Kathy Robinson, Fred had his test, PET scan, PET scan this
week, but he don't have the results, won't have that until he goes
to the oncologist on Tuesday, so remember him in your prayers
and ask the Lord's help for that situation. We'll observe the
Lord's table this morning after the worship service, then we'll
have dinner together, no afternoon service. Let's begin our worship
service with hymn number 15. Brethren, we have met to worship. Brethren, we have meant to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word? ♪ All is vain unless the spirit
of the holy one comes down ♪ ♪ Brethren, pray and holy manna will be showered
all around ♪ ♪ Brethren, see for sin's sake on the brink of war. Death is coming. Hell is moving. Can you bear to let them go? See our fathers and our mothers. Red and gray and holy manna will
be showered all around. Sisters, will you join and help
us, Moses? Sister, ain't it him? ♪ To mourners who are struggling
hard with sin ♪ ♪ Tell them all about the Savior ♪ ♪ Tell them
that He will be found ♪ ♪ Sisters pray and holy manna will be showered
♪ all around. Let us love our God supremely. Let us love each other too. Let us love and pray for sinners
till our God makes all things new. ♪ And he'll call us home
to him ♪ At his table we'll sit down ♪ Christ will gird himself
and serve us ♪ With sweet manna all around After scripture reading
and prayer we'll sing him number 400 in 42. Praise Him, praise
Him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer. If you have your Bible, serve
me Leviticus chapter 17. The title of my message this morning
is His Precious Blood. Leviticus 17, I'm going to read
the entire chapter and take my text from verse 11. The Lord
spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Abram, that is the high
priest, and unto his sons, and all the children of Israel, and
say unto them, This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded,
saying, What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that
killeth an ox, or a lamb, or a goat in the camp, or killeth
it out of the camp, and bringeth it not to the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation, to offer an offering unto the Lord before
the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed to that man.
He hath shed blood. and that man shall be cut off
from among the people. To the end that the children
of Israel may bring their sacrifice, which they offer in the open
field, even that they may bring them unto the Lord, unto the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest,
and offer them for a peace offering unto the Lord. And the priest
shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord at the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and burn the fat
for a sweet-smelling savor unto God. They shall no more offer
their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring.
This shall be a statute forever unto them throughout all their
generations. Thou shalt say unto them, Whatsoever man there be
of the house of Israel, of the strangers which sojourn among
you, that offer the burnt offering of sacrifice, and bringeth it
not to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer
it unto the Lord, even that man shall be cut off from among the
living, or from among the people. And whatsoever man there be of
the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among
you, that eateth any manner of blood, I will even set my face
against that soul that eateth blood, and cut him off from among
his people. For the life of the flesh is
in the blood, and I have given unto you on the altar to make
an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh
an atonement for the soul. Therefore said I unto the children
of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, Neither shall any
stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever
man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers
that sojourn among you, which hunneth and catcheth any beast
or fowl that may be, he shall even pour out the blood thereof,
and cover it with dust, for it is the life of the flesh. Blood
of it is for the life thereof. Therefore I have said unto the
children of Israel, ye shall eat the blood of no manner of
flesh. for the life of all flesh is the blood. Therefore, whosoever
eateth it shall be cut off. And every soul that eateth that
which died of itself or that which was torn with the beast,
whether it be of one of your own country or a stranger, he
shall both wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be
unclean until the evening. Then shall he be clean. But if
you wash them not nor bathe the flesh, then he shall bear his
iniquity. Let us pray. Our Father, We come
in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, of whom this passage
speaks, and the glory of truly worshipping you in the manner
in which you've ordained. We are thankful that we can even
speak of the blood of Jesus Christ, knowing that it speaks of his
death, that he offered to you the perfect sacrifice on that
glorious day of eternal atonement, when he entered once into the
holy place, not made with hands, and offered his own blood and
obtained eternal redemption for his people, purging their conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. We thank you, Father,
for that blood. Help us, Lord, to appreciate
the fact that our whole life is based on the fact and the
truth that his shed blood and his death satisfies your law
for us so that there is no one in this world or in the next
world or in heaven or in hell that can condemn us or lay any
accusation against us. What a thing, knowing what we
are, knowing that we are still sinful people, to realize that
because of that sacrifice you remember our sins no more. We
can't imagine what that is. We can't seem to forget anything,
but help us, Lord, to appreciate that fact. We pray for those
of our company who are sick, those who are going through trial,
pray for Kathy Robinson, as this cancer's been found in her body
somewhere. Pray for Brother Fred as he has this lymphoma that
you would be pleased to be with the doctors. We pray for a good
result on this PET scan. Pray you'd be with him and Arlene
and the family. Pray for ourselves, Father, this day. That you might
be pleased to open up your word to us, help us, cause us to look
to you, to trust Christ alone, and know that his blood was the
atonement for our souls, the appreciation for our souls, and
nothing else. We praise you in Christ's name.
