Will you turn back, please, in
your Bibles to Luke 24. Luke 24, verse 25. Then he said unto them, O fools,
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken,
ought not Christ to have suffered these things? Was it not necessary
for Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Now it was the third day after
Christ Jesus had been crucified on Calvary, and two of his followers,
sad, dejected, disappointed, were walking from Jerusalem to
a little town northwest of Jerusalem called Emmaus. As they were walking
along, dejected and disappointed, their world had collapsed. They talked of what had taken
place in Jerusalem over the past few days, and while they walked
along talking among themselves, Jesus our Lord joined them. He began walking along beside
them. They didn't know him. They didn't
recognize him. To begin with, they didn't expect
him. They had seen him die. And when
the women told them that he was resurrected, that he had risen
from the tomb, they didn't believe it. And as they walked along,
and he walked along beside them, they continued their conversation
about what had taken place in Jerusalem. And he asked them
why they were so sad, and why they were so unhappy and disappointed. And one of them said, you must
be a stranger. Don't you know what has happened
in Jerusalem, why everybody in Jerusalem knows about Jesus of
Nazareth? Everybody in Jerusalem knows
what has happened during the past few days. Are you a stranger? You don't know about these things?"
And he said, what things? What things? Well, we thought
Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. We thought that Jesus Christ,
we followed him, we listened to him, and we thought he was
the Messiah. we thought that he was the one
who would redeem Israel. Now, these men did not believe
that Jesus Christ had risen. Several reasons why I know they
didn't believe it, the first of which, and most important,
is they were leaving Jerusalem. This was the third day after
he had been crucified, and he told them on the third day he
would rise, and they were leaving Jerusalem. Now, if they had believed
that he had truly risen They would never have left Jerusalem,
they would have stayed there. And this is perfectly clear over
in verse 31 of this same chapter, when they did believe him. The
first thing they did was go back to Jerusalem. In verse 31, And
their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he disappeared
out of their sight. And verse 33 says, And they rose
up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem. The same hour. They didn't wait another minute.
They went right back to Jerusalem to be with the other disciples.
Now as they walked along, and he joined himself to them, and
asked them what things they were talking about, they began to
tell him how that Jesus Christ suffered and died. He had twelve
disciples, they said. One of them, called Judas, betrayed
him, sold him for thirty pieces of silver. And Jesus was taken
down to the soldier's hall, and he was mistreated there. He was
scourged and beaten. A crown of thorns was placed
upon his head, and a mocking robe upon his back. They spat
upon him, they slapped him, They delivered him to Pilate, and
Pilate tried him in front of the people, and the people cried,
crucify him. And Pilate said, I find no fault
in him. What evil hath he done? And they
said he tried to put himself above Caesar. He claims to be
king. We have no king but Caesar. Crucify
Jesus Christ. And Pilate said, well, it's customary
at this feast to deliver unto you a prisoner. Would you, I
should deliver unto you Jesus of Nazareth, or Barabbas?" They
said, give us Barabbas, and crucified Jesus. They took him out on Golgotha's
hill, and there they nailed him to a cross. And they crucified
him between two thieves. And it was an amazing hour, for
even the sun grew dark. And we experienced the tremors
of the earth, and some said there was an earthquake. And after
six hours on that cross, Jesus died. He was forsaken of all
men, yea, we believe even of the Father, for he cried before
he died, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? and we took him
down from the cross and we wrapped him in grave clothes and we borrowed
a tomb from a man called Joseph of Arimathea a tomb in which
man was never buried and we buried Jesus Christ and we left there
and that's when the Lord Jesus Christ revealed himself to them
now his suffering was not in their plans His crucifixion was
not in their plans at all. They expected their Messiah to
bring back to Israel the glory which Israel knew in the days
of David and Solomon. They expected their Messiah to
deliver them from the bondage of Rome. They expected their
Messiah to set up a kingdom, an earthly kingdom. And when
he was taken out and nailed to a cross and crucified and slain,
this was not in their plans at all. They didn't understand it.
If you'll turn to Matthew chapter 16, you'll find that this death
of Christ, this suffering of Christ, was not in the plans
of Simon Peter either. In verse 21 of Matthew 16, from
that time forward, Jesus began to show unto his disciples how
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the
elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and how he must
be killed and raised again the third day. Now he taught these
disciples this. From this time he taught them.
