In Isaiah chapter 53, I just
want to read one verse, actually one part of a verse of Scripture, and that's verse 8. I'm going
to preach this morning on redemption as a matter of fact, redemption
as a matter of fact. In Isaiah chapter 53 and verse
8, the last phrase says this, For the transgression of my people
was he stricken. Speaking of the coming of the
Messiah, the transgression of my people was he stricken. In
and over in Hebrews chapter 9, you don't have to turn there,
but you can if you want to. In verse 12 it says this, neither
by the blood of bulls and goats and calves, but by his own blood
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Why don't
we have a word of prayer? Our Father in Heaven, we praise
You and thank You for mercy and grace through Jesus Christ. We
ask that Your name might be exalted and lifted up, that our Lord
may be lifted up, we may find ourselves where we belong in
the dirt, and lift our hearts up to see Him who is altogether
lovely, the chiefest among ten worthy of all praise and honor.
Put praise and thanksgiving in our hearts as we consider the
glorious thing that our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us.
Help us to see and to appreciate what we have in Him, we pray
in Christ's name. Amen. It says in Isaiah 53 that
Jesus Christ was stricken for God's people. stricken for his
people. For my people was he stricken.
In Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 12 it says, he accomplished redemption,
he obtained it. He obtained redemption for his
people. Now when people read verses like
this, they usually come up with two opinions. One of them is
right, one of them is wrong, but they usually come up with
two opinions. One is true and the other is just a lie. It's
not a matter of opinion, it's a lie. I was looking at a sign
down in the down there, it said, Jesus died for all men. Several
years ago in 1954 in Ashland, Kentucky, the Southern
Baptists got together and had a Bible conference, set up a
big tent in Central Park in Ashland, Kentucky, and all the Southern
Baptist churches got together and met. for this. Their motto that year
was a million more in 54 and everyone a tither. That was their
motto that year. And they made the mistake of
inviting a preacher named Rolf Barnard. Rolf was a tall, gangly
Texan, had long ear lobes and they shook when he talked. They
shook. He wore his glasses down over his nose like this and he
had a real high tenor voice that would carry for miles. And the
first words out of his mouth as he stood up that day at a
Southern Baptist convention He said, there's just two lies
I want to talk about today. The first lie is this, that God
loves everybody. And the second one is that Christ
died for everybody. He said, that's the two lies.
And that's two lies. These verses declare the truth
about Christ's death. But men yet look at these verses,
they look at the death of Christ and they say, no, that wasn't,
he died for all men. But he didn't. He died for His
people. For my people was He stricken.
And what happened on Calvary is clearly declared to be a success.
As it says, He obtained. He got it. Whatever He went for,
He got. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. Now those who hold and preach
that He died for all men and paid the sin debt of all men
and intended to save all men believe that Christ's death was
at best a lame effort at salvation. those who hold that Christ's
death was for His elect, for His people, those whom He chose
before the foundation of the world, those for whom He assumed
the office of surety, they believe the truth. It's that simple.
There's the truth and there's the lie. To believe that Christ's
death was merely an effort to save all humanity is to assume,
is to assume that He's a failure, because all humanity is not going
to be saved. when He died, there were already countless people
in perdition, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched. The Lord Jesus Christ died for every person in the
world. If some of those people perish eternally, at least in
those cases, Christ is a faith. Conversely, those who believe
Christ's death was effectual, it means it worked, and that
His intent was never to save all men, but to redeem His chosen
people, those people believe the truth. It's that simple. Most people want to make it some
kind of theological argument, but it's not. It's either the
truth, or it is the lie. How do we know what God intended
to do? What He did. That's not hard to understand,
is it? Read your newspaper, find out what God intended to do.
What happened in this world? That's what God intended to do. With the death of Christ, He
intended to save His people, and He did save His people. Our
Lord intended to redeem His elect by His death, and all God's elect
have been, not shall be, they have been redeemed. That took
place 2,000 years ago. Our Lord said it is finished.
He used the word teleo, which means perfect. That's what He
said. They translated it into three words. It is finished. But the actual word is perfect.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He hung in agonies of blood, cried
out with a loud voice, Same word is used in that chapter
in John 19 when he says, when he knew all things were accomplished. Same word, perfect. Same word
is used in Hebrews chapter 10 when he says, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Same word. What does it mean
it is finished? It means it's done. It means
it's done. Terry's working on a Camaro in
his garage. He said he's going to finish
it one day. He may or may not. He got a pretty bad cold, he
might pass away and never finish that Camaro, we don't know. But if he does finish that Camaro,
he knows what he's doing, he's a body man. He finishes that
Camaro and gets all the door handles on it, gets it shiny
and pretty. Guy comes to pick it up, he's finished the job. If I walk up and say, wait a
minute, that's not finished, unless I believe it's finished.
