I've got an objective tonight. I pray desperately that I'm able
to fulfill it. That God the Holy Spirit will
enable me to help you to see that the Bible is a book of redemption. The Bible is Christ. Now some
folks have some strange ideas in our day, some strange ideas. For all practical purposes, a
lot of people have two Bibles. They have what they call, Bob,
the Old Bible and the New Bible. You've heard them say that. I've
heard that so many times. I heard it when I was growing
up in the country. Somebody quotes something like you did, Don,
from the psalmist, that's in the Old Bible. That's in the
Old Bible. My friends, we have one Bible. It's made up of Old Testament
and New Testament. The Old Covenant, the New Covenant. And the Old Testament is a book
about Christ. It's Christ in promise. It's
Christ in prophecy. It's Christ in picture. It's
Christ in type. And the New Testament is Christ
in person. But it's all Christ. It's all
Christ. When the eunuch had gone to Jerusalem
to find out what he could about God, evidently this influential
person down in Ethiopia, who was treasurer of the queen, had
gone to Jerusalem to worship. And he hadn't heard anything
there. He hadn't seen anything that gave him any help in the
knowledge of God. And on his way back to Ethiopia,
he was riding in his chariot, and he was reading the Old Bible,
Charlie. He's reading the only Bible there
was, the Scriptures. Most of the time, when the word
Scriptures is used in the New Testament, it's talking about
the Old Testament. Most of the time, practically
all of the time, when you're reading in the New Testament,
it says Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
That's talking about Genesis through Malachi. That's not talking
about Matthew through Revelation. That's talking about the Old
Testament. And he was reading Isaiah 53. He was wounded for
our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement
of our peace was on him. By his stripes we're healed.
And he turned to Philip and he said to him. Philip had joined
him there in the chair. And he turned to him and he said,
Of whom does the prophet speak? This man Isaiah, writing over
here, who's he talking about? He shall grow up as a tender
plant, as a root out of a dry ground. No form, no comeliness,
no beauty that we should desire him. Man of sorrow is acquainted
with grief. Boy, I grieve since sorrow. Who's
he talking about? Who's he talking about? And Philip
began at that same scripture in the Old Testament, Isaiah
53, and preached to Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I'll
tell you another thing that I heard when I was growing up, that there
are several different dispensations in which God saved men in other
ways. Now, this is what I was taught.
This is what I heard. This is the conclusion to which
I came. They may not have been teaching this deliberately, but
this is the conclusion I came to. When God created Adam, there
was the age of innocence or dispensation of innocence. And God created
Adam in the hope that Adam would stand. He gave Adam the choice. He said, now eat the forbidden
fruit and die or leave it alone and live. And God gave Adam that
choice. So we had for a time there the age of innocence, the
dispensation of innocence. And Adam stood alone. Well, Adam
failed. And then he entered the age of
conscience. Every man's at the next one.
Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And if
he did right, God accepted him. If he didn't do right, God turned
him down. And most of them didn't do right.
In fact, God came to the conclusion that every imagination of man's
heart was only evil continual. So he put him under some judges.
Is that the next one? He gave him the dispensation
of judges. And that didn't work. So then
he put him under the dispensation of the law. He gave him some
commandments. And that didn't work. And he gave him a Levitical
law. He gave him some sacrifices and
a tabernacle and a priesthood and all these things in the hope
that man would follow God. But that didn't work either.
So 2,000 years ago, God searched through heaven and found a savior
and sent him down here to Bethlehem, Manger. And he died on a cross. And the law is no longer the
point of testing. No longer are men saved by law,
but now they're saved by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then they tell me that there's a dispensation to come. that
during the millennium that the Jew may set up the tabernacle
and start sacrificing again, and during the millennium we're
going to have a millennial gospel or some other kind of gospel,
you know. There's six or seven of those dispensations. Well,
the conclusion I came to was this is the way God saved men.
But you know the scripture teaches that God never has saved a man
in any way except by Christ. You see, when God created Adam,
and I'm not able to comprehend all the wisdom and power and
purpose and plan of Almighty God, but I do know that when
God created Adam, you see, sin had already taken place. There
was already sin. The existence of sin was there.
