Hebrews chapter 10, and let's
begin reading in verse 5. Hebrews chapter 10, and verse 5. Wherefore, when He,
the Lord Jesus Christ, cometh into the world, He said, Sacrifice
and offerings thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared
Me. And burn offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it is written of me, to do your will, O God. Above, when he said, Sacrifice
and offering and burnt offerings, and offering for sins, thou wouldst
not, neither had pleasure therein, which are offered by the law.
Then he said, Lo, I come, to do thy will, O God. He taketh
away the first, taketh away the law, offerings, the priesthood
and the temple, take it all away, that he may establish the second,
by which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily,
ministering and offering oft times the same sacrifices, which
can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand from
henceforth expect until his enemies be made his footstool. For by
one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."
I want to read also verse 23 here because we'll be commenting
on that one in just a bit. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering. for He is faithful that promised."
Old and fast, the profession of our faith. This chapter is
concerning the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ when He
said there in verse 5, "...when He cometh unto the world." That's
the incarnation of the Son of God. We've been looking at these
chapters, the last few chapters, concerning the biblical priesthood
and the sacrifices that they offered the animal sacrifices
and where they offered the sacrifices at. And we saw that those sacrifices
and the temple and all the ceremonial law were patterns, patterns of
good things and shadows of good things and heavenly things, patterns
of heavenly things. And God commanded that these
offerings would continue to be offered until the coming of Jesus
Christ, until the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the reason that those who loved the Lord continually offered
these sacrifices is because they saw Christ in these sacrifices.
They saw Him. When David got into trouble,
when the angel of the Lord was sent and was killing many of
the children of Israel because of David's sin, boy, he went
and bought the threshing floor of Onan and offered bullocks
on it, he saw Christ in these sacrifices. And he realized he
needed a sacrifice to appease the justice and wrath of God.
So David saw Christ in them. But you know, God saw Christ
in these sacrifices. He was the one that gave them.
He was the one that told Moses, see that you make all things
after the pattern. So God was the one that saw Christ
in these things. You remember when You remember
when after the flood and Noah got out of the ark and he offered
the clean beast for a sacrifice upon an altar that he built?
We went to Creation Museum there in Cincinnati, and they had an
altar there. and had these animals on it,
and it looked like a fire underneath it, and Noah was standing there,
you know, the replica and everything, and it looked so real. It just
almost took you back to where you could see Noah offering those
clean animals, and the smoke ascending up. But the Bible says
that God, He smelt that sacrifice, and He smelt a sweet-smelling
savor. And that's when He said, I'll
never curse the earth again. I'll never destroy it again with
water. So God saw something in these sacrifices. He saw His
Son in these sacrifices. And that's why He demanded that
they continue to be offered. Sometimes when Israel had so
backslidden and they closed the door of the temple and they ceased
to offer these sacrifices, that's why the judgment of God fell
upon the Jews sometime because it was just turning from Christ
is what it was. Turning from faith in His sacrifice.
And God brought His chastening hand upon them because these
were important. Do you remember when Daniel had
been carried into Babylon and he had been there several years
and Nebuchadnezzar had died and Belshazzar was raised up? Riding came on the wall where
they were having a big party one night. And it said, You're
weighed in the balances and found warning. And they couldn't read
them. And they brought in Daniel. And he said, Here's what's happened. Here's what's happened to you.
You're weighed in the balances and found warning. God's going
to judge you this night. But here's why He's judging you.
