We cannot fully comprehend the depths to which Christ lowered Himself to reconcile sinners to a holy God until we comprehend something of His holiness and preincarnate glory. In these two sermons, drawn from the prophet Isaiah and the Apostle Paul, we will attempt to consider the infinite wonders and incalculable expense of our redemption. The end goal is threefold: To set before the sinner the only means of drawing near to the God whose name is Holy; to teach Christians to esteem the worth of Christ above all; and to shake our hearts from sleep and apathy toward sin that we might be holy as He is holy.

The following message is a presentation of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where we're proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life. More information about the NCFIC is available at www.ncfic.org. You're never so far along in the faith. That a sermon regarding the most practical matters of holiness. Cannot strike your heart.

And many times that when we are older. It may not be in some sense astounding sins that are pointed out, but little foxes. That spoiled the vineyard. There's so many things that as our brother was preaching. That the Lord would point to here and there and here and there that need to be cured in my own soul.

And I'm not ashamed to say that I would be a hypocrite if I didn't, that my heart is struck by many of the things that were said here tonight. And I needed it. I needed it. You see, it also goes to show us something very, very important that Christianity is not a solitary religion. We are not lone wolves.

I am convinced that if you're a man who spends 13 hours a day studying the scriptures and in prayer, but you are without Christian fellowship and you are without preaching, not that you are preaching, but that you're being preached to. You are in danger. No matter how much time you spend alone in your study, you are always in need of hearing from your brothers and sisters in Christ. And I was in need and am in need, and I am blessed tonight to have sat under that sermon. Whenever the Lord points out something in my life that is an inconsistency, that is a sin.

There is a sense of fear. Of discipline. There is a sense of regret looking back on. Could this have affected someone adversely? But the greatest pain of the heart.

Whenever even the smallest fraction of worldliness is exposed is how could I do this to Christ? There are many motivations to holiness. But if any one of them. Is supreme over the person of Christ, it is idolatry. You can seek to be good for so many reasons and many of them can be good reasons, but if they are chief reasons over Christ, then it's idolatry.

It should always go back to. God, against you and you alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, the pain of our hearts should not be necessarily even the consequence of our sin. But the fact that Christ shed his blood for us tonight, we're going to talk about the cross. Last night, I was talking about the pre incarnate glory of Christ, Christ, as he was before the world was even created, Christ in his majesty. And even though that majesty is great, as we see in Isaiah chapter six, it is still just a small, dim photo of what really was and is right now as Christ reigns in glory.

So to look at how high and how great he is, we will now look at how he condescended, how he humbled himself to save sinners like me and sinners like you. And we're going to go to a passage that's very, very important. It's in Second Corinthians, chapter five. Verse 21, just one verse. And if I seem like I'm a bit stiff while I'm preaching, I feel like I have a horse bridle on my head with this thing on.

I'm I guess it's one of the reasons why I like to preach in the jungle. You don't have to wear these. Things of rock stars or whatever they are on my head, I feel like a possums grabbed me in the back of the skull and isn't letting go. And where I live, that's always very possible. I was Telling Brother Scott, I said, Yeah, two months ago, a bear broke into my house four times.

I woke up the last time of the bear break in at eleven thirty at night, my wife snuck down into the kitchen because she thought she heard me making a sandwich. And she was going to give me a lecture on cholesterol. Only to find a bear in her sink. So I wake up to the sound of no, no, I think she scolded one of the children. And then I hear Paul Bear Gun, Paul Bear Gun.

So at eleven thirty of night, running down to the to the first floor in my pajamas, trying to load a gun in the dark and shooting a gun in the middle of my kitchen. So that's basically my life. It's like my son said when we came here yesterday, Dad, you know, you really love God and I know you do, but if those people really knew what our house was like. You know. I watch a lot of you and I learned so much from you.

I'm so blessed by you and I'm encouraged by you. I really am, but I also hope. That you have as much fun as I do. In your house. In your house, men.

Listen, all these things, many of the things you're doing, so wonderful, so serious. The desire for structure, the desire to glorify God with your children, the desire to have an orderly home and everything. That is wonderful. And there's so much, believe me, that I could learn from you. But never forget what my Greek professor told me in the Sermon on the Mount.

He said the Sermon on the Mount is all about your relationship with God and all about your relationship with people. The greatest thing you have to give is a loving, warm relationship to your wife and your children. Laughter, spending time, spending time, don't ever walk up to me and say, well, I spend quality time with my children because I will kick you. I will. I honestly I'll kick you because I have found this, that in my times of prayer, every day, A lot of times I struggle with being asleep.

I struggle with my mind wandering. It's not every day that I have one of those in the year that King Josiah died moments, you know. But but here's what I found out out of a copious amount of time. Every once in a while, there is a quality time. That changes everything I have found that with my wife and I have found that with my children.

That I can't orchestrate quality time, I must dedicate time as much time as I possibly can to a life relationship with my wife, with my children, which means studying the Bible. It means going to church. It means congregating with the godly. And it may mean the children laughing their head off as I dance a jig with their mother through the kitchen. Relationship, holy relationship and holiness.

