Deuteronomy chapter 15. We've got down here to verse
12 in our study. Deuteronomy chapter 15 and verse
12. Let's just read these next few verses down through verse
18. Deuteronomy chapter 15 and begin in verse 12. And if thy brother, that Hebrew
man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six
years. Then in the seventh year thou
shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out
free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty. Thou shalt
furnish him liberally out of thy flock, out of your floor,
out of your winepress. Of that wherewith the Lord thy
God hath blessed thee shalt thou give unto him. Thou shalt remember
that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your
God redeemed thee, and therefore I command thee this thing today.
And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from
thee, because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is
well with thee, then thou shalt take it all, and thrust it through
his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever.
and also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. It shall
not seem hard unto thee when thou sendeth him away from thee,
for he hath been worth a double hard servant to thee in serving
thee six years. And the Lord thy God shall bless
thee in all that thou doest." You and I have been looking at
the first part of this book concerning the cancellation of debts. If
you owe someone money, you weren't able to pay it after the seventh
year, in the seventh year, were told there that your debt was
cancelled. It was forgiven. All the debt was just forgiven
by the one that you owed it to. Now, I think if I lived back
in the Old Testament days, I'd want to be among God's covenant
people. They had these laws that nobody
else had. And though God required out of
them, naturally, more than other nations, it was the best life
upon this earth to be among the covenant people of God. I mean,
if you owed a debt and you couldn't pay it, after seven years it
was forgiven. Can you imagine what it would
have been like living among the heathen and owed a debt? And
you couldn't pay it? They had no laws regarding such
things. You were at the mercy of the
creditor. And can you imagine some rich man getting you by
the throat and say, pay me all this morning, I'm off to prison
with you? That's the way it was in the heathen nation, but not
here among God's people. The Lord had provided for the
children of Israel. He had provided especially for
the poor and the misfortunate, those who had fallen upon hard
times. Every seven years their debt was canceled. Forgive one
another. of their debt. Aren't you glad
that God teaches us to forgive one another? How would you like
to live in this world and your heart has got so hard that you
wouldn't forgive other people? Wouldn't that be a burden to
carry? And what did the Lord say if we wouldn't forgive our
brother their sins? You know what He said? Neither
will your father forgive you your sins. And as we forgive
one another our sins We're more like our Father, isn't it? It
shows that He is confirming us to His image. What does He say
in this word? Be ye kind, tender-hearted, forgiving
one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you.
I was talking with a counselor one time, a marriage counselor,
and he said, he said, I use Ephesians 4.32 in my counseling of a man
and his wife more than any other verse of Scripture in the Bible.
Be you kind. A man has to forgive his wife
if he lives with her, doesn't he? A wife has to forgive her
husband. In many things we offend all. And how we offend one another. Aren't you glad that God's given
you a gracious heart to forgive? And it makes you like Him. And
Glenn, I've never offended you as many times as I've offended
God. You've never offended me as many times as I've offended
Him. I owe Him much more than I owe you. And if He forgives
all, if He freely forgives all, then He tells us to do the same
thing. I want you to look over here. I want you to hold this
and look here at what kind of God that we have. I want you
to look in the book of Micah. If you have a Pew Bible, you'll
find it on 1009. If you go to the book of Ezekiel,
some of these little books are hard to find. You go to the book
of Ezekiel, then you keep turning right to Daniel. Then you go
to Hosea and keep turning and you'll come to the little book
of Micah. Micah chapter 7 and verse 18. Here's the kind of God that we
have. Here's why He was teaching the children of Israel to forgive
debts so they could be more like Him. Look in Micah chapter 7
and look in verse 18. Who is a God lacking unto thee? No God like him, is he? I mean,
his eternal attributes, he's perfect. Injustice, love, mercy,
goodness, wrath, everything, he's perfect in his attributes.
There's no God like him. But look at this. Look what the
prophet said. Here's why he said there's no
God like him. That pardon of iniquity. and passeth by the
transgression of the remnant of his heritage, he retaineth
not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy." He loves
to show mercy. He delights to show mercy. God
be merciful to me, a sinner. And what did he do? He did. And
why did he? Because he delights to show mercy.
You delight in mercy. I delight to receive mercy. You'd
like to show mercy? You'd like your Father merciful? He shall have judgment without
mercy that has shown no mercy. The Lord conforms us to your
image. And look what He does in verse
19. He will turn again and again and again and again. Aren't you
glad? He just keeps turning again.
