Christ - Our Profession

But the hour did come when God
the Father delivered his precious Son into the hands of wicked
men. And this wicked religious crowd
turned him over to Herod, and Herod turned him over to Pilate,
and then Pilate turned him over to the soldiers. And they took
him into the soldier's hall, and there they mocked him. Finally,
after causing and mocking and ridiculing, the hours had passed,
and as Scripture says here in Matthew 27, verse 36, which is
my case, and sitting down. They were tired. They were worn
out. They had ridiculed him, they
had mocked him, they had scourged him, they had slapped him, They
had done all these things that their wicked imagination had
devised, and now they just, all of them, sat down for the final
moments on the cross, and they watched them, and they watched
them. I challenge you tonight to go
with me to the cross, to go to Golgotha Hill, go to Calvary,
and just be still. These people finally were still. They sat up. They shut their
mouths, and they just sat there and watched it. And you know
they thought about this. They sat there and contemplated
this man. Who is this man, anyway? Nicodemus
said he had to come from God because no man could do the miracles
he did except God be with him. And the soldiers said themselves,
some of these very men that nailed him that cross had been among
those, I suppose, who came back after failing to arrest him and
told the chief priests or their commandantes, we never heard
a fellow speak like that man. And in this crowd of people,
where people who had seen him give fright to the blind and
hearing to the deaf and cause the lame to walk, they had to
consider these things. He was well known. His fame had
spread all the way down to Nazareth. They said, Do the things here
you did in Capernaum. Let's see a miracle. They sat
down and they watched him. They watched him. I and my Father are one." Somebody
says, I remember when he said that. I remember when he said,
one day I heard him preach, and I heard him, they said, Who are
you? And he said, I and my Father are one. And that bunch of religious
Jews took up stones to stone him, but nobody stoned him. And somebody else said, I heard
him say one time, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
Yes, and I remember he was talking about that sermon nobody understood. You remember that hard sermon
he preached that time, and he said, I came down from heaven.
He said, I am the bread from heaven. Moses gave you that bread
that you eat, you die. But I heard him say, I am the
bread of life. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Another one
said, Well, I heard him say one time, they said, How do you know
Abraham? You're not fifty years old. He
said, Before Abraham was, I am. And then our Lord Jesus Christ
said there in the Garden of Gethsemane, Glorify me with the glory which
I had with thee before the world was. Who is this man? Who is
this man? And why did he come into this
world? Why did he come into this world? He was in the world. That's
what the picture says. The world was made by him. He
was in the world. The world didn't know him. Why'd
he come? Well, he said, he said, he came
to speak and to save the lost. That's what he said. What's he
doing here in the first place? What did he come here for? What
did he hope to accomplish? He never had more than a half
a dozen or a dozen people to follow him other than his disciples.
Nobody paid attention to him. Everybody that was anybody turned
thumbs down on him. What did he hope to accomplish?
Why'd he come? He said, one time, I'm come that
you might have life and have it more abundantly. He said another
time, I am come to do the will of him that sent me. Why did he die on a cross, then?
What's he doing on a cross? How in the world can he be God
and be on a cross? How in the world can he be God,
who is the living God, and die? He said he came to save people,
and he came to save himself. Now, that's something to think
about. He saved others, himself he could
not save. Why did he die on a cross? Well, he said, he said, if Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up. He said, his disciples tried
to get him not to go to Jerusalem, and he said, shall I turn away
from this hour? For this cause came out of this
hour. This is what I came to do." And
when he was gathered with his disciples, gathered about the
table for the Passover feast and the Last Supper, he said,
as he broke the bread, this is my body broken for you, and this
is my blood shed for you. Who is this man? Why did he come
into the world? And why did he die on a cross?
Why did he? Why, he said, when Peter drew
his sword there in Gethsemane's garden, it would have... Peter
wasn't aiming at that fellow's ear, he was aiming at his throat.