Holiness, true holiness never put an end to joy. It never puts an end to joy and men, let me share something with you. I know I'm teaching on the cross, but I just feel like I need to say this. It doesn't matter how joyful my wife is, you want to talk about being head of the home, head of the home is something you only talk about with a great deal of trembling because it means you're responsible. Here's what I've discovered, it doesn't matter how joyful your wife is.

Or how whimsical or how much joy her own life can produce among your children, The attitude of your home will be determined by you. And when you come through that door at the end of the day, you will come through bringing light and joy or you will come through bringing a shadow. You will cause joy or kill it. And that's why men, you've got to realize sometimes you just have to when you pull up into the driveway of your house, you've just got to sit in that car for a moment and you've got to get everything in order. That you were made to bear all these burdens, not necessarily your wife or your children.

That your work has not done now that you've come home, your work has just started and that's a work of relationships. It's a work of joy. It's a work of spending time. I love that illustration about keeping the door open. About allowing access to my children.

And to your wife, because if you're like me, maybe you have a very, very strong wife and I do an exceptionally strong She has to be strong to put up with my tribe. She is a strong woman, but because she's a strong woman, sometimes I think the children need all my time. She doesn't because she's so strong. And that's not true. Don't just think that your children need you and your children need a relationship with you, your wife needs you.

She needs a relationship with you. You know, it's amazing sometimes and this has happened, Ian, you're sitting there and you can testify if I'm telling a lie. There have been quite a few times when Ian has gotten up at one in the morning and come into our bedroom and said, Mom and Dad, stop laughing, put that away and go to bed. I can't sleep. Because my wife is a great storyteller, my wife can just just make she makes me laugh.

That's good that a child has to come in and do that at one in the morning. I've promised him now that I'm going to seek to be more mature. But. You're so beautiful and sometimes I admire as I look out at your children. The contrast I see between you and so many other things in the world, it's just beautiful and I applaud what God's done in your life.

But oh, it's relationship. You know, I'm going to get to my sermon right now, I promise, but one time I was preaching and right when I was about ready to get up in the pulpit. You know, homeschool family walked in the church, I could tell because it was the man and then the wife and then the oldest child and the next oldest child that kept going down and they kept coming in. And they sat down and they were, they were beautiful, orderly family and taking nothing away from that. But I told a story about how Ian and I were fishing and we latched into this huge snapping turtle.

I mean, the thing, alligator snapper about that big around. And we got it about four feet near the bank and I said, son, you hold this. I'm jumping in. I'll get him. Well, I jumped in and then I realized, you know, this was about what?

I don't know. It was probably six years ago. And I said, you know, I'm like in my late 40s. I'm not as fast as when I was when I was 20, I started thinking I grabbed this thing. I think it's going to grab me back.

And I was telling this story and afterwards the eldest son of that man came to me and I saw him turn his back to his dad. So automatically had a little caution. What's happening? And tears began to come down his cheeks. And this is what he said.

Mr. Washer, did you tell the truth up there? And I said, yes, But about what? So that part about you and your son being alone in that pond, I said, yes, of course, why? I've never been alone and done anything like that with my dad.

Men, don't let that happen. You've just got to make it happen. And time goes by so fast, so fast. With our wives and with our children, it goes by so fast. And sometimes I imagine this.

I imagine that I'm holding my wife. My wife, man, she is beautiful. And I'm looking down and she's now 85 years old and drawing her last breath, and I think about that, I imagine that and I think, do I really want to arrive at that point. With a bag full of regret. My boy will be leaving, he's 14, he's going to be gone, you know, who knows, five, six years, I don't know what will happen.

Do I really want to look back on that with regret? And even if I've done all the Bible studies and everything that that needs to be done and we love to do those. It's still. You know, those times. Those times of just a relationship, and I want to encourage you men, it's hard, I know that's why we go to bed tired and that's why we die looking 20 years older than we are.

That's what men do. Never hesitate to pour yourself out in relationship with your wife and with your children. All right, well, let's go to our message. Second Corinthians, chapter five, verse twenty one, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Let's pray.

Father. Lord, you know. Father. Lord, you know. That my heart is struck.

That I look to you. That I ask you, Father, to please help us. For the sake of your people. For the sake of your son. Father, please help us.

In Jesus name, amen. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The first thing that I want to point out. Is what I feel to be the most amazing thing about this man, Jesus of Nazareth. He knew no sin.

He was not acquainted with sin. Sin and he had nothing to do with one another. Now, so many times when people hear that, they think, well, of course not, he was God. Well, yes, he was God and he was he remained God even in his incarnation, But you need to understand something. There have been so many of these movies where Jesus appears, you know, a head taller than all the other men and with a Hollywood handsomeness about him.

And he seems almost to be some type of super being That is not biblical. The Bible says clearly in Romans chapter eight that he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. You see, people think that he somehow came in a pre-fall Adamic body or something with superpowers and without a blemish. That's not true. He came and took a body.

That was in the likeness of sinful flesh, he himself was not corrupt in any shape, form or fashion. He was pure in the highest degree, but he took a body that suffered from all the consequences of sin. And also, you need to understand something in the church's history, it has had to protect most of all the deity of Christ, the deity of Christ. And in doing so, we have sometimes failed to proclaim his humanity And we failed to see that Jesus didn't just do what he did because he drawed on his powers of being God. He did what he did in the power of the Holy Spirit as a man, he conquered as a man.