Amen. Hymn number 442. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus
our blessed Redeemer. Sing, O earth, His wonderful
love proclaim. Hail Him, hail Him, highest archangels
in glory. Strength and honor give to His
holy name. Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard
his children. In his arms he carries them all
day long. Praise him, praise him, tell
of his excellent greatness. Praise him, praise him, ever
in joyful song. ♪ Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus
our blessed Redeemer ♪ For our sins He suffered and bled and
died ♪ He our rock, our hope of eternal salvation ♪ Hail Him,
hail Him, Jesus the crucified His praises. Jesus, who bore our sorrows,
love unbounded, wonderful, deep, and strong. Praise Him, praise
Him, tell of His excellent greatness. Praise Him, praise Him, ever
in joyful song. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus
our blessed Redeemer. Heavenly portals loud with hosannas
ring. Jesus, Savior, reigneth forever
and ever. Crown Him, crown Him, prophet
and priest and king. ♪ Christ is coming over the world
victorious ♪ ♪ Power and glory unto the Lord belong ♪ ♪ Praise
Him, praise Him, tell of His excellent greatness ♪ ♪ Praise
Him, praise Him, ever in joyful hymns sing ♪ Stephen, stand and receive the
altar this morning, please. Let us pray. Father, again, we
approach in the name of Christ. Because of the unspeakable gift
that you have given to your children, you give them everything. Have
nothing that they have not received. Let them not boast that they
have not received it. We render unto thee this portion of what
you've given us. Pray we do so with open, free
hearts, joyously and hilariously, with thanksgiving and praise
for all that you've done for us. It's in Christ's name we
ask these things. Amen. Leviticus chapter 17 and verse
11, it says, For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and
I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for
the soul. When you see the word ìofferingî
in the Scripture, when an offering is made, it always has to do,
whether it is pagan or whether it is true, it always has to
do with the worship of the God you are worshiping. always. Offerings
aren't made for any other thing than to worship God. In the economy
of Israel, when the law was given at Sinai, several offerings were
set forth. You had the burnt offering, which
represented the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
had the sin offering, which represented the confession of the sin of
God's people, entrusting the offering of Jesus Christ. You
had the peace offering, which spoke of thanksgiving for the
peace that has been made in reconciling us to God by the blood of Jesus
Christ. He had the wave offering, which the priest had to do with
his thanksgiving, and all these offerings, different offerings
that were made, all had to do with worshiping God. So when
he's talking about the offerings in this passage of scripture,
he's talking about worship. In fact, he mentions it, don't
worship them devils no more. But this offering is a PEACE
OFFERING, so it is SPECIFIC. He said, You are offering this
as a PEACE OFFERING unto the Lord. What is a PEACE OFFERING?
As I said, a PEACE OFFERING is THANKSGIVING for something that
God has done and accomplished for your soul. That is what the
PEACE OFFERING is. It does not have to do with putting
away sin. That is the SIN OFFERING and
the BURN OFFERING. Those have to do with sin being
put away. This has to do with thanking God for sin being put
away. And our Lord here says that too,
that peace offering must rest in a singular thing as all other
offerings do, and that it must be an offering of death. It must be an offering of blood. Why? Because that is how God
is worshipped. How did He take care of Adam and Eve in their
sin against Him? He shed blood, killed beasts,
and made clothing for them. How was Cain and Abel told to
worship God? To bring a blood sacrifice to
that altar at the east of Eden with the two cherubim facing
one another and the shekinah glory between them which kept
the way of the tree of life. How were they to do it? Blood.