And he missed his throat and got his ear. And our Lord said,
put away that sword, Peter. Put away that sword. Don't you
know that I could call on my Father and he'd send legions
of angels? Well, why didn't he? I didn't. What's this all about? Don't you ever sit down and think
about that? These people are sitting around
that cross, it says, and sitting down, they watch him, and people's
minds aren't inactive, they're not blank, something's going
through their mind. Who is this? Who is this, and why did he come,
and why did he die? The Prophet wrote in Lamentations, all ye that pass by." Well, I
do know this. I do know this. I know that you
can't wash your hands of this man like Pilate tried to do.
I want you to look at a scripture with me in the book of Hebrews,
and I'm saying as we sit here now, as we sit here and watch
him on that cross, as we sit here and watch him on that cross,
Every one of us has got to make up our minds about this man.
For it says in Hebrews 4 verse 13, now watch this, "...neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but
all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom
we have to do." One old preacher used to say, Jesus Christ is
on your hands, not in your hands. Jesus Christ is on your hands. You've got to decide where you
stand in relationship to this man. What do you think of Christ? That question that he put to
that crowd of religious people, and they kept asking him about
marrying and giving him marriage and the resurrection, and asking
him about paying taxes and things of this nature in regard to human
government, and when they Asked him other questions about the
greatest law and so forth, he said, What think ye of Christ?
Whose son is he? Who is this man Jesus Christ?
What is he to you? I'll tell you this, this question
is too important, it's too important to me personally to trust my
interest in Christ or my relationship with Christ to a priesthood.
I know there are people who are preacher followers, and that's
a deadly, dangerous game. That's putting your eggs in the
wrong basket. This thing of my relationship
with Christ and my interest in Christ is too important for me
to trust it to a denomination. Try to trace my heritage back
to John the Baptist, try to prove the continuation of a denomination
and the accuracy of it by the continuation of it, and I'm all
right because I'm a Baptist, because Baptists are all right,
because Baptists have been all right, and because Baptists started
all right. Well, you can start all right and end up all wrong.
That's a deadly gift. And then this thing of salvation
is too important. My relationship and interest
to that man is too important for me to trust it to a system
I don't care what it is, what ism it is, whether Calvinism
or Arminianism or Pelagianism or Premillinarianism or Amillennialism
or whatever ism is. It's too deadly. That's a deadly
game. That's putting your eggs in the wrong basket. That's right. Whatever it is and whatever system
and however foolproof it may seem. This thing is too important,
this thing of my relationship with him and my interest in him,
who he is and what is he to me, is more important than to trust
it in the lap of an experience. I've heard some folks give some
wild experiences, and they will forget that time Barnard and
I were down in Mississippi. He was in a meeting down there,
and I was down He was sitting out on the front porch one day
in the swing one afternoon, enjoying the balmy Mississippi weather,
and a man came by to do something for the fellow he was visiting,
work in the yard or work on the screens or something. He got
to asking Barnard who he was, and Roth said, I'm an evangelist,
hold a meeting in the big tent down here. And the fellow says,
is that right? He said, I hadn't meant to hear
you. He said, I might come out and hear you. He said, you know,
I'm a Christian. Barnard said, are you? He said, I'm saved. I was there
when it happened. And Barnes said, that's right. I said, how
did it happen? And the fellow said, well, I had an experience. He said, I went down to the altar
and prayed a little while, and then said, do you know, I just
got the strangest feeling. He said, I just got light as
air. I just felt like I was floating off somewhere, just floating
on the clouds, just floating on the clouds. He said, "'Isn't
that wonderful?' Barnaby said, 'Well, I don't know.' He said,
"'You go down to the hospital and they'll give you a shot of
gas and you'll feel the same way, but that's not salvation.
It's not either. And I'll tell you, you can go
back.'" Now, I wouldn't make fun of anybody's experience, but
I'll tell you this. Salvation is an experience, but
experience is not salvation. Salvation is a person. Salvation
is a vital living union with a person, to know God and to
know Christ Jesus whom he has sent. So this thing is resting
my hope for eternity, my relationship with this person, to a feeling.
Feelings come and go, to an experience, to a doctrine, to a character,
to a preacher. Let's sit down and watch him
now. What thinks he of Christ? Whose son is he? What's this
all about? What do you see in the cross?
