Sunday Service 11/03/24 (Morning)

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I'm always glad that I was grandfathered into that. Thank you. Our baptism catechism question this morning is number 77.
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What is forbidden in the Seventh Commandment? And as you all know, the catechism is simply a question and answer way of teaching what the scripture teaches on certain subjects.
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What is forbidden in the Seventh Commandment? Answer, the Seventh Commandment forbideth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.
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Thoughts, as Jesus says in Matthew 19, which come from the heart. The mouth speaks, so the mind thinks.
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The mouth speaks because of the thoughts that we have. It comes from the heart. Our words, which again, proceed from the heart and our actions.
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So it's a matter of what we think, what we believe, the way we intellectualize things, and then the way we act upon them.
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That is all forbidden in the Seventh Commandment. You shall not commit adultery. It goes further than that, though, in the scripture as a whole.
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Not that I object to anything in the catechism. It's absolutely correct. If you read in the
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Old Testament especially, most especially I would say Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the nation of Israel is accused constantly of adultery, physical, actual acts of adultery, and also adultery in turning to other gods.
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Adultery is that which one spouse commits against another. And so when God accuses his people of adultery, it's because they've turned from their true husband, which is
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God, to others, which are other gods or idols, or whatever it may be, idols for our own heart or actual physical idols which they were worshiping.
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So this idea of not committing adultery, we need to take it beyond simply spouses, though that is crucially important.
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We don't forget that. But remember that it also is a signal, it's a sign, it's a type of the spiritual adultery that is so often condemned in the scripture.
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So we need to be sure we don't turn from any but Christ. He is our true husband.
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And to look to any other would be to violate the seventh command and commit that kind of adultery.
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So what is forbidden? The seventh command forbids all unchaste thoughts and words and actions.
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Thou shalt not commit adultery. So let's take a few moments to prepare ourselves for worship if we take a quiet time, pray silently, and get ready to worship our
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Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Call ourselves to worship with the word of God from Psalm 103.
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Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the
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Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquity and heals all your diseases.
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Who redeems your life from the pit. Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. Who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.
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All this fulfilled for us by God's mercy in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let us begin our worship with number 269 in the hymnal.
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Glorious things of thee are spoken. Number 269, when you have that, please stand as you are able as we join together in song.
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That hymn, glorious things of thee are spoken. None more glorious than the cross of Jesus Christ, which we sing of next in hymn number 177.
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Beneath the cross of Jesus, number 177. Our God and Father, we come to you as the blood -bought people of our
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Savior, Jesus Christ. Your beloved Son, who you gave to us. He who died for our sins.
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The only mediator between man and God. The man, Jesus Christ. In him,
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God became flesh and dwelt among us. And in him, God was explained and exposed to us.
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So, Father God, we thank you for Jesus Christ, the salvation we have in him. We thank you, Father, that you, in your love for the world, sent your
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Son to declare you, the Father, the creator of all, to us. And so, in his name, in the name of God the
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Son, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, we do come to you this day and pray that our worship to you would be acceptable to you.
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For it is on the blood of Jesus Christ that we stand. It is on his merits, Father, that we come to you. It is because of him and he alone and nothing in ourselves that we are able to come boldly to the throne of grace this day and there find help in our time of need.
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Our time of need, Father, is now. We need you by your Spirit to dwell among us and bring our worship into your presence as the
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Spirit would do so and interpret, as it were, our weak efforts and bring them to the throne of grace for us.
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So, Father God, because of the power of the Spirit who is here, who you have sent, because of Jesus Christ, we do pray you would hear us this day and help us again in our time of need,
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Lord, as there are those among us who need jobs. We pray for our sister, Quinn, still looking for work and others among us who are looking for jobs in this area that you might sustain them, make them able to provide for their own or their family's needs.
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Father God, in your mercy, we pray that you would do so. We pray for health for those who are in need of that.
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We thank you for doctors and nurses and for the technology of the age in which we live that you have decreed for us.
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We thank you for all these things and we pray that you would use them to the good of those who are now suffering illness, who look to you because of Jesus Christ.
