christ paid and so
now we belong to Him. And the believer is one who belongs
to God twice. He is to see himself as one who
has been purchased As one for whom the ransom price was laid
down, he's to view himself as a purchased soul. In 1 Peter
1 verse 18 and 19 it says, for as much as you know that you
were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold,
but with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
the Redeemer. He's the one that paid the ransom.
He paid our sin debt. He satisfied the justice of God. In 1 Peter 3 and 18 it says,
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God. Now the elect, the people of
God, The ransomed, the redeemed ones, they're the ones that Christ
laid down his life for. The life of Christ laid down
was the price that was paid to bring them out of their sin and
bring them out of their bondage and to bring them into glorious
liberty in the Lord Jesus Christ. Redemption is the result of Christ's
whole work. We read in Ephesians 1 and 7,
in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sin. Redemption is all he accomplished. It's what he does. And the reward
is that he shall see of the travail of his soul, and he shall be
satisfied. This, beloved, is his joy. For
the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, he despised
the shame, and he sat down at the right hand of God. Now then
the first time that this word redeem is used in the Bible is
back in the book of Exodus chapter 6. I'd like for you to turn back
there if you will to Exodus chapter 6 and I'd like to read here a
few verses to you. I think that by doing so we'll
get a little better picture of those whom the Lord Jesus Christ
has redeemed. We read, beginning with verse
one, Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what
I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand shall he let them
go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. And God spake unto Moses, and
said unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham,
and to Isaac, and to Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but
by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have also
established my covenant with them to give them the land of
Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.
And I've also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom
the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant
Wherefore, say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and
I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,
and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you
with a stretched out arm and with great judgments, and I will
take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and
you shall know that I am the Lord your God. which bringeth
you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will
bring you into the land concerning the which I did swear to give
to Abraham and Isaac, to Isaac and to Jacob. And I will give
it you for an heritage. I am the Lord. And Moses spake
so unto the children of Israel, but they hearkened not unto Moses
for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. Now then, The
condition that these people were in physically is the very condition
that the people of God find themselves in before they are experientially
redeemed by the Spirit of God and by the application of the
blood of the Lord Jesus. This is the condition of those
that God saves. They're in bondage. They're under
the burden of guilt and sin. They felt the iron in their souls
and they know themselves to be guilty before God. These here,
according to the description we have in verse 9, Moses spake
so unto the children of Israel, but they hearkened not unto Moses
for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. They had been
under such oppression by the Egyptians and they were under
such burdens that they did not feel it to be possible that they
could possibly be delivered. They did not believe in the power
of God. They felt that it was an unthinkable thing to them
that they could possibly be delivered. Now, beloved, the Lord is able
to deliver His people. Now, if the Son makes you free,
you shall be free indeed. And the people of God are made
free by the Lord Jesus Christ. The people of God are delivered. People of God, when they are
brought out of this iron bondage, they actually experience a time
of freedom. And we know that a lot of people
look at salvation as being something other than what it is, but salvation
is freedom. We have a lot of people that
are screaming in our day and time for freedom. They want freedom,
but they don't know what freedom is all about. Now, men must feel
their guilt certainly before God and feel the power of their
sin over them. And as Mike described it in his
prayer, they must feel that they're in prison and bondage. And they
certainly will by the conviction, the convicting work of the Spirit
of God. But God only can deliver you. Redemption is all about freedom
indeed. And there is one book in the
Bible, in the New Testament, which is called the Declaration
of Christian Independence. That's what I call it, that's
what some others have called it, and that is the book of Galatians. The Declaration of Christian
Independence. Now, as we said, some people
believe that to be saved is to be in bondage to a bunch of rules
and regulations that's set up and laid out by Pharisees. We
know that some people, I remember one time talking with an individual
who said, well, I tried to explain to him what it was to be saved,
what it was to be a child of God, what it was to walk in Christian
