We're turning for our message
today to the book of 1 Peter. This is a very familiar passage
of scripture. Perhaps the 18th and 19th verse
of the first chapter is familiar, but the two or three other verses
that I want to look at in this message, 1 Peter chapter 1, why
don't you get your Bible, if it's convenient, and follow along. I'm going to read these verses
and deal with a few phrases in each one of four or five verses.
Now, beginning with verse 18, I'll just read verse 18 and 19.
You're quite familiar with this. You've heard this verse many,
many times, I'm sure. It says in 1 Peter 1, 18, Forasmuch
as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things,
such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received
by tradition from your fathers, but you were redeemed with the
precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot." Now, we'll stop right there for just a moment. I'm
speaking on the subject, redeemed by the blood of Christ, or the
blood of Jesus Christ. Now, what I'm preaching, the
first thing, when I studied for this message, the first thing
that caught my attention, what's the first thing that you saw
in these verses? Well, it's the opening statement. Peter said,
for as much as you know, This isn't speculation. What I'm preaching
today is not speculation. It's not theory. It is a truth
that we know. Sounds like Job of old when he
says, I know that my Redeemer liveth. I know. I know. And though worms destroy this
body, this flesh, yet I'm going to see the Lord. He's going to
stand on this earth. I know that. I know that. I know
that. Or like Paul when he said in
In II Timothy 1.12, I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded
that he's able to keep that which I've committed to him against
that day. I know, I know. Or perhaps John, in the book
of I John, and this is a word he uses so frequently. He says,
we know, we know that we've passed from death unto life. And then
Paul wrote this, we know that all things work together for
good to them who love God. who are called according to His
purpose. So what Peter's writing here in 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19,
the first thing he says is this. It's not speculation. It's not
theory. It's fact. This is something
that I know. I know this is the truth of God.
Like John said, this is the record. This is it. Don't go any further. Right here is where it's found.
What does he know? All right, he says, for as much
as we know, that we are not redeemed with silver and gold from our
vain conversation. Well, let's look at what we're
redeemed from first, and then we'll look at how we're redeemed.
What we're redeemed from. And when he says, your vain conversation
received by tradition from your fathers, he's talking about this
ritualistic religion. All of the form and ceremony
and legalism in which these These Jews were involved and they were
wrapped up in all of the sacrifices. It meant nothing in the holy
days, in the Sabbath days, in the feast days. It meant nothing
to them. They had become a stumbling block.
Well, they'd been redeemed. These people Peter's writing
to had been redeemed from out of the refuge of lies, out of
false religion. They'd been redeemed from that.
But not only from that, it's a twofold redemption. God redeems
us from sin. And God redeems us from religion. God redeems us from sin in which
we're born. He said, to call His name Jesus,
He'll save His people from their sins. But we're redeemed from
religious bondage. Did you know something? Now,
hold on to your seat a minute. People don't get religion. They're
born with religion. Everybody's religious. Did you
know that? Go around the world. You'll find
everywhere you go, people are religious. Some kind of God,
some kind of religion, some kind of spirit world. That's right.
You can go to the most heathen, hot and tight in the jungles
of the deepest, darkest continent, and you'll find they're worshiping
something. They've got religion. Now, everybody's
got religion. Religion is natural to natural
men. Religion is naturally seen. Religion's
a part of his makeup. Religion is born of his emotions,
born of fear. born of desire, born of expectation,
born of a lot of things. He has religion. People don't
get religion. They have religion. They're born
with religion. People get to know Christ. They
come to know Christ. They come to know salvation.
They come to know the living God. So when God redeemed us,
when He redeemed us, Peter's saying to these people to whom
he's writing, to the elect of God, he says this, You've been
redeemed. And not only were you redeemed
from the curse of the law and from the wrath of God and from
your sinful natures and from the penalty and practice and
power and someday from the presence of sin, but you, thank God, have
been redeemed from religion. You've been redeemed from that
duty and responsibility that you despise. You've been delivered
from that bondage and slavery of religion. You've been brought
into the liberty and joy of salvation. You've been brought into the
liberty of Christ. You've been brought to know God and to rejoice
in Him. That's what you've been delivered,
redeemed from. Now, he says, we know, not speculation
or theory. We've been redeemed. We've been
redeemed. We've been redeemed from sin
and from slavery, and we've been redeemed from religious bondage
And we're not redeemed with silver and gold. We're not redeemed
with works and deeds of the law. We're not redeemed by anything
that we pay. The price is higher than that.
The price of redemption is too high for you to pay. The price
of redemption demanded the silver of his sweat and the gold of
his blood. There's a lot of difference.