You see, the angels fell before Adam fell. In other words, back
before God made Adam and Eve, before He made man, There were
angels, there were, some of them were named, Lucifer was named
and Gabriel and Michael that I can name. And then there were
a host of heavenly beings, host of angels. And over in the book
of Isaiah it tells us, and our Lord mentioned this, he said,
I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. I saw him fall
from heaven, I saw him cast out. And why was he cast out? Because
sin entered his heart. And Satan said, I will be like
God. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will exalt my throne above
to the sides of the north. I'll be like God. And God cast
him out. Now that sin was already there.
So when God created Adam, when he created man, he created him
holy and upright, this is according to the scripture. And he did,
he did make that covenant. He did say to Adam, Multiply
and replenish the earth. Have dominion over the earth.
Have dominion over the fowls of the air, and the fish of the
sea, and the beasts of the forest. You're a king, Adam. Adam was
a brilliant, brilliant man. Without sin. He and his wife
both were without sin. They were created holy and upright.
And God put in that garden. I don't know what the tree was.
I don't think it was an apple. But he put in that garden a tree.
And that was a token of Adam's submission to God, of Adam's
dependence on God. This is the way that I see this
thing, that that tree there, whatever it was, was put there
by God as a symbol or as a token that man was never independent
of God. That he was always dependent
upon God. Though man was a king, God was
king of kings. And though man was powerful,
God was all powerful. And though man had all this authority,
it was still delegated by God Almighty. And he was still dependent
upon God. And God told him, in the day
you eat that, you'll die. Well, Adam ate of that tree.
And he died spiritually. But the scripture tells me that
before God, before Adam ever fell, you say, was the fall in
the purpose of God, in the plan of God? It had to be. It had
to be. Now some people divide this up
into directive will of God and permissive will of God or whatever,
but I'm simply saying this, that God worketh all things in heaven
and earth according to his will. And I cannot explain this. I'm
simply saying that the fall did not take God by surprise. Almighty
God knew about the fall and he permitted the fall. It has to
be that way. He can't be God. But the main
reason why I know that God permitted the fall is because He said that
Christ was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
Now for whom was He the Lamb slain? Turn over to Hebrews a
minute. I'm trying to, you know one thing, I want to preach,
I want to preach with sincerity and I want to preach out of experience,
out of my heart, but I want to preach with simplicity. I want,
if I can, There's no way that I can educate men in the kingdom
of God, I know that. And there's no way I can explain
the gospel, it has to be revealed. But a man can't believe in his
heart what he doesn't at least understand with his mind. So
that's what I'm trying to help our young people and whoever
God sends this way. Now Hebrews chapter 2 tells us
verse 16, Verily he took not on him the nature of angels,
but he took on him the seed of Abraham. In other words, Almighty
God designated Christ to be a lamb slain, not for those who sin
first, the angels, but for those who sin secondly. That's what
it says here. And Christ was the Lamb slain
before the foundation of the world. Lamb slain for sinners.
The Lamb is a sacrifice. The Lamb is a sin offering. And
that sacrifice and that sin offering was for sinners before they ever
sinned. And God chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. So I'm simply saying that when
Adam fell, a Savior was already provided. A Savior was already
designated. And that Savior was the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if Adam was saved, he was saved by looking
to Christ. And the last man who's saved
is saved by looking to Christ. Now let's go back to our text.
And this is the thing that I'm trying to stress tonight. I'm
trying to get you to see. The same thing our Lord said
to those Pharisees. They said, we have Moses. He
said, Moses wrote of me. You know, Moses is Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That's the writings of Moses.
And our Lord said, Moses wrote of me. That was Moses' message.
That was Moses' gospel. That was Moses' faith. They said,
well, Abraham's our father. He said, if you were the sons
of Abraham, then you'd believe me, because Abraham saw my day. He rejoiced and he was glad.