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We look to you for that healing and we give you all the glory. So, we pray for our sister,
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Deborah, and the cancer that she's now going through and the chemo that she's now taking. Father, we thank you for those treatments.
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We pray, Lord, that you, by the power of your Spirit, by your mercy, that you would reach down from heaven with your finger and touch her body, that it may respond well to all these treatments that you have allowed her to have.
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And Lord, that you would grant her full healing and full health and vigor once again. Father, kill away this cancer that is in her.
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Restore her to health. Father, for all among us, who have all kinds of diverse needs, we lay them at your feet.
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We trust you, Father, to provide for us. As Jesus says, you know what we have need of before we ask and yet we are enjoined by Jesus Christ to ask.
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So, we ask for all these things, those that I've mentioned, those that I haven't stated, those that we're not even aware of yet.
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Lord God, begin your provision now that we may rejoice together and point to Jesus Christ and say
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God, in his mercy, through Jesus Christ and by his Spirit, the triune God, Father, Son, Spirit, has provided and shown this goodness to us.
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Be with us this day as we worship you, as we sing your praises, as we pray, as we have fellowship together, all the activities of this day,
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Father, because you have brought us together, because you and Jesus Christ have bound us together, because,
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Father, we love Jesus Christ and because you have shown Jesus Christ, we have love for the Father, Son, and Spirit.
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May that be the case this day. We ask in Christ's name, amen. Our scripture reading this morning will be in Numbers chapter 16.
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We'll read the entire chapter. A bit long, but we will get through it. And then we will turn to John 7, verses 25 to 31.
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There's a lot we can make out of Numbers chapter 16, this rebellion from Korah, who was one of the
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Levites, and he brought some other conspirators with him, and 250 leading men, well -known men from Israel, to confront
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Moses and his brother Aaron. And basically, who do you guys think you are leading us around, telling us what to do, telling us how to behave, telling us thou shalt not this and thou shalt not that?
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You go too far, Moses. And it turns out, and you'll hear this in the reading, where Moses says, no, you know, it's you who have gone too far.
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And what they're looking for, though, it doesn't say it explicitly in the text, but it's sort of challenging them, challenging
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God, as it were, to give them a sign. What sign can you give us that you are authorized to lord it over us?
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He didn't lord it over them at all. As the scripture says, Moses was the most humble man on Earth.
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But what sign did they need? Could it be the glory coming down upon the tabernacle? They'd seen that.
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Could it be the thunder and lightning from Sinai? They'd seen that. Could it be God speaking with Moses face -to -face, as he does to a friend?
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They'd seen all that. What sign could they possibly be looking for? Well, God would give them a sign.
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God would give them a sign. We'll read where the Earth is gonna swallow up the rebels. And yet the
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Earth held onto them. They stayed in the Earth. They were condemned to the Earth. I think when
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I read this, I can only think of our Lord Jesus Christ. And metaphorically, did not the Earth swallow him up?
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And yet, unlike these rebels who I'll read of in a moment, the Earth, death itself, could not hold
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Jesus Christ, because he was raised from the dead on the third day. He rose from the grave, raised for our justification.
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Think of Jesus Christ, as we read in Numbers chapter 16. Now Korah the son of Ishar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men.
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And they rose up before Moses with the number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well -known men.
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They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, you have gone too far, for all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the
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Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.
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Probably means his face fell, his countenance fell. And he said to Korah and all his company, in the morning the
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Lord will show you who is his and who is holy, and will bring him near to him. The one whom he chooses, he will bring near to him.
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Do this, take censers, Korah and all his company, put fire in them and put incense on them before the
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Lord tomorrow, and the man, excuse me, whom the Lord chooses shall be the holy one. You have gone too far, you sons of Levi.
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And Moses said to Korah, hear now, you sons of Levi, is it too small a thing for you that the
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God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the
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Lord and to stand before the congregation to minister to them? And that he has brought you near to him and all your brothers and sons of Levi with you?
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And would you seek the priesthood also? Therefore it is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered together.
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What is Aaron that you grumble against him? Let's stop for just a moment. They've been given a great ministry to care for the temple, to clean the instruments of the temple after they've been used in the sacrifice and the processes, the procedures in the temple.