You see these vessels you're drinking out of? You're drinking
your wine and you've got drunk. You and your heathen lords. He
said, Those are the vessels of the Lord. Those were shadows
and types and figures of good things to come. And look what
you did with them. And He said, you found yourself
under the judgment of God. So they were important for that
time. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
came, Lo, I come to do your will. When He came and gave His life,
then these things ceased. They ceased. We say that over
and over again because it's so important. The Lord told them
in the 8th chapter, we read there in the 8th chapter, where it
said, these things have waxen old and they are ready to vanish
away. And in AD 70, boy, they vanished,
didn't they? AD 70 when Titus, the Roman general
came in, he tore down the walls, he broke down the temple, took
what they had in there that was worth anything, and that temple
has never been rebuilt. and the priesthood and the sacrifices
have never been re-established. And that's why Paul wrote in
the last chapter of this book, he wrote to these Jews and said,
listen, you might as well settle this in your mind. Here we have
no continuing city. You best to go outside the camp
bearing the reproach of the Lord Jesus Christ because destruction
is coming on this city. It's coming on this city. Quit
cleaving to the temple. Quit cleaving to the Levitical
priesthood. Quit cleaving to those sacrifices
and get out of here. Go outside the gates bearing
his reproach. And that's what he tells us here
in this chapter, the incarnation of the Son of God. When He comes,
then the Lord said, sacrifices and offerings thou wouldest not. No more, no more. And you know
that temple will never be rebuilt. The sacrifices and the priesthood
will never be reinstated. This is the common understanding
in most Baptist churches today. Fundamental, premillennial Baptist
churches believe that Jesus Christ is literally coming back to this
earth, that He's going to set up a kingdom, rebuild the temple,
and sit on the throne over there in Jerusalem. Now they believe
that. They believe that. And wouldn't
that be a condescension the first time He came? Is He coming back
that way again? Never, brothers and sisters,
never. Never. When He comes back this time,
He's coming in glory. And every eye that's going to
see Him and those that pierced Him is going to see Him. And
the tribes of the earth shall wail because of Him. And the
sons of God are going to shout for joy when He comes back this
time. These offerings will never be reinstated. Why wouldn't they
be? Why would they be? We have the
real substance now, don't we? And that's what this is about
here when he says here in verse 5, when He cometh into the world. Now, this is so important because
here we're told about the Son of God coming and giving Himself
this one offering, this one sacrifice. It's an effectual sacrifice.
It's a permanent sacrifice. atoned for the sins of all the
Lord's people. He'll never have to be reinstated
again or redid again. Jesus Christ's incarnation and
sacrifice is a cardinal doctrine of the Scripture. It's so important
that we understand this and believe this, the incarnation of the
Son of God. And He begins here in this verse,
"...when He cometh unto the world. Now that's speaking of Christ
and it's speaking of Him from the viewpoint of His divinity.
When He cometh, where did He come from? This is never said
about any natural man. You'll never find this to my
understanding that's ever said about a mere man. Where did He
come from when He came into the world? Well, He often mentions
that, doesn't He? And He said there in verse 7,
Lo, I come. And the Lord Jesus often mentions
this. I've come into the world. He
mentions that several times through the Gospel. I want you to hold
that if you've got one of Dave's little ribbons here. You can just flip it right there
on Hebrews 10. And go over to John's Gospel,
chapter 6. This is so important. It's so
critical to believe understand because it shows us about the
incarnation of the Son of God. And when He said, He cometh into
the world, He tells us here in His own words where He come from. Look in John chapter 6 and look
in verse 33 and in verse 38. For the bread of God is he that
cometh down from heaven, and he giveth life unto the world.
In verse 38, I am come down from heaven, not to do my own will,
but the will of him that sent me. Look over in verse 50 and
verse 51. This is the bread which cometh
down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man
eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I
will give is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world."
Now you find this several places in the Scriptures, in all four
of the Gospels. He himself telling where he came
from. I came down from heaven. Now
he tells us something else over in the seventeenth chapter. Look
here in the seventeenth chapter, not only did he come down from
heaven, But you notice how long he had been there in heaven.
Look in the 17th chapter and look in verse 4 and verse 5. Praying to the Father, I have
glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
Thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou
me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee
before the world began. So when He come into the world,
He makes it very clear that that's not when He began. He was in
heaven, was with the Father, and here He said before the world
was ever made, He was with the Father. And another place that
we find in the Scriptures when it was announced that Christ
was born there in Matthew Chapter 2, and the wise man was coming
seeking Him out to worship Him, Herod got the chief priest and
the scribes together and said, Where is the Christ to be born?