And that is why he is our substitute, that is why he is our representative, he's the one we look to, he's our elder brother. He overcame. In a body, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and he was victorious as a man and he overcame sin as a man, not in any way denying his deity. But he just didn't get a free ticket because he was God and all this was easy for him. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh and he battled with sin and he always won every temptation, everything put before him.

He was absolutely, perfectly sinless. Now, some of you may think, well, yes, that was that was amazing, but he did so many other amazing things. Well, let me let me put it to you in a different light. So oftentimes we think that by saying that he knew no sin, that he did not sin, we think, yes, he never disobeyed the Ten Commandments. And that's true.

He never disobeyed the Ten Commandments. He always not only did not disobey, he always obeyed the Ten Commandments. He always obeyed the will of God. But let's take it to a higher level. What is the greatest sin?

I suppose we could say that the greatest sin would be violating the greatest command. And what is the greatest command to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? Now, Listen to me carefully. There has never been. In all the mass of humanity since Adam, there has never been one person in all the billions of people that have lived, there has never been a person who for even one fraction of a second loved the Lord, his God, with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.

Now, what you think about that? Never. In all the billions, all the great multitudes of humanity throughout all the centuries that have passed by, there has never been one fraction of a moment when humanity has loved the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. But this man, Jesus, there was never one moment when he did not love the Lord, his God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. Jesus did every moment of his life what all of humanity could not do for even one fraction of a second.

Now, do you see how great this is? This is who this Jesus is. This is why he is our champion. Now, regardless of what you think of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, I'd like to use them for an illustration.

If you read Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings and all these types of things, you discover in his writings that there are all kinds of heroes in this story. Aragon is a hero. The dwarf is a hero. Legolas is a hero. There are a lot of heroes in the story.

It's amazing when you get over to C.S. Lewis and you look at the Chronicles of Narnia, you know what you discover? Everyone's a failure. And the battle is always being lost. Until the very end.

When Aslan shows up, there's only one champion in the story now, I'm not endorsing either of these literary works, I'm using it as an illustration. I want you to see there are no heroes in the Christian faith. There's only one, there's only one champion. I am a preacher used by God, and yet while Jeff Pollard was preaching, my heart was struck. I am not a champion, and yet while Jeff Pollard was preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit, he himself is not a champion.

There are no champions. There is only Christ and this Christ is a mighty champion because he did every moment of his life what all of humanity could not do for a fraction of a second. And then another thing about this Christ, and I'll use a Olympic powerlifting as an illustration. You see, a lot of people think, well, he was tempted like us in all ways, but, you know, he didn't sin, but they have this idea Jesus was tempted like me and Jesus didn't sin. That's not what's being taught.

Let me give an illustration. Let's say there's Olympic power lifter here. OK, on this side And on this side is a, you know, 95 pound weakling. So on this Olympic powerlifter, we put an Olympic bar which weighs 45 pounds and he stands there. He's OK.

Then you take and you put the 45 pound bar on the 95 pound weakling, It's kind of hurting his neck a little bit. Then you take the power lifter over here and you put two plates on two Olympic plates. So now you have one hundred and thirty five pounds power lifters just going like this. Doesn't bother him a bit. You put those two plates on that 95 pound weakling, he said, my neck is really hurting now.

Then you go over here and you put four plates on, so now you have 225 pounds on this power lifter. It's no problem. No problem at all. The 95 pound weakling, he's not even asked to lift it just to hold it on his shoulders. He's sweating.

He tilts a little, gets off key and crashes. They both bore the same weight, but this one's crashed and this was standing. And you think that's what Jesus did. No. This one crashed, this one standing, and then they put on two more plates.

Now you have 315. He's still standing. Then you put on two more plates, four or five, and he is still standing. And you put on two more plates and two more plates and two more plates and he is still standing. That's what it means when it says that Christ was tempted and did not fall.

You and I are tempted with the tiniest weight of temptation, and we crashed. All of humanity could not bear a fly's weight of temptation. But Christ bears the temptation of worlds upon his shoulders and he still stands. Do you see how mighty this champion truly is? Now, it says here.

He made him. Who knew no sin. To be sin. On our behalf now. What does that mean?

Some of the greatest theologians down through history warn us, be careful. You can say too little and not get the glory from this passage, you can say too much and say very wrong things about Christ. It says that God. Made him to be sin. Now, what does that mean?

Does that mean that on the cross? Christ somehow became sinful. Polluted. Twisted and perverted. Absolutely not, Even when he was on the cross, he was the spotless lamb, even when he bore our sin, he was the spotless lamb.

Then what does it mean? The answer is found in our text. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Now, the moment a person believes in Jesus with saving faith, what happens? At that moment, do they become by nature a righteous being with no pollution and absolutely sinless?

Is that what happens the moment you believe? No, it's not. What happens? Well, a legal or forensic thing happens. The moment that you believe in Jesus, you are legally declared right with God.