Abraham saw my day. This is what the scripture's
all about. One other scripture before I get back to the text.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 15. Here's the basis of everything
that I'm trying to teach tonight. It says in 1 Corinthians 15,
Paul says, brethren, moreover brethren, I declare unto you
the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received,
wherein you stand, by which you are saved, if you keep in memory
what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For
I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received,
received from God, how that Christ died for our sins. You see this
phrase here, according to the Scriptures, according to the
Old Testament. and that he was buried and rose
again the third day according to the scriptures. Now this Old
Testament is not just a book of history, a book of redemption. It's not just a book of poems
and a book of proverbs. It's not a scrapbook for a lock
of Aunt Susie's hair. It's a book of redemption. That's
what it's all about. And we need to get into the Old
Testament. and see Christ from Genesis to
Malachi. Now this is what our Lord is
showing these disciples. It was the third day, it was
Sunday, it was Sunday afternoon. It was the third day after Christ
Jesus had died on the cross and two disciples, one of them was
Cleophas, we don't know for sure who the other one was, but they
had left Jerusalem and they were walking this seven and a half
miles to Emmaus. And as they walked along, I know,
I can just visualize what they were talking about. They were
sad, they were downcast, and they were walking along talking
with one another and they talked about the arrest of their master.
They talked about the soldiers coming in the garden and how
Peter cut that fellow's ear off and he said, you know, the Lord
put that ear back on. And they talked about that and
how Judas kissed him on the cheek and betrayed him. I know they
talked about Judas' part in the plot because he had been with
them. He had eaten with them. He had been a part of the ministry.
And then they talked about Peter's denial. And then they talked
about our Lord's suffering at the hands of the soldiers. They
walked along talking about that. And then they talked about his
trial before Pilate and how the crowd called for his crucifixion.
And then they talked about that awful sight of their Lord hanging
on that cross, suffering and bleeding and dying. and how they
took him down from the tree, and he said this fella had a
tomb in which nobody had ever lain, Joseph of Arimathea, and
he asked to let Christ be buried in that tomb, and then they began
to talk about, well, what do you make of this report these
women brought back from the tomb this morning? They tell me Joanna
and Mary Magdalena and Mary the mother of James and other women
went to the tomb and they saw a vision of angels, And they
say that the angels told them that Jesus had risen. And one
of them said, yeah, I heard that Peter also went to the tomb.
And that, but Peter didn't see him. He didn't see him. But he
went in there, and the stone was rolled away, and he found
the linen in which I, in which the Lord was buried, just folded
up and laying there. And they kept walking, talking
about these things, and they were sad. And it says the master,
the Lord Jesus Christ, came and joined them, and walked along
with them. And he said to them, he said,
uh, what are these things you're talking about that make you so
sad? And they turned to him and they said, are you a stranger
in these parts? Have you heard what's taking place around here?
And he said, what things? Well, you don't know about Jesus
Christ, Jesus of Nazareth? Well, they said he was a, he
was, did you catch that when I read, he was a prophet, mighty
indeed, and mighty in the word. And he performed a lot of miracles
and they walked along. They said, well, we thought he
was the Messiah. We thought he was the Christ.
We thought he was that prophet of whom Moses wrote. We thought
he had come to redeem Israel. We thought he had come to restore
Israel back to the days of power and glory. But they crucified
him. We watched him die. They took
him down from the cross and they put him in a tomb. He died. We thought he was a messiah.
We thought he was the king. We thought he was the priest
after the order of Melchizedek. They were so sad. That's what
our Lord said down here in verse 25. He said, all foolish children. Along with all the other writers,
I just do not believe that our master called them fools from
the standpoint of natural, in the natural realm. But he's saying
to them, like Paul, gently and lovingly rebukes the Galatians,
oh, foolish children. And slow of heart to believe.
What? All that the prophets have spoken.
All that the prophets have spoken. That's what we're saying. Slow
of heart to believe. According to the Scriptures,
ought not Christ to have suffered? The Christ. Ought not thee Christ
to have suffered thee? Isn't this what the scriptures
say? All right, let's find out. Turn
to Genesis chapter 3. And this is what he did, exactly
what I'm fixing to do, what I'm about to do, is what the master
did for these men. He started, it says in verse
27 there, and beginning at Moses, and beginning at Moses, he opened
the scriptures. beginning at Moses and all the
prophets, he expounded unto them in the scriptures the things
concerning himself. This is what I'm going to do.