And they said, In Bethlehem of Judea. And they quoted Micah
Chapter 5 in verse 2 where it said, Out of thee, Bethlehem,
shall come Him that is to rule my people Israel, whose going
forth is of old from everlasting. So here we have Him coming into
the world, but we see He came down from heaven, He was with
the Father before the world was, and His going forth was from
everlasting. And you know that's essential
to be believed. This is a cardinal truth of God's
Word, that Jesus Christ did not just have a beginning when He
came into this world. Look over in the 16th chapter
in verse 27. This was a truth that was believed
by the apostles. It was revealed to them. And
all of the saints in the New Testament, they believed that
Jesus Christ came down from heaven. Look in chapter 16 and look in
verse 26, 27. For the Father Himself loveth
you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came
out from God. I came forth from the Father
and have come into the world and I leave the world and go
to the Father. So that's Him. Lo, I come. I come from the Father. I've
come into this world. I'm going to be here for thirty-three
and a half years and then I'm going back to my Father. And
He said here, you believe this. You believe this. The Holy Spirit,
no doubt, had revealed this unto them. Let me show you one more
place. Look in John chapter 11. Look at John chapter 11. Now this is Mary, the mother
of Lazarus and Mary, and here's what she professed about this.
The Lord Jesus said to her here in verse 25 of chapter 11, I
am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believeth thou this?" And this
is what she professed about Him. And she said, "'Yea, Lord, I
believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should
come unto the world.'" See, she believed that. That He didn't
just have His beginning at His birth, that He was the Son of
God that should come, come down from heaven, come from the Father
unto this world. And let me give you another in
chapter 1. You can read this for yourself,
but I got a note major of it. This is where John the Baptist
had pointed Christ out to some of the apostles. And Andrew went
and found his brother Peter, Simon Peter, and said, We found
the Christ. Remember that? Then Philip findeth
Nathanael, there in John chapter 1, and said, We found him. of
whom Moses spake. We found Him, that prophet. He's
the Christ. We found Him. And that's where
he said, can any good thing, Nathanael said, can any good
thing come out of Nazareth? And he said, well, come and see.
And when he came to Christ, he'd been praying under the fig tree,
and Christ said, when you were under the tree, I saw you. And
he realized this was the Christ. Nobody but Christ would know
where He was and what He was doing. And here's what He said,
Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, the King of Israel. You are the
eternal Son of God. Let me give you one more example.
And to prove that even the scribes and the Pharisees, they believed
that when the Messiah came, and He was incarnate, that He would
indeed be the Son of God. In Matthew chapter 26, this is
where the high priest had captured the Lord Jesus and put Him on
trial and was abusing Him. And the chief priest said this,
I juror thee by the living God that you tell us whether you
be the Christ, the Son of God. Did they believe that Christ
was the Son of God? Well, sure. They just didn't
believe that Jesus of Nazareth was Him. They said, surely this
can't be the Messiah. The Messiah is the Son of God.
And this man has nowhere to lay his head. He don't have enough
money to pay his taxes. Women minister unto him. When
he rides into the town, he comes in on a little donkey. He's meek
and lowly. This can't be the Christ. The
Christ will be the Son of God. But He was the Christ, wasn't
He? But here's the point. Why did everybody believe that
Christ would be the Son of God? Unless the prophets had taught
them that. That's why everybody said, when the Messiah comes,
He is the Son of God. That's who He will be. He'll
come down from heaven. It wasn't that the scribes and
pharisees didn't believe it. They just didn't believe that
Jesus was Him. In chapter 10 of John, you get
most of this out of John when he was speaking about the father
giving him the sheep. And he said, I and my father
are one. And they picked up stones to stone him. And he said, Why
are you going to stone me? What good work have I done that
has caused you to want to stone me? They said, Not for a good
work, but because you being a man maketh yourself God. You being a man, you make yourself
God. Christ wasn't a man who somehow
made himself God. And you know that's a doctrine
that started to be taught. And it branched off into all
kinds of silly nonsense and heresy. That Jesus Christ come, He was
born, He was a holy man, He was a good man, and He worked His
way into Godhood. He became a God. And then some
said, now since he did it, we can do it. We'll be gods. I think
Herbert W. Armstrong believed that, didn't
he? Well, that's where they got this at. But he didn't make himself
God. He was a man and then worked
his way up into Godhood. He was God from all eternity.
He was the Son of God when he came into this world. I love
what Wesley said about this in his psalm, ìLate in time, behold,
He came.î He came, offspring of a virginís womb, born as a
man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel, God with us. But when He was born, when He
came down from heaven from the Father, He was the Son of God
and He came. This is the way this epistle
begins. In the last days God has spoken
to us by His Son. He has spoken to us by His Son.