Do you understand that? It is a legal or forensic term. The righteousness has been imputed to you. You are legally declared right with God. Now, all of you probably know that definition, but let me add something to it that the ancients talked about a great deal.

And I do not hear much of it today. And Yet for the Christian to understand the Christian life, it's absolutely marvelous and to understand the cross, it's absolutely necessary. The moment you believed in Jesus. God legally declared you right with him and. Treats you as right with him, That little word treat is so very important.

He treats you as right. Now there's a conference right there. There's an entire conference we could have on that one thing that he has legally declared. The believer to be right with him and he will always treat. That believer, according to that declaration.

He treats you as right with him, not a little bit right, not sort of right. But perfectly right with him now. What does it mean that God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf? That on that tree, God legally declared him to be guilty and He treated him as guilty. Now, think about this.

He treated him as guilty. Now, bearing all the sin, all the guilt of God's people. He treats him as guilty. Now, let's go on, I want us to look for a moment in the Book of Galatians, chapter three. Look in verse 10.

Look in verse 10. For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, For it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law to perform them. Every son of Adam, every daughter of Adam under a curse. Now, does that make you afraid? Does it make you afraid?

It should. It's hardly a way in which I can present to you as a preacher what it means to be under this awful curse of the law. But to give you something of a portrait of it, imagine this, that if you are here tonight and you are not reconciled to God through Christ And you die in your sins. On judgment day, when your sentence is declared by a holy God and you take your first step into hell, The last thing you will hear is all of God's holy heaven standing to its feet and applauding and worshipping God because He has rid the earth of you. To be under a curse is to be recognized as so vile and so loathsome before God.

And before all of God's holy heaven, we have these pictures from some evangelical evangelists that on the day of judgment, you know, you are maybe told that, listen, your mother and father are going to be crying as you're swept off into hell. Maybe someone, an angel will have to grab your mother and hold her back as she cries, No, not my child. That is absolutely absurd. It's blasphemous. Know this on the day of judgment, if you find yourself un reconciled to God.

When you turn back, you take your last look, you'll see mother and father and sister and brother raising their hands to the most high and saying that the God of all the earth, the judge of all the earth has done right by you. And has done right with you. You see, when we talk about preaching, these are terrible things. When we talk about the gospel, we have wonderful things and terrible things. The preacher's life is twisted by this.

He's a man of life and a man who pronounces death. He's a man who pronounces blessing and pronounces curses. You need to understand that as a sinner, Naked before God without the covering of Christ, you are under a curse. And the greatest question in all the cosmos is how can anyone under a curse be saved from that curse? Who can intercede?

Who can pay the price? Well, we see here in verse 13. Christ redeemed us. From the curse of the law. And how did he do it?

Having become a curse for us. Do you remember my portrait of the man who's cursed of God? The last thing he hears is he takes his first step into hell, is all of creation applauding God because God has rid the earth of him. He goes to hell bearing his sin, bearing the curse. Christ Took the place of the sinner.

And he became the bearer of sin and fell under the curse of the law. Now, I want you to go for just a minute to to Matthew, chapter five. And we look at the Beatitudes and as you look at those Beatitudes, I don't have time to read them as they are set forth at this moment in Matthew. But I want to take them and I want to show you the very opposite of what they say. Starting with verse three.

The blessed in verse three are granted the kingdom of heaven. The curse to refuse entrance. Do you say you're blessed? Do you say you're on the highway of holiness? Do you say you're going to heaven?

Do you say I am blessed? Know this with a trembling lip. If you are blessed, it's only because he was cursed. If you are allowed in, it's only because he was shut out. Next, the blessed are recipients of divine comfort and the cursed are objects of divine wrath.

The blessed inherit the land. The cursed are cut off from it. The blessed are satisfied. The cursed are miserable and wretched. The blessed receive mercy.

The cursed are condemned without pity. The blessed shall see God. The cursed shall be cut off from his presence. The blessed are sons and daughters of God and the cursed are disowned in disgrace. Do you see the transaction here?

Every time, honestly after all these years, every time I think to myself, I am a blessed man or any time I think or someone says to me, Paul Washer, you are a blessed man. It does bring joy. But in the back of that joy, I see my savior hanging on a tree, a curse of God. Because the only way the curse can become blessed is if the blessed becomes cursed. And this is what Christ has done.

And it's these things rooted like pegs in our mind, in our heart that make us hate sin. And make us hate ourselves. When we don't hate sin. In the twenty seventh and twenty eighth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, And we don't we're not going to be going there reading from it, but I will be teaching from it. Let me set up the context for you.

The people of Israel are divided into two camps. One group is sent to Mount Gerasim and on Mount Gerasim, they are to pronounce all the blessings that are to fall upon the covenant breaker. Now, which mountain is yours? Yours and mine is Mount Ebal, we have broken the covenant, we have defied the ruler and his laws, we have broken his commands, We are unfaithful to the one who is all faithful. Mount Ebal is ours.

And which mountain belongs to Christ? Mount Gerasim. The only covenant keeper that ever walked this planet. But what happens? The camps are switched.