Blood. Why? Because the issue between
us and God is sin. That's the issue. And because that's the issue,
the payment is death. And so he makes a high premium
on the blood of beasts in the Old Testament, and the blood
of Christ in the New, and sets forth these things to set forth,
this is the way that I'm to be worshipped. No other way. Now some, if you're reading along
with me in this passage of Scripture, because of their own sentimentality
or their inordinate affection, see this passage of scripture
as a treatise on the sanctity of animal life. I've heard animal
rights people talk about this passage of scripture. Others,
in order to support the doctrine of a particular cult, use this
passage to prevent their adherents from receiving blood transfusions.
There's a really fast doctor up in Asheville. I think his
name is Dr. Groh. Isn't he the one that operated
on you, Groh? I think his name is Dr. Grove. And the people
who say this verse has to do with blood transfusion always
request him. Because he's able to do open
heart surgery without giving them blood. He's that fast. That's
why they use him. Some say this is what that's
talking about. You can't have a blood transfusion because the
Bible says don't eat blood. Others still use this to support
the dietary principles. principles of vegetarianism or
veganism. They use this passage of scripture
to support that. Deb found an interesting little
blurb last night on vegetarianism and veganism. It said, how come
vegetarians and vegans always want to make their stuff taste
like meat? You have vegetarian hot dogs
and vegetarian hamburgers, stuff like that. There's a little bit
of confusion there. This is a chapter that falls
under the same head as all of the chapters of Holy Writ. It's
about the Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious, successful, saving
sacrifice where He reconciled His people to God by His blood.
And this chapter addresses two fundamental things. First, any
worship other than worship of God by the blood of Christ, by
the death of Christ, solely centered in that Christ and Him crucified,
is idolatry. Any other worship is idolatry,
no matter how fine it looks. Secondly, since Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life, there is no other means of approaching
God. All who attempt to come in some
other way, the Lord describes them in John 10 as thieves and
robbers who would rob God of His glory, and God will not tolerate
them. He said in John 5, if you don't
honor My Son, I'm not going to honor you. It's that simple. Verses 1 through 10 in this chapter,
he talks about this. This law regards the worship
of God after the teaching regarding the Day of Atonement. This is
when this happened. Chapter 16 is the Day of Atonement, which
is a wonderful, in fact, that's what I was thinking about preaching
on and kept reading. Julie will tell you, I sent her
one title of a message on the Day of Atonement and then a little
bit later I said, nix that, I'm going to preach on something
else. because I kept reading and I got on to this chapter.
But this follows the Day of Atonement, which was a particularly important
day, THE day, in Jewish religion, that settled everything. The
Day of Atonement was when the high priest, alone, by himself,
as the representative of God's people, slew a beast, offered
the sacrifice for himself and the utensils of the tabernacle,
and for the people. And he took a censer with coals
off the altar and put incense on it, beaten incense, and put
it under the curtain. He didn't have a door to the temple, it
was a four-fold heavy curtain, badger skin and so forth, a very
heavy curtain. He lifted it up and put that
censer underneath that curtain and let that place fill with
smoke. That was to put a haze over the Shekinah glory of God
because no man can see God and live. They put a rope around
his ankle. If he did something wrong in
there, God's going to kill him. They put a rope around his ankle
so when he went under there to make that offering with that
basin of blood, they sprinkled everything in that place, the
walls, the altar, the mercy seat, all of that was sprinkled with
blood. If he did something wrong and he didn't come out, then
they'd put on that rope and drag him out and monolith that curtain.
That day was the only day where God met with his people and he
didn't meet with them personally he met with them in the representative
of the great high priest that picture the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ for his elect God didn't meet with that man to
forgive the sins of his people for one year or to forgive anybody
else's but his people's sins for one year there was a whole
world out there a whole world of people You had tribes and
nations and there were people here in this land. There were
people in Africa. There were people in other parts
of Asia. There were people in Europe.
There were people in China. There were people all over the
world. And yet God sent one man, God Almighty sent one man, one
time a year, one day a year, to represent His people in a
15 by 15 foot cubicle. The rest of the world was going
to hell in a handbasket! But these people were who God
was dealing with. He called them His elect, and
they were typical of His election of grace, the kind of people
He had chosen, one man once a year. That was an important day. How
important was it? It was so important that the
next chapter dealt with the BLOOD of Jesus Christ. telling us that
this is the way that God worshiped. We saw that he, so what the man
was doing there in the Day of Atonement, inside that cubicle,
he was a worshiping God. Because he was offering blood
at the tabernacle. After teaching regarding the
Day of Atonement, the Lord commanded this to the children of Israel.