I heard about old Dr. A.J. Gordon who pastored up in
Boston years and years and years and years and years ago. He was
walking down the street one day, and he met one of the little
Sunday school boys. And the little boy had a homemade
cage. And in that homemade cage, he
had two little field birds. And the preacher stopped the
little boy and said, where'd you get the birds? He said, well,
I trapped them. Well, he said, what are you going to do with
them? He said, well, I'm going to play with them. Then I'll probably
feed them to the cat. And Pastor Gordon said he felt great compassion
for those little birds. They looked so frightened. standing
in that cage, you know, trembling and missing the freedom of flying
around. He said, I'll buy those birds
from you, son. He said, no, preacher, there's plenty of them out there.
You can have all you want. He said, you don't need these
birds. You can get your own. He said,
no, I want those birds. Sell them to me. The boy said,
well, I'll sell them to you for $2. And that was a lot of money
back then. But the preacher dug in his pocket
and got $2 and paid the little boy and bought the bird's cage
and all. The little boy went skipping down the street, happy
with his money, and the preacher stood there and watched him go,
holding his cage with the two frightened little birds inside.
Finally, when the little boy turned the corner, the preacher
just took the wire off the door of the cage and opened it up
and held it up to the sky. He said, All right, little birds,
I redeemed you. I bought you. I set you free. Fly out. And he said he could
almost hear them singing. They didn't sing field birds,
no, but he said he thought they could. He said, sail into the
sky, holler, and redeem, redeem. And this is a story he told from
that. He said, one day, the law of God walking across heaven
had me captive. The law of God. I was not a captive
to Satan. I was a captive to the law of
God and the justice of God. Satan didn't have me bound. God's
law has us bound, God's justice. Christ doesn't buy us from Satan.
He doesn't own a thing. He's bankrupt. He's been disenfranchised. He's been disowned. He's been
cast out, dehorned. He's nothing. But I'll tell you
this, the law has a claim on us and the justice of God has
a claim on us. And our Lord met the law of God
and He said, I'll buy those birds. And the law says it'll cost you.
It'll cost you the silver of your sweat and the gold of your
blood. And our Lord paid it. And He bought His people. He
bought His sheep. And He set them free. He redeemed
them. That's the price. And you can't pay that. See,
we're not bought with works of the law and deeds of the flesh
and silver and gold and legalism and morality and keeping a few
rules and regulations and doing good a while and doing bad a
while. God weighs the bad against the good and finds out you've
been better than you were bad, takes you into heaven. We're
redeemed. We know that we're redeemed with the precious blood
of Christ. Now, that's how a man's redeemed.
You know that? Well, that's what this writer of Holy Scripture
knew. That's what this apostle of Jesus
Christ knew. That's what this man who was
crucified upside down for what he believed and taught, that's
what he knew. That's what this inspired writer of Holy Scripture
knew. He said, we're not redeemed with
silver and gold, works of the flesh, deeds of the law, religion,
baptism, decisions, profession, preaching, being deacons and
Sunday school teachers and choir members and giving a little money
to the church. We're redeemed with the precious blood of Christ
as of a lamb without blemish or without spot. Paul wrote in
Ephesians 1, 7, "...in whom we have redemption, through his
blood the forgiveness of sins." Now, listen to me. Now, you write
this down. Here it goes. One thing is clear,
solemnly, obviously clear from the Word of God, that when we
read the Bible, there is in the Bible an unmistakable connection
between God's mercy and shed blood. Did you know that? Have
you noticed that? One thing is obvious and clear. There's an unmistakable connection
between God's mercy and the shed blood, between forgiveness and
the blood atonement. God said, it's the blood that
maketh atonement for the soul. I have given it to you upon the
altar to make an atonement for your souls. Without the shedding
of blood, No remission. There's an unmistakable connection
between the covering of sin and the blood sacrifice. It cannot
be denied. Read the Word of God. Start in
Genesis. When Adam and Eve were there
in the garden naked, realized their shame and guilt, and God
covered their nakedness, how did He do it? He didn't take
wool from an animal, but He slew an animal, and He clothed Adam
and Eve with the skin. And that's the first blood shed
on the face of this earth, the first blood ever shed, first
mentioned in the Bible anywhere else of any blood being shed.
God shed it to cover man's sin. And that's when the trail of
blood started, and it goes all the way through the Bible till
you get to Calvary, And it stops. For by one offering, he hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. That's right. And then you come on down to
Abel. You ever watch this Abel, the two brothers? These weren't
two little kids playing church. These were two full-grown men,
family heads. That's right. If these boys had
not been family heads, they would have been offering sacrifices.
Their daddy would have still been offering the sacrifice.
But here are two grown men, family heads, who come before God with
a sin offering. One of them, Cain, brought the
fruits of the field. One of them, Abel, brought the
blood of the lamb. It said God had respect to Abel's
offering, and He rejected Cain's offering. Why did He have respect
to Abel's offering? It was a blood sacrifice. There
cannot be any offering. There cannot be any sacrifice.