In order for us to participate in the blessing of Mount Gerizim, Christ must take his place on Mount Ebal. And all the curses for all the law broken must fall upon his head to save us, those who have broken those laws from the wrath of Almighty God. Now, I've taken these curses and I formed them in an order to give you an idea of what it meant for Christ to hang upon Calvary, a curse of God. Let me just read to you. When he raised his eyes to heaven to find God's countenance, his father turned away.

When he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? His father replied, the Lord, the Lord, your God, damns you. The Lord sends upon you curses, confusion and rebuke until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, The Lord smites you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart, and you will grope at noon as the blind man gropes in darkness with none to save you. The Lord delights over you to make you perish and destroy you, and you will be torn from the land. Curse shall you be in the city and curse shall you be in the field.

Curse shall you be when you come in and curse shall you be when you go out. The heavens which are over your head shall be bronze. The earth which is under you shall be iron. You shall be a horror. You shall be a proverb and a taunt among all the people.

Let all these curses come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes, which he commanded you. I've heard so many foolish preachers say that when Christ cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? His father turned away simply because he could not bear to see his son suffer. What do you think God lacked the moral fortitude to witness the suffering of his son? No, it's because his son bore our sin and his son became the curse and all the curses of the law that should chase me throughout hell for eternity.

Every one of these active curses which should never end, that should constantly beat upon my brow. They chased Christ And they fell upon him. I have it written in my notes somewhere, I forget which Puritan describes this, but he talks about here's the sinner and I see myself, I remember as a boy running through the field and being chased by some of our wilder cattle and thinking I would never make my way under that fence in time. But this Puritan tells the story that this renegade is being chased, chased by either the law or some say even at times a pack of wolves Chasing and chasing, getting ever nearer. These are these curses coming upon the sinner and he runs and he cannot escape.

And then all of a sudden this prince comes out of the forest in blinding glory and he runs by the side of the sinner and he draws off the pack of wolves only to be eaten alive by them that the sinner may go free. There's a Russian story. It says this, a Russian prince is on a sled with his servant and they're being chased by a pack of wolves, gigantic Siberian wolves. They're terrifying. Most people have no concept of what a wolf looks like.

They think it's just a little dog. The head of a wolf can be that big. To even look one that's been taxidermied and already shot is a fearful thing. And yet they're being chased. And pretty soon the servant realizes we are not going to escape.

We are not going to say. And so the Russian story tells how the servant throws himself off the sled and is devoured by the pack of wolves. And someone said that is such a picture of Christ. But a wiser man said no, if it had been a picture of Christ, it would have been the prince who threw himself off the sled. The story of Jonah.

Used to tell stories to children and missing the greater part of Jonah. When you get to the gospels, you finally understand Jonah. Jonah gets in a boat. To go across the body of water. He goes into the boat, lays his head on a pillow, goes to sleep.

Isn't it amazing Christ gets in a boat, lays his head down to go to sleep. The boat is just in Jonah's time, is almost ripped apart by the waves. And they're wondering why, why the wrath of God? And finally they drag Jonah out. Jonah says, I'm the man, I'm guilty, I'm the wayward prophet.

Throw me in the water and the waters will be still, the wrath of God will be appeased and they do so. I believe the same idea came into the mind of those disciples as they crossed that water and the sea came up upon them as it came upon Jonah. And they may have been thinking to themselves, maybe the Pharisees are right. This prophet in this boat, is he what they say he is? Has the wrath of God come to consume us?

But unlike Jonah, Christ comes out and stills the waves and ends all their questions. But then a time later, the waves of God's wrath come again on Calvary and this greater than Jonah throws himself in, unlike Jonah, he is not guilty. But he throws himself into the wrath of God, that the guilty might be spared from it. It's a passage in Michael where it talks about God, you know, taking our sins and trotting them under his feet. And it talks about taking our sins and throwing them into the sea to disappear.

And people look at that, but they look at it in a Christless way and they miss the point. God did not take sin off of you, throw them under his feet and trample upon your sin. He took your sin off of you, placed it upon Christ, and he trampled upon his only begotten Son. He didn't take your sin off of you, roll it up at a ball and throw it in the water. He took your sin off of you, placed it upon his son and threw his son into the sea of his wrath.

This is what happened on Calvary. Let me continue reading something I've written here as Christ bore our sins on Calvary. He was cursed as a man who makes an idol and sets it up in secret. He was cursed as one who is guilty of every manner of immorality and perversion, who wounds his neighbor in secret or accepts a bribe to strike down the innocent. He was cursed as one who does not confirm the words of the law by doing them.

Writer of Proverbs says this, like a sparrow in its flitting and like a swallow in its flying, so a curse without cause does not alight. Yet the curse did alight upon the branch because the Messiah is called the branch. How did such a curse alight upon him who knew no sin because of you? Because of me, he bore our sins on that tree. I've written here, the curse did not have lied upon the branch.