I'll tell you this, this is the center point of all of God's
creation. It all focuses right here at
Calvary. Everything, everything in this
Bible before Calvary, everything in this Bible points to that
cross. Everything. When God came down
in the Garden of Eden and gave the promise of the virgin son,
he gave the promise in the light of that cross. He said, Satan
will bruise his heel, but he will destroy Satan's power at
the cross. And all the way from Abel's sacrifice
right on to that tabernacle and the atonement and all of these
things point to that cross. And everything in this Bible
since Calvary points back to that cross. Paul said, that's
our message in the cross. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross. I'm determined to know nothing
among you save Christ and him crucified. That's all I got to
preach, he said. Old Bishop Ryle said this, I
venture the whole of my salvation on Jesus Christ and him crucified. I cast loose entirely and completely
from all other hope. I do not rest partly on the blood
of Christ and partly on what I'm doing. In the matter of my
soul's salvation, Christ is all from beginning to end, Alpha
and Omega. Heaven is before me, Christ is
the door. Hell is beneath me, only Christ
can deliver. The law is against me, only Christ
can honor it. Justice has a claim on me only
Christ can satisfy. Death awaits me only Christ can
remove the sting. The grave is my destiny only
Christ is my victory." This is where it is all decided. This
is where it happens at Calvary. A man's attitude toward the person
on that cross determines his eternal destiny. A man's attitude
toward the person on that cross determines his eternal destiny,
whether eternal wrath or to eternal life. So I insist tonight that
you sit down with me and watch it. And I insist that as you
sit there and watch it, that your mind and attention be focused
not on his church, on him. not on his ordinances, on him,
not on his second coming. We're talking about his first
coming now, his coming as a lamb, as a sacrifice, as a redeemer.
If you turn your eyes on Jesus as we were singing a while ago,
look full into his wonderful face, and let's see what we come
away with. All right, the songwriter says,
I've been to Calvary. I can say, I've seen the Lord.
I've been to Calvary through the witness of his I've been
to Calvary. Let's see what we find. First
of all, I'll tell you what I see. I see, first of all, in his death,
in his suffering, in his humiliation, in all that has taken place from
his betrayal, denial, mocking, scourging, and his suffering,
death, burial, resurrection, I see the Father's hand in all
of it. This is no accident. Turn with
me to Acts 2, verse 23. This is no accident. Christ Jesus
is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It was intended
in the purpose of God that his Son should die on the cross.
It was intended in the plan of God that his Son should suffer
as he suffered. Judas, who betrayed him, who
sold him for thirty pieces of silver, All of it was talked
about in the Old Testament, the price, the betrayal, everything,
and how Judas would come back and throw the money down and
go out and hang himself. In Acts 2, verse 23, look at
this, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. God turned him over to you. God
turned him over to you. God gave him over into your hands.
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."
Turn to Acts 4, verse 26. The kings of the earth stood
up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against his Father, truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou
hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel, were gathered together." What a mob!
All of them bent on his destruction, all of them determined to have
his blood, all of them setting out to destroy him. But they
all banded together and united together around a common cause
to do away with this man Jesus Christ. But in doing that, and
they did what their wicked heart wanted to do, but in doing what
their wicked heart wanted to do and what their wicked heart
told them to do, and their wicked hands secluded in doing, look
at the next verse, they did what God Almighty determined before
the foundation of this world to be done. Scripture says it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. David, where is your God? He's in the heavens. What's your
God like? Our God is in the heavens. He
hath done whatsoever he pleased in heaven and earth and the seas
and all deep places. And it pleased God to make you
his people. And it pleased God that in Christ
should all fullness dwell. And it pleased God to bruise
him. And then one day it pleased God to reveal his Son in me.
And someday by his grace I trust it will please Him to make me
like honey." But this is no accident. I sat there and looked at that
cross. This is no accident. It pleased God. It was no accident. It was God's purpose. He died
the appointed, anointed Savior at the appointed place for the
appointed people. That's what the Word of God teaches.
I think one of the I told my class this morning, one of the
worst mistakes we make in studying the Bible, in having Bible classes,
in having Bible studies, is trying to explain the word of God. That's
right, that's one of the worst mistakes we make, trying to explain
why God does what he does. It's not our business to explain
God, it's our business to preach the gospel. It's our business
to preach the Word, to teach the Word, not explain the Word.