There cannot be any sin offering. There cannot be any approach
to God without the shedding of blood. And it must be the blood
that typifies and pictures the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Lamb. Do you see that? And here's the
first time a man's blood was shed on this earth. Are you with
me? Cain rose up in anger and slew
his brother. He slew him because he was angry
with him, because Abel brought the blood and came before the
Lord by grace, by blood, by faith, and God accepted him. Cain tried
to come to God by works, by the fruits of his own hand, by the
labors of his own hand, salvation by works, and God rejected him.
And he got angry with his brother who believed grace. and killed
him. And the first time any human
blood was shed on this earth, it was shed in a religious fight
between works and grace. Between works and free grace. Between man's efforts to save
himself and a man who believed that salvation's of the Lord
through the blood of Christ. First blood ever shed on this
earth. And it hadn't stopped being shed yet. over that says
just two religions. And that is salvations of the
Lord or salvations of man. Salvation by the will of God
or salvation by the will of man. Salvation by the grace of God
or salvation by the works of man. Salvation by the blood of
Christ or salvation by my religious duties. Now the two religions,
Cain and Abel represent those two religions. Abraham and Isaac
started up the mountain to worship God. And here's a lad, now I
know he was a teenager somewhere around there, Isaac was, but
he knew this. He knew that you can't worship
God except through the blood. He knew there must be a sacrifice.
He knew there must be a sin offering. You say, well, how do we worship
God? Christ is our Lamb. Christ is our sin offering. Christ
is our high priest. Christ is our sacrifice. The
Lamb of God's been slain. But as Abraham and Isaac walked
up that mountain, Isaac turned to his father and he said, Father,
where's the lamb? Here's the wood. Here's the fire.
Where's the lamb? You can't go before God without
blood. Did you hear that? God won't receive us without
a lamb. And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself
a lamb. I'm showing you this. If you
read the Bible at all with any understanding, there's an unmistakable
connection between forgiveness and the shedding of blood, between
the mercy of God and the atonement, between the covering of sin and
the blood sacrifice. What about the tabernacle in
the wilderness? The holy place and the holy of
holies? and all the blood that was sacrificed
on the altar and brought into the holy place and into the Holy
of Holies as an atonement, a sin offering. And then the Passover
when the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt, that was
blood deliverance. God said, take a lamb, take a
lamb, a male lamb, that's Christ. He represents the Lord Jesus
Christ, a male lamb of the first year in the prime of life. without
spot or blemish, without sin. Christ was without sin. This
lamb can't be diseased. Put it up for three or four days
and observe it. Our Lord lived on the earth 33
and a half years, tempted, tried in all points as we are yet without
sin. And then kill it and take the
blood and put it on the lintel and the doorpost. And when I
see the blood, I'll pass over you." Passover, you hear me? Passover. And God instituted
the Passover feast And every year the Jews slew a lamb, roasted
it with fire, ate the body of the lamb, and put the blood on
a sacrifice, on an altar as a sacrifice. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
came into the world, who is the Lamb of God, and John Baptist
pointed him out. He said, there's the Lamb of
God. And before our Lord went to the cross, he observed the
Passover for the last time. Here's the end of the Passover.
He observed the Passover with his disciples. And he said, with
desire, I've desired to eat this Passover with you. Nevertheless,
nevertheless, we're instituting the Lord's table. This is the
end of the Passover. There'll be no more Passover
feast. There'll be no more Passover lambs because God's lamb is being
slain. And he took bread and break it
and blessed it. And he said, this is my body
broken for you. You eat this bread. Don't slay
any more lambs. Don't eat any more lambs. Eat
this bread. Represents my body and then take
this wine And it represents my blood which is shed for the remission
of sins for your sins in the new Don't put any more blood
on altars. Don't put any more blood on doors
Don't kill any more lambs. Don't eat any more lambs bodies.