He turns to you and turns you to Him. He just keeps turning
you, doesn't He? And He keeps turning you to Him
and Himself to you. And He will have compassion upon
us. He will subdue our iniquities.
He won't let them reign over us. He'll bring them under subjection. He'll give us grace to rule them.
And thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to
Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our
fathers from the days of old. He delighteth to show mercy,
delights to forgive. There are three laws that pertain
to these debts. One we've been looking at after
the Sabbath year, the debt was forgiven, it was cancelled. The
one that we look at tonight goes just a step further. Not only
is the person in debt, but he's had to sell himself or been sold. Sometimes if you come into such
poverty that you couldn't support yourself, you had to go sell
yourself to your neighbor or to a friend or relative. They
bought you. And you worked for them for six
years. That's the debt we're going to
look at tonight. There were some young people that committed crimes
and they'd sell them. The Sanhedrin would take them
up and put them on the auction block and they'd sell them. And
they'd have to work for six years. That was another one, the debts
and then selling yourself. And then there was one step further
that has to do with the jubilee. You not only got yourself in
debt, you not only had to sell yourself to work for somebody
for six years, but you had to sell everything you had. You
lost your house, you lost your property, you lost your family,
you lost everything. And you got all of that back. in the 50th year, the jubilee,
you've got all your farm back, you've got all your machinery
back, all your cattle back, but it all has to do with debt. And
I like to think about it like this, and I think this is what
these things are dealing with. It all has to do with oppression. It all has to do with oppression.
If you've got any character about you at all, and you've got debt
you can't pay, does that bother you? You can't sleep. It don't bother this young generation.
A lot of them, it don't bother. But I tell you what, if you get
some debt and I get some debt, and we get a phone call that
says, Mr. Crabtree, you owe me this money,
and I've been waiting. I need this money to stand busy.
Boy, my heart, my heart would sink. Wouldn't you? What would
you do to get money to pay your debt? You get registered letters
through the mail? Then a sheriff comes and delivers
that little thing and says, you know, you've got a court date,
you're being sued. If you've got any character about you at
all, debt, boy, debt is a burden upon you. Debt, debt is oppression. It oppresses your heart and your
spirit. In the days of David, King David, when Saul was after
him, he went down to the cave of Adullam and was hiding out
from Saul. And listen to what the Scripture
said about men. who went down to him. That was over 400 men
went down and joined themselves to David, and listen to the kind
of men they were. Everyone that was in distress,
and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented
gathered themselves unto David, and he became the captain over
them. But I tell you, there's no monetary
debt that can compare with debt for sin, is there? Man, that
is a real debt. You know, you go from your wallet
to your heart when you owe something you can't pay in your spirit,
in your heart. That's a real debt then. Debt of sin is worse
than all. But there is a Savior who can
counsel those debts and heal us of our soul's oppression.
Listen to Psalms 12.5. He says, For the oppression of
the poor, for the sign of the needy, will I now rise, saith
the Lord, saith the Lord, I will set him at safety from him that
putheth at him. For the oppression of the needy. Now there's something about oppression
that God doesn't like. He doesn't like for men to oppress
men. And he doesn't like it when the
devil oppresses his people. I don't know how David relieved
the debts of his men. I don't know if he had the money
to pay their debts off. I don't know. But I tell you one thing,
when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, he's got the means of
counseling our debts. He's opened the fountain for
debts. There's a fountain open for sin
and uncleanness. And it's the payment for the
debt, and it's the means whereby the debts are washed away, are
forgiven. All that was in debt, I imagine
they were distressed, weren't you? Because of the debt. Because
of the debt. Well, we come to the Lord Jesus.
We come to the Lord Jesus for our debts to be forgiven, for
our debts to be put away. And secondly, here talk about
oppression. This is slavery. We're told there
in verse 12 of our text, if any be sold unto thee and serve thee
six years. I don't think we could probably
call it slavery in the true sense of the word. If you bought a
Hebrew man or woman, you weren't to even say you owned them. You
owned the heathen when you bought them. But there were certain
things you weren't supposed to do with a Hebrew man or woman.
But nonetheless, this, you sold yourself, so you worked for this
man. You worked there and you did what he wanted you to do.