You say, well, you're stupid. You don't have anything to do
with it. But that's what people say about the death of Christ.
He said it's finished. But they say, wait a minute,
it's not really finished unless I believe it or exercise my will to accept
it. That's baloney. It's finished.
Whatever Christ intended to do in His work on Calvary Street,
He accomplished. Our Lord said, all that the Father
giveth to me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven,
not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And
this is my Father's will which sent me, that of all he's given
me, I should lose nothing. but raise it up again in the
last day. That's what the Bible teaches.
That's always how salvation is set forth in Scripture. No other
way than an absolute and complete success. The Lord Jesus Christ
died for His people, and when He died for His people, He redeemed
all His people. He saved all His people. He paid
all their sin debt. What He intended to do, He did,
or He's not God. He is a failure if He intended
to do something and didn't do it. just like you and me, if
we intend to do something and we don't accomplish it, we fail.
Isn't that right? How much more is that true of
God, of whom it is said, He cannot fail. The language of Scripture,
when it talks about the salvation of God's people, always talks
in positive, fully accomplished terms. Scripture says, Christ
has redeemed us, not shall or made redemption possible. Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us, for cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Scripture
says, now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to
put away our sin, to put away our sin. Christ has purchased
for himself a people. When Paul left Ephesus to go
to Jerusalem, he told the elders at Ephesus, he says, you fellows
take care of God's flock, your overseers of God's flock, which
God purchased with his own blood. We understand the concept of
purchasing something, don't we? You purchase something, whose
is it? It's yours. You bought it, you
paid for it, it's yours. When Christ bought His people,
He bought them with the price that God required for their salvation,
and they are His. They're not, they're not, nobody
can say, well, part of it's mine. It all belongs to Him. He has
accomplished salvation. The Bible never speaks of Christ's
death as anything. anything but an unqualified,
absolute accomplishment. In this very chapter in Isaiah
53, when it talks about our Lord being made sin for His people,
in verse 10 it says, Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. And that,
when that word pleased does not mean that God got some kind of
vindictive, wicked joy out of punishing His, His Son, it means
that it satisfied God. that God was pleased with what
Christ did. We, when it pleased him, it pleased
the Lord to bruise him, he hath made his, put, he is put into
grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he
shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure
of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Then it says this,
he shall see of the travail, that little word of is very important,
because that means the product. Whatever that travail accomplished,
He shall see that. He shall see of the travail,
and the word travail, you women know what that is, us men don't.
That's childbirth, pains of childbirth. I don't know anything about that.
I remember when my daughter was born, there were so many babies
born that night that I couldn't go in the room with my wife.
There was 35 babies born, full moon or something. And they rolled
her out, she was in labor, and I'd never seen a woman in labor.
And it was kind of scary, because right there on the gurney, she
had this horrible pain, and she made a face. And I said, take
her back in the room. Take her back in the room. She went through
childbirth. She went through childbirth.
This is what this is talking about. He shall see of the travail of his
soul and shall be satisfied. What does that mean? His travail
has never known a miscarriage. His travail has never known a
stillbirth. Every one of His children are
born well, happy, and eternally alive. This is the guarantee. This was spoken thousands of
years before our Lord went to the cross of Calvary. Matthew
121, why shall you call His name Jesus? Why are you going to call
Him that? Why don't you give him a good old Bible name like
Zacharias or Malachi or one of the prophets, name him Isaiah,
maybe Elijah. Why don't you call him Jesus?
Why don't you call him Joshua? That's the Greek translation
of Jesus is Joshua. It means Savior delivered. Thou
shalt call his name Jesus because he shall save, shall save his
people from their sins. this very chapter here in Isaiah
53, it says in verse, verse 12, Therefore I will divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the small with the
strong. Because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and
he was numbered with the transgressors, he bare the sins of many, and
made intercession for the transgressors. Who did he make intercession
for? His people, the many. who are spoken of in this passage
of Scripture, His people. John chapter 10 said, I laid
down my life for the sheep. Ephesians 5, I gave my life for
the church, for the church. Scripture says, Our Lord Jesus
Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity
and purify unto Himself a purchased or a peculiar people, zealous
unto good works. The Bible teaches that Christ's
death was effectual to the salvation of those for whom it was intended. and everyone whom he had chosen
before the world began are redeemed. They're not going to be redeemed.