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They had a holy and a high calling. They're called out of all Israel and as it were exalted among Israel, but not exalted to the priesthood.
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How much more do they want? We go on to verse 12. And Moses sent to Dathan and Abiram, excuse me, the sons of Eliab, and they said, we will not come up.
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Is it a small thing that you brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey? Excuse me, a land flowing with milk and honey, they're referring back to the land of slavery.
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They mean Egypt. Think of that. To kill us in the wilderness that you must also make yourself a prince over us.
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Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance in fields and vineyards.
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Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up. And Moses was very angry and said to the
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Lord, do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them and I have not harmed one of them.
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And Moses said to Korah, be present, you and all your company before the Lord, you and they and Aaron tomorrow, and let every one of you take a censer and put incense in it, and every one of you bring before the
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Lord his censer, 250 censers, you also, and Aaron each his censer.
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So every man took a censer and put fire in them and laid incense on them and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron.
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Then Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and the glory of the
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Lord appeared to all the congregation, and the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying, separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment.
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And they fell on their faces and said, oh God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?
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And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, say to the congregation, get away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
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Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. And he spoke to the congregation saying, depart, please, from the tents of those wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins.
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So they got away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, together with their wives, their sons, and their little ones.
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And Moses said, hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and it has not been of my own accord.
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If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the
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Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the
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Lord. And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods.
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So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
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And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, lest the earth swallow us up.
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And the fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men, offering their incense. Then the
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Lord spoke to Moses, saying, tell Eleazar the son of Aaron, the priest, to take up the censers out of the blaze, then scatter the fire far and wide, for they have become holy.
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As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, for they offered them before the
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Lord, and they became holy. Thus they shall be assigned to all the people, excuse me, to the people of Israel.
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So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar to be a reminder to the people of Israel so that no outsider who is not of the descendants of Aaron should draw near to burn incense before the
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Lord, lest he become like Korah in his company, as the Lord said to him through Moses. But on the next day, all the congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, you have killed the people of the
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Lord. And when the congregation had assembled against Moses and against Aaron, they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the
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Lord appeared. And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, get away from the midst of this congregation that I may consume them in a moment.
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And they fell on their faces, and Moses said to Aaron, take your censer and put fire on it from the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for the wrath has gone out from the
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Lord, the plague has begun. So Aaron took it, as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly, and behold, the plague had already begun among the people.
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And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.
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Now those who died in the plague were 14 ,700, besides those who died in the affair of Korah.
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And Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting when the plague was stopped. The next reading will be in John chapter seven, verses 25 to 31, a much shorter reading.
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But again, you're gonna hear this idea of show us a sign. Show us a sign. As Israel had seen all those signs, again, the glory of the
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Lord falling on the tabernacle, fire from the Lord, thunder and lightning from the Lord, water from rock, show us a sign.
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And here, people are gonna go to Jesus, who had just fed the 5 ,000 with just a few loaves and a few fish.
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And they say, well, won't you show us a sign of some kind? What more do we need?
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What more do we want? What more do we look for than the scripture which reveals Jesus Christ to us?
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The sign that God gave us in Jesus Christ in his death, his burial, and his resurrection? God has given the signs, and yet here are these people who are gonna say just that, show us a sign.
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John seven, beginning at 25. Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is not this the man whom they seek to kill?
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And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the
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Christ? Well, we know where this man comes from and where the Christ appears, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.
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So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, you know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord.
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He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, and I come from him, and he sent me.
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So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him.
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They said, when the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?
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We'll turn in your hymnals as we prepare for the preaching of God's word to hymn number 594,
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O Love That Will Not Let Me Go. You may remain seated for this. Hymn number 594.
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We'll turn in your Bibles, please, for Psalm number, for the reading of Psalm number 75. I'll read the entire
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Psalm, Psalm 75, and then we'll turn over to Psalm 116, and just read a few verses from there, verses 12 to 13.
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So when you have Psalm 75, please stand for the reading of God's word. Psalm 75.
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We give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.