And I tell you, that had to be oppression, didn't it? Can you
just picture this? Can you picture this man outside
his house? And he's been overwhelmed with
debt. And he can't support himself,
he can't support his family. There he's got him and his family
standing outside in the yard. All the furniture is out on the
yard and lawn. What few cattle he has is gathered
up in the lot out back. All his machinery has been pulled
up outside and somebody has taken over his farm. Can you imagine how oppressed?
Leaving his home, maybe leaving his family, the children fearful,
quivering lips, tears running down the eyes. Putting yourself
in somebody else's care for six long years, that had to be depression. That had to oppress the poor
heart of an individual. In Jeremiah chapter 34, and I
don't want you to turn over there, but I want to show you how serious
the Lord was in this seventh year of releasing those men that
had gotten themselves in debt. One of the reasons that the judgment
of God came upon the children of Judah and Israel is because
they did not keep this ordinance. And the Lord stirred up the spirit
of Nebuchadnezzar and he sent the whole army of the Chaldeans
against them. They were coming down towards
Judah. All the rich men got together and Jeremiah said, you better
make a covenant to release these men. You've cut their farms. They've got themselves in debt.
It's seven years and you won't release them. And God's bringing
judgment. And they said, alright, we'll
release them. We'll release them. They let them go. And lo and
behold, a miracle happened. The Lord moved upon Nebuchadnezzar's
army or something. They turned and were going back
home. And you know what those rich men did, those rich Jews
did? They said, sort of like old Pharaoh, what have we done?
We've let them go. And they went and brought them
back under them again. to oppress them again. And you know what
happened? The Lord just spoke to that army
and here they come again. There's no stopping them this
time. They came in and ransacked the place and carried them off
into Babylon. But that shows you how serious God is about
this business of oppression. He's serious about it. And when
He finds any oppressed, He longs to relieve them. It may be some
sin that you've committed. Go to Him and confess it. He
longs to relieve your oppression. And you're a slave to sin? Oh, what oppression that is.
Isn't that oppression? Remember when you were a slave
to the devil? A slave to sin? I tried all through my teenage
years. I tried to lick sin. And you
know it got me every time. Paul said, God, we thank that
you were the servants of sin. He's not thanking God that they
were the servants of sin, but he said, I thank God that you
heard the truth. You heard the doctrine, the gospel,
and being then made free from sin. Sin is a very oppressing
thing when it's upon the conscience. One of the reasons the Lord sent
Moses to deliver the children of Israel, he said, because I
have heard the cries of their oppression. I have heard the
cries of their oppression, their bondage. And I've sent Moses
down to deliver them. And you know the end of that,
don't you? The Egyptians oppressed them. And you know what the Lord
did to the Egyptians. He don't like oppression. He
don't like oppression. Boy, but physical oppression
is little compared to spiritual oppression. Oppression of heart,
Oppression of conscience. Oppression of spirit. Boy, that's
real oppression. Oppressed by the knowledge of
your sin. Oppressed by the accusations of Satan. Oppressed by the awful
apprehensions of God's displeasure. Oppressed by your utter failure
to do anything without sin being mixed with it. Heaviness in the
heart makes it stink, Solomon said. Oppression makes the heart
stoop. But listen to this, but a good
word makes you glad. And that's what the gospel is,
isn't it? The gospel is a good word that makes you glad, because
it comes to the Spirit and it makes you glad. Let me show you
two or three verses of Scripture. Look over in Luke, Luke chapter
4. Look at three or four passages
with me. Look in verse 17. Luke chapter
4 and verse 17. The Lord Jesus came to preach
the gospel. He was a preacher when he came.
Savior and a preacher. When he left, he tells his apostles
in the church to preach the gospel to every creature. And there's
a good reason, brothers and sisters, for preaching the gospel. It
heals our oppression. It heals us of the oppression
of sin and Satan, the comprehensions and apprehensions of God's wrath,
of death. Look what he says here in chapter
four, verse seventeen. There was delivered unto him,
unto our Lord, the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had
opened the book, he found a place where it was written, The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, Because He hath anointed me. Isaiah says,
He sent me and anointed me to preach the gospel to who? The
poor. The poor. That's what we're talking
about, isn't it? A man's so poor he can't pay
his debts. And lo and behold, when the Son of God comes down
from heaven, He said, I've come to preach to the poor. And what's
He going to preach to them? He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted. Those that have been so heavy. Those who are so poor. oppressed,
that they're just broken. They're broken, they're broken.