Because of some flaw in his character or error in his deeds, but because he bore the sins of his people and carried their iniquity before the judgment bar of God, There he stood uncovered, unprotected and vulnerable to every recourse of divine justice. Now, let's look. And what happens here, just look for a moment at the great exchange, David says this. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered? How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Because we are a people who no longer understand concepts of justice, we read this passage and we delight in it without seeing the moral, ethical, philosophical, theological problem that exists in the words of David. There is a serious problem here, and let me point it out to you. How blessed is he whose transgressions is forgiven, whose sin is covered. We talk about judgment. Even on our own earth, when we say that a judge covered someone else's sin, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

It's a bad thing. It's an unethical thing. When judges cover sin, we say the judges are far more corrupt than the criminals. They set free. How can God cover sin?

He cannot cover sin. Unless sin has been atoned for, you know, the greatest problem in theology, if God is good, he cannot forgive you. If God is just, he cannot forgive you when the theologian tells you that God is perfect, it doesn't just mean that he's sinless. It means that all of his attributes exist in perfect harmony, that he can not violate one attribute in the name of another. I've heard evangelists say instead of being just with you, God was loving, so that means God's love is unjust.

No. In order to demonstrate love to you in salvation, in order to cover your sin, justice first, the demands of justice had to be satisfied, and that's what Calvary is all about. God in his justice condemns the wicked, God in his love becomes a man and lives the life the wicked could not live, goes to the tree, bears their crimes And all the justice of God, all the wrath of God, all the holy hatred of God against evil comes crushing down on the head of the sun. And he bears it all until that moment when it is paid and he says, it is finished. And now God can be both just and the justifier of the wicked.

That is the heart of the gospel, and if you don't understand that, you haven't understood the gospel. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Yet on the cross, the sin imputed to Christ was exposed before God and the host of heaven. He was placarded before men and made a spectacle to angels and devils alike.

The transgressions he bore were not forgiven him, and the sins he carried were not covered. If a man is counted blessed because iniquity is not imputed to him, then Christ was cursed beyond measure because the iniquity of us all fell upon him. In the renewal of the covenant in Moab and Deuteronomy, there is a passage which to me, I see the scriptures as a unified whole and I see Christ on every page and I see hints of Christ everywhere. And in this renewal of the Covenant, an exceptional thing is said that so parallels the death of my Lord that I must think it was written with that intention. It says this about the Covenant breaker.

The anger of the Lord and his jealousy will burn against that man and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven, then the Lord will single Him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in the book of the law. Now, think about this. Here we are, Israel, we are this mass of sinful people. We are this mass of idolaters. We have broken every law God has ever given.

And there's only one among us who is a covenant keeper. But the Lord, Instead of singling out me. Singling out you. The Covenant keeper stepped forward and was singled out in my place for adversity and all the curses that should fall upon God's covenant breaking people fell upon him. At Calvary, the Messiah was singled out for adversity and every curse written in the book of the law fell upon him in this seat of Abraham.

All the families of the earth are blessed, but only because he was cursed more than any man who ever walked upon the earth. Now, let me give you another text that represents a theological problem. It's the ironic blessing in the book of Numbers. Listen to what God says to a sinful idolatrous people. He says the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord fill up, lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. But how can a holy God do that to such a people? There's only one reason. Because to the Messiah.

The Lord God said the Lord curse you and give you over to destruction, the Lord take the light of his presence from you and condemn you. The Lord turn his face from you and fill you with misery. You know, so many people believe that somehow the fact that the Romans beat up Jesus paid for our sins. The physical sufferings of Christ were absolutely necessary for our atonement. It was a bloody sacrifice, It had to be a bloody sacrifice.

They were necessary, but they are not enough. It is not so much what the Romans and Jews did to Jesus, but it's what God the Father did to his only begotten son because he took your place and mine. When he is in the garden crying out, let this cut pass for me, let this cut pass for me, I have heard preachers, well-meaning preachers who I believe love Jesus say this. Jesus in his omniscience looked forward and he saw the crown of thorns on his head and the nails in his hands and his feet. And he said, Father, let this cut pass for me.

No. For the next three centuries of church history, we hear of martyrs being crucified on crosses, some of them upside down. Some of them covered with a crude form of Brea pitch and set on fire. Left there for days to be eaten by vultures. And books of martyrdom tell us that many of them went to those crosses singing hymns, counting it all joy to be crucified.

Are you going to tell me that the captain of their salvation cowered in a garden in fear at the very thing they embraced, they embraced with joy? He was afraid of a whip. No. It was what what would happen between himself and his father. You see, he's not like us.

We were born outside of the presence of God. Sin has always covered us. We no more know what sin is than a fish nosy sweat. We were those who drank down iniquity like it was water. The presence of God, if His face was hidden from us, we knew it not.

We cared not. But we're talking now about the persons of the Trinity and the delight of the Father and the Son and the Son and the Father. And for the son to believe, to know that the Father would turn his face from him, that he would bear the sins and the filth of his people and be treated by his father as guilty. And that the wrath of Almighty God would come down upon him and he would have to face death itself. That is why I cried out, let this cut pass for me.

Let this cut pass for me. But after a great battle which had to happen as it was laid before him what he must overcome for the sake of his people. He said, not my will, but yours be done. I have heard of some some of the ancient saying things like this, that as as the Christ was born. He grew in wisdom and knowledge and understanding and stature.