He said, this is my commandment, you do this. This law required
every Israelite to do this thing, along with every stranger who
sojourned among them. If you killed a beast, whether
it be in the wilderness, or whether it be outside the door of the
tabernacle, or in the town, or within your tribe, whenever you
killed a beast, before you did anything else, you brought that
blood to the doorpost of the tabernacle. Because that blood,
no matter when it was shed, was for God. Was for God. and disobedience resulting in
being cut off from among the people. This law was given in
the context of Leviticus 16, 29 through 34, this blood on
the altar. Everything required here is a
picture and a type of Christ and relative to the believer's
experience of the grace of God. On that great momentous day,
the high priest made atonement for the sanctuary, the tabernacle,
the congregation, the altar. And this typifies what? What
does it tell us? If it was only for this people,
nobody else, what does it tell us? This is particular redemption. or what some call limited atonement. None but the elect receive the
benefit of this. None but the elect. By the substitutionary
propitious blood of Jesus Christ through Israel, the Israel of
God, the elect from every nation, tongue, tribe, and people are
cleansed from every stain. There is no sin in them, it says
in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 5. Those for whom the blood was
affixedly applied are required to afflict their souls. That
was what it says over on the Day of Atonement. To afflict
their souls. What does that mean? This picture
is the singularity of Christ. Statue forever. What does it
mean to afflict your soul? Well, what is really hard in
this life? Oh, you say, well, you could
take one of those whips like some people do and whip themselves
and self-flagellation, I think it's called. like some people
down in the Philippines hang themselves on a cross. You could,
like Martin Luther talked about, wear a hairy, itchy robe and
sleep on concrete so your life will be miserable. This is self-imposed
suffering. How does a person really affect
his soul? When God brings him to the place
where he, in his mind and in his heart, attributes all of
his salvation to Christ, and looks away from the flesh all
together. The flesh is the soul is afflicted
because we want something to do with our salvation. We want
something to do with it. We might not admit that but if
we do some good work we sure want it to be found out. We're
that way. The affliction of the soul is
by faith to reckon the old man to be dead. Because He sure feels alive.
And He keeps on bothering me every day. And to afflict the
soul is to do that. All this pictures the singularity
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Affliction of the soul is a complete
disowning and disallowing of self and the accomplishment of
salvation. That's what self-denial is. It's not keeping yourself
from having an ice cream. Self-denial is denying you. I
had nothing to do with it. Nothing whatsoever. On that Day
of Atonement, Israel saw redemption accomplished and sin put away,
and the work finished by God's sacrifice on the Day of Atonement,
which was the cross. Since there was nothing left
to be done, what was left was a Sabbath rest. And what does
that mean? Is that your rest because you've
worked really hard? Every Sabbath rest has to do
with this. God created the world in six days, and on the seventh
day He rested because He had finished the work and there was
nothing left to do. Nothing left to do in the matter
of creation. Same way in the new creation.