And that Son is eternal. He is God. He is the eternal
Son of God. And here in our text it says
that He came. Lo, I come. He came into the
world. And He says here in verse 5 in
our text, He said, A body hast thou given Me. a human body. This shows that the Son of God
came into this world and He took to Himself a human body. Now
here in our text when He makes this statement, that sacrifice
and offer is thou what is not, but a body hast thou prepared
me, He is not saying a body at the exclusion of a soul and spirit. He had a real body, a human body,
And He had a real soul, a human soul and a human spirit. Now,
we're getting into something I have to be very, very careful
about because, boy, it brings awe on my mind when I start talking
about the incarnation of the Son of God because you can err
on this so easy. And it's such a vital doctrine,
isn't it? And we have to stay close to
the Scriptures. But when he came into the world,
came from heaven, down from heaven, from the Father, had been there
from everlasting, he took to himself a real body, born of
a virgin, just as real as his mother's. and he had a human
soul. We know he had a human soul because
he said my soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. We know
he had a human spirit because his spirit on different occasions
rejoiced and his spirit within him was grieved. So here we have
this Son of God who has come down from heaven and he had a
real human nature. A real human nature. As much
man as if He was not God. Sin accepted. We looked at chapter
2 when we were there. We read this statement in chapter
2. We see Jesus who was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death. Now here
we look at something different. He wasn't a man who worked his
way up to God. He was the Son of God who took
to Himself humanity and that humanity was made. Now here's
the mystery of it is it had to be made. It never existed before. We see Jesus who was made. He had two natures. He had this
divine nature that was eternal and He had this human nature
that was made. And he says here it was prepared.
A body has to have prepared me. Another place he was barned.
Barned of a woman. And these two natures, though
they are distinct, they can be distinguished. And yet they can
never be separated. Two natures. Distinct natures. He had a real human nature. He
had a real divine nature. and they were distinct natures. And you could distinguish between
those natures on occasion. Let me give you one example.
Remember when they were out on the raging sea and he was asleep? There you see his human nature.
And then he rises and speaks to the storm and says, Be still,
and there was a hush. That's the divine nature. Man
can't do that. But both of these two natures
are in this one individual, this one glorious person, and you
can't separate them. You can't separate these two
natures. You can distinguish between them, but you can't separate
them. It is one man. It was one man
that laid sleeping in that ship, and it was one man that rebuked
the wind and the raging sea. Not two men, just one man. And you can't separate one. He's
just one man. You know, if you're a believer
in Christ, if you're born again, you have two natures. Some people
just cannot understand how a believer can have two natures. Dear Horatius
Bonar, bless his heart, he didn't believe it at all. And that's
fine, but I believe it, don't you? And when we see the Son
of God had two natures, why would it be such a mystery if the believer
had two natures? When Jesus hung on the cross,
He suffered in His divinity as well as in His humanity. He cannot be divided. We cannot
say on the cross He laid aside His divinity and never suffered
in His divinity. He is one person that cannot
be divided. He was a divine as well as a
human sacrifice. He was a divine as well as a
human sacrifice. Now let me give you two or three
proofs of that in the Scriptures. 1 John 1 and 7, the blood of
Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. The blood of
God's Son, the blood of Him who was with the Father before the
world, His blood, Listen to I John 4 now, God sent His only begotten
Son into the world that we should live through Him here in His
love, not that we love God, but He loved us and sent His Son
to be the perpetuation for our sins. The sin offering was the
Son of God. He offered Himself, the Son of
God did. And when Paul was saying goodbye
to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, this is what he exhorted
them to do, to feed the church of God which He hath purchased
with His own blood. He calls it the blood of God.
God is the Spirit and He has no blood. But the eternal Son
of God in our humanity, He has blood to be poured out. We put
that article out of the William Plummer book, Sunday in the Bulletin,
where he quoted about the old quote that all of us have heard
all of our Christian life, that God cannot suffer, but He can
atone. But He can't suffer and die.