They have been redeemed. He hath made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. When did this all happen? There's a very eternal
aspect of this whole thing. Paul told Timothy, God has saved
us, called us with a holy calling. not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose in grace, which was given us
in Jesus Christ." When? Before the world began. It was
ours before He knew it. What I do and what me and what
these other men you have coming here preaching, what we're doing,
we're not telling anything that you can do or some possibility
or some probability that something might happen to you or giving
you something to try. We're saying God has done something. God has
accomplished the salvation of His people. And if you're one
of those people, when you hear that, that will be good news.
Because if you're one of those people, you are a sinner ruined
and undone and unclean before God. And yet before God in eternity,
Christ had already taken your sin debt and signed His name
to it. So you came to this world not owing God anything. Christ
had already assumed your debt. And when that took place, when
you hear the gospel, you don't hear, well, you know, if I do
this or I do that, I can be all right. Everything is well. All is taken care of. Salvation
is accomplished. Now, there are four gospel tenets
or truths that declare this fact of this redemption of Jesus Christ
that he accomplished on Calvary Street. The first one is sovereignty. Folks love that word, who know
God. They don't like it much who don't
know God, but the ones who know God love that word. Several years
ago, there was a man down in Louisiana in Baton Rouge, and he was of the
Church of God, and he was a climber. They were getting ready to build
a million-dollar assembly house. This was several years ago when
a million dollars was a million dollars. And the Lord taught
him the gospel. And so he stood up in the Church
of God and started preaching the sovereignty of God, God's
election, God's predestination. Well, they got mad. and right before they were supposed
to start that bill, and they fired him. And they made this statement. They wrote a paper, and they
made this statement when they dedicated this church. The churches
of God deny the sovereignty of God. That's what they wrote it,
that's how they started the paper. Well, they just denied God. Sovereignty
and salvation. This singular thing characterizes
the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ. that it is a work
accomplished by someone who cannot fail. He's a sovereign. There was nothing in us or about
us that could compel God to save us. But thank God there was nothing
in us or about us that could keep Him from it. Because He
does as He pleases in heaven and earth and all the deep places.
He's God. You're not. He is. There's nothing about
us. Our Redeemer is none other than
God Almighty Himself. He's the Alpha and Omega. He's
God Almighty. He's the Heavenly Father, it
says in Isaiah 9, 6. He's the Eternal Son, the Sovereign
Lord over all. What does that mean? That means
He's in control of all things. Don't try to figure that out,
because we're in control of nothing. We think we are, but you don't
take anything to put us out of it. Nothing at all. Christ is
Lord over all. You know what that means? He's
out of control. He's out of control. We can't
control Him. We can't do anything with Him. He just does as He
pleases and does whatever He wants to do. And His death is
the only death in the history of humanity that's called an
accomplishment. You don't think they're going
to stand at your casket and say, well, He finally done something
right. They're not going to say that. His death was an accomplishment. On the Mount of Transfiguration,
Elijah and Moses came back to speak with Him. That's recorded
in Luke, in Luke chapter 9. There on the Mount of Transfiguration,
Moses and Elijah talked to the Lord Jesus Christ. What did they
talk about? Well, they must have talked about the awfulness of
abortion. must have talked about the political
problems in America, they must have talked about, you know,
drinking and chewing and going to the movie show, they must
have talked about stuff like that. What did they talk about? The
single message that's always been the message since before
eternity and will be the everlasting Gospel preached in the eternity
future, the death which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, the
death which He should accomplish. Why was it an It's not accomplishment
for us, is it? Death's going to take us over.
We're not taking death over. Death is the final declaration
that our will is nothing. Because everybody has what? A
will to live. One of these days that will ain't
going to work no more. But His death was accomplishment
because He's life. try to figure that out. I have,
I've, I've pondered it and then my poor brain don't go very far
and it certainly hasn't got that deep. Life itself chose to voluntarily
end on Calvary Street. He died. And that's our salvation.
Our salvation is His death, His death. There's three aspects
of the cross. What happened? There's The first
aspect is, reveals what men think about God. I know everybody loves
this Jesus they preach today, and he's such a sweet little
fella, and amby-pamby nobody, and they wouldn't hurt anybody's
feelings, and just a nice fella and all. God allowed men to touch him
once in human history. And he allowed them, because
we know that when they came to arrest Christ, he said, I am,
and they fell away backward and couldn't even get up, just with
words. Then he asked them again, whom seek ye? And they said,
the Lord, Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, well, I am. And
he let them take them. But he took them. There was a caveat there,
if you read that. He says, you can have me. I'll
give myself to you. You can have me. But these must
go their way. That's substitution right there.