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At the set time that I appoint, I will judge with equity. When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is
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I who keeps steady its pillars. I say to the boastful, do not boast, and to the wicked, do not lift up your horn.
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Do not lift up your horn on high, or speak with haughty neck. For not from the east or from the west, and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is
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God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another. For in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it to its dregs.
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But I will declare it forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the wicked
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I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up. Now turn, please, to Psalm 116.
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I'll read verses 12 to 14 from that psalm. Psalm 116.
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What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the
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Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. God bless the reading, and now the proclamation of his word.
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Please be seated. You know, the entire sweep of redemptive history can really be gathered up if we think of two gardens.
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And this is what I want to present to you this day is that entire sweep of redemption, and we're gonna bracket this history in these two gardens.
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My hope today is to bring Jesus Christ to you in a way that is clear, in a way that you will see the depth of his sacrifice, the depth of the suffering that he voluntarily, he willingly endured on our behalf, on your behalf.
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As you think of these two gardens that bracket all of redemptive history in the way that,
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God willing, I'll be able to bring to you. Two gardens, they're untold miles, untold centuries apart.
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And of course, these two gardens each housed a man. So there's two men, each a representative whose progeny, whose descendants would bear the consequences of their actions in those gardens.
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A garden and a garden, a man and a man. Well, the first of those brought a beautiful beginning to a tragic end.
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And the second one brought an end to that tragedy, and with that end, a beautiful, wondrous new beginning.
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Well, all of you, I think, have guessed where we're going with most of this. The first garden can be none other than Eden.
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And the second garden, Gethsemane. Eden was host to the first man,
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Adam, and Gethsemane to the second Adam. As Paul calls him in 1 Corinthians, he's the second
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Adam, but we call him Jesus. Both Adams faced a similar temptation, one which we all face in diverse ways, at diverse times, with diverse results.
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The great temptation faced by both of these Adams, by Adam the first and by Adam the second, who is
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Jesus Christ, both of them were tempted to disobey God, to choose self -will over God's will.
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To choose what I want to go, what I want my priorities to be, to choose my agenda over God's will.
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To avoid his will. Self -will over God's will, to be my own
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God, to be master of my own fate and ruler over my own personal fiefdom, which boundary is me.
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These two Adams, in these two gardens, this is what they faced. My goal today is for us to glory in our
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Savior, Jesus Christ, to appreciate him more, to widen our view of his sacrifice for us.
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My hope today is that you will leave here this morning loving him more than when you came. God willing, this will be done in this sort of a tale of twos, these pairs that I'm going to bring to you this day.
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Two gardens, two men who gave starkly different answers to the temptation they faced, bringing starkly different consequences because of those answers.
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So we have these gardens, we have these men, and between these two end points of history, a beginning and an end of redemption,
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Eden, where redemption was made necessary, Gethsemane, where our redemption was secured.
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Between those two, this cup I read about in the two Psalms, so often depicted by the prophets as well, but I chose those two
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Psalms to bring them to you. Between these two, these cups, a cup filled with God's wrath at sin, and a cup filled with salvation wrought by Jesus Christ.
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So we begin at the beginning, we begin with Adam in the garden of Eden, and there in that garden, pronounced by God to be very good, when
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Eve was there, it was very good, the first man, that first Adam, set the course for humanity.
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He set my course, he set your course. Born children of wrath, born rebels against God, born in sin and iniquity, and why?
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How so? Because of Adam, the first Adam, in that first garden, and his answer to sin.
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That place that was pronounced good by God, the good of that world, we have to understand, was not really moral goodness, it was good because that world was ready to provide what
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God intended it to provide. You see, there was no moral goodness in the world because there was no moral badness by which to define the goodness.
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Everything there was good. Sin was possible, sin was available, bad things were able to be done, but they hadn't been.
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It was good. It was good because it was able to provide what God intended it to provide.
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But like there was box, evil was there, but not yet unleashed.
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Sin was available. And where was sin available? Well, we didn't read from Genesis, but you all know the story.
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Well, not the story, I should say the history, because it's true, it's factual. Sin was available, and where was it available?
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From that tree. From that one tree. And not the tree itself, what fruit did it have?