Now here they are. This is the picture in my mind. They're walking
along, downcast, discouraged, broken hearted, sad. The master
listens to them and they complain about what they thought he was
and who they thought he was and what they thought he'd do. They
had it all wrong. They didn't look for a lamb,
they looked for a reigning lion. They didn't look for a substitute
and a sacrifice. They looked for kings to sit
on a throne. They looked not for a spiritual
kingdom, but an earthly kingdom. That's what they were looking
for. And he turned to them and said, ought not the Christ to
have gone through all this suffering, death, burial, resurrection,
according to the scriptures. So he took the scriptures. All
right, the first scripture is Genesis 3.15. When Adam and Eve
had fallen, When darkness, the darkness of sin and judgment
and death had come upon them, spiritual death, the first thing
God did was announce a Redeemer. And He announced two or three
things about this Redeemer. First of all, in Genesis 3.15,
He said that Redeemer will be a woman saved, virgin born. That's the first thing He said.
He'll be virgin born. That's the first thing He said
about it. And secondly, He said the serpent, that Satan, That's
the power of evil. That's the forces of evil will
bruise his heel. his heel. Now the heel, and then
the third thing he says about him, he says, but he will crush
your head, your power. Now the head is the power. It's
the seat of government and authority. You can bruise my heel and I'll
go on. I'll survive. I'll go on functioning. I'll go on living. I'll go on
thinking. I'll go on making decisions. But you cut my head off, I'm
done for. That's where the power and authority is. And this is
what he's saying. The seat of woman, And I'm sure
that our Lord, in talking to these disciples, went right back
to Moses here, right back to Genesis 3.15, and He said, this
is what the Heavenly Father said. He said, a woman seed, a virgin
born, Son of God, will come into this world and there'll be a
confrontation between him and between evil, between Satan.
And he shall, his heel, that's human nature, that's the lower
part. Satan will bruise his body. He'll be wounded by transgression,
bruised by iniquities. His body shall be broken and
battered and suffering. But in that conflict, Satan's
head will be crushed. His authority destroyed and his
power broke. That's what he said. All right,
turn, I'm sure he went then to Genesis 4. And I'm not going
to take you through the whole Bible tonight, but I'm just going
to show you what our Lord is saying here to these men. Ought
not the Christ, and that's the first promise of the Christ. The Heavenly Father went out
in that darkness, he announced Christ the light. In that day
of death, he announced Christ the life. In that day of inability,
He announced, Christ is our strength. In that day of hopelessness,
He announced, Christ is our hope. The swarming sea is going to
fight the battle you were singing about. It's finished. It's over. The victory is won. Christ has
defeated Satan. The prince of this world has
met our Lord and found nothing in him. And he's been judged
and cast out. He's under the feet of Christ.
He'll soon be under our feet. That's what Genesis 3, 15, the
death... Alright, Genesis 4. Our Lord said, all right, you
men know the story of Cain and Abel. Here are two brothers,
Adam and Eve, cast out of the garden. They have two sons, probably
had other children, too. And here are two grown men. They
may be 30 or 40 years old now. But Eve, a strong, healthy woman,
and Adam, why, they had many children. Somebody said, where
did Cain get his wife? There's no problem there. Married his
sister. Why, of course. There were many. When they came out of the Garden
of Eden, Cain was born. I know he was the first child.
The first child. Because Eve said here, notice
in verse, listen to this, chapter 4, verse 1. And Adam knew Eve
his wife. And she conceived and bear Cain.
And you know what Eve said? She understood, Charlie, that
prophecy. She said, I've gotten the man. I've gotten the man. I've gotten the Christ from the
Lord. I've gotten with the help of
God the Redeemer." That's who she thought Cain was, the Redeemer.
Well, and there were other children born, Abel came along, and our
Lord said, these two young men had been taught by their father,
who was taught by God, that in order for a sinner to come to
God, there must be a sacrifice. There must be a sin offering.