fellowship with the Lord, and he said, well, you're just one
of the herd. Just one of the herd. Well, I guess maybe that
you could call it a herd if you want to, but is there anybody
that's not one of the herd? I mean, there are people that
are following sin and Satan, and certainly there's a herd
of them, and we know that to be a fact. But God's people,
beloved, they're just not in a herd. God's people are not
under rules and bondage and regulations. The faith of a child of God is
freedom. We're brought out into a large
place, into a place of freedom. Now the world is screaming for
this, but the only people who are free, that are truly free,
are those who are redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's these
very people, my friend, that have eaten the bread of life,
and their hunger has been satisfied. It's these people who have drank
the water of life, and their thirst has been quenched. They're
worst in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and fear of death
is gone and they're ready to go to be with the Lord and for
them to live is Christ. They have a new master whose
yoke is easy and whose burden is light. The love of Christ,
my friend, they have experienced it in their souls and they love
Christ and they live as that love dictates. That's truly freedom. The man who is most free in this
world is the man whose knee is most bent to the sovereign lordship
and rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that not right? That is right
my friend. If you want to be free then you
be free as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in Galatians
1 I think this describes this freedom. If you could turn over
with me to Galatians chapter 1, I'd like to show you something
here. This is a blessing to me. We
read here in verse 3 and 4. It says, Grace be to you and
peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
is speaking to these that have been redeemed and who have been
delivered. And he goes on to tell them who
gave himself for our sins. Christ gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us. You know there was over a million
souls that was delivered out of Egypt. Now Jesus Christ gave
himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present
evil world according to the will of God and our Father to whom
be glory forever and ever. Amen. Now, deliverance from this
present evil world. He gave himself for our sins,
and he delivered us from the philosophies, the vanities, and
the sins, even the applause, even the frowns and the scorns, the whole false status symbol,
its unrealistic attitude to reality. We've been delivered from the
world. God's people have and are a delivered people. Now in
chapter 2 and in verse 4 of Galatians Paul uses here the word liberty
and this grows out of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Look at that verse. and that
because of false brethren unawares brought in who came in privately
to spy on our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they
might bring us into bondage, into religious bondage. Now we are bought by God for
God according to the will of God and we're no longer in bondage
and either in any way to the world or to religious bondage. God's people are free in Christ. Look at chapter 5 and verse 1
of Galatians. Stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. Those that are in the Lord Jesus
Christ are governed by love they're in Christ. Now let us take a
quick look back at Exodus chapter 12. Turn to Exodus 12 because
here we have the story of redemption and I want us just to give a
quick overview here of what we have in the first few verses
of the 12th chapter of Exodus. And you know this is the story
of the great Passover night, of the most thrilling, it's one
of the most thrilling stories in the whole Bible. This story
of God delivering over a million souls out of Egyptian bondage
and we said you can draw a parallel between their deliverance and
the deliverance and the redemption of God's people. Now in verse
1, We read where, and the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in
the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning
of months. It shall be the first month of
the year to you. And you go speak unto all the
congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month
they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the
house of their fathers, a lamb for house. Now this was to be
the Jewish, as we might say, a festival is the most important
day, the most important festival of the Jewish calendar or the
calendar year. And on this day, the Jews began
to mark their years once again. God said, just forget all about
everything else, all that's gone before, start over again. This
is going to be the day of deliverance and the time of victory. And
the Jews, they started their calendar, I understand, right
here. And by the Jewish calendar, I
guess it'd be 5,000 and something right now. But God said, you
start all over again this very night because you're going to
be delivered. Now we're sometimes asked by
people, how old are you? Well, you know, we have two birthdays. The children of God have two
birthdays. There's the time when we were born into this world,
born physically, and then there was a day when we were regenerated
by the Spirit of God, born again. There was that day when we became
a child of God, when we passed out of death into life, when
we became a partaker of the divine nature and became a child of
God through faith. And that's also a birthday. And these Israelites, God said,
let this start your calendar. This is when it really starts.