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Probably like all the other trees, good fruit to eat. It was good to eat, even says that when Adam fell into it.
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So it wasn't the tree itself. It was the act of mistrust, the act of disobedience that could only be had there at that one tree.
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Just a tree. Set it apart from the others in a place where God could say, that tree.
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Don't touch that one tree. So somehow it was separated, somehow it was distinct, and yet it was just a tree.
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That tree. And that tree even had a name. The knowledge of good and evil.
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Other than that, it's just a tree. But it's the act of reaching out to the tree.
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The act of taking from that tree. The act of not trusting God that taking from that tree would not be good for them, because in the day you eat of it, you will surely die.
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The Hebrew in that, where we say surely die, is something like, in dying you will die, you will certainly die when you eat of it.
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And the fruit is like all the other trees, I think. Go to those other trees and eat, and take what
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God has provided. Just stay away from that one tree. And there's our Pandora's box.
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There's the evil waiting to happen. There's that thing that hadn't yet been brought into the world.
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Just like the things that tempt us. Just stuff, it's like all the other stuff.
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For example, God said do not covet that stuff that is your neighbor's. His stuff, what is his stuff, your neighbor's stuff?
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Well, it's like your stuff. It's like your things. Just like that tree is like other ones, but God says what to you and me about my stuff or your stuff, your things.
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Your wife, your donkey, your farm, your house, your car, your job. What does he say? He says eyes off.
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More than eyes off, heart. Get your heart away from that, and the list goes on. As the things that God gives us to provide for our needs become the fodder for all kinds of mischief and sin.
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Tree like all the other trees with fruit like all the other fruit. God says keep away from that one.
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As God tells us, keep away from your neighbor's stuff because in the end, it's really no different than the stuff
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God has provided you. And he goes on in Genesis and says, now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field.
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Serpents or snakes had to have been in the procession of animals that paraded before Adam when he took authority over them by naming them.
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And I have no speculation as to why Satan chose that form, the form of a serpent, to bring his designs against God.
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Well, against God. By corrupting man, but against God. We always see that serpent portrayed.
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Do you see these pictures where the serpent is wrapped around that branch? And so he's wrapped around there and the part that has his mouth is up high and speaking right to Eve.
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Yeah, as I was thinking about this, it's interesting to note that while it spoke to Eve about the tree, the
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Bible never says it was even on the tree. It was on the ground. Where was it?
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We don't know. But we all do know what happened. What happened was
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Eve was deceived. Eve was deceived and Adam ate. And because Adam ate, the first Adam ate, mankind fell.
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Now we have these two Adams. And we'll just go quickly and tell you why they're both an Adam. Because they represented all who had come from them.
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Adam the first representing all mankind, what we call federal headship, and that's all I'm gonna say about it.
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But all who came after him were corrupted because of him. The Bible doesn't say we inherited deception from Eve, though we are all able to be deceived.
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We allow ourselves to be deceived. Too often we want to be deceived. But it doesn't say that we inherited that from Eve.
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What it says is we inherited sin from Adam, born in sin and iniquity because of Adam.
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By one man, death came into the world, says the Apostle Paul. So when
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Adam joined his wife in that seemingly innocuous act just taking a bite of that fruit, whatever it was, he brought pollution to the temple,
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Eden, that he should have been guarding. He brought knowledge only God should have. He was now one step more like his maker in that he now knew good and evil.
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Remember I said at the beginning, there was no moral badness in that world at that time. It was available, but it wasn't known because there was no, excuse me, that's the other way around, no moral goodness because the badness to define it had not yet been unleashed.
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So he now had this knowledge that he passed on to all generations after him, the knowledge of good and evil.
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And that's the first garden. That's as much as I want to say about it this morning. That's the first garden, the one in which
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Adam sealed our doom, your doom and my doom, all mankind, for the wages of sin is death, says the
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Apostle Paul. And what God said to Adam, on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.
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So Adam faced temptation, and he lost.
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Adam faced temptation, and all who followed him lost. Adam faced temptation, and you and I lost because of him born in sin and a corrupted, lost relationship with God.
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He had been fairly warned that the only outcome of his act would be death, yet he reached out and sinned.