Don't shed any more blood This is the blood and this is the
body of our lamb our Lord who died for our sins And Paul passed
that on to the church. He said, what I received of the
Lord, I deliver it unto you. How that the Lord, the same night
in which he was betrayed, took bread and blessed it and said,
this is my body, this do in remembrance of me. Took wine and said, this
is my blood, this do in remembrance of me. That bread doesn't become
the body of Christ any more than that lamb in the Old Testament
was the body of Christ. That wine does not become the
blood of Christ any more than that lamb in the Old Testament
blood was the blood of Christ. If that lamb's body had been
the body of Christ and that lamb's blood had been the blood of Christ,
they wouldn't have needed but one sacrifice. But it's representative. And even so, the wafer now or
the bread or whatever you use is not the actual body of Christ. He said, this do in remembrance. It's not a sacrament. It's not
a saving ordinance. It's a memorial feast. And the
wine represents His blood. Hebrews 9 says, So, my friends,
there's a trail of blood from Genesis 3 in the Garden of Eden. from the time God slew that animal
and covered the nakedness of that man and woman all the way
to Calvary, all the way to the cross, and there's where she
stops. There's where she stops. Now,
another thing is quite clear to me from this Scripture. We
know that we're not redeemed with silver and gold from our
vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers, but
with the precious blood of Christ. Precious blood. Here's something
quite clear. The blood of Christ is precious, valuable. You know why it's precious? It's
the blood of God. It's the blood of His only begotten
Son. It's the blood of the second
person of the Trinity. Paul said to the church elders,
he said, feed the church of God, which He purchased with His own
blood. His own blood. You see what I'm
saying? Precious. Nothing like it before
or since. Tell you something else, it's
human blood. Christ is the God-man. And it's human blood untainted
by sin. There's never been anything like
that on this earth before or since. Human blood untainted
by sin. God's blood and human blood without
blemish or spot, unmarked, untainted, precious. Precious. Nothing like it. We're redeemed
with a precious blood. And then it's precious because
it's sufficient to save. That blood is able to save to
the uttermost them that come to God by Him. Do you know that
His blood is able to cleanse the greatest sin, the blackest
sin, the deepest sin, the oldest sin? All manner of sin and evil
shall be forgiven. That's what he said the blood
of Jesus Christ God's Son Cleanseth us from all sin All sin that's
powerful blood That's why it's precious. It's so effectual so
sufficient and then it's precious because it was only offered once
Just once You know if there's just one of anything on the earth
is precious just once Just one. Well, they're one but one sacrifice.
By one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
And it's precious because it'll be the theme of glory. Do you
know this blood is going to be the theme, song, and glory unto
Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood? Who washed us from our sins in
His own blood. Hmm. I did something else that's
obvious here. Now watch it. We're redeemed
with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without spot or blemish. Now watch this, verse 20. Who
verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
days. You know what's quite obvious
to me here? That the blood of Christ, that the death of Christ,
that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was no afterthought of God. that
He came down here and died on purpose because God decreed and
designed and determined before He ever made the world, before
the foundation of the world. That's what it says here, that
Christ should die for our sins. Christ was ordained to be our
Savior before we were ever lost. Christ was ordained, that's what
it says here, who was verily foreordained before the foundation
of the world. He was ordained of God to be
our Savior before the world was ever created, before God ever
laid the foundation, before He ever made man, before man ever
fell. It says that two or three times in the Bible. In Revelation
13, 8, it says He's a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Acts 15, 18 says, Known unto God are all His works from the
beginning. Hebrews 13 says, His blood's the blood of an everlasting
covenant. Look at that text again. You
know you're not redeemed by works, merit, silver, gold, or gifts.
You know you are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ,
who is a perfect Savior without blemish or spot, who is an eternal
Savior from the foundation of the world, from the beginning,
no accidents with God, no sudden decisions, no emergencies. And then look at this verse.
For whom He died. It tells us for whom Christ died.
Who verily was foreordained from the foundation of the world,
but was manifest in these last days for you. For you. For whom? For you, as a comma
there, read on. For you who by Him do believe. That's what it said. He was verily foreordained before
the foundation of the world and manifest in these last times
for you. who by him believe in God who
raised him from the dead and gave him glory. Yes, Christ was
manifested and delivered and died for those who believe. Those
who believe God, those who believe God raised him from the dead.
Those who believe God gave him glory. That's the ones for whom
he died. He didn't die for people who
don't believe him. He didn't die for people who don't believe
God. and who do not believe He was raised from the dead." That'd
be blasphemous to even think that, that the blood of Christ
was wasted. He shall not fail. But it didn't
stop there. It says that He was foreordained
from the foundation of the world for you who by Him do believe
and for you who have purified your souls in obeying the truth.
Verse 22. He died for people who obey the
truth, who receive the truth, who love the truth, who follow
the truth, who walk in the truth, who delight in the truth, for
the truth makes them free. But He didn't stop there. He
said He was delivered, He was ordained from the foundation
of the world and manifest in these last days for you who love
one another with a pure heart fervently. That's verse 22 also. He said, you believe in God?
You believe God raised him from the dead? You purified your soul
obeying the truth? You love one another? And he
said in verse 23, you who are born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible seed by the word of God, who liveth
and abideth forever. Read it. Read it. May God bless it to your heart.
Now here's two messages on one tape. The blood of Christ and
seeking the Lord. Send $2. We'll mail it to you.
Till next time we meet, God bless you. that.