We just prophesy in part, we just know in part, we just see
through a glass dimly, darkly. But a man tell me, what's this
all about? I don't know, honey, I'm looking
through the same glass you're looking through, it's just as
dim over here as it is over there. I can just tell you what God
says, and I'll have to wait to find out what God means. I'm
just telling you what God says. I'll have to wait and tell you
later why God did it that way. I don't know, I'm not God. That's
one of our biggest problems. We think we've got to be God's
private secretary and we've got to give an answer for every question
asked of us. I don't know the answer and you
don't either. And that's where we get in trouble. That's where
denominations get in trouble and preachers get in trouble
and Bible teachers get in trouble, professors get in trouble, because
they've got to humanize God. They've got to reach up and bring
him down to their understanding. They've got to reach up and bring
God down here so they can explain him. And if your God can be explained,
he's not the living God. And if your God can be comprehended
by a human mind and understood by a human mind, he's a human
God, he's an idol. Now, you remember that. There are some secret things
that belong to God. There are some revealed things that belong
to us. And I just know the Scripture says he was the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. I know the Scripture says this
was no accident. These people did what God Almighty
determined for them to do. That's what God's word says.
I can't explain that, but that's what the word of God says. I'm
going to let God speak for himself, I'm not going to speak for him.
But I sit at the cross and I see the Father's hand that holds
that. I see God doing what he set out to do. I see God Almighty
carrying through down to the detail. If you read the Old Testament,
you'll find even the casting of lots for his garment, that's
over there. The plucking out of his beard, that's over there.
The piercing of his hands and feet, that's over there, hundreds
of years before he died. The denial by Peter and the disciples
and the betrayal by Judas, that's all over there. It's all in the
scriptures. The second thing I see, turn
to 1 Corinthians 15. As I sit there at Calvary, I
see the Father's hand in this, and secondly, I see the scripture
And 1 Corinthians 15, Brethren, I declare unto you the gospel
which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein
you stand, by which also you are saved, if you keep in memory
what I preached unto you, unless you believe it in vain, I deliver
it unto you, how that first of all I deliver unto you first
of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our
sins." Now, what's the next line? According to the Scripture. What
Scripture? the Old Testament scriptures,
according to the scriptures, according to Moses, and according
to Abraham, and according to Isaiah, and according to the
Old Testament. Most people, I see signs on the
front of a church, New Testament Baptist Church. I'm going to
be honest with you, I don't like that name. It implies something. It may be all right, but it implies
that you don't believe the Old Testament. It implies that you've
got two Bibles. You've got an old Bible and a
new Bible. There's no such thing as we've got one Bible. Our Lord
Jesus Christ said, had you believed Moses, you'd have believed me.
He wrote of me. I can take with Moses' writings,
I can take Moses' writings with the New Testament and preach
just as good a gospel sermon from Moses' writings as I can
from Paul's writings. I can take Isaiah's writings,
I can take those illustrations in Ezekiel of the deserted infant,
of the dry bones, I can preach just as strong and powerful a
message of redemption by the blood as I can from the Book
of Romans. Because the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed,
and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. And the
Old Testament is Christ in picture, and the New Testament is Christ
in person, and it's all Christ. Abraham saw my day, he saw it
and rejoiced, he was glad. God never has saved men but one
way, and that's for the cross. I know this sensationalism says
God tried to save Adam by innocence, and that didn't work, and he
tried to save him by conscience, and that didn't work, and tried
to save him by judges, and that didn't work, and tried to save
him by law, and that didn't work, and tried to save him by grace,
and that's not doing too good a job, and during the millennium
he'll have a different kind of salvation. No sense, just in
one gospel, one gospel. And that's the gospel of the
cross, that's the gospel of the atonement, that's the gospel
of redemption. And I see at the cross, I see
Abel's sacrifice right there on that cross. There it is. There's the blood that Cain rejected. There's the lamb that Cain refused. There's the lamb that Abel brought.