He sent me to heal them. And to preach deliverance to
the captive. That's what we're studying about,
isn't it? You've had to go into slavery. You sold yourself. Well,
here comes the Son of God and He said, I've come to preach
deliverance to those who are captive. And recovering of sight
to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised. And look
in verse 19. to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. What was the acceptable year?
The seventh year? That was one of the years. The
year of Jubilee, the fiftieth year. In the seventh year, you
went free. In the fiftieth year, you got
everything back. This is the acceptable year.
You know, we're living in the gospel days. And now, this is
the acceptable year of the Lord. When you hear the gospel, This
will be your release. Release from all your debts.
Release from your oppression. Look at another passage. Look
in the book of Acts chapter 10. This is where Peter went down
to Carnelius' house and preached to him. This tells us another
reason the Lord Jesus came, and it has to do with oppression.
In Acts chapter 10, Look in verse 36. Here's part of Peter's message
to Carnelius and his household. The word which God sent unto
the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, he's Lord
of all. That word, I say you know, which
was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee
after the baptism which John preached. And here's that word.
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with
power, who went about doing good, and look at this, healing all
that was oppressed of the devil, for God was with him. He finds
a poor man that's been oppressed of the devil, and what does he
do? He heals him. He heals his heart. Did the devil
ever oppress you? Do you ever get in your mind
and accuse you and burden your heart? Oh, it just makes you
so afraid. And the Lord Jesus comes and He delivers you from
the oppression of the devil. People think the devil's way
is fun. They think the devil's their friend. He's not anybody's
friend. His ways are ways of oppression,
burdens, the way of the transgressor's heart. Christ relieves the oppression. That's why He came. Paul even
tells us in Hebrews chapter 2 that that's why Christ took on Himself
our United. To deliver those who through
all their lifetime was subject to bondage because of the fear
of death. The bondage of the fear of death.
And Christ delivered us. He delivered you from that fear
of death because He died in your stead. Look in chapter 11 of
the book of Acts. I love this scripture here. The Apostle Paul was preaching,
and he was preaching to the Jews. He was just preaching to the
Jews, but there was a whole bunch of Gentiles there listening to
it. They had no idea if the Word of God could be preached to them
or not. They were so oppressed. They were just living in despair. The devil was tormenting their
poor conscience. No hope for them. And here in
verse 38, Chapter 13 of Acts. Paul was preaching Christ to
them. Look what he said. Be it known unto you therefore,
men and brethren, Acts 13, 38, that through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins, the cancellation of debts, and
by him all that believe are justified from all things, everything from
which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. And look
in verse 32, or 42. And when the Jews were gone out
of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might
be preached to them the next second. They said, Paul, can
you preach this to us? And we don't want anything new.
We want the same message we just heard. Would God let you preach
that to us? Is the message for us? Well,
look what he says on down in verse 44. The next Sabbath day came almost
the whole city together to hear the Word of God. And when the
Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy and spake
against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting
and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said, It was necessary that the Word of God should first
have been spoken to you. But seeing you put it from you,
and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to the Gentiles, We turn to the Gentiles, and boy, their eyes
lit up. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have
set thee, I have set Christ himself, to be a light of the Gentiles,
that thou shouldest be for salvation to the ends of the earth. And
when the Gentiles heard this, all their oppression was gone.
Their debts were forgiven and counted. They were glad and glorified
the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained
to eternal life, as many as God had chosen to life eternal, they
believed. Isn't that wonderful? Don't the
gospel make you glad? Isn't gospel good news from a
far country? Don't it relieve? There's something
in the gospel, brothers and sisters, that reaches the uttermost depths
of our soul, to remove the oppression of the heart and the spirit.
And that's why it cheers us so. In our greatest oppression, the
gospel cheers us. That's what it's calculated to
do. They were glad. They were glad in their hearts. Look back at our text again in
Deuteronomy. After seven years, and it has
to do with oppression. Debt has to do with oppression. I tell you, if man's in bondage
to sin, he's oppressed. If sin rules over a man, if you're
a servant, if you're a slave to sin, you're oppressed. The
Lord has to free us from that, doesn't He? Look here in verse
13 of Deuteronomy chapter 15. When He served you for seven
years, look at this now. And when thou sendest Him out
free from thee, thou shalt not let Him go out empty. You send Him out. Free. Free. Free. He's not your bondman
anymore. He's not your slave anymore.