Now that's so. A sinner cannot approach God
without a sacrifice, a sin offering. And that sin offering must be
blood, not the works of our hand, not the deeds of our flesh, but
the blood on the altar. And so Abel brought just exactly
what God said. He took a lamb without spot or
blemish, a male of the firstling of the flock, and he slew that
animal and put his blood on the altar. And that shows God's lamb. That's what the forerunner Christ
said, John the Baptist said of Christ. He said, behold, the
lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And Abel
came with that sacrifice. He brought the blood. He put
it on the altar. And God, listen to verse 4, and
Abel brought of the firstling of the flock, and of the fat
thereof, and the Lord had respect unto his offering. But verse
3, in the process of time, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground.
of his own works. Cain was proud of his grapes,
he was proud of his fruit, he was proud of his vegetables,
he was proud of the things he'd grown, and he built an altar,
and he came before God, but he came with the fruit of his field,
the things that he'd grown. He came without the blood, without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission. And when we're
saying that, he's saying there in Genesis 4, without the cross,
without the blood of Christ. You see that? All right, let's
turn over there, if you will, to Genesis 22. You know, this is what I told
them down in Waynesville, North Carolina last week. You see how
long a sermon I could preach tonight going from Genesis 3
to Malachi on types of Christ? This is what I think Paul was
preaching the night that fella fell out the window and broke
his neck. I really do. I believe Paul got that bunch
of Jews together. I really do. And he was going,
he told them Christ began at Moses and all the prophets and
the Psalms and preached Christ. preached himself the things concerning
himself and I believe that Paul took those Jews from Genesis
3 15 right on through the Bible and he was there for hour after
hour after hour after hour and finally that fella fell asleep
and fell out of the place and broke his neck and Paul went
out and healed him and came back and preached some more. But now
look at Genesis 22 now it came to pass After these things, that
God did test Abraham. And he said, Abraham said, here
am I. Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and
get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt
offering upon one of the mountains, which I'll tell thee of. You
know the story. Mount Moriah was three days journey
from where Abraham walked. God gave that old man three days
to think about that. And he and that boy and some
of the servants journeyed to that Mount Moriah. And when they
got to the foot of the mountain, Abraham turned to the men and
he said to them, said, now the lad and I are going up there
to worship. And we'll be back. We'll be back. We're going to go worship God,
but we'll be back. Abraham knew that Isaac was a type of Christ.
And in his mind, Isaac was dead and raised already. He knew God
would raise him. Abraham knew more than you think
he knew about the gospel. And they started up that mountain,
Abraham and Isaac, and the boy, he was a big boy then, 17, 18
years old, I imagine, or older. And he was carrying the wood
on his back, and he had the fire. Abraham was 120 years old. And
he was walking along his side to his son, and his son turned
to him and he said to him, down here in verse 7, And Isaac spake
unto Abraham his father, and he said, My father, and he said,
Here am I, my son. And he said, Well, my father,
behold the fire and the wood. Where is the Lamb? You see, this
is the message these men knew. Abel knew you can't come to God
without a Lamb, which is a picture of God's Lamb Christ. He knew
that. Isaac was just a young lad, but
his father had taught him that the way to the throne of grace
is the way of the cross, the blood, the Lamb, the sacrifice,
the sin offering. that a holy God must, his justice
must be satisfied. He cannot cleanse the guilty
without a sacrifice. And this boy said to his daddy,
he said, we've got fire and we've got wood, but you can't come
to God without a lamb. There must be death for sin.
There must be a sacrifice for sin. God's judgment is upon sin,
the soul that sinneth must die. And there's got to be the death
of a substitute. And listen to what Abraham said.
And Abraham said, My son, God will, God will provide, God will
provide Himself a lamb. You say, Preacher, that ought
to read, God will provide a lamb Himself. No sir, that reads just
like it is. God will provide Himself a lamb. He is the lamb. He provides the
lamb and he is the lamb. Abraham knew what he was saying.