There it is. That's the sacrifice with which
God was slain. I see hanging on that cross Abraham
and Isaac. I see Abraham going up there
to the top of that mountain and taking his boy and putting him
on the altar and binding him and raising the knife and God
saying, Hold it! Don't you touch that boy. I know
now you love me, Abraham." And Abraham turned, and there was
a ram caught in his thicket by the horns, and he ran throughout
that boy joyfully and took him off of that altar and grabbed
that ram and put him on that altar and drew his blood. And
I see Christ as the one who took my place, like that ram took
Isaac's place. I see Israel in Egypt and the
Passover lamb being slain and the blood on the door. I see
the blood dripping from his head and his hands, and I see the
blood on the lintel and the doorpost. Yes, sir, I see all that at Calvary.
I see the tabernacle in the wilderness and that old high priest taking
the blood and coming under the veil and putting it on the mercy
seat and covering the broken law and making an atonement for
perpetuation. That's what I see. All the scriptures
full of this. All the scriptures. In Genesis,
he's the seed of woman. In Exodus, he's the Passover
lamb. In Leviticus, he's the blood
atonement. Deuteronomy, go right on through
the scriptures, Christ, even down to the desire of all nations.
But if you read the Old Testament and you don't come up with Christ,
you better read it again, every page of it, every picture of
it, every type of it. All right, sitting down, I see
something else. Turn to Hebrews 13.20. I see something else as
I sit there. I see the everlasting covenant
fulfilled. Our God is a covenant God. Hebrews
13.20 says this, Now the God of peace was brought again from
the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant. God made a covenant with Noah
That wasn't an everlasting covenant. He made a covenant to deliver
Noah and his family from the flood, and that's what he did.
He carried it out. He hung a rainbow out there in the sky that said,
It's over. I'm not going to judge this earth and destroy it by
water again. He made a covenant with Abraham. He said, Abraham
is going to bring forth a son. Abraham went around the woods
and got a boy another way, and God said, Now this is the way
it's going to be. Ishmael is not your son, and Ishmael is not
going to be in Israel. 14 years later, God fulfilled his
covenant in Isaac King. God made a covenant with Judah,
"'The scepter shall not depart from Judah, the shallow come.'
And he came, he came through Judah, he came through the Jews,
he made a covenant, but he made an everlasting covenant. That
everlasting covenant, not just one way, both ways. Turn to Hebrews
7.22, who was this covenant with? Well, it was made before the
world began, so it couldn't be with man. It was made before
the world began, so it couldn't have been with the angel. Hebrews
7.22 says, "...by so much was Jesus made a surety of a better
covenant." Hebrews 8 verse 6 says something about, "...now he hath
obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much so also he is the
mediator of a better covenant, this everlasting covenant which
was established upon better promises." I'll tell you where this covenant
was made. This covenant that preceded the covenant of works
made with Adam, this covenant that preceded the covenant, the
Mosaic covenant made with Moses around the ceremony, this covenant
that preceded Noah's and Abraham's and David's, this everlasting
covenant was that blessed covenant in which the Father said to my
son, I give a people, chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world, loved in Christ before the foundation of the
world, given to Christ before the foundation of the world.
That covenant in which the Son said, I will be their surety,
I will be their redeemer, I will be their mediator, I will take
upon myself their nature and live in their world and bear
their sins and pay their rents, that covenant in which the Holy
Spirit said, I'll call them. All that the Father giveth to
the Son shall come to the Son, that's what Scripture says. I
came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him
that sent me, and this is the will of him that sent me, that
of all which he hath given to me I lose nothing." He raised
it up at the last day. I know my sheep. I lay down my
life for my sheep, and I see on the cross the provisions of
that covenant, the promises of that covenant, the purpose of
that covenant fulfilled. It's finished. That's what he
said when he died. What sin? He didn't mean his life, because
he lived forever. All of the provisions and all
of the promises and all of the purposes of that eternal covenant
of mercy were fulfilled. As I sit there, I see something
else. I see man's utter depravity, man's utter Turn over to Matthew
27 one more time and listen to this. Matthew 27. You know, Pilate
said, "'It customary to release unto you at this time a prisoner.
Whom shall I release unto you? Barabbas, a noted criminal.'"
Matthew 27, verse 21. "'Whither the twain shall I release unto
you?' And they said, Give us Barabbas, give us darkness, give
us evil." This is condemnation. Light is coming to this world.