He said, I'm going to Jerusalem and there I will be mistreated,
and there I will suffer many things, and there I will be killed,
but I'll rise again on the third day. And look, this is their
reaction now, verse 22. Peter took him, evidently took
him aside from the others, and began to rebuke him. And he said,
Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. You're
not going to die. You're not going to suffer these
indignities. You're not going to be crucified. You're not going to be slain.
But he turned and said to Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou
art an offense unto me, for thou savest not the things that be
of God, but those that be of men. Your plans are not God's
plans, your ways are not God's ways, your thoughts are not God's
thoughts, your plans and your ways and your thoughts are the
plans and ways and thoughts of men. The Son of God must suffer,
and he must be killed, and he must be buried, and he must rise
again the third day. But this was not in the plans
of these disciples. And when it took place, and they
saw him taken down from the cross and put in the tomb, as far as
they were concerned, it was over. And these two men were walking
away from Jerusalem. They were through. They were
leaving. The apostle Peter, who met with the disciples in the
upper room after Christ died, they were sitting around, nobody
saying anything much. After a while, Peter spoke up
and he said, well, I'm going fishing. Now that's where he
was when the Lord found him. That's where he was when the
Lord called him. That's where he was when he met Christ. He
was fishing. He was a fisherman by trade.
That was his profession. That's the way he earned his
living. And Christ took him away from the boats, and from the
nets, and from the hooks, and from the sea, and from the fish,
and told him he'd make him a fisher of men to follow him. And Peter
followed him. He said, I left all and followed
thee. And when he saw Christ crucified
and put in the tomb, well, he said, I'm going back to where
I was when he found me. I'm going back fishing. I hoped
that he was the Messiah. I hoped that he was the Redeemer,
I thought he was the King, I thought he was the one whom God had promised
to redeem Israel and to bring us out of bondage and slavery,
but evidently wasn't, and so I'm going fishing. And the rest
of them looked at him as he stood and started toward the door,
and they said, Wait, and we'll go with you. And as these two
men walked along, and Christ joined them, and they told him
all about how their expected Messiah had died on a cross,
had been crucified between thieves, and had been taken down and put
in a tomb, and their hopes were dashed to pieces, and their world
had collapsed, and they just saw no future at all. Well, verse
25, he looked at them and said, and slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things? Was it not necessary for Christ
to suffer these things? This is the very heart of the
gospel. This is the very foundation of
redemption, that Christ should suffer. that Christ should be
crucified, that Christ should die. This is the very essence
of redemption. This is the very cornerstone
of salvation. This is the very foundation that
holds it all together. This is the very life's blood
of redemption, that Christ should suffer. And I'm going to start
with you this morning where Christ started with these people, these
two men. It says, and beginning, verse
27, at Moses and all the prophets. What are we talking about when
we say beginning at Moses? Beginning at Genesis, chapter
1, verse 1. Moses wrote the first five books
of the Bible. That's what we're talking about
when we say, and beginning at Moses. And then the prophets. And then the Psalms. Beginning
at Moses. He went back and he says, I'm
going to show you why he died on that cross. I'm going to show
you why it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer. I'm going
to show you why it was necessary for the Messiah to die. I'm going
to show you why it was necessary for Jesus Christ to suffer these
things. It was necessary. He had to,
to enter into his glory, and he had to for you to enter into
his glory and be a partaker of his glory. Now, beginning at
the prophets, in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15. The prophets taught
his suffering in Genesis 3 verse 15. After Adam and Eve had fallen,
after Adam the representative, the first man, had sinned against
God, had broken God's law, and darkness and disease and death
had fallen upon our race, And man was separated from God. He
ran and hid from God. The cloud of sin had separated
man from God. In that hour, in that hour of
the fall, in that hour of death, in that hour of spiritual separation
from God, the Father announced for the first time the sufferings
of Jesus Christ. The sufferings of Jesus Christ.
The crucifixion of his son. In Genesis 3.15, and I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, he's speaking to Satan, he's
speaking to the serpent, and between thy seed, the seed of
evil, the seed of sin, between thy seed and her seed, her seed
is Jesus Christ. I've said this a number of times
from this pulpit. I'll probably say it many more
times. Charles Spurgeon used to quote one verse of Rock of
Ages all the time. he quoted so much one of his
men came to him one day and said now pastor we're all well acquainted
with the emptiness of your hands you can go on to something else
now he quote that verse in my hands no price I bring simply
to the cross of Christ I cling and they said we're aware now
of the emptiness of your hand you can go on to something else
So many times I've said this, and I'll say it many more times,
the seed of woman is the virgin-born Son of God. Every person in this
building is of the seed of man. There is nobody here of the seed
of woman. No earthly human being has ever
walked on this earth, under heaven, who's been the seed of woman.