These must go their way. He said that the scripture might
be fulfilled, that all that God has given me, I should lose nothing. I should lose nothing. That's
the first aspect is how does man feel about God? Well, God
let him touch Him one time. What'd they do? They took a Roman's
cat of nine tails and they ripped 400 and some furrows in his back. Cat of nine tails was a horrible
torture weapon. There's a whip with nine lashes
on it and pieces of stone or rock or metal in the end of the
lash. and it wrapped around the body and they pulled it across,
it raked open the flesh. Full 40 lashes, four to nine
is what? 36, 360 furrows in his body.
Put a crown of thorns on his head. They plucked the hair out
of his cheek. They hit him with a fist, they
hit him with a stick. Then they laid him down and drove spikes
in his hands and his feet. Then they hung him up on a cross.
What do men think about God? They hate God. We'll not have
this man reign over us. Let's get rid of this man. He's
nothing to us. That's the first aspect. What
men felt about God is revealed in what happened in putting Christ
on the cross. The second aspect is what happened
in those three hours of darkness. And there's three hours of darkness,
so all we can really do is speculate. There's a few hints in Scripture
of what went on. In one of the Psalms, it said,
Christ said, I am consumed with the blow of thy hand. When we were boys, we used to
punch each other. I guess all boys do that, you
know. We'd get out and we'd start, we'd roll up our sleeve and we'd
take a lick on the arm and the other guy would hit back and
then pretty soon we'd hit each other in the chest and we'd go home
all bruised just to see who was the toughest. Christ said, God
rolled up his sleeve in these three hours of boxing. And I'm
consumed with the blow of thy hand. What happened then? God was punishing our sin. for the transgression of my people
was he stricken. God poured out his wrath on Jesus
Christ in those three hours of darkness. We don't want to know
what happened. We don't know, we don't have
any idea about God's wrath, and I don't really want to know,
and I never will. I never will, by experience, know what God's
wrath is. Christ bore the wrath of God in those three hours.
But that was not our salvation. That was the punishment for an
eternity of hell, consuming three hours in this marvelous, perfect
sacrifice. Then the third aspect of what
happened on the cross is our salvation. Jesus Christ voluntarily
died. Why? Because the wages seen as
we owe God a death. Christ was able to consume the
eternality of hell in three hours, but then He came out on the other
side of that alive and said, Eloi, Eloi, laosabachthanai,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then He died.
What happened when He died? His people, all of them, were
redeemed, all of them. Why? Because his death was the
death, his death was a sovereign act. of the sovereign Lord. The law was satisfied, justice
was satisfied, no more penalty, no more death for the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ was according to His own sovereign, immutable
will. He was on control. He was in
control on that cross. Men thought, well, He's weak,
He's bleeding to death, there's nothing left of this guy. He
was controlling the strength of the men who drove the spikes
in His hand. He was controlling the words
of those that that mocked him and spat upon him. He was controlling
all their actions. He owned that. It looked like
a cross, but it was really a throne. He was sitting, he was on his
throne controlling all that was going around him. This was a
sovereign act, even over his own death. Christ determined
that he would die before he even came into this world. He determined
how he would die. He determined where he would
die, when he would die. He determined who would seek
his death. He returned, He, He, He determined
for whom He would die, all this before the world began. And in
that hour, He accomplished that. And He determined what the results
of His death would be, because He's the Sovereign. He's in absolute
control. He's the Lord. The first word
having to do with what Christ accomplished was sovereignty.
The second word is success, success. Since our Redeemer is the eternal
Son of God, we can rest assured that His death and redemptive
work met with unbridled success. Isaiah prophesied that He shall
not fail, nor be discouraged. Now how does religion paint Christ
today? He's always discouraged. He wants you to do something.
He wants you to let Him save you. He wants you to, you know,
please acknowledge Him, you know, just acknowledge Him. He's not discouraged, never has
been discouraged. A lady told me one time, I don't believe
in God. And I said, then God don't lose any sleep over it.
People think that somehow their actions affect God. They don't
affect God. God is sovereign. You know what?
One of the word holiness means separate. He's just above all.
He simply is. Not that he ain't involved. but
he's not affected by what men do. Our Lord's work on Calvary's
tree was a success. Isaiah 42, 2 said he'd not be
discouraged. Hebrews 10, we just cited as
a quoted part, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sin forever, sat down, having finished the work, sat down on
the right hand of the Father, expecting till the end of his
days, he was supposed to do four by one offer. He hath. past tense, perfected, past tense,
them that are sanctified, and they are sanctified according
to verse 10 of that, by the will of God. What God wills, He does. That's simple. He never always
does his purpose and what he speaks shall come to pass. They
gathered around David with their idols and said, look at our gods,
how beautiful they are. They're silver and gold. We carry
them around everywhere we go. They're fine gods, good-looking
gods. They got hands and feet and eyes and mouths and look
like men, creatures, they're wonderful gods. Where's your
god, David? He said, our god's in the heaven. He had done whatsoever
he had pleased. Where's your god, David? He sits
on a stump. You have to carry Him around.
