Transcription
And Jesus says, "This is the Amen talking. This is the one who's not going to tell you what you want to hear. I'm going to tell you like it really is. God wants you to fear Him more than you feel what's wrong. He wants your fear of Him to be greater than your fear of your problem."
Truth is, God's view on any subject matter: If there is no truth, there can be no legitimate unity. I'm here to tell you, Jesus saw Satan had you caged, but on the cross, He has now opened the cage door so that he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
John the Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." That word, "Behold," that means pay close attention and focus. Remove all distractions. Behold, look at that. You see that man over there? He is the Lamb of God. When he calls Jesus the Lamb of God and he introduces it with "Behold," the reason he is so animated, the reason he is so forthright, the reason he is so excited, "Behold," is because Israel had been looking for this person for centuries. They have been waiting for the one who was promised to come, who would address the issue of sin. John the Baptist says, "The wait is over. Behold the Lamb of God."
Now, to appreciate why He's called the Lamb, we've got to go back. When Adam and Eve sinned, they tried to fix the problem themselves because they sewed together some leaves, tied them around themselves to cover themselves. The problem was, their attempt to cover their sin was unacceptable to God. And not that they didn't try. If not, they didn't come up with a sewing singer program. It's just that the sewing of the leaves did not satisfy the demand of God. So God had to slay an animal Himself and shed blood in order to provide a covering for Adam and Eve that He Himself would accept. He would not accept the covering they offered. He would only accept the covering He provided.
This would lead to a sacrificial system throughout the whole Old Testament by which the wrath of God against sin could be assuaged. The main centerpiece of this program went back to an event in Exodus chapter 12 called the Passover. When Israel was leaving Egypt, the last plague was, "I am going to take the life of the firstborn in every Egyptian home." In order for you, Israel, to bypass what I'm getting ready to do to Egypt, you have to slay a lamb and shed its blood. You are then to take the blood and paint it on the doorpost of your houses. And when the death angel comes over to slay the firstborn of these rebellious Egyptians, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Exodus 12:13. In other words, the blood will avert judgment based on God's justice. "When I see the blood."
Now, why the blood? Why couldn't the lamb have a heart attack? Why did it have to be the blood? Well, one of the principles of scripture is, "The life of the flesh is in the blood." He says, "There must be the shedding of blood in order to avert My just wrath." In the Old Testament, He came up with a way to avert His wrath on a temporary basis. The temporary basis was through the slaying of the lamb and the other sacrifices. Hebrews chapter 10, verses 1 to 14. Hebrews chapter 9, verses 11 to 14. He says those sacrifices could not fix the problem of sin. All they could do would be delay the judgment for sin. So every year, the high priest would go on the Day of Atonement into the Holy of Holies to sacrifice. And then the people on a regular basis would offer their own lamb for their sin so that God's judgment would bypass them.
Okay, so that is the Old Testament system. That Old Testament system looked forward to the day when God would provide a permanent solution to the problem of sin by having an acceptable sacrifice. This sacrifice, or Lamb, was for the purpose, here it is, of substitutionary atonement. Let me say it again: substitutionary atonement. Here it is: God must judge sin. We all sin. We are all under judgment. God's standard is so high that only perfection will meet it. So the whole Old Testament anticipated, through the lambs that they were slaying, the time when God would provide this perfect Lamb. Isaiah 53, verses 1 to 12, gives a description of this suffering servant, this person who would come and who would be like a lamb sent to the slaughter, and He would bear the iniquity of mankind.
Behold, John breaks on the scene and says, "We found Him, the Lamb of God." Okay, watch this. He's not just the Lamb. He's the Lamb of God. In other words, it's God's solution to the problem. It's not the lamb you came up with. It's the lamb God came up with. So God is the standard by which what is acceptable to Him. "Behold the Lamb of God." And so He sets the stage for this declaration. In fact, Jesus is called in 1 Corinthians 5:7, "the Passover Lamb." It says, "Christ is our Passover Lamb." Now, why? Because, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world."
Now, if you read that too fast, you'll miss something. "Behold the Lamb of God, God's provision for a substitutionary atonement." God, while God must judge sin, He will accept substitutes. Okay? He will, He will do an exchange. "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin." Watch this, "of the whole wide world." We call this unlimited atonement. That is, that the death of Jesus Christ was so sufficient that it addressed every sin of every person who has ever lived for all time.