We are the seed of man. But Jesus Christ was not the
seed of man. He did not have a natural father.
He was not conceived by man, by Joseph. He was conceived by
the Holy Spirit, and He is the seed of woman. Now here's the
promise. I will put enmity between thee and between the woman, and
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, Jesus
Christ. Now watch it. Her seed shall
bruise thy head. Now the head is the place of
power, the place of government. When the head is destroyed, when
the head is crippled, when the head is broken, that's the end
of the power. That's the end of the government.
That's the end of control. Thou shalt bruise his heel. Now, when you bruise my heel,
you don't affect my thinking, you don't affect my power, you
don't affect anything actually about me. It's the very least
thing that can be bruised. I may limp for a season, but
it has no effect on my control and on my thinking power. Now,
many people teach this. When a person died on a cross,
when the weight of the body was pressed down from the hands,
that the weight was upon the heel, and the heel was bruised. Of a crucifixion victim, it was
bruised. That may be so. But the reference
here is that Jesus Christ, when he died on that cross, the lower
part was bruised. That is, his humanity, his human
body, was abused and mistreated and persecuted and wounded But
when he died on that cross, in his conflict with evil, in his
conflict with Satan, his human body suffered and his human body
was broken and bruised. But when he died, he destroyed
Satan's power. He destroyed Satan's government.
He destroyed Satan's control. He destroyed the prince of the
power of the air. He delivered the kingdom out
of his hand. And that's the first promise
of the sufferings of Christ. Then in Psalms 22, and we could
cover so many scriptures, but I'm going to give you just a
few. First, from the writings of Moses, that's where Christ
started, as he walked along with these disciples, and they thought
that everything was over, that Christ had died, and that with
him had died their hopes, and with him died the promise of
deliverance, and with him died their expectations, and he began
to show them how he must die, and how that Christ must suffer.
That was God's plan. That's what the prophets wrote.
That's the very first promise that God gave to man after the
fall, that Christ should be bruised and that he should suffer. And
then he said in the Psalms, Psalms 22, look at it, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? These words that David wrote
in this Messianic Psalm are the very words that Christ uttered
from the cross. In verse 2, I cry in the daytime,
now here's not in the night season, I'm not silent." That's the three
hours of light and the three hours of darkness as he hung
on that cross. Verse six, I'm a worm and no
man, a reproach of men, despised of the people. And all that see
me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out their lip, they shake their
head, they say, he trusted in God. Let's see if God will deliver
him, seeing he delighteth in God." That's the very thing that
the people said as they walked around the cross. Verse 14, I'm
poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint.
The bones of Christ were not broken, but they were pulled
out of joint. As the weight of the body pulled
down upon the nails, His very arms were pulled out of joint.
And He said, My strength is dried up. like a potsherd, my tongue
cleaves to my jaws. Thou hast brought me into the
dust of death. Dogs have compassed me. The assembly
of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my
feet. I may tell all my bones." In
other words, he was stretched so far on that cross you could
see his ribs. You could see the vertebrae in
his back. You could see the bones in his
arms. He was pulled and stretched so
much on the tree, and they part my garments among them and cast
lots upon my vesture." That's what the soldiers did around
the cross. They took the dice and they said,
let's don't divide this coat up now, let's cast lots and see
who gets the whole thing. You see, as he walked along with
them, they said, it's not in our plan for him to die. It wasn't
in our plan at all. It's not what we think ought
to... We thought he'd ascend to a natural throne and restore
to Israel its glory and power and triumph over Rome. Well,
he said, that's not what the Scriptures say. That's not what
the Scriptures teach. He died according to the Scriptures. And that's not what the Word
of God teaches, and he took them back beginning in the Scriptures,
beginning with Moses. and showed them how that it behooved
Christ to suffer and to die, how that Christ ought to have
suffered and died, how it was necessary for Him to suffer and
die. This is what Moses prophesied. This is what David taught. Now
turn to Isaiah 53. And this is what Isaiah taught.