He has eyes, but they see not, ears, but they hear not, and
nose, but they smell not, feet, but they walk not, hands, but
they handle not. And you're just like Him. You're just like Him.
You're just like your God. Our God is in the heaven. Wicked
men are God's property. That's hard for folks to grasp,
I guess, but it's just true. They're God's property. All humans
are God's property, and they accomplish God's will even though
they are not inclined to do so. Why did He raise up Pharaoh?
To put him down. He said that in Romans chapter
9. I raise thee up. I make my power known. I'm going
to drown you and your whole army in the bottom of the sea. That's
why he raised up Pharaoh. Shimei one day came out. David
was riding. Shimei started to cuss at David.
Cussed him out. And Joab wanted to take a sword
and cut off Shimei's head. David said, oh, let him cuss. God probably told him to. God bid him to cuss me out. Judas. Church treasurer betrayed the
Lord. Why? Because it was ordained.
I've chosen you, and one of you shall betray me, he said. The
Jews, the Gentiles, Pontius Pilate, Herod, the king of the Jews,
they all gathered together against Jesus Christ. Why? They hated
him, but why? To do whatsoever had before ordained
to be done. That's the first use of the word
proerizo or predestination in the New Testament. It's about
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those people were acting exactly
the way they wanted to. They wanted to kill him, they
hated him, but they didn't realize it. They were like sheep being
herded into a pasture. They were like doggies being
punched by cowboys. They were all brought to that
one to do exactly by the numbers, precisely what God had ordained
to be done. They were acting with a hatred and vile that could
only be attributed to them. But they were doing it because
God had ordained it that's the way it would be. Success was
guaranteed. Did Christ intend to put away
sin? Then sin is put away. Did Christ
intend to bring in everlasting righteousness? It says in Daniel
chapter 9. Then righteousness is here and has been imputed.
It has risen up. Righteousness is imputed. Did
He intend to justify His people? Then His people are justified.
It's much plainer than most people think. Did He intend to save?
Then His people are saved. They're saved. The next word
is substitution. Several years ago, Scott Richardson,
I don't know whether you've heard him preach on tape or not, or
knew Scott, he was a wonderful old West Virginia miner. The Lord called him to ministry.
Great preacher of the gospel. We were down in Tennessee. It was June, it was
hot. We were preaching at a church
in Arno, Tennessee. and somebody mistakenly hit the
heater button instead of the air conditioner button. It was
already about 90 degrees outside in June in Tennessee. Scott Richardson
got up to preach, and Scott, you just have to see him, he
was just a wonderful, tough-looking, scrappy-looking guy, an old miner.
And he got up to preach, and the temperature started rising
in the church, and it got up to about 100 degrees in there,
and Scott preached for seven minutes. And he said, it's hot,
and I quit. And he got down, he walked down
the aisle, and I was on the end of the pew, and he walked by,
he tapped me on the shoulder, and he says, well, at least I
said substitution, and just walked out the back door into the 90
degree of weather to cool off. Everywhere in the Bible, everywhere
in the Bible, the sacrificial death of Christ is set forth
as substitutionary. Christ died as a substitute. What does that mean? He died
instead of me. He died, though I deserve to
die, he died in my room, in my stead. Now, since the substitute
died, those for whom he died will never die the death that
he died. Divine justice will not allow
them to die. You see, it's not only grace
that saves you, it's justice and law that sets you free. If
the law could now look at you with its searchlight of holiness
from top to bottom and find one flaw, you'd have to perish forever.
The law says about Terry Winslow of all people, the law looks
at Terry and says, I find no fault in this man. It has to
be that way or you perish. It's that simple. It's that simple. Substitution, when our Lord Jesus
Christ satisfied the law for us, died in our room instead,
then it was settled. The words of Christ say, the
Son of Man came not to minister to, but to minister and give
His life a ransom for many. It says, this is the blood of
the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of
sins. Who are these many that are spoken
of in Scripture? They are the many who were ordained
to eternal life in Acts chapter 13 and verse 48, who then believed.
They are the many who were given to Him by the Father in all eternity.
They are the many whose sins He bore on the cross. They are
the many for whom His blood was shed. They are the many who were
made righteous by Him, by imputation, who He was made to be righteousness
according to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 30. The many who
call upon Him, the many sons who He shall bring to glory.