And at a young age, he came to understand that he was the Messiah. And as life went on, he began to understand more and more of what it would cost him. And some of the ancients represented it this way, that Christ would come in his young age to a realization of something of the cost, of what it would mean for him to redeem his people. And it would hit him in the chest like a charging bull and he would back up and say, not my will, but yours be done. And then he would go on further into his life in a greater revelation of what it would mean for him to redeem a people for God would hit him in the chest like a charging bull, and he would steady himself and say, not my will, but yours be done.

And then finally, in that night of Gethsemane, the full revelation of everything it would mean for him to suffer and die for his people hits him in the chest like a charge of a herd of bulls. It staggers him. And then he rises up victorious, not my will, but yours be done. This is this mighty, broad shouldered Christ. Who takes upon the sin of the world in this triumphant, who marches off, ready to die as a sacrifice unto his God and for the sake of his people.

I was one time I was asked to go to a classical it was a Christian school, classical Christian school, extremely worthy of the title, and I went to the headmaster and I said, well, who will I be teaching today? Headmaster said, well, kindergarten to the 12th grade, and I said, well, it's kind of a. Big span. I said I had intended on preaching on propitiation, Headmaster said, go ahead, it won't be a problem. And I was preaching through a text that that normally I would have preached to a seminary.

And I said, what was in the cup, children? And I'll never forget this little girl, nine years old or so, she raises her hand. And I said, yes, dear, what was in the cup? And in true classical education style, she stood up. Straightened out her dress, put her hand on her desk, it was beautiful, And this is what she did.

She said, sir, The wrath of Almighty God was in the cup. I want you to think for a moment, imagine the dam. A thousand miles high, a thousand miles wide. And you live in a little village just. A half a mile, quarter of a mile at the bottom of the dam, and one morning you awake to a sound that seems like the entire world has cracked apart and you rush to the door of your little your little hut and look out only to see that that massive wall of cement has disintegrated and coming down on you as a tower of water that will crush you, disintegrate you.

It doesn't matter how fleet of foot you are, doesn't matter how strong of stroke that you claim to be, you cannot escape it. And it's coming down on you in a matter of seconds. And right before it reaches you, the ground opens up and swallows it down so that not a drop touches. The sandal of your foot, that's what Christ did on Calvary. Imagine a 10, 000 pound millstone grinding in a clockwise direction and another millstone on top of it grinding in the opposite direction And all of a sudden a grain of wheat is put in between the two.

It's a fraction of a second. It feels the pressure and then it is ground to powder. That is what Christ did for you. It is always at this point. That I want to take off my mantle as small as it may be, surrender it to another man, walk off the platform and just spend the rest of my life in darkness.

Two reasons. I'm not worthy. To talk about things like this. Second reason, there's just no words. Preaching is so pitiful.

So many times I've read so many sermons of Spurgeon, where as he gets up in the pulpit, he apologizes. He just starts off apologizing about the great failure that is about to happen and then claims that even though he had the lips and tongue of a seraph, he couldn't even begin to explain the glories of Christ. This is the crisis and the tragedy of the preacher. Whatever I have said is nothing compared to reality. The world is just the opposite, isn't it?

Everything it says is such an exaggeration of what it really is, But with Christ, everything said about him is nothing compared to who he really is. Well, I want to bring out my favorite writer, John Flavell. And he wrote something that it's in the Mediterranean glories in the first volume of his works. And I named it, I hope he's not angry with me, but I call it the father's bargain. It's a conversation in eternity between the father and the son.

The father speaks, my son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls. If you're not willing to wear that title, you cannot be saved. And Ian Murray's biography of Martin Lloyd Jones, two volumes, I recommend it to every person in this room. Martin Lloyd Jones, who is one of the greatest preachers who ever lived and one of the godliest men who ever walked the planet. But the last months of his life, everyone who visited him, he said the same thing.

And when he said this, he was not denying that he had made progress in sanctification. He was a holy man. We as preachers want to let you know that we fail, but we never want you to think there cannot be progress in godliness. There can be men have and women have grown greatly throughout their life in godliness. And you can, too.

But he said this in the last months of his life, almost everyone who visited him, I am a great sinner. But Christ is a great savior. Here the Father says, My son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves. Utterly. You have nothing.

Nothing to bargain with, Not one chip, not one defense. You have utterly undone yourself in your sin. You have nothing to present before God. As the great hymn writer said, nothing in my hands I bring. They've utterly undone themselves and they now lie open to my justice.

Justice demands satisfaction for them or justice will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. What shall be done for these souls, my son? And then Christ replies, Oh, my father, such is my love to and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their surety, their guarantee. Now, listen to this. Bring in all thy bills.

That I may see what they owe thee. Bring them all in, father, that there may be no after reckonings with them. Do you hear that? Bring in everything they owe you. Every bill.

Everything they owe you. I want to see it. And when I pay for it, it's paid in full so that they're listen to this saint. If you could just grasp this. Bring in all the bills so that after I pay, there will be No after reckonings with them.