Once the new creation is finished and it was finished on Calvary's
tree, no more work, but it's God's Sabbath. It's His rest
that we're honoring. It signifies that blessed rest
where when we finally rest, His rest, we cease from our works
and rest in Him who's done all of it for us. In this context
that God gives the commandment regarding blood, the subject
is worship. Our Lord speaks of a blood sacrifice, killing oxen
and goats and lambs and animals, sacrificing the worship of one
glorious person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And verse 4 of our text
prohibits any other means of worship which prohibits any and
all idolatry. verse four says this, and bring
it into the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and offer
an offering to the Lord before the Lord. Blood shall be imputed
to the man who has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off
from among the people. This is the only way. The only way. This doesn't have anything to
do with hunting either. Some people say it has to do
with hunting. Men by nature think they can worship God in any way
they see fit. They believe that. but it's not so. People say,
I can worship God out in nature. Yeah, you can if you're out in
nature believing wholly in the merits of Jesus Christ. But you
ain't gonna worship Him by worshiping nature. Nature's gonna pass away. Nature's gonna pass away. Why
would God object to a man offering a sacrifice to Him in an open
field and not bringing it to the tabernacle? Why? because
he didn't bring it to the tabernacle. There were wilderness sacrifices
made out in the wilderness, but they were brought to an altar
that God had erected or had the priest erect. The red heifer
was a wilderness offering, which spoke of the cleansing of the
flesh after touching a dead thing. And it's put off to picture purging
our conscience from dead works to serve the living God in Hebrews
chapter 9. Why would God object to anybody
offering? They say, we're doing this for
God. No, you're not. You've got to bring it to the
door of the tabernacle. You've got to bring it to where
God is. God meets his people and communes
with them on the mercy seat. That's what he said in Exodus
25, on the mercy seat. And that word mercy seat is translated
four times in the New Testament. The word it's translated to is
propitiation. Where will God meet with His
people and commune with His people? Where He has been propitiated
by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the only place He's going
to meet to you. Where He's been propitiated. To even suggest
or hint or intimate that God is worshipped elsewhere is rank
idolatry and adultery. Here He calls it devil worship
and religious whoredom. He says you've been whoring after
these other gods. You've been worshipping devils. God will
meet with the sinner at the throne of Christ. Who's on the throne
of Christ? The Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. To presume to do otherwise, to
make God a liar, because this is His designated means. This
is the commandment I've given to my people forever. This is
his designated means of approach to him and acceptance for him.
It is to openly and shamefully proclaim that there is a way
to God other than Christ if you don't come this way. That's what men are saying. There's
another way. That's what Billy Graham said to Robert Fuller
many years ago. Heard him do it. I've got a transcript
over in my office somewhere. Had the tape, but I don't think
I got the video, VCBHS, anymore. But he actually said, you know,
I believe if Muslims and Hindus and, you know, Shintoists walk
in the light that God's given them, he'll save them. No, he
won't. Not the God of the Bible. The
God of the Bible says, you've approached me with the blood
of Jesus Christ. God accepts men only in the sacrifice that
he's already accepted, and that is his beloved son. Christ's
blood alone is the sweet savor unto the Lord. That's the fat
offered unto the Lord. The blood and the fat belong
to the Lord. They're His. As a man, the God-man, our mediator,
the Lord Jesus Christ gave His life as a sacrifice to God. Not
to me. Not to you. He's not offered
to you. He's not offered to me. He's
not offered to anybody. He offered Himself to God. One
man said, for God can do anything for you. he has to do something
for himself. That means he has to have his
justice satisfied before he can pour out his mercy and grace
upon you. If he ain't satisfied, he can't do it because he wouldn't
be just to do so. To God the Father, it was the
sweet-smelling of success. That term, sweet-smelling savor,
is used throughout Scripture to represent the work of Jesus
Christ. That sweet-smelling savor to God, the preaching of the
gospel. complete redemption of those whom he has chosen for
the foundation of the world. God mandated that if the blood
of the sacrifice was offered anywhere but on this altar, the
blood was to be imputed or charged to the man who shed it, who was
shedding innocent blood. Blood is going to be required
of you. It was only the blood of an animal. It was only the
blood of an animal, but since it was shed by a sacrifice for
man at God's command, was a picture of the blood of Christ poured
out on Calvary the blood was sanctified for God set aside
for God in him alone he said the blood is what I keep for
the atonement of your soul the blood defy this formula and be
prepared to be punished as a murderer because God before God's eyes
idolatry is equal to murder that's what it says in Isaiah 63 and
all false worship All false worship is idolatry. I don't know how
good it sounds, how much Bible is preached and taught. If it's
not centered on and in the blood of Jesus Christ, it is false.