Christ took the place of His elect on Calvary Street. He substituted. What does that
mean? God drew out His gun. and put a bullet in the chamber
and started firing at me because I deserved death. Christ stepped
in between me and God and took all the bullets and no bullets
left for me. He's my substitute. We see substitution
in everything we do, we just don't pay attention to it. Do
you know everything that keeps us alive, keeps us alive because
it dies first? It does. How many deer did you
butcher last year? A mess of deer. Why don't you
just go up there and eat them while he's on the hoof? Well,
they got to die first, because we got to cook them. Every vegetable
we eat. I had a good salad yesterday
and lasagna. I ate too much. But that salad,
it wasn't alive. It was dead. They had to cut
it off and tear it up. Everything dies. And that's just
a picture of substitution in everyday life. We live off substitution. and our Lord substituted himself
for us. He took my place. Several years
ago, there was an old missionary named Paris Reedhead. He was somewhere in the jungles
of someplace, and he told the story of walking through the
jungle, and he had his bearers carrying his books and his tents
and things like that. They were going to a place to
preach the gospel. And off in the distance, he just heard a
sound. First, it was just a little sound like a groan or a moan.
He couldn't really make it out. As they drew closer, he began
to hear it louder. And they came upon the clearing,
and there was this leper sitting in the middle of a clearing by
a little fire he had made. His fingers were gone. His nose
was gone. His mouth had no teeth. It was
just kind of an open gape in his face. And he was crying,
help me. Help me. Help. That's all he could say. And
Parris Reed had, knowing that this man was past human health,
that he would soon die. But he looked at that man and
he said, in order for me to help him, I would have to take him to myself
and be able to take his disease and give him my health. To take
his death and give him my life. to take his pain and give him
my joy. That's substitution. That's what
Christ did for us. That's what he did for his people
on Salvation Day. And the last word is satisfaction. The word propitiation, which
is used four times in the New Testament, means satisfaction
or appeasement. The sacrificial substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus Christ was a thorough and complete an
absolute satisfaction of God's justice for the sins of His people.
He propitiated God and enabled God then to be propitious toward
us. The death of Christ satisfied
God. He declared that He was in His
act of saving His people, to declare as righteous as this
time for the salvation of the elect, that it might be just
in the justifier of him that believes on Jesus Christ, Romans
chapter 3. The death of Christ satisfied
the debts of His people. We owe God a debt, or we, we
owe God a debt and Christ assumed that debt before the world began,
as our surety, signed His name to our debt. and paid that debt. He's satisfied. We don't owe
God anything. Religion works on the fact and
the hope that you can get people to believe they owe God something. They got to do this or do that
in order to get a blessing. If you don't already have all
the blessings you're going to get, you're not going to get
any blessings. You don't do stuff and get blessings.
Well, you know, if I pray real hard, I'll be blessed. No, you
won't. You won't. Well, if I give, I'll be blessed.
No. If you're blessed, you'll give. And if you're blessed,
you'll pray. But it's not the other way around. We don't do what we do
because in order to be righteous or to get blessed, we do what
we do because we are righteous and are blessed. It's a whole
different, whole different scenario. Christ satisfied God. And God
is satisfied with you. How many of you, when you hear
that word that God because of the satisfaction of Christ is
satisfied with you. We know, according to Scripture,
that God loves His people, has always loved His people. But
do you know that He likes you? God likes you. So what about
if I follow, what about if I follow up? If you follow Silly. God likes His people. There's
always a smile on His face. Now, are there things that you
can do in life that will affect your relationship with Him? But
listen now, there is nothing you can do that will affect His
relationship with you. He has loved you from all eternity.
He loves you now. He'll love you into eternity.
And He likes you. He's not mad at you. Not a frown
upon his face. He's happy with you. When he
looks at you as his child, look at that perfect thing. Look at
that beautiful thing, robed in perfect righteousness. Look at
him. That's my boy. That's my girl. That's my girl. That's satisfaction. How can
that be? Because you know and I know when
we do something we shouldn't ought to do, we think, oh, God's
watching. Of course He's watching. That's already affected your
relationship with Him, but it's not affected His relationship
with you. He's satisfied. The death of Christ satisfied
God, satisfied the debts of His people. We owe God nothing but
thanksgiving and praise. This is only good news to helpless
sinners. The only good news to helpless
sinners. This is the only source of peace and comfort in this
world. The only source of assurance is what God has done for us.