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He had lived in the very presence of God, yet he reached out and sinned. Paul says that Adam was not deceived, but Eve was.
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He also says it's because of Adam's sin that we're born into sin, that we're born as sinners.
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Listen, you don't become a sinner when you sin. You're born a sinner. You sin because you're a sinner. We have to get that straight.
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You're not born good, and then become something bad when you do something bad. We're born with that propensity to do the bad, and too often, we voluntarily reach out and do it.
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And this comes to us from Adam. Bible never discusses just how that propensity is transported from him to all of us.
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It simply says that it is, and I believe the Bible. I know you do, so we'll leave it at that.
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We can multiply the scriptures, but just Romans 5 .14, death reigned from Adam to Moses, 1
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Corinthians 15 .22, for in Adam all die. For in Adam all die.
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Sin and death are in the world because in Edom, Adam's answer to temptation was to surrender to sin.
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Now, he eventually died at 930 years of age, and that sounds remarkable to us, doesn't it? He lived for almost 10 centuries.
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But for his times, really, it just wasn't too bad. You know, for today, if somebody died at 95, we say he lived a good, long life.
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Nothing too remarkable about that. 930 years, not bad for the day, but he did die, just as God said.
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And because of him, we die. Old age, cancer, violence, all this can explain death, but only in a discreet manner.
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Only transaction by transaction. Adam's transgression explains it completely.
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It explains it fully. His sin explains why old age and why cancer and violence and accidents even exist, much less cause death, for the wages of sin is death.
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And when did sin come into the world? By one man, by Adam, in that garden, in Edom, that place that had been good and very good once Eve was introduced into it, brought death.
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So sin, what happens to sin? What happens to your sin?
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I don't mean born sinners, I mean those discreet acts that we do. Does it just poof and disappear somehow?
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Does God just shrug his shoulder? Do you ever hear one of the prophets saying in the word of God, thus says the
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Lord, hey, you know all that stuff about obey my commandments and all the rest of that? All that stuff about holiness and righteousness and sin and judgment?
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You know what? Yeah, we're good. Nothing like that in the scripture at all.
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Quite the opposite. What happens to sin? Jeremiah 25,
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I think, gives one of the most clear explanations of it. You needn't turn there.
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Let me read this to you. You can turn there if you want. I'll be in Jeremiah 25, 15. Thus the
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Lord God said to me, take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom
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I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword I am sending among them.
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And it goes on in verses 17 to 20, lists all the nations. And it says one cup filled with the sins of the nations,
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Jerusalem's sin and Egypt's sin and the Philistine's sin and Ammon's sin and Tyre and more. Jerusalem's sin was not
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Egypt's sin and Egypt's sin was not Tyre's sin and so on. As Ezekiel says, each man, or we could say in this case, each nation dies for their own sin.
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But here's this cup being filled with wrath. Here's this cup where the experience of God's fury against your sin is finally pictured for us.
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This is why the gardens bracket this history. Sin introduced and what happens to the sin?
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They just kind of float away? No, there's a cup. There's a cup and God's wrath for each sin is in that cup.
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We know that we're born children of wrath. We're born enemies of God. We're born friends of the world. By nature, sinners worthy of judgment and condemnation.
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And that's by nature because we inherited Adam's nature. And there in that cup is wrath,
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God's wrath, his holy wrath, his wrath at sin and his wrath at our discreet sin.
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The acts we have done, the things we perform because of what we are by nature.
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Now being sin, being born sin and actually sinning is sort of parallel to the two stages of salvation because in salvation, first there's repentance and there's a whole repentance where Jesus says, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.
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You might ask, repent of what? Just repent. Look at God as holiness.
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See Jesus Christ, the holy one of God and look at yourself and just repent.
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Just be aghast at that chasm between you. And once in Christ, once God willing gives you the faith to believe in him through faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ and repents for your sins, now repent of the discreet sins.
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So you're born a sinner, holistically, that's what you are and then you sin discreetly.
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You're saved by faith in Jesus Christ, by repentance for who you are just looking to him and comparing the two and being aghast at that chasm, at that difference and then as a saved person, repentance for the discreet sins.