He's free. He's free. I was reading one
commentary, and he said when the Lord saves a man, He puts
him on probation. If you ever get in trouble with
the law, and they put you in jail for four or five years,
They let you out and they put you on probation. You know what
probation is? It's a part of your sentence. You're still suffering for the
crime that you committed. Brothers and sisters, listen.
When the Lord saves a man, He frees him from all the sentence
that was against him. He sets him free. If the Son shall make you free,
you are free indeed. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free. There's not a sin in your past.
There's not a thing that binds you that you can be accused of
anymore. They're all taken away. You're free. If you believe that
the Lord saved you and put you on probation, I'll tell you what
you're feeling in your heart. You're feeling mistrust. And I'll tell you what it'll
breed after a while. It'll breed some enmity in your heart against
God. Because you're living trying
to impress Him. You're trying to get off probation.
And the more you do, the more you feel like He requires. And
after a while, you'll begin to feel like, I don't like this
God. I don't like this way. When the Lord saves us, He frees
us. There is therefore now no Condemnations. No condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. That's the amazing thing about
salvation. Free. Free. Aren't you free? Oh, don't
you praise Him that He's free. He shall go out free from thee. Free from thee. That's what He
tells the devil. That's what He tells His law.
He's free. He's free from thee. Don't try to bind him with some
legal fears. Don't bind him with nothing.
He's free. Let him know that he's free. And then the last
person of verse 13, he says, you don't send him out empty. He's worked for you for six years.
You go to your livestock. You pick him out some fat cows.
You go to your floor where your grain is and you give him several
bushels of your wheat that he can grind for flour. Then you
go down to your wine cellar and get him out a big keg of your
wine and then send him on his way. You make sure that you don't
send him out empty. What would happen if you sent
him out empty? He'd have no means of supporting himself. Three
or four days he'd see him on the side of the road bagging.
He'd be in poverty. and probably sell himself right
back into bondage. So don't send him out empty. Brothers and sisters, when God
saves a man, He doesn't send him out to live the Christian
life empty. He just don't do it, does He?
I tell you, the first thing He does when He saves a man, you
know what He does? He sends the Spirit of His Son
into our hearts, crying, Father, Father. He gives unto us His
Spirit. Our Lord told about a man that
the devils went out of. Remember that guy? And the devil came back and he
found his house empty, swept and garnished. And the devil
said, oh man, you have an empty house. Let us go back in. And
they did. And the life state of that man
was worse than the first. The Lord doesn't leave His people
empty. When He saves them, He sends
forth the Spirit of His Son. And the Bible says, greater is
He that's in you. And then when the devil comes
back and says, I want possession, No, sirree. We don't believe
in the sovereignty of the devil around you, do we? But we believe
in the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. Greater is He that's
in you than he that's in the world. And He seals us. He teaches
us of Christ. He comforts us. He guides us. He gives us His blessed Holy
Spirit. He doesn't send us away without
peace, does He? He gives us His peace. I give
unto you, let not your heart be troubled." The world is seeking
after peace. The Prince of Peace gives peace.
When He saves you, He puts His peace in your heart and that
keeps your heart and your mind through Christ Jesus. He gives
you exceeding great and precious promises. He gives you those
promises. He doesn't send you out empty.
He opens His wide hand and says, I'll never leave you. and never
forsake you. I'll go with you always, even
to the end of the world, so that we may boldly say, The Lord is
my helper, and I'll never fear what man can do to me. Exceeding
great and precious promises. John said he's promised a kingdom
to those who love him. We're heirs of God and joint
heirs with Christ. Peter said there was inheritance
laid up, reserved in heaven for you. Do you think he sends you
out empty? Why the riches can't be told,
brothers and sisters, that's yours. The Bible even said the
world is yours. You are Christ, and the world
is Christ, and everything is Christ, and you're joint heirs
with Christ, so you're joint heirs of everything. The meat
shall inherit the earth. I don't know anything that God
has kept back from His people. I don't know why we go around
so long-faced like we're in poverty, do you? I think it's mainly just
unbelief. Our Father's rich. The cattle
on a thousand hills are His, and the hills, and the earth,
everything in it, and heaven. New heaven and new earth that
He's going to make, it's all His. And He's given it to His
people. What do we have now? It can't
be told. I think it's just unbelief probably
that stops us from rejoicing how rich He's made us. Brought
us out of bondage of sin, forgive us, forgive our debts, delivered
us from the oppression of Satan, condemnation from the guilt of
His law, give us new life, made us ours with Christ, given us
His Spirit, all these precious promises. It's got to be unbelief
that keeps us from rejoicing as we should. In verse 16 and
verse 17, look at this, and we'll deal with this and then we'll
close. There's two things here in verse 16 and 17. Verse 16 and verse 17. And it
shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee,
because he loveth thee, and thine house, because it is well with
thee, Then thou shalt take them all, and thrust it through his
ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And
also unto thy maiden servant thou shalt do likewise." Now,
we have two things here. First of all, we have being set
free. You notice he made a distinction
in these two things. First of all, he said you set
him free. Now, that's one thing. You set
him free. That has nothing to do with Him
serving you. That's completely different.