Now, now you're going to have to let that set in again. The Bible declares Jesus tasted death for all men. The Bible declares, 2 Corinthians 5:19, that He reconciled the whole world to Himself. That He was the Lamb of God who satisfied the demand of God because He met the standard of God. The Lamb of God had to be perfect. Jesus Christ was perfect. He qualified. The Lamb of God had to be human. Jesus became a man. God the Son became a man. So He was human. Hebrews 2:17 says, "In order to qualify, He had to be like His brethren. He had to be blood and skin and bones. He had to be human." But He had to be human, but He had to be a perfect human. So Jesus Christ fulfilled the requirement to be the substitute.
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I'm sure for many of us, maybe even most of us, this has been one of the most trying years in our lives. People have suffered loss. People have found themselves claustrophobic and closed in in light of the virus. We've seen all kinds of division. And yet, in the midst of this, we're called to trust God. It is our hope that throughout this year, God has used the Urban Alternative and our ministry of God's Word to help encourage and strengthen you during this time. As we close out this year, I want to thank you for your prayers for us, for your prayers for the Word of God that's been going forth, and for your support, your generosity, which has kept us bringing God's truth throughout the nation and actually around the world. So may God richly strengthen you, help you to recover from anything that has, that has hurt you this year, but also empower you for a brand new hope in the year to come. Again, thank you for being a friend of Tua. We couldn't do what we do without you.
On the cross, Jesus Christ bore every sin of every person who has ever lived for all time. Now, why am I saying that over and over and over again? Because there is a common misunderstanding, and that is that people don't go to heaven because of their sins. If that were true, even saved people couldn't go to heaven because saved people still sin. People don't miss heaven because of their sin. Why? Because Jesus paid it all. His last words on the cross were, "It is finished." That means paid in full. When non-believers are judged in Revelation chapter 20, their sins are never brought up. Not because they haven't sinned, because the sin was paid for. The problem is, even though the sin has been paid for, they do not possess eternal life. "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." See, what's missing is life.
The verse that, that kind of gives you the summary of this is, uh, 2 Corinthians 5:21, which says, "He who knew no sin," He was perfect, "He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." There was a credit transfer. God took the perfect credit of Jesus. He's got a perfect credit score, and He transfers the perfect credit score to the person who receives Christ. He says in Romans chapter 3, verse 23, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But then He says, "being justified as a gift by His grace." So that is a word: gift. Gifts you don't earn. Once you earn it, it's a wage. Gifts are free. Gift by His grace. So He gives it.
Justified. That's our first theological word that this Lamb produces. The word justification means to be declared legally innocent. It's like a judge saying, "I find you not guilty." That's justification. It's a legal term. It's a courtroom term. When a sinner believes on Jesus Christ, he is declared by God not guilty because of the righteousness transfer I just talked about. So you're as guilty as sin, but God says, "Not guilty," because He looks at Christ and exonerates you. Okay, so that's justification. It is direct. It is a declaration legally of not being guilty before holy God.
Then He comes to the second word. The second word: He says in verse 24, "through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." The redemption is to release through the payment of a price. It was where slaves were put on the slave block and, uh, uh, they would be bought by somebody and then set free. It would be redemption. To redeem is to buy something by paying a price for it in order to release it. So God declared you righteous so that He could let you get out of jail. He declared me righteous so that we would no longer be held hostage eternally. That's how, that's how long it's going to take you to pay the price that God demands for our sin. It will take forever. So since you can't afford forever, Jesus Christ picked up the forever tag, price tag, so that you can be set free. That's redemption.
Then He gives you the zinger word. I call this the single word, theologically. He says, "whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood." Propitiation. That, that is a big theological word that means satisfaction. To be propitiated means to be satisfied. So when we say that Jesus was set forth as a propitiation, what we are saying is He satisfied the just demands of a holy God with His substitutionary atonement. God said, "I'm satisfied. What You have done, Son, has satisfied My holy demands on all of mankind who has ever lived forever. I am now satisfied, and so I reconcile the world to Myself because I accept Your substitution." So Jesus Christ now offers eternal life to all who respond to Him. Justification, redemption, and then propitiation. Satisfied.