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We become a repentant person. We become a repentant person because as Jesus says, that's who
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God is seeking to bring into his kingdom and that kingdom will accommodate only such as these, only those who have come by repentance and faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know this Lord that I'm bringing to you this morning?
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That I'm pulling out of the pages of scripture and presenting to you Christ crucified? We haven't gotten to the crucifixion yet.
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But this Lord Jesus Christ, he, the one who calls us to repentance, he, the one alone who stands between you and God.
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Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and then as John says in 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins and the assumption is we have many sins to confess continually, you have sins to confess from yesterday, you forgot about this morning, you have sins to confess today and you'll have sins tomorrow and Tuesday and so on.
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We confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is our life if we've come to Jesus Christ because the nature has been changed by the spirit of God.
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I'm a repentant person and so I repent as a repentant person of the individual sins that I've committed and likewise, the nation's nature, from Jeremiah 25, the nation's nature is sin which flows into more sin and the cup of wrath that I read about is
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God's remembrance of each sin, each iniquity of those nations. Drop by drop, the cup is filled with Adam, the explorer's discovery, sin.
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Israel's sin was injustice, Naboth was murdered for his vineyard by King Ahab, drop.
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Egypt enslaves and abuses a nation, drop. And that cup is not just for those nations in Jeremiah's day.
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In Revelation chapter 14 and 16 and 17 and 18, there's a cup and those contents are for nations and for individuals.
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So we don't get to say yeah, those Babylonians, those Assyrians, those Edomites, those Philistines, they're gonna get theirs, aren't they?
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Glad that cup's for them. I read to you from Psalm 75 and verse eight.
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For in the hand of the Lord there's a cup with foaming wine well mixed and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.
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That's not nations, that's you and me. That's your neighbors, your coworkers.
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All the wicked of the earth shall drain it to its dregs, so adultery, drop.
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Murder, drop. Pornography, lust, drop.
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Coveting, drop. The list goes on and on and on as drop by drop you fill your cup as I filled my cup.
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Jealousy and wrath and clamoring drop by drop into each cup, each sin recorded, each punishment determined, each to be experienced in all its fullness by the one who made each contribution.
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Now think for a moment about God's wrath. What is going into this cup? It's the holy response to sin from an offended
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God. It is condemnation. It is proper wrath and is fully justified. The punishment is fully just.
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Shall not the judge of the earth do what is just? Indeed, he shall do justice and only justice.
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There's many ideas on how this justice, this holy wrath works itself out against those who incite him to anger.
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Adam when he ate, Cain when he murdered, David when he committed adultery, Judah and their idols.
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You and I have our own contributions. Where does all this go? It goes into this cup of wrath. I don't wanna hear the full description of what's in that cup.
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I want you to hear this. Jeremiah 25, 17 says, so I took the cup from the
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Lord's hand and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink it. Now a long list of nations follows.
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Then in verse 27, then you shall say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, drink, be drunk, and vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword that I am sending among you.
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Verse 28, and if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, let's stop for a moment.
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Here's that cup of wrath. I'm handing it to you as the prophet. Well not me,
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I'm picturing this for you. And you're gonna look at that thing and you're gonna say, well that looks bad.
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Yeah, it's bad. So each offense that I've committed against the holy God is remembered in that cup.
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And you're saying I have to drink it. Yeah. Well Jeremiah, what does it mean to drink it?
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Well through all scripture, a cup is to experience the contents. That's what it means to drink it.
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The cup is the experience. Drink it down and experience what's in that cup. Now what are you gonna say to that prophet?
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Eh, it doesn't look too good. Maybe you should go on to the Zetamites. They were worse than me, right?
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No, this is for you. Babylon, Philistia, Judah, Israel, Ephraim.
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Now I don't want it. Who would want it? Who would look in that cup and see the holy
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God's wrath at our willing sin? And in that cup is the punishment for a holy, eternal
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God and what it would take to restore his honor for the dishonors we've committed.
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You want that cup? I'm gonna run away if I could. I'm not gonna take it.