And I know that Christ, as He walked along with them, took
them to Isaiah 53. While you're finding Isaiah 53,
Daniel said the Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. And Zechariah says, I'll smite
the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. And then in Isaiah
53, Isaiah wrote, who hath believed our report? Who believes this
gospel of substitution, this gospel of sacrifice, this gospel
of crucifixion, this gospel of substitution? Who believes it?
Do you believe it? To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? He shall grow up before him as
a tender plant. That's Christ embodied in human
flesh. So easy to stamp out. You go
out and plant a seed in the ground and it comes up. And what's the
first thing? A tender shoot. Just the heel on it will destroy
it. It has to be protected. If it's
not sheltered and protected, you can destroy it. And if you
destroy it in the tender plant, you're not going to have the
full stalk, the corn. It won't be realized if you destroy
the tender plant. And even so, Christ became a
man, and Herod tried to kill him. Why, they had to take him
down to Egypt and hide him to keep Herod from getting to him.
Satan tried to kill him, took him up on a mountain of temptation
and said, cast yourself off. If he had, he'd have died. That'd
have been the end of the tender plant. He shall grow up as a
tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. As long as the
root's there, the life is that. And Jesus Christ came out of
a dry ground. He came out of a dead nation,
Jerusalem. It was all but gone. Israel.
He hath no form, no comeliness, no beauty that we should desire
him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it
were, our faces from him. We weren't impressed with him.
He was despised and we esteemed him not. Nobody esteemed him.
He was a nobody. He was born of a Jewish maiden
in her late teens who said that her child was conceived of the
Holy Spirit. She was engaged to a man much
older than her, a carpenter by the name of Joseph, and they
married. And she had this child, and they
lived down in a village called Nazareth, and nothing good can
come out of Nazareth. It's a nothing village. It's
a nobody's town. And this boy Jesus worked all
his early life in a carpentry shop. That's all he ever did.
He never went to school. He never had any college education,
never had any theological training, never had any seminary training.
And when he was thirty years of age, he came out of Nazareth
and began to preach, and he went out and chose twelve disciples,
and he didn't choose doctors and professional men and theologians
and rabbis and ministers. He chose a bunch of fishermen,
a bunch of nobodies, And the only people that had anything
to do with him was a bunch of harlots and a bunch of publicans
and a bunch of sinners. He was a friend of sinners, and
anybody who was anybody turned thumbs down on him. And that
went on for three and a half years. He had some kind of special
power. He had some kind of special power
to heal the sick and give sight to the blind, and he confused
everybody. Why, even Nicodemus, the ruler
of the Jews, said he must be from God. No man could do what
he does. I know he's a nobody. I know
he's Mr. Nobody from nowhere, and I know
that nobody that is anybody has anything to do with him. I know
he's a friend of a bunch of outcasts, but you've got to face this,
fellas. Nobody can do what he does. You
can't do it. I can't do it, except God be
with him. And finally they nailed him to a cross, and he didn't
even own a piece of property, and didn't own a house, and didn't
own a chariot, and didn't own a horse, and he didn't own a
grave, they had to bury him in a barred grave, wrapped in somebody
else's clothes. And people say that he's the
Messiah? That he's the Savior? People
say he's the Son of God. Who believes it? He hath verse 4, he hath borne
Now here's the reason he died. He bore our griefs and our sorrows. Jesus Christ started life's journey
at the bottom so that people at the bottom would feel welcome
to come to him. Jesus Christ walked barefooted
so that those who have to walk barefooted would feel a kinship
with him. Jesus Christ worked at a menial
trade as a carpenter so that people who dig ditches and work
as carpenters can feel an association with him. Christ Jesus was tempted
in all points as we are, yet without seeing so that we might
know that He understands us and He communicates with us. He came
down to the very bottom of the ladder. He came down from heaven
to this earth so that earth could understand heaven and so that
heaven could speak to earth. And there's nobody who has fallen
as low, there's nobody who has experienced what He has experienced. And He did it for us. He was
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes
we're healed. Now that's what Christ taught
them as they walked along. It behooved Christ to suffer. Christ had to suffer. It was
necessary for Him to endure all of these things because it was
written of Him in the Scriptures. And the scriptures cannot be
broken. All the way through the writings of Moses and the prophets
and the Psalms, it says Christ must suffer. Christ must be identified
with mankind. Christ must be identified with
Adam's fallen race. Christ must be identified with
sinners in order to redeem them. Now then, he took them to the
Old Testament sacrifices. When Adam and Eve sinned in the
Garden of Eden, what's the first thing that the Father did? The
Father slew a lamb, an animal. Blood had never been shed on
this earth. Life had never been quenched. Death had never been experienced. And the first blood shed and
the first life quenched and the first death experienced was because
man fell. And in order to cover man's sin. Adam and Eve stood there naked. And they knew they were naked
and they were ashamed now that they were sinners. Now that the
fellowship and communion with God had been broken. and they
must be covered. Their shame must be covered.