It was Jesus's death on the cross that, when you really understand what He accomplished, should affect you living the rest of your life. On the cross, Jesus not only paid for your sin, He broke the authority of Satan. See, Saturday was a big day. He died on Friday. He rose on Sunday. But the Bible says on Saturday, He went to hell and He declared victory to the demonic realm. So between death and resurrection, He was preaching a victory sermon. He was saying, "Devil, I win. You lose. I'm in charge here." The back of the devil was broken. So the only way the devil can own you now is to trick you.
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That's why he's called the great deceiver. Because he now has to trick you into thinking you don't have enough power. And the main way he does it is to get you to forget about the blood. Because if he can get you to forget about the blood, and the blood is the only thing that breaks his back, and you don't remember to utilize the blood, then he knows you don't have power to stop him from messing with you. It is the blood. He says, "that gives you the power of victory and of righteousness."
Jesus has called the Lamb 28 times in the book of Revelation. 28 times. He's called the Lamb. So this is a big deal for John. It's in the book of Saint John. He's called the Lamb. But now 28 times in the book of Revelation: "The Lamb, the Lamb, the Lamb, the Lamb, the Lamb." In Revelation chapter 5, verse 11, "Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.'" And every created thing which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." And the four living creatures kept saying, "Amen." And the elders fell down and worshiped.
I want you to know that the blood will not lose its power. You get up in the morning and you shout it out: "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world for eternity and for history."
I close with this. There's this, there's this little boy who had captured two birds and he put them in a cage. Captured two birds, he put them in a cage. And he was walking down the street with the caged birds. And a man saw the birds in the cage. He said, "Young man, where are you going with those two birds in the cage?" "Oh," he says, "I'm going to play with them for a little bit, then I'm going to feed them to the cat." The man said, "You're going to do what? I'm going to play with them a little bit, but then I'm going to feed the two birds to the cat." He said, "Look, how much will you take for those two birds and the cage?" "I will pay you whatever price you require." The young man thought about it, came up with a very high price. The man reached into his pocket, pulled out his money, and he bought the bird cage with the birds in it.
When he took the bird cage with the birds in it over to the side, he opened the door and he let the birds go free. Now, let's rewind. The boy had the birds in a cage, which means they were trapped in a situation they couldn't get themselves out of. But not only were the birds trapped in a situation they couldn't get themselves out of, the plan for the birds was destruction because he was going to feed them to the cat. So not only were they trapped in life, but they had no hope for eternity because they were trapped. And all the boy said he was going to do was play with them. Isn't that what the devil does with us sometimes? He traps us, and then he plays with us, only to eat us up later on.
But somebody from the outside asked, "How much will you take for those two birds?" And he paid the price in order to get the cage and the birds. And when he got the cage and the birds, he set the two birds free. So two birds who were caged and were only going to be toys for a little boy have now been set free. Two birds that were going to be eaten up and destroyed have now been set free. But as good as all that is, there's one thing that's better. Because as the birds begin to fly away, and as the birds begin to enjoy the freedom because the price had been paid, the birds looked back to the man who paid the price and began singing, "Twee-dee-dee-dum, twee-dee-dee-dum." They began singing praises for the one who had delivered them.
I'm here to tell you, Jesus saw Satan had you caged. Jesus saw the devil want to eat you up. But on the cross, He reached into His pocket and He paid the price in full. He has now opened the cage door so that he whom the Son sets free is free indeed. So now, as you fly out of here to your car, as you fly out of here to your house, as you fly out of here to your job, don't forget to turn back and say, "Worthy is the Lamb." Don't forget to turn back and say, "Twee-dee-dee-dum, twee-dee-dee-dum." He's worthy to be praised. He's driving to deeper.
Throughout the Old Testament, God has established a sacrificial system that would satisfy His just wrath against sin. The problem was that that system only offered temporary relief from the just judgment of a holy God. So when Jesus Christ comes on the scene as the Lamb of God, He has fully satisfied the demands of God against the sinfulness of the human race. That's why He's called the Lamb. Because lambs were used in the Old Testament as a temporary solution. But as the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ is the permanent solution for all sin, for all mankind, for all time.
So when men respond in faith to the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God becomes their Lamb of God. So that now, just as during the Passover, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you," the death angel will no longer stop at your house. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the Lamb of God and His shed blood on the cross has so satisfied the demands of a just and holy God that when we apply the blood of that Lamb to our hearts, the death angel passes over us. We no longer have to fear either physical death or eternal death, because the blood of that Lamb has eternal benefit to all who place faith alone in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins and for the gift of eternal life.
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