But men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
are evil. Our Lord said, I'm coming in my Father's name, and
you don't hear me. Let another come in his own name,
preaching his own message, seeking his own glory, and him you will
receive. That's human nature. The heart
is deceitful above all things. It's desperately wicked. Man
can't even know it. Well, what shall I do then with
Jesus, which is called Christ?" They said, let him be crucified. It started in Eden, give us darkness,
give us lies, give us deception. It wound up at Calvary when they
cried, give us Barabbas, crucify Jesus. I was a pastor in Chattanooga,
Tennessee. back in 1948. We had a missionary who sponsored,
helped to sponsor from Sudan Interior in Africa, Paris Reedhead. We were good friends. He came
out to preach for me. He gave an illustration I never
forgot. He said he was on a on one of
the journeys out in Africa, and he stayed there five or six years.
But he was going out to preach one day, and he gathered some
natives around, put their equipment on their heads, and they carried
his equipment out to where he was going to preach. And they
were going through the jungle, hacking their way through and
going down the trails, going over to visit a tribe. He said
as he walked along, he could hear in the distance a voice, and that voice, pitiful, pitiful,
pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful,
pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful,
pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful,
pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful,
pitiful, pitiful, crying, Help me! Won't somebody help me? Well, he listened carefully,
and he heard the same words again, so he told the natives, Pick
up the pace, let's go! And they started making as much
time as they could, and he said the voice kept getting louder
as he ran through the jungle, you know, and finally he rounded
some bushes, and he said he just stopped. He saw the most terrible-looking
sight he had ever seen in all his life. He said he had never
seen anything before or since like it. There, sitting on the
ground, with his hands lifted up in the air, he said, if you
could call them hands, was the most terrible mass of human rotten
flesh he could have ever seen. He was a man in the very last
stages of leprosy. leprosy all over, and his face,
he said, the man's face, or what was left of it, nothing but just
one big sore, slit for eyes and a mouth, and flies all over him.
And his hands and fingers were all eaten away, just nothing
but nubs, and the bones, you could see his bones in his arms.
Some tribe had just taken him out there and left him there
sitting to die. They just ditched him. And he
was so just rotten all over, and he was holding those what
left of arms up in the air, and he was crying through that oil-filled
face, somebody, won't somebody help me. The greed head said,
I thought as I stood there, that's what God sees when he looks at
me. Rotten, filthy, putrid, from
the sole of your feet to the top of your head, Isaiah said,
there's no soundness in you, nothing but open running souls,
unclean. God sees the wicked, rotten,
filth in the flesh. No man can please God. I see
at the cross, there is the culmination, there is the climax, there is
the end of man's utter hatred for God. Man hates the God of
the Bible. He doesn't hate his idols, he
hates God. He doesn't hate his Jesus, he
hates God. He hates them. He hates God on
the throne. He hates the God of holiness.
He hates the God of justice. He hates the God of righteousness.
He hates the God of creation. He hates the God of election.
He hates the God of salvation. He hates them. Man hates them.
He always has and always will. Christ said that. He said, Marvel
not, my brethren's world hates you, it hates me. He said, I saw that man sitting
there, and I would I know anything at all
about this kind of love, to reach out and take that old ulcerated
hand and this hand and that old rotten stub and the other and
just lift him up and pull him up to me, put his rotten face
against my healthy face and let my health flow into him and his
disease into me, my life into him, his death into me, and let
him go his way and sit down there and take his place. That's what Christ did for me.
He came down here, the holy, perfect, sinless, immaculate,
spotless, immutable, almighty, eternal Son of God, came down
here, the ancient of days, became clothed in the likeness of sinful
flesh. And the sinless became sinful,
that this rotten, filthy, guilty, dead flesh, the creature, might
be made righteous. That's the gospel. That's substitution. That's satisfaction. I see Christ
as my substitute. I see our depravity. The issue
between you and God is not that you stole a watermelon or went
to a picture show. The issue between you and God
is that you tried in your daddy Adam to throw him off his throne,
and then you tried again at Calvary to do away with his son. nailed
him to the cross, and all the wicked hatred of the human heart
is seen at Calvary. And that's where God is going
to do business with you and me, is at Calvary. He turned this
world over to Jesus Christ. He turned the whole shooting
match over to Christ. Christ bought it. It appears
to dispose of as he will. The Father judges no man. He
has committed all judgment to the Son. And the question is
not, What will you do with Jesus? The question is, What's he going
to do with you? And that's so. That's the question. It's not a question of what we're
going to do with him. We did all we could do with him at Calvary.