Abraham saw my day, Christ said. He rejoiced. God will provide
himself a lamb for a burnt offering. And up here in verse 11, verse
10, Abraham stretched forth his hand, took the knife to slay
his son, and the angel of the Lord called unto him and said,
Abraham, he said, here am I. Lay not your hand upon the lad,
neither do anything Thou anything to him? For now I know you fear
God." God knew that, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son,
thy only son. And Abraham lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold, behind him a ram was caught in a thicket
by the horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered it him up for a burnt offering in the stead
of his son. And Abraham called that place
Jehovah-Jireh. You know what that means? The
Lord will provide. The Lord will see, the Lord will
provide, the Lord will see to it. And they tell me that that
mountain is Mount Calvary where Christ died, Mount Moriah. All
right, let's go to Exodus. And we just keep going through
the Word. And the thing I'm trying to say here, this is what the
Lord was showing these men. They did not see, they did not
understand sacrificing, sin offering. They had read the Old Testament
Scriptures, and I believe what was on their mind was an earthly
kingdom, was earthly glory, earthly splendor, restoring Israel to
the glory of David's days and Solomon's days and all these
things. And Christ is showing them that the Christ must suffer. He must die according to the
Scriptures. All right, look at Exodus 20.
And here Israel is down in Egypt. God's going to deliver them out
of Egypt. He said, tonight, I'll pass through the land of Egypt.
I'll pass through, not a death angel, I'll pass through. And
the firstborn in every home, the cattle on the hillside, unto
Pharaoh's house, Pharaoh himself, the firstborn alive. Now, what
you do, what you do, Israel, he said, you take a lamb, verse
5, and your lamb must be without blemish, a male of the first
year. You take it from among the sheep
or from the goats. You keep it up. Now this thing
all the way, a male, that's Christ, without blemish or spot, without
sin, you keep it up several days and observe it to make sure there's
no flaw in it. Christ our Lord, a male in the
prime of his life, not an infant nor an old man, but the first
year in the prime of his life, Our Lord came to this earth and
he was observed, he was tried in all points, tested in all
points, tried by heaven, tried by earth, tried by the law, tried
by men, a tried lamb. And they observed him and found
no sin in him. And then he said, you take that
lamb and kill it, and kill it, and take the blood and put it
on the two side post and the upper door post of the house
wherein you shall eat it. And verse 11 says, and you shall
eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your
staff in your hand. You'll eat it in haste. It's
the Lord's Passover, for I will pass through the land of Egypt
this night. I will smite the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
both man and beast, and against all the princes or kings of Egypt
I'll execute judgment. I am the Lord, and the blood
shall be to you for a token, for a sign. upon the house where
you are when I see the blood. Brethren, that's it. I'll pass
over you. Passover. And over here Paul says Christ
is our Passover. And on that night before he went
to the cross, our Lord met with his disciples to observe the
Passover. The Jews observed this feast
every year. From that day until Christ came,
they observed the Passover every year. The lamb was slain and
the flesh was eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread and
they observed this Passover. And when Christ our Lord, the
night on which he was betrayed, the day before he died, he was
sitting with his disciples around the table, observing the Passover. See, that's a picture of Christ.
All this is a type and picture of Christ our Lamb. And as they
were eating, he took bread, the unleavened bread, and he break
it. He blessed it and break it. And
then he gave it to his disciples. And he said, this is my body
broken for you. This is what the Passover's been
about. This is what it's all about. That's what, this is my
body. There'll be no more lambs dying.
There'll be no more blood shed. There'll be no more sacrifice.
This is my body broken for you. And he took the wine and he blessed
it. And he said, this is my, you
drink all of it, this is my blood which is given for the remission
of your sins. this do in remembrance of me.