The time of your redemption. Now then, this is the Lord's
Passover. He said you take this lamb and
you shut it up. and you keep it up, in verse
6, until the fourteenth day of the same month, the whole assembly
of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
And in verse 11, we're told in the last part of the verse, it
is the Lord's Passover. Now, beloved, we read in 1 Corinthians
5 and 7 that even Jesus Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed. The problem with this, I can't
see the blood. I've been told by preachers that
we're washed in the blood, but I can't see the blood. My friend,
it's not necessary that you see the blood. God must see the blood. God must see the blood and he
sees it because he's the one that applied it. The Lord has
applied the blood and he sees it. Now the death angel comes
to one house, no blood. So the death angel goes in and
unsheathes his sword and he kills the firstborn in the house. And
then he moves on to the next house and he sees the blood. And so he passes over, he passes
over that house. Now you say, isn't that terribly
unjust? that the death angel should stop
at one house and slay the firstborn child in that home and then come
to this next house and pass over that house? Isn't that terribly
unjust? Well, my friend, if you would ask the angel, he would
explain it to you. He would tell you that he had
been there in that house where that blood was on the doors earlier
in the evening when the lamb was slain. He'd say I was there
and when the lamb was slain. Now you see that lamb is a type
of the substitute, our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. The only
reason God's death angel passed over those houses was because
the Lamb had been slain. And the only reason why God won't
send your soul to a never-ending hell is because Christ was hung
on that gory tree and suffered to the shedding of His blood
in order that you might be redeemed, bought back, paid for in full. He'd tell you, I was already
there. in the evening. I was there when
that lamb was slain. God is just and He is the justifier. It's just as just for God to
save a sinner by the merit and blood and righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ as it is for Him to send a soul to hell to
suffer for all eternity. God saves and He is just. Christ is a propitiation. He's a satisfaction for our sin
dead. Now then, Christ went to hell
for His people, God poured His wrath out on Him, and the penalty
of sin was fully paid and fully satisfied in Christ. And God has passed over! And
He passed over and brought out over a million souls, as we said,
and He has passed over! And He is bringing to glory many
sons! more numerous than the sand of
the seashore. God's bringing many into eternal
bliss and blessing because of the shedding of the blood of
the Lamb. Now this is exactly what God
has done for His elect in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has given
His Son who gave Himself for us that He might deliver us from
our sins. Have you experienced redemption? Have you experienced redemption? Now to close out our message
this morning, I want to give you three benefits of redemption. Three benefits of Christ's redemptive
work. This is the whole of His work.
This is what He does. He redeems His people. Well,
when we're redeemed, the first benefit of redemption is this.
The first benefit of redemption is this, we have forgiveness
of sins. We have forgiveness of sins.
Now this is no small blessing. We're told there in Ephesians
chapter 1 and verse 7 we're told in that verse of scripture and
it's a blessed verse of scripture and let me read it to you here
Ephesians 1 and verse 7 in whom we have redemption through his
blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his
grace now there are more people in mental hospitals today because
of guilt complexes I guess than any other reason. They're in
mental hospitals and everybody tries to get people not to feel
guilty. Everybody out here, listen, there's
lots of books, everybody needs to be told, I am told that they're
okay, that they're not guilty, that they've never done anything
that's so terribly bad that they need to feel guilty about it.
My friend, we don't know the meaning of the word sin in our
generation. They can't hardly spell the word.
Sin is the rape of Almighty God. Sin is a terrible, terrible thing. Sin is the blackest page in human
history. Sin is the seed of eternal wrath
and judgment. Sin will send your soul to a
never-ending hell. Sin will cause the great iron
gates of eternity to swing shut against your soul and you'll
never escape. Sin is damning. Now listen, the
forgiveness of sins, the only thing that takes away guilt is
the knowledge of the blood of Jesus Christ and that's the only
way to really and truly get rid of a guilty complex is for God
to forgive you your sin. The only thing that'll ever satisfy
a sinner's conscience and make you feel in your heart that you're
accepted of God and justified is to know that God is satisfied
on the behalf of your sins to know that he's satisfied and
God will have satisfaction. He'll have satisfaction as he
looks upon the sacrifice of his son as he hangs upon the cross
with he has been legally constituted sin he hangs there bleeding and
dying paying the sin the soul that sinneth it must die and
Jesus dies for me and God is satisfied and when God sends
a man to hell God's justice applauds God will be satisfied. Things cannot be right with me
till they're right with God. And no man, no woman in this
world ever get peace. God made you and He'll never
plant the flag of peace in your soul until things are right. And only as you hope in the sacrifice
of His Son will there be satisfaction. Jesus is the propitiation for
our sin. He's the one that satisfies God. Couldn't you worship Him? Couldn't
you praise Him? Now I know that God is satisfied.
In and through the Lord Jesus, He's satisfied. He raised Him
from the dead, didn't He? This proves that God accepted
the sacrifice that Jesus made and that God was satisfied with
it. He raised Him from the dead.