Their sin must be covered. How is sin to be covered? How
is shame to be covered? The fig leaf aprons that they
had made wouldn't last. The fig leaf aprons that they
had made were too fragile. It would not effectually and
effectively cover their nakedness and their sin. So God took an
animal and shed that animal's blood, and took the skin off
that animal and put it on man. And that picture, the very first
death, showed how that Christ, the Lamb of God, would come down
here and shed his blood, and that his righteousness would
cover our sins. that he would cover our nakedness,
that he would cover our shame, that the substitute had to die
in order for man to be covered. And that picture is all the way
through the Old Testament. Abel brought a lamb and shed
its blood. And God accepted that sacrifice. The priest on the Day of Atonement,
every year the great high priest would take a lamb and kill that
lamb and catch the blood in a basin and go into the holy of holies,
under the veil, into the presence of God and put that blood on
the mercy seat. to cover the tables of law which
man had broken. The law was in that ark, and
the gold mercy seat covered it, and that blood was spilled out
upon that mercy seat and over that ark, and then he would say,
O heavenly Father, Let thy blood be propitiation for us on the
mercy seat of glory." That slain lamb was Christ, and that blood
was His blood, and that covering of the ark and of the tables
of stone and the tables of law which man had broken was a picture
of Christ dying on the cross, shedding His blood, that our
sins might be put away. The Passover. when Israel was
down in Egypt, and God would deliver them. He said, take a
lamb and slay it, and put the blood on the doorpost and on
the lintel, and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Christ took them through
the Scriptures. Turn back to Luke, our text,
verse 24, and listen to this. In Luke 24, he says down here,
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things? Ought not Christ
to have died? And beginning at Moses and the
prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things
concerning himself." Brethren, the Word of God is not just an
historical account of what happened to Israel in the days of old.
It's an account of how God redeemed sinners by the blood of His Son.
He said, you search the Scriptures. You think in them you have life.
There they which testify of me. Christ is on every page. Christ
is in every chapter. Christ is in every book. Christ
is in every sacrifice. These are pictures of Christ.
When Abraham took his son Isaac on top of Mount Moriah to do
unto him as God had instructed, and he had that boy tied to the
altar, and lifted the knife above his son, God said, Take your
son, whom you love, to the top of Mount Moriah, and offer him
there as a sacrifice to Me." Abraham lifted that knife, and
God said, Abraham, do the lad no harm. You have not withheld
your only son from me. Abraham turned and looked, and
Abraham turned, and there caught in the thicket was a ram. And God said, Take the ram and
put him on the altar in the place of your son. And when Abraham
took the cord from off of Isaac, and lifted him off the altar
and took that ram and put him in his son's place and plunged
the knife into that ram's heart and he died as his blood spurted
forth. It was a picture of how that
God Almighty took you and I off the altar of sin and off the
altar of the law. unbound us, broke the fetters
that chained us, and took His Son, Jesus Christ, and bound
Him in our stead and in our place. And the knife of God's justice
and God's wrath was plunged into the heart of Jesus Christ, and
there He died, there He suffered, there He agonized in our stead. That's what the scripture teaches.
Christ died in our stead. Christ died in our place. The
sinless became sinful that the sinful might become sinless.
He died in our place that we might not die. Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things? God's attributes require that
Christ suffer. God's righteousness demands to
be satisfied. God's love and mercy demands
to be fulfilled. God's faithfulness demands to
be honored and God's holiness. Turn with me to Joshua 24. I
want you to look at this scripture and underline it. You say Christ
ought not to have suffered these things? Christ ought not to have
died? Turn to Joshua 24, verse 19. And Joshua said to the people,
You can't serve the Lord. He's a holy God. You know, people
around here talk about serving the Lord. I served the Lord. I gave my life in service to
the Lord. You can't serve the Lord. He's
a holy God. He's a holy, he's a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions
nor your sins. Only one way he will, and only
one way he can, and that is for somebody to take your place.