That's what we did with him. We said, Give us forever. Well,
what will I do with Jesus? Crucify him! That's exactly what
we said. And that's where God's going
to settle this issue. He's going to settle it at the cross. That's
where man's rebellion came to a climax, and that's where God
is going to break every rebel that he brings to face. He's
going to bring him to the cross, and that rebel is going to bow
down and own that crucified Savior to be his Lord. He's going to
kiss the Son! He's not going to accept Jesus
as his personal Savior. He's going to bow down! He's going to bow down to him
as his Lord. That's right. Anything short
of that is not salvation. That's so. You can keep on, if
you want to, dragging folks down the aisle, accepting Jesus as
their Savior, but this scripture says, Somebody's my Lord! Somebody's
my God! Somebody's my King! Somebody's
going to reign in my life! And this Jesus, whom you crucified,
Peter, said, God hath made him Lord! That's what Peter said
at Pentecost. Paul wrote in Philistines, "...he
who sought it not robbery to be equal good with God, took
upon himself human flesh, the form of a servant, and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore
God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name, a name
which is above every name, that is the name of Jesus." That's
the name whereby we're saved. us on the name of the Lord."
What name? The exalted name! Not some little
silly superstar, not some doormat, not some fire escape from hell.
God has given him a name, and there is none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It's the name
of all names. I'm telling the truth. That's
where this evangelistic nonsense has missed the boat, missed it
entirely. That's the reason they get 250
people down the aisle every year, and their churches, they lose
that many. Folks come, join the church,
last six weeks or six months or six years, never hear from
them. They never came to that name! They never owned that name! They never bowed to that name!
They never received that name! It took them a little old silly,
emotional, sentimental, hogwashed and frustrated reformer as their
doormat to call on when they died. The people who bow to that
name keep on dying. The people who shall receive
him as Lord keep on walking with him. That's so. I tell you what
I see at the cross. I see the scripture fulfilled,
I see the covenant of grace fulfilled, I see man's rotten depravity,
and I see God's grace, God's grace. Oh, the love that drew
salvation's plan, oh, the grace that brought it down to man,
oh, the mighty good! God did stand at Calvary. I see
the wages of sin. Take a good look at the cross.
Somebody says, I don't believe a merciful God will send a man
to hell. Well, you go to Calvary and you'll
find out he will. Christ went to hell, literally
preaching. What is hell? Separation from
God. Christ was separated from the
Father. What is hell? The wrath of God. Christ bore
the wrath of God. What is hell? Darkness! Christ died in darkness. Everything
hell is, he bore on that cross. Boy, my hell! I see my ransom
paid. My substitute has died. Paul said, The law has got no
more claim on me, no more claim. Turn to Romans 8. Listen to this.
Romans 8, he says here in verse 33, Who is going to lay anything
now to the charge of God's elect? Come on! Who can lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Verse 34, who is he that condemneth? Step forward, anybody! Charge
me with sin. I challenge the books of heaven,
I challenge the demons of hell, I challenge the religious people
of this world, I challenge even my own conscience, I challenge
Satan. Lay something to my chest. Try
to condemn me. Oh, I'm condemnable, I'm chargeable,
but I'll have you Christ-took-my-debt-and-take-it. He took my death and died it.
I won't die. He took my sins and paid the
ransom, and I'm free. I'm free. Salvation is not Christ
plus anything. It's Christ. It's not the death
of Christ plus what I do, or plus what I say, or plus what
I contribute. It's Christ and Christ alone.
Who is he that condemneth? Christ died, yea, he rather is
risen again. Who is he at the right hand of
God? Our Father blessed the Word.
I thank you.

Christ - Our Profession

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