And as often as you eat this bread and drink this wine, you
show my death until I come." Now, prior to this night, back
here in Old Testament scriptures, all the way back here to Exodus
12, prior to that night on which our Lord instituted the Lord's
table, the Jewish people slew a lamb, shed its blood, ate the
body right on up to this very moment, looking to the coming
of Christ, looking to the sacrifice of God's Lamb, looking to His
death. They were saved by faith in the coming Christ. The animal
blood didn't save them. Turn to Hebrews 10. Let me show
you something here. This blood that they shed and
put on the door, that blood didn't save them. An animal can't die
for a man. Animal blood can't pacify a holy
God. It says in verse 3, in those
sacrifices, Hebrews 10, you got it? In those sacrifices, there's
a remembrance again made of sin every year. For it's not possible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. It's not
possible. All these things are pictures,
images. And so I was able to say, by
faith in Christ, by faith in Christ, But Christ hadn't come,
but he was coming. And when Abel brought that lamb
and slew it and put the blood on the altar, he believed God. He believed God in reference
to a substitute. He believed God in reference
to a sacrifice. He believed God in reference
to a satisfaction of God's holiness. He believed God in reference
to a satisfaction and a victory over sin and death. And when
these Jews put that blood on the lintel and the doorpost,
they were saved by faith. They were looking to the coming
Christ. Now that's so. And we, when we assembled last
Wednesday night, we met together, Wednesday, a week ago. And all
of us gathered here and we had here on this table unleavened
bread and wine. And we read the scripture, we
passed it out. Now, brother man, do you believe
salvation is in that? That's a sacrament, that's a
saving ordinance? No more than that blood of an
animal can save April. Do you believe there's any power
in that wine when the priest or somebody blesses it to put
away sin? No more than that blood on the
door could put away sin. It's a picture. It's a time.
Christ's blood cleanses us from all sin. Christ is our atonement. Christ is our sin offering. Christ
is our satisfaction. And when I took that bread last
Wednesday night a week ago and put it in my mouth, I was doing
it in remembrance. When I took the wine and drank
it, I was doing it in remembrance of his broken body and his shed
blood. I'm saved by faith looking back to Christ who came. And
that's what the Old Testament, you take it from the first verse
right on through Malachi, they're expecting Him. They're anticipating
Him. They're looking to His coming.
They're believing God in reference to the seed, Christ Jesus. And
from the New Testament, from Christ's death all the way over
here through the churches and through the Middle Ages to this
day, we're saved by faith in Christ looking to the Lamb who
died. Now that's so. Turn to Leviticus 16. Let me
show you something here. And our Lord took them on through.
I don't have to, I've got to wind this down. But let's look
at Leviticus. Now this is a picture, Leviticus 16. Now our Lord brought
Israel out in the wilderness. And this is the writings of Moses.
You know about the temple and you know about the tabernacle.
Do you really know, do you see that that tabernacle is Christ?
Now, God had Israel out there, there's 12 tribes, and they dwelt
in tents. And there were 2 or 3 million
of them, according to what most people say, came out of Egypt.
And God told Moses, he gave the specifications in the book of
Leviticus, he gave the specifications for a tabernacle. He said in
the midst of the camp, you clear out a place, a courtyard, and
you put around that courtyard an 8 foot high white fence with
white linen. You make one gate, the eastern
gate. And in that fence, you put a
tabernacle. And that tabernacle is Christ.
It had four coverings. On the outside, that tabernacle
had a badger skin, just old, brown, dirty-looking badger skin. You could stand off in the distance
and look at that camp and see that tabernacle. You'd never
know what was in it. Just be like all the other tents,
all those weather-beaten tents all up to life. And I'll tell
you in those other tents were stoves burning and dirt. people
living and traveling through the desert, but there was that
tabernacle, badger skin. Christ, you see, was a man. They
called him a carpenter. There's no beauty about him that
we should desire. He didn't come on a white charger.
He didn't come with a crown on his head. He didn't come with
a sword at his side. He didn't come dressed in satin
and linen. He came in a carpenter shop, in a manger in a carpenter
shop, living just like we are, a man just like us. And on the
next layer was the ram skin dyed red. That's his blood. That's
the blood of our Lord. And then there was goat skin.
He's our scapegoat. And then there was white linen.
Inside, on the outside that tabernacle looked like any other tent. But
when you walked in it, white linen. Pure, clean, white linen. That's his righteousness, his
holiness. And in that tabernacle, nothing but gold and silver and
beauty. Oh, breathtaking beauty. One of the wealthiest buildings
for its size that's ever been erected. It's only 15 feet wide,
45 feet long. But as you come into this courtyard,
the very first thing you approach, and that tabernacle was where
God met men and men met God. And that tabernacle is Christ
because when Christ came down here and tabernacled among us,
Christ is where God meets men and where men meet God, in Christ.