Man can suffer and die, but He can't atone. But the God-man,
Jesus Christ incarnate, can do both. He's divine and He's human. And as a human, he can suffer
and die and that death can atone because of the value of his divinity. Here in verse 12, Paul said in
our text, he said, this man, this man who in his divinity
came down from heaven and joined himself to our humanity, this
man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, He
sat down on the right hand of God. This man suffered in his
humanity, and he suffered in his deity. That centurion, when
Christ lifted up his voice and said, It's finished, and he felt
that earth trembling underneath him, and the darkness, he said,
Surely this was the Son of God. The Son of God is upon that cross,
hanging there, lifeless. And you know that's what He took
to atone for our sins, wouldn't it? Man can't do it. And God can't die. But the Son
of God, the Eternal Son of God in our humanity can do both.
This was truly God. I love what the Apostle Paul
said in chapter 4. Look at Hebrews chapter 4. Turn
over there and read this. We've looked at this a few months
ago, but here's what he says about our High Priest that gave
Himself, not offering to God, It says here in chapter 4 and
verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that
is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast
our profession. This same Jesus who offered himself
as a man upon the cross of Calvary is the Son of God. And he said, let us hold fast
our profession. Let us hold fast that profession
of faith. And brothers and sisters, that's
what we profess, isn't it? We profess that the Son of God
was with God in heaven. He's eternal. He's from everlasting.
Has no beginning of days nor end of life. And late in time,
behold, He came in the fullness of time, took to Himself a real
humanity. just as real as your humanity
is, without sin, and suffered and died in His divinity and
in His humanity. And by that means, completely
atoned for sin in such a sacrifice that is effectual that will never
have to be repeated again. To make all of those who have
an interest in it perfect and holy forever. And that's the
profession of our faith, isn't it? That's what we profess. When Philip went down in the
desert where the Lord instructed him to go to preach the gospel
to that Ethiopian unit, remember he climbed up in the chariot
with him and he said, you understand what you're reading? He said,
I can't let somebody preach this to me. And he was reading from
the very place, the death of Christ. He was led as a lamb
to the slaughter. That's the cross, isn't it? And
that's where he's reading. He says, this man is speaking
of himself or somebody else and he preached Jesus to him. And
you know what he preached to him? The same thing that Hebrews
10 years tell us. That he came down from heaven.
That here is the Son of God in our humanity. And he suffered
and he obtained eternal redemption for all of those that believe
on him. He's the Son of God. We know that because of what
that eunuch professed. He said, ìHereís water. What
hinders me from being baptized?î He said, ìIf you believe with
all your heart.î What did he believe? Well, he tells us. He said, ìI believe that Jesus,
this one that you preached to me that was wounded from my transgressions
and the judgment that God fell upon, I believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God.î Thatís our profession. He came down from
heaven. And who was He who came? Jesus
Christ, the Son of the Living God. Listen to I John 4 or 5 and chapter
4. This is the faith that overcomes
the world. Oh, fast the perfection of our faith. Whatsoever is born
of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that
overcomes the world, even our faith. Listen. Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Son of God, he overcometh the world. Who
is He that overcomes the world of sin and self and Satan? But He that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus
is His human name. That's Him and His humanity.
And He's the Son of God in His two wonderful natures as God
and man. John went right on to say this,
we know that the Son of God is come. Boy, He taught a lot about
that too, didn't He? He's come. Where's He come from?
Well, we found that out, didn't we? Where'd He come to? He come
into the world. We know the Son of God has come
and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true and we are in Him that is true, that is, in His Son, Jesus
Christ. This is the true God and life
eternal. So when it said, He cometh into
the world, boy, there's a lot behind that, isn't there? There's
a lot behind that when we begin to search the Bible. He came
into the world. And why did He come? To save
sinners. That's what Paul said, wasn't
it? He came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And He tells us here in our text,
in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 10, By the which will we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
and for all. This word here, sanctify, we
don't have time to go into it tonight in any depth, but when
you see this word sanctify, it means you have to find it in
its context. See what it means in its context.
Sometimes it simply means to consecrate. Like those vessels
in the temple, we talked about Belshazzar drinking out of. Those
were consecrated. The Scripture calls it sanctified.
They were sanctified. Paul told Timothy to sanctify
himself, keep yourself from all the errors and all the false
prophets, and you'll be a minister, well-pleasing to God, sanctified
and meet for God's proper use. Here, sanctified means to make
holy. It means to absolutely make holy. And he says here by his offering,
Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, we are made
holy. We are made holy. We don't feel
holy, do we? But you know, I believe we are.