You say, well, that's a hard position. Not as hard as Christ
was. That's certainly not as hard as God is. God will not
be worshipped except upon this altar through His priest by the
merits of His sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ. God must be
worshipped in the manner in which He has prescribed or we find
ourselves to be idolaters. That's the language throughout
here. Is this way or no way? We worship God in the blood and
through the blood, death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Propitiation
is in His blood. Verse 11 is the hinge upon which
this entire chapter swings. To understand this verse is to
get the message. To get it. Consider these wondrous,
plain, self-explanatory words. Here's as simple as you can get.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood. That's pretty plain,
isn't it? Anybody misunderstand that? Can we get misconstrued? Is the
language too academic? The LIFE of the FLESH is in the
BLOOD. And this is repeated three times
in verses 11 and 14. This ain't the theory of relativity. You need not be an intellectual
giant or a doctor of theology to understand this. Here's how
it says in simpler terms, No blood, no life. No blood, no
life. Blood nourishes and sustains
the entire human life. When an animal was sacrificed
on God's order, a LIFE was sacrificed on God's order. A LIFE was sacrificed. When the Lord Jesus Christ poured
out His blood upon the cursed tree for us, He gave His LIFE
for us. He gave Himself for us. When
He gave His blood, He gave His life. When He shed His blood,
He died the death required for the payment of sin that justice
demanded. This is what justice said. The soul that sinnetheth
shall die. And Christ said, I die. I voluntarily give up my life,
I shed my blood to pay that sin debt. God holds the breath of
every creature in His hands. Life is His to give, to take,
withhold, dispense according to His good pleasure. He gives
it and takes it as it pleases Him. He said, I am the God of
all flesh and the life of the flesh is in the blood. Man was
not allowed to take for himself what God was to God alone. That's
why he said, don't eat this. Don't consume this. I've consumed
it. It's for me to consume, not for
you to consume. The blood of an animal slain
was either to be brought to God's altar, or if it was done in the
wilderness and couldn't get to the tabernacle, it was poured
out on the ground, which was symbolic of offering it to God.
We are poured out. The sacrifice teaches us of the
depths, of the depths of our ruin. What will fix us? What will fix our situation?
Well, if we just get some self-help books, get a few mottos from
the Bible, pray to Jesus, pray through, you know, make a decision,
walk an aisle, do something, that'll settle everything. Everything
will be all right. No. Somebody gotta die. there has to be a death here.
There has to be a death. Death alone will remedy our condition. Death alone, and not just any
death. Our death won't do the trick.
We're gonna die. I'm gonna die. We're all gonna
die. We were born into this world with a number of breaths and
a number of heartbeats, and we're gonna make that number, and then
it's over for us. We're going to go take the long
dirt nap. We're going to be in the ground until God comes again.
That's just how it is. I think about this more and more
now as the gray hairs on my head and my heart gets weaker and
things like that. I think about it more and more.
I think you do as you get older. You think about death more and
more. And I look at this congregation. You've been with me so long.
And I honestly hope you bury me before I have to bury you. Because I've buried so many of
them, it's heartening. It breaks my heart to have to
bury so many people, but I know it's so. We're dying. We're dying. But all my good
brothers and sisters who have died, and we've put in the ground
here in the mountains, their death has not paid for one sin,
and never could. One death pays for sin. paid
for sin the Lord Jesus Christ he put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself for the life of the flesh is in the blood that's
that's pretty plain he says this I've given it to you upon the
altar upon the altar I've given that life to you upon the altar
behold him who hangs in agonies and blood on the wooden lonely
wooden tower here God says to his chosen, I've given it to
you. What grace is this that God would condescend to speak
thusly? No, he does not say I offer it to you, because he doesn't.
He gives it and therefore those to whom it is given get it. When
he gives it, you get it. And when he gives
it, what do you get? You get justification for we
are justified by the blood of Jesus Christ. You get God being
satisfied and God being just to forgive you of sins because
of the propitiatory work of Jesus Christ according to Romans chapter
3. You get reconciliation. We are reconciled to God by the
blood of the cross. You get manifold blessings of
grace all through the blood of Jesus Christ. You get a clear
conscience. He has purged our conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. How? Because He entered
in once to the holy place, not made with hands, and offered
His own blood and obtained eternal redemption for us. You get cleansing,
cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ according to 1 John chapter
1 and verse 7. You get a blessed present and
a real future because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You get victory over sin and
death and hell because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Eternal
worship of Christ without sin. I wonder what that will be like. Why? Worthy is the Lamb that
was slain and has redeemed us by His blood out of every kindred,
nation, tongue, and people and has made us kings and priests
unto our God. all because of the shed blood
of Jesus Christ that He offered to and it was accepted by God
the Father and you received the benefits from it. What a thing this transaction
made between God and His Son. In Exodus chapter 12 and verse
13 when God said, Slay that lamb, put the blood on the doorpost
and lentils and go inside your house and wait The Lord said, the blood shall
be for you a token. It's a token of acceptance, of
love, assurance, of peace. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. Note that He does not say, when I see your life, I'll pass over you. He does not
say, when I see your works, I'll pass over you. He's not even
saying, when I see your faith, I'll pass over you. He says,
when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. For the life of the
flesh is in the blood. Now I've given it to you upon
the altar to make an atonement, a propitiation, a satisfaction
for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh
atonement for the soul. The blood of Christ is the foundation
for everything that is of value in this universe. Everything. The foundation and the basis.