Somebody to serve Him for you. Somebody to obey Him for you. Somebody to negotiate with Him
for you. Somebody to mediate for you. Somebody to be your advocate.
Somebody to take your guilt and shame and sin and be slain in
your place. And through that somebody, you
can serve God. And through that effectual sacrifice,
you can be accepted by God, and that's somebody's Christ. The
everlasting covenant of grace requires that Christ suffer.
The everlasting covenant of grace says that he's the Lamb slain
before the foundation of the world. The Lamb slain. The covenant of mercy says he's
the surety, the guarantor of the everlasting covenant. I went
down a few weeks ago and helped somebody borrow some money at
the bank where I do business, and I signed the note as the
guarantor. Now that means just one thing,
that if that somebody doesn't pay that note, I must. I'm the guarantor. And Jesus
Christ signed my note back in the Council Halls of Eternity.
He became my guarantor, my surety. And brother, I welched on the
note. I didn't fulfill it. I didn't
keep God's law. I didn't walk in honesty and
integrity before God. I reneged, and Christ came and
paid it. He's the surety. He paid the
debt. The wages of sin is debt. Christ
paid it. The soul that's in it, it must
die. Christ died. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death, and Christ suffered death. He was the guarantor,
the surety. He paid my note. And His blood
is the blood of the everlasting covenant. Now, He had to suffer
these things because all who were given to Him by the Father
depended on Him dying. And all who trusted and believed
in Him before Calvary depending on him to die. And all who now
believe on him and all who will believe on him must have his
satisfaction. And all who overcame, the scripture
says, they overcame by the blood of the Lamb. Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things? Was it not necessary for Christ
to die? The Bible says without the shedding
of blood there is no forgiveness. The Bible says, As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. The Bible says we're not redeemed
with silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ.
The Bible says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the
church and gave himself for it. The Bible says this is my blood
which was shed for the remission of sin. And brethren, finally,
turn to the book of Revelation chapter 5. Ought not Christ to
have suffered these things? Ought not Christ to have gone
to Calvary and died? Ought not Christ to have shed
His blood? If He had not died, the Scripture
would not have been fulfilled. The covenant of grace would not
have been complete. The debt of sin would not have
been paid. The souls who trusted him would
not be saved. There would be no forgiveness
of sin, and my friends, there would not be a song in glory. Can you imagine heaven without
a song? Can you imagine heaven without praise? Can you imagine
heaven without people? In Revelation chapter 5 verse
9, and they sung a new song. saying, Thou art worthy. to take
the book and to open the seals thereof for thou wert slain and
thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation and thou hast made us under our
guard kings and priests and we shall reign the whole foundation
of it though is his blood He's got a right to open the book
of life. He's got a right to break the
seals. He's got a right to open the
books because He hath redeemed us. He was slain by His blood
out of every kindred, tribe, nation, tongue unto heaven. He's got a people because He
redeemed them, because He died for them. And when he taught
these men these things, he opened their eyes that they might understand. And they said in verse 32, Did
not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the
way and while he opened to us the Word of God. That's what
I've tried to do in this hour. I've tried to show you from the
Word of God how and why Christ must suffer and Christ must die. He died not as a martyr. He died
as a substitute. He died not as an example. He
died as a sacrifice. He died not as a failure, but
as a conqueror. Jesus Christ died not as a victim
of the Roman Empire. He died as a victim of sin. A willing victim, but a sin offering. He was the victim. He was the
lamb. He was the innocent who died for the guilty. And because
he died, we go free. Our Father, open our eyes. to see Christ in the Scriptures,
the fulfillment of every prophecy, of every promise, of every type,
of every sacrifice, of every offering. Christ the fulfillment
of the eternal covenant, Christ our refuge and our strength and
our hope, and by His stripes we are healed. We trust Him,
we believe on Him, we rest in Him, and that blood maketh atonement
for our soul. And because His blood was shed,
we are cleansed from all sin. Atonement hath been made, and
we are reconciled unto Thee. And we have the glorious privilege
of calling Thee our Father. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.