We couldn't be accepted of God if we weren't holy. He requires
holiness to be accepted, doesn't He? And it's not looking at ourselves
and bragging about ourselves and thinking this about ourselves.
But we believe this because this is what God tells us. We're accepted
in a sacrifice. That's the way we're accepted.
God has made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. The righteousness
of God? Is that possible? Yes, in Him. In Him. We struggle with sin,
don't we? We just struggle with unbelief.
We struggle with faith. We struggle with knowledge. We're just struggling almost
all the time, facing doubts and fears and uncertainty. And we
just cannot believe that we're holy. But the Bible says, as
He is. So are we in this world. How is He? Well, He's holy, isn't
He? He don't have any sin about Him.
He took our sins, but He completely put them away, satisfied for
them. And now He's back in heaven. Holy, holy, holy, the angels
sing to Him. And John said, As He is, so are
we. We're holy because we're in Him. That's where holiness is found,
isn't it? In him. We struggle to be holy here in
our daily lives and we pray, God, help us to be more like
You. Confirm us to Your image. But
you know, it's not our struggling in this life. It's not even our
faith that makes us holy. It's the sacrifice. By one offering,
He has perfected forever. He's not only made them holy,
but He has brought in a holiness that's perfected forever. He'll never change with us. This
is one of the most difficult things to grasp and retain in
our hearts, that our standing with God does not depend upon
what we're doing or what we're not doing or how we feel or don't
feel. Our standing is in Jesus Christ,
His doing and His dying. And that's difficult. That's
difficult to retain, isn't it? And live in the daily enjoyment if you've ever read Pilgrim's
Progress, and I surely recommend it to you, when Hopeful and Christian
met old Ignorance, young Ignorance, and they were explaining this
truth to him and they were telling him that, you know, in this matter
of remission of our sins and in this matter of righteousness,
and being completely justified before God, they said, Jesus
Christ has did all! He has did all! And old Ignat
said, What? He said, Do you expect me to
believe that Jesus Christ has did all and there is nothing
that is left for me to do but believe Him? And Hopeful said,
Oh, Ignat is your name and Ignat thou art. Jesus Christ was pleased
to do all. And that's what this text here
tells us. It was God's will. Lo, I come
to do Your will. And what was God's will? That
Christ gave Himself, His whole person, to atone for our sins
and bring in an everlasting righteousness to justify us. It was God's will
for Christ to save us by giving Himself for us and offering a
sacrifice to God. He did all for us, didn't He?
He absolutely did all. Our standing is in Him. I just
keep telling you my experience. I went all through my teenage
years and I thought, He has to have my help doing this. He has
to have my help doing this. And I tell you, I was overjoyed.
I was overjoyed. That's an understatement. Overjoyed
was an understatement when I found out that God had sent His Son
down from heaven to do all for me. To do for me what I could
not do for myself. and that if God ever accepted
me and I met that standard of holiness which He requires of
every last man, it would be in His Son and not in myself or
anything I was doing. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O
God. And if a man ever finds out it's
God's will to save him by Christ alone, boy, that will tickle
him to death. Let me show you that in closing. Look over in
Galatians chapter 1. In Galatians chapter 1. And look
in verse 4. Galatians chapter 1 and verse
4. This goes so well with what we've
been looking at. Galatians 1 verse 4. Boy, these
poor Galatian Christians, they needed this so badly. They were
going around now trying to start keeping these holy days and no
telling what all they were doing. We've got to add something to
what Christ has done. Surely it's God's will for us
to do something. And Paul tells them here, Grace
be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. In verse 4, Who gave Himself for our sins. Isn't that
what chapter 10 teaches us? That's what we've been studying
is. He gave Himself for our sins. that He might, or in order to,
deliver us from this present evil world. This is an evil world. Its course is evil and its end
is dreadful. And Jesus Christ gave Himself
to deliver us from this present evil world, look at this, according
to the will of God and our Father. It was God's will to save us
by Christ. It's God's will for Him to do everything. It wasn't God's will for me to
try to keep saving myself and making restitutions and promises.
It was God's will for me to let go of my dumb self and cast myself
upon the dear Savior who had did all for me. I love that,
don't you? And you know that's a gospel
that's so easy to lose because it's so mysterious. It is so
mysterious. God help us to retain it in our
hearts and to rejoice daily in it.