Most people, a lot of people in religion spend their life
looking for assurance. Don't look for assurance. You'll
never find it. If you're looking for it, you
won't find it. If you stop looking for it and trust Christ, you'll
have it. But you won't recognize you'll have it, you'll just have
it. You'll be at peace with the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has
a people in this world that He has redeemed, a people whom He
has saved by His blood, and the gospel of particular accomplished
redemption is the only way that they will ever be made aware
of it. or else they'll just flounder about in depraved oblivion seeking
a Savior who cannot save. One cannot trust a Redeemer who
only tried to redeem. Think about it. It's a sad estate. Men end up trusting their own
will and their own decision and their own choice. The sad estate
of those who believe that Christ tried to save people but couldn't
is a truly sad estate. And I speak from experience.
I spent a lot of years believing that. And a lot of years unsatisfied. The question is, who do you trust? You trust somebody that wants
to do something but can't? I'm not. I took my car to Terry
and said, you fix this? Well, I want to, but I can't.
Think I'm going to leave my car with you? No. People leave their
soul with a God like that. Think about that. Those who hold
and preach that redemption, the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus
Christ was an attempt at universal redemption, teach heretical doctrine. They pretend to make wide the
love of God for sinners, but in truth they diminish the love
of God to an unrequited emotion, like a teenager in love. but
somebody that don't love them. Oh, it's such a sad deal. I've
been there. You have to get all whiny and
cry. It's unrequited. We want them
to love us. That's what God, that's what they say about God.
He just wants you to love him. Won't you love him? Cause he
loves you. That's an unrequited love. No,
no power in it. What kind of love is it? Uh,
which has power to save according to scripture, but does not save.
Is that love? seeing some of you sitting with
your children here. You used to love your children, don't
you? They were out in the river drowning, going down for the
third time. You had the ability and the power
to save them. And you stood on the bank and
told them to make a choice, told them to take the first step.
Would that be love? Of course not. The thought makes
us sick to our stomach. Universal redemption makes the
love of God no more than a fickle, mutable, anemic, powerless affection. That's our love, really, in the
long and tall of it. We've all had our children sick
and in bed. Some of them sick, we thought they weren't going
to make it. And we sat beside their bedside and prayed and
cried and begged God not to let them die. Let them live, oh Lord,
let them live. That's our love. But our love
couldn't do anything. God's love's not like that. If
God loves someone, it's because He's always loved them. And God
sent His Son to redeem the someones whom He loved. Those who preach
universal redemption make the wisdom of God to be foolishness.
What man makes plans which he knows will never be carried out?
None of us would do that. They say that's about God. Is
there any wisdom in making a plan that is doomed to failure? Those
who preach universal redemption utterly discount the justice
of God. Justice cannot and will not demand a double payment for
one debt. Justice cannot require one offense to be punished twice,
both in the offender and in the substitute. Can't happen. Those
who preach the universal redemption turn the power of God into pitiful
impotence. He's the only potentate. That's
who God is. That means potent set. He's powerful. Men declare that
God wants to save everybody in the world, that He's done everything
He can do to save them, but He cannot. That's not God. Not the God of Scripture. Can
the Almighty fail? If yours can, He's not God. with
the omnipotent sovereign blunder? If yours can, he's not God. Has the will of God fizzled and
the will of man flourished? Is the eternal creator subject
to the puny creature? Is the power and will of God
subject to the power and will of men? Please, what do they
come up with here? They think themselves to be God.
Those who preach universal redemption diminish the work of Christ on
the cross to a nothing but a pathetic gesture of love at best. That's
the way they talk about it. Christ died to express the love
of God for you. That's a valentine card. What
happened on the cross was not a valentine card. Not that empty. Christ came to redeem. to save,
to justify. But if universal redemption is
true, He only rendered men redeemable and savable and justifiable.
This is where we come to these things of titles in Scripture.
Jesus is called a Savior. Why? Because He wants to save? No, that wouldn't make Him a
Savior. That would make Him a candidate
for Savior. But He's called the Savior. And He's called the Redeemer. Does He, is He called that because
He wants to redeem? No, that would make Him a candidate
for a Redeemer. You see, the one who saves is
the Savior, the one who redeems is the Redeemer. And if He made
salvation just possible, or offered it to you, and the only way that
salvation is effectual is if you by your will or choice make
it so, who's the Savior? Who's the Redeemer? You are!
If that's the scenario, but that's not the way he is. The day of
judgment, will Christ say, I loved you and had a wonderful plan
for your life. I displayed my love for you by dying for you,
but my love could not conquer you. My love could not overcome
you. I loved you too much to interfere
with your free will and save you from hell. That's a sad God
if I ever heard one. I believe I can take him in about
two minutes, the first round, I really do. And not much to
that God. He's a puny, nothing. Nobody. Imagine. Imagine. Do men go to hell willingly? No. God's going to have to tie
them up and throw them in there. They don't want to go to hell.