The blood of Jesus Christ. How will you worship God? The
blood of Jesus Christ. We're going to do an ordinance
now which is also about worshiping God. What are we talking about? What did Christ say this ordinance
was about? Is it about your life, my life? Is it about our accepting Jesus? This table is about one thing. You take this bread, this cup,
and when you take this bread and this cup, you do what? Share
it forth and forth. Why would God have us do this?
Because that's where it's at. When we go into the baptismal
waters, that's the same thing. You put our lives into the hands
of another and put us into debt. We can't survive. Why don't we
have meals? So if we're not brought out of
that, why don't we die? What's it about? It's about death.
The cross. We get our word crux from it.
We say it's something else. The crux of the thing is important. That comes from the fact that
everything arises from what happened 2,000 years ago in Calvary's
church. Everything rests right there. All religions are judged
from those few hours on Calvary. All thoughts All ideas are judged. And we sit here today, without
hope and without hope in ourselves, trusting in the dead, the blood
dead of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we take this statement to
the Institute called the Lord's Statement. Only sinners saved
by grace are welcome here. Only the family of God is welcome
here. He said, we can take this table.
It's not for everybody. In fact, Paul, when he wrote
about it in Corinthians, said, you should take this table if
you're not a believer, because many sleep. Many have died doing
it. I've never seen anybody. I've
never seen that. At least not to my knowledge. It may have
happened to mine, I don't know. But it's for believers who are
trusting wholly to the death of Jesus Christ for their salvation. Nothing else. Jim and Stanley, they had me
this morning, so they paid for me. I said all night, I wanted to
train. What night was that? That was
the night when all the soldiers and the chief priest came out
to arrest me. He was going to arrest me. And he said, who are
you looking for? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
And he said, I am. And he knocked them down. Flattened
them out. And he said, who are you seeking?
He said, he's here, I'm here. But if you take me, you can't
have me. And that's what they started to say. Because Christ
was taken, because Christ was taken, he
laid himself to die. None of his elect were taken. They're all saved. Well, he said, that's the scripture
said, that's all he's given me. So we take this table with thanksgiving,
saying, I wholly understand and appreciate that the life of Jesus
Christ is his blood, the blood of his flesh, that I may understand
his truth. And in doing so, I'm saying,
I'm trusting in the death, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. That night he took the stable
and he blessed it. If we can't bless it, we can
ask him to bless it for us. Father, help us to rejoice in
the fact that we can take this stable in full recognition and
a memorial of the fact that Jesus Christ, when he went to the cross
2,000 years ago, actually accomplished our redemption. He paid the sin
debt and the oath so that we don't owe you anything judicially,
legally. Our hearts owe you. The debt
of gratitude that will go on forever in thanksgiving and praise,
that it all legally gets as far as the answering of sin and the
payment of its penalty, is taken care of when Jesus Christ gave
His blood as the atonement for our sins. Okay. Okay. Mmmmm. On the night I was betrayed, and Judas gave me a
kiss of betrayal. Before that, he had the Passover feast.
He sent Judas out to do his business. In fact, he had the Passover
feast. Now get the bread and break it.
Give it to your disciples. And say, take me, this is my
body broken into. Give me this, and I'll give you that.
On the same night, you get the cup. And he said, this cup is the
new testament in my life. As often as you eat
this grape and drink this cup, you show forth my bad until I
come of age. Do this in the name of Jesus. And they stood and sang a hymn.
They're standing there. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that
blood who suffer guilty stains. ♪ Lose all their guilty stains
♪ ♪ Lose all their guilty stains ♪ ♪ And spin that sponge beneath
that flood ♪ ♪ Lose all their guilty stains ♪ Well, before
we go eat, enjoy ourselves a run or two. Let each other know your
affection toward one another and be thankful that God has
given you in this world in chaos a family to love and to be loved
by. What a thing. What a privilege.