In the New Testament, we've got these two truths, brothers and
sisters. We've got one, forgiveness of sins, justification. We've got those two goes together.
And in forgiveness of sins, in justification, you and I are
absolutely passive. We must not lift a finger to
justify ourselves before God. Christ has done everything, and
that must be received into our hearts by faith. If you lift
a finger to justify yourself, then you're in bondage. You're
still in debt. Freedom is proclaimed to you
in Jesus Christ, and you believe Him. We have believed in Christ
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by
the deeds of the law, being justified freely through his grace, through
the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. If we lift a finger to
justify ourselves, then we just add to our guilt. We must set
passive. Old Luther says you must set
passive. and look your sins away. You
must set passive and believe in Christ and His merits alone
to justify your person before God. Now, that's a doctrine we
don't hear much about, is it? And that's a doctrine very few
people understand. But that's when you're set free,
you see. That's when you're set free. Now we come to this other
thing. And I think down here in verse
19, let me just say this. Down here in verse 19, I think
this is why he says this about the firstborn. Look in verse
19. All the firstborn males that
come of thy herd and of thy flock, thou shalt sanctify them, you'll
set them apart unto the Lord thy God, and thou shalt do no
work with them. These firstborn animals, you
weren't allowed to work with them. Now who was the firstborn? That's Christ, isn't it? And
in this matter of atoning for sins and justifying us, you and
I don't work with Christ. We don't say, He's done a lot,
now let me have Him. He's done most and now let me
finish the work. He says, I trod the winepress
of the wrath of God alone and of the people that was none with
me. Nobody with Him when He hung upon the cross, was there? He
by Himself purged our sin. We don't work with Christ. He
was pleased to do it all. Old ignorants and pilgrims, Proverbs,
Hymns, talking to Christian and hopeful, and they were talking
about this very thing. And he said, you have me to believe
that Jesus Christ will do all and leave me to do nothing? And
they said, poor ignorant, as your name art, so art thou. Jesus
Christ was pleased to do all. And nobody but Him can do all.
So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is
this, when you set him free, when you told him he's free,
all your debts are forgiven, all your burden's gone, your
oppressor's not going to oppress you anymore. I've set you free.
And then if he turns and says, I love you, and I don't want
to leave you. Ain't that the way it is with
a believer? As soon as he finds out that
Christ is free and he's so in love with the Savior, he says,
Lord, where can I go? Go back to that? I'll mess things
up if I leave you. So what does he do? He says,
Lord, I love you. And I just got a feeling it's
going to be well with me here. And so what did he do? He put
him up against the door post, took it off, a little wooden
peg, and drove it right through his ear. That's the first thing
we read about piercing. We don't think much about piercing
in our day. But that's where it came from.
Pierce his ear under that post. And He shall be your servant."
For how long? Forever. Forever. That's a loving
service, isn't it? Justification by Christ. Justification
by faith in Him. And then we serve Him because
we love Him. I will not work my soul to save. That my Lord has done, but I'll
work like any slave for the sake of God's dear Son. And why did
they bore the ear? When the servant wanted something
done, he speaks, doesn't he? When the master wanted the servant
to do something, all he did was speak and told him what to do.
And what does the Bible say? Speak, Lord, for thy servant
hear. My sheep hear my voice. Pierce
the ear. Could have pierced the hand.
Could have pierced the feet. That would have been a good lesson
in that. But it's the ear. My sheep hear my voice. And they follow me. And why do
they follow him? Because they love him. They love
him. Why do they love him? Because
of what he's done for them. And if you and I can get in in
our hearts a greater depth of what he's done for us, we'll
love him that much more. He that's forgiven a lot, loves
a lot. That's what the Master said. Charles, would you dismiss that?