Now this is the first blessing of redemption and it's equated
to it. Forgiveness of sin. Do you know
forgiveness of sin? Do you know what it is? Now do
you believe that the forgiveness of sins is the greatest possible
blessing that any man could ever have? Do you believe that? If
somebody was to come here today and you had a choice of a million
dollars in cash or the assurance that your sins were forgiven,
which one would you choose? Which one would you choose? You
say, well, I don't know, that'd be tough. Now listen, this morning,
the forgiveness of sins, and I say this, I don't have much.
I don't even know for sure how much it is, but it ain't much.
I don't have much. But the forgiveness of sins,
I know, is the greatest blessing that I have. It's the greatest blessing that
I have. And I never paid a nickel for it. Not one nickel did I
pay for the forgiveness of sin. It was bought for me by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That most precious price. precious
blood. Now this, there was an old man
sitting on the porch, an old farmer one time, and a tax assessor
came by, and he's a Christian man, an old man, hoped in the
Lord for a number of years, and he come up on the porch, said
to the old man, he said, I'm the tax assessor and I'm here
to find out how much you're worth. And the old man said, he said,
I want to begin, got his paper out and write down his assets,
And he said, what about your assets? The old man said, well,
I'm probably one of the wealthiest people in this valley. And the
tax assessor said, oh. He said, you are, huh? Yeah.
He said, I'm forgiven of my sins. And the tax assessor said, well,
he's kind of taken aback a little bit. He said, well, that's non-taxable. That's non-taxable. And forgiveness
of sins, though it's a great blessing, Though it's a tremendous
blessing, my friend, it is non-taxable, it is non-tarnishable, it's non-negotiable,
nobody can steal it, it never loses its value, even the forgiveness
of sins. Is your sins forgiven? Do you
have this blessing? That's the first benefit of being
redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, is that your sins are put away,
they're remitted, they're cancelled out, just as if you'd never committed
one, and your sins are put away, they're forgiven. Now the second
blessing is, the blessing of redemption, is the Holy Spirit
coming to live in our hearts. Turn to Galatians chapter 4 and
look at verses 3 through 7. Galatians 4 verses 3 through
7. the Holy Spirit coming to live
in our hearts. Even so we, when we were children,
were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the law to redeem them that were under the law,
that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons,
God has sent forth the Spirit of his son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant, but
a son? And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. Believers have the Holy Spirit.
The possession of the Spirit of God is the proof that I belong
to God. Paul told us that in the book
of Romans, verse 9 of chapter 8. He said, Now if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. If you don't
have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit bears witness with our hearts
that we belong to God. If that Spirit of God is not
there telling us and witnessing to us in our hearts that we're
the sons of God, then we've not yet experienced the redeeming
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the presence of the Spirit
in our hearts, the reality of the presence of the Spirit in
our hearts is what keeps us going on in our pilgrimage. The presence of God with us. It is the assurance that we'll
make it in. It's that assurance that we're
going to make it all the way unto glory. Now turn on over
to the book of Ephesians, if you will. I hope you'll bear
with me. Bear with me this morning here and look at verse 13, 12
and 13 of the first chapter of Ephesians. in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance being predestinated that's verse 11
according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will that we should be to the praise of
his glory who first trusted in Christ in whom you also trusted
after that you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation
in whom also after that you believed you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. Now look at chapter 4 of Ephesians
at verse 30. Chapter 4 and verse 30. And grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed until the day of
redemption. Until the day when God takes
home his purchased possession. Now then, it is the assurance
that we will make it through. God has sealed us by His Spirit. We belong to God now, body, soul,
and spirit. We've been bought with a price,
but there is still sin in us we are not yet perfected we have
not yet put off the body this whole body of sin we are going
to be perfect there's a day coming when we're going to be perfect
because everything that sin has destroyed Jesus Christ has brought
back for us and that's exactly what Ephesians 1 here And verse
14, that's exactly what that means when it says, after that
you believe you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise which
is the earnest of our inheritance, which is the down payment, which
is the proof that you're going to have an inheritance until
the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of
His glory. That everything that Christ bought,
everything that sin destroyed, Christ bought back for us and
this is in the inheritance and this is the benefit of the Spirit
of God being in us.