God's going to have to cast them into hell. Now I ask you this,
does He overcome their will to do that? Of course He does. And everybody in religion believes
that. But there are some that stand and say, well, God won't
overcome your will to save you. So He'll overcome your will to
do you eternal damnation, but won't overturn your will to do
you eternal good. Sad God death. Sad God death. I remember a story of a man who
was from Bob Jones University, was preaching out in western
Kentucky. And he'd been all week giving invitations, trying to
get people to come down the aisle. Nobody, wasn't much happening.
And last night he was there, he said, he said, you better
trust Christ. He's going to send you to hell.
He's tried his best to save you. Now you got to exercise your
will and trust him. He's going to send you to hell.
This old farmer got up, doffed his hat and started walking out.
The young preacher said, wait a minute, where are you going?
He said, I'm going home. He said, well, if you leave here without
trusting Jesus, he'll put you in hell. He said, no, he won't.
He said, what do you mean? Well, he said, if he can't save
me, he can't put me in hell. If I won't let him save me, I
ain't gonna let him put me in hell either. See you later. Walked
out the door. That's the logical answer there, isn't it? When men look to their works,
to their faith, they say, are my works enough? And they're
not. Have I repented enough? Do I have faith enough? No. But
your faith, your belief, your works have never been a consideration
of your salvation. Not today. Your works, not a
consideration of salvation, never have been. Your faith. Well,
everybody has to believe. Not all men have faith, but the
ones that have faith get it from God. It's a gift from God. Those
who preach universal redemption offer no encouragement to sinners.
None whatsoever. No encouragement to believers.
To love Christ. and praise Him because of His
sacrificial death for us. It was just an attempt. Ultimately,
I should thank myself. I should thank myself. If Christ
did no more than save men, no more to save me than He did to
save Judas, what's the big deal? Let's just close up this joint
and open up a casino or something. Have a good time. My faith is
praiseworthy if Christ only tried to save me. My faith is praiseworthy,
not His blood. If Christ loved me no more than
He loved Esau, then it is my love to Him that's worthwhile,
not His love to me that makes a difference between me and Esau.
Those who preach universal redemption would rob God of His glory that's
due His name. If you or I have any part in
the salvation of our souls, that is any part, any part in the
salvation of our souls, in that part, to that measure, we deserve
glory. We do. If you've got anything
meritorious in your life, then you deserve glory for it. And
we can take that on into where you are now as children of God.
What you do, the prayers you pray, the Bible you read, the
times you spend at tennis, the money you spend bringing preachers
up here to preach to you, all of that, Do you think for a moment
that any of it will stand on its own? That it is meritorious
for God? If it is, then you deserve glory
for it. But nothing we do from eternity
to eternity and all our stretch in time has any merit whatsoever. We are as utterly dependent upon
grace this moment as the moment we first believed. And we'll
be that way. And if we live to be a hundred
years old and be good people all our lives and pray every
day and read our Bible and attend church when it's open and give
and sacrifice, none of it will count for anything with our standing
with God. None of it. Or else salvation
is not by grace. That's simple. We are utterly
dependent upon grace. Always. You know what grace is? You don't merit it. You don't merit anything. That's what grace is. It's a
free action of God that can never be explained, can only be rejoiced
in and God be praised for it. It does nothing about you. It matters in the salvation of
yourself. Think about that. That's why
religion don't like that. Sinners like it. Sinners who
know there's no hope in themselves, who are ruined, dead, doomed,
damned, and dying, who have no hope whatsoever, who they know
that they drink iniquity like water. Out of their mouth comes
lies and spews and venom, that they're corrupt and dying and
a waste of time and dead and entombed and all those things.
Sinners. without hope are absolutely tickled
to death that God did all of salvation, because they know
they had nothing and never had had anything and never will have
anything that they can offer God at all. Salvation is in any measure the
result of something man did for God, then God shall not have
rightful claim to the praise and glory of it. Let me tell
you, He's jealous for His glory. He's not going to give it to
you, or to anybody else, or to any other rival. Those who preach
universal redemption essentially deny the deity of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Because if He's God, and He came
to save, and He didn't save, He's a fraud, and a liar, and
not to be trusted. Scripture says, He was stricken
for the transgression of my people. And he hath obtained eternal
redemption for us. That's the Declaration of Scripture.
We don't trust a failure. We don't trust a weak and namby-pamby
nobody. We trust the sovereign, successful
substitute who satisfied God for everything required for our
salvation. I ask you again, who do you trust? Who do you
trust? God bless you.