You don't come to God except in Christ. I'm saying this, that
Almighty God is so holy, immaculately, infinitely holy, and we are so
corrupt and vile and sinful that God can have no dealings with
us. He cannot speak to nor be spoken to by any sinner apart
from a suitable sacrifice in the hands of a suitable priest.
That's something. We've got to have a mediator.
And that's Christ. That's Christ. And that tabernacle,
when you first walk into the courtyard, there's an altar.
where a lamb is slain. When that priest comes here,
he brings a lamb, a firstling of the flock, a male of the first
year, without blemish or spot, and slays it, and burns its body
on the altar. That's Christ suffering on that
cross. And he walks on up here, and before he enters that tabernacle,
there's a wash basin with pure, clean water. He washes his hands
and his feet. That's the sanctification of
Christ. justification, sanctification. Then he walks in that tabernacle
through the opening. And there in that tabernacle
are three pieces of furniture. There's the table, the candlestick,
Christ, the light of the world. That's the only light in that
building is that candlestick. Over here, the showbread. Christ,
the bread of life. He moves on here with the atonement. Let's read it in Leviticus 16.
Leviticus 16, 15. You with me? Then shall he kill
the goat of the sin offering that's for the people, and bring
the blood within the veil, and do with that blood as he did
with the blood of the bullock, sprinkle it on the mercy seat,
before the mercy seat. He shall make an atonement for
the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of
Israel, and because of their transgressions and all their
sins. And so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation
that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.
And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation
when he goes in to make an atonement in the holy place until he comes
out, and hath made an atonement for himself, his household, and
all the congregation." Now turn to Leviticus 17, 11. For the
life of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you upon the
altar to make an atonement for your souls. It's the blood that
makes the atonement for the soul. I don't have to be a cleric. And that high priest was to go
through the veil, under the veil. Now that veil separates the holy
of holies from the holy place. And in that holy of holies is
two pieces of furniture. There's an art of the covenant.
And in that art is Moses' law, the law that people had broken.
And over that art of the covenant is a solid gold mercy seat. Propitiation. Do you know that's what the publican
was praying in the temple? Lord, let thy blood be propitiation
for me on the mercy seat. That's exactly it. Lord, God,
be reconciled to me a sinner. He knew what that picture was.
And when that high priest, once a year, only the high priest,
nobody else would go under the veil, and he would put his blood,
the blood of the animal, on that mercy seat. It would just run
over the whole thing. And the Shekinah glory of God
was between those chair belts. And if God let him walk out,
that meant the sacrifice was accepted. If he came out of there
alive, they listened. He had barrels on his garment.
There wasn't any chairs in that place. He didn't sit down. Never
sat down. That's the picture right there. And I turn to Hebrews
10, and I've got to quit, but I've got to show you this. And
this is what our Lord told these men. He opened their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures. The Scriptures, the
Old Testament Scriptures. And believe me, I didn't hear
this preached when I was growing up. What did you hear this preached
when you were growing up? It just wasn't preached. Now they
told me about these Old Testament things, but they were histories
and stories. But this is Christ. Now what's
this fulfillment in Hebrews 10, verse 11? And every priest stands
daily. He never sits down because he's
never finished. Offering the same sacrifices
which can never take away sin But this man Jesus Christ after
he'd offered one sacrifice for sin forever Sat down Sat down
on the right hand of God From henceforth expecting till his
enemies be made his footstool for by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified Turn back here to Hebrews 9 Hebrews
chapter 9 Verse 11, let's look at it. It tells us in verse 6
here, Now when these things, Hebrews 9, 6, were ordained,
the priest always went into the first tabernacle, accomplishing
the service of God. But into the second, the Holy
of Holies, went the high priest alone, once every year, not without
blood. which he offered for himself and for the sins of the people,
the Holy Ghost signifying that the way into the holiest of all
was not yet made manifest while that first tabernacle was standing,
which was a picture for the time then present in which were offered
gifts and sacrifices. It could not make him that did
the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience, for it stood
only in meats and drinks and washings and ordinances. Verse
11, But Christ, being come, a high priest of good things to come,
by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, that is to say, not
this building, but His own flesh, neither by the blood of calves
and goats, you with me? Please stay with me here, but
by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having
obtained eternal redemption for us.