No other payment will ever have to be made for that miserable man, Paul Washer. On the day I pay it, I want to pay it all so that nothing is left for him except my righteousness. Bring them all in that there may be no after reckonings with them at my hand, thou shall require it, father, I will rather choose to suffer the wrath they deserve than they should suffer it upon me, my father, upon me be all their debt. And then the father says, but my son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last might, the very last cent. And then he says this, expect no abatements.

When we would be traveling down the Amazon or the Marignon in an open boat, you were always watching the sky because cloudburst could come upon you on the Amazon. And if you were not careful, within minutes, your entire boat would be filled up with water and you would be going down. So as you're going down the Amazon, you look behind you and you see clouds gathering, you see them coming swiftly, you see the wind. You're trying to make it to the shore to get a tarp upon the boat. And you're praying for an abatement that the storm will somehow die down, that the winds will calm, that the rains will not come, that there'll be an abatement.

Here he says, Son, if you take for them, expect no abatements. If I spare them, I will not spare you. Now think about that, Saint. Put your name there. If I spare Paul Washer.

Son, I will not spare you. If you take his place, expect no abatements, no calming or lessening of my judgment. If you take Paul Washer's place, if you spare him, I will not spare you. There's enough truth in that to propel a regenerated heart through an eternity of holiness. Isn't there?

Content, Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I am able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverished all my riches, empty all my treasures, yet I am content to undertake it.

I want to leave you with a story from the Old Testament. God comes to Abraham. And he says this. And again, there's Christ in every word of this. Just listen to the language.

Abraham, take now your son. Your only son, Whom you love. Do you think he's trying. To foretell something here. Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there is a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.

And this old Abraham obeys the voice of God. And he takes his son, Mount Moriah. And he lays him upon an altar. And the old man draws black the knife, possibly the same flint knife he would have used to have circumcised him. He draws back the knife, and as the man's will gives in to the will of God, he is stopped by a voice.

It says this. Abraham, Abraham, do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Then Abraham turns around and there is a ram. Caught by its horns in a thicket. And the boy is taken off the altar and the ram is offered in his place.

And we read that story. And we all breathe a sigh of relief. What a wonderful ending to the story. But it wasn't the ending. It was the intermission.

Centuries go by, they come and they go and the curtain opens up again. And there hangs upon Calvary. God's son, his only son, whom he loves, and God stretches forth his hand and takes the knife from Abraham and draws back the strong arm of the Lord and drives the knife straight into the heart of his son, his only son, whom he loves. An old song used to say, offer up the sacrifice, creation sends forth the call. Offer up the sacrifice, one life to pay for them all.

Offer up the sacrifice, the innocent one must be slain. Offer up the sacrifice and bring man back to God again. But I tell you. This this gospel not only has the power. To bring man back to God.

It has the power to keep him there. The power to keep him there. Sin is a poison that breeds all kinds of deaths, maladies. But none of those are the chief reason to avoid sin. The chief reason to avoid sin.

Is here. What the savior did for you and me on Calvary. If you do not know Christ tonight, if you know you're outstanding in your sin, if you've had nothing but morality and rules, if you think you're righteous before God And now you see that all your righteousness is like filthy rags. If you see yourself as empty and hopeless and miserable, then rejoice. The Spirit of the living God has revealed something to you that most men never learn.

Now make the proper response. Flee to Christ, naked and empty-handed with nothing. Throw yourself upon Christ. And you say, but I haven't the strength to run to him, then crawl to him. You say, I haven't the strength to even crawl, then fall upon him.

Fall upon him. True faith is not exerting strength. True faith is giving up. It is falling upon Christ and knowing that he is a rock of such great expanse that you can never fall, that he cannot catch. I was saved 30 some years ago in February.

Because I fell upon Christ, I am still saved because I remain fallen upon Christ. I have no hope. No joy, No comfort, no security, except for this. He shed his own blood for my soul. And it is enough, as the old preacher said, it is enough, boy.

And Saint. And, Saint, many of you tonight heard a sermon that has afflicted you. Good. But Satan would find the advantage even in a good sermon and tell you, yes, you've sinned against such a wonderful master. He doesn't want you go away, mend your ways, fix yourself In a few days, come back to him.

That's what the devil will tell you. It's a lie. Run to him. Run to him. Show that you really believe him because he tells you come to him heavy burdened with sin come to him worldliness come to him fallen now dirty soiled come to him he will in no wise cast you out if we will not cast out the greatest sinner who does not know him He will not cast out the greatest sinner who does not know him.

He will not cast out the saint who is soiled but longs to be clean. Come to him. Fall upon him. Run to him. Run to him.

He's such a mighty savior, such a gracious Lord. His blood cleanses. His blood cleanses. His blood cleanses. Let's pray.

Father, Let's pray. Father. Many of us Lord tonight. Feel like. The fool that was mentioned last night on the highway of holiness.

But we take great comfort. Of your promise that you will not even let fools wander too far. I pray for those who do not know you, that they would run to you tonight. And I pray, Father, for those who do know you, that they will run to you tonight. I praise you that you did not die to take us halfway.

But all the way down the road. Lord, do a work of grace in the heart of many in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to this presentation of the National Center for family integrated churches. We invite you to visit our website at www.ncfic.org where you can keep up to date on what is new as well as find articles, videos, audio sermons and much more at no charge.

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