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Would you take it? Would you look in that wrath and say this is eternal suffering in here. This is a holy God who can never be reconciled back to me because he's so holy and my sin is so atrocious and so willing.
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You can go somewhere else, prophet. Prophet, preach something else, preacher.
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And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, you must drink for behold,
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I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name and shall you go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the
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Lord of hosts. As Judah, God's people will be punished, so Peter says, is it not right that judgment starts with the people of God in the church of God, with we who know
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Jesus Christ, we who know better and not only know better, but have been given the spirit of God so we can do better?
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You know, what Adam brought into the world has a consequence, which is death, for it is appointed to men to die once and then the judgment, die and then drink.
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That's what's happening here. Drink from the cup that you helped to fill. One or two gulps of wine are pretty easy for most of us to endure.
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We can have a couple glasses of wine at dinner and enjoy them, but this is more than a few sips. This is something other than a fine wine that we would have at dinner.
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This is staggering, this is vomiting, this is falling, this is never rise again. This is the justified punishment that Jesus spoke of when he said, fear him, that's
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God the Father, who can destroy both body and soul in hell. And he said, you're going to go to a place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
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So we have a garden, we have Eden, we have a man, Adam, we have an answer to sin.
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He said, yes, yes to sin, the garden, Eden, the man, Adam, the answer, yes,
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I will partake. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, with that consequence for an
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Adam, all die. And for all this, a cup. A cup which as much as you help to fill it, you will also help to empty it.
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A cup which must be emptied and drank down to its dregs. Now praise
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God, thank God that it doesn't end there. We have a garden where sin was introduced into the world and a cup where God remembers all those sins.
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And into that cup, he pours his wrath against each one of them, whether it be a nation or an individual, whether it be a mighty nation or a small nation, a powerful person or a no -name neighbor, whoever it is.
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It doesn't end there because there's another garden into which another man entered, another garden into which another
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Adam entered, another garden into which another man who was going to represent all his progeny also entered into.
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And this man at that second garden faced a temptation very much like the first Adam, to disobey
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God. Of course, the Adam I speak of, the second Adam is Jesus Christ and the second garden is
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Gethsemane. Eden with Adam, Gethsemane with Jesus and between the two, the cup of God's wrath.
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And there, Jesus faced a temptation very much like Adam's which was what, to disobey God, to opt for personal comfort over God's will, to consider his own needs and comfort as more important than others.
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And like Adam, this man gave answer to all this. And like Adam, the consequences of his answer was distributed to his descendants.
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Gethsemane, Jesus Christ and an answer and a cup.
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What did Jesus Christ say to sin, to doing something other than God's will?
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He said no. He said yes to God's will and no to anything that would pull him off that path.
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At Gethsemane, the temptation was answered. And you might say to me, the scripture doesn't say he was tempted at Gethsemane, to which
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I would answer, why then did he pray three times, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you, remove this cup from me.
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Here's this one cup with all of God's wrath, whether it's Babylon, whether it's Edom, whether it's
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Judah, whether it's Israel, whether it's you, whether it's me, all of it in there.
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And that's the one he says, remove this cup. Three times he prays.
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Why, if not temptation, if not fighting temptation to avoid the next day's suffering, did his prayerful agonies cause him to bleed?
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And with 12 legions of angels at his beck and call, yet he denied it all after suffering through the temptation to somehow avoid it.
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Adam had temptation to avoid God's will, and he gave in. Jesus here praying that God's will would be other than the next day's cross.
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That cup filled with all God's wrath at all the sin of all the people he would represent this second
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Adam. What was the great cry at Gethsemane?
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So different than that weak little squeal from Eden to give in.
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What was Jesus' great victory cry? Not my will, but yours.
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Not my will, but yours. Jesus, fully God, and no less important to our faith that he was just as much fully man.
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Would God bleed from the intensity of prayer? We don't confuse humanity with deity as though as man he pleaded with God and then he turned to his divine side.
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The first Adam said yes to sin, the second Adam also said yes, but not to sin. Not to sin, he said yes.
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He was tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin. Not yes to sin, but yes to God's will.
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What was Jesus trying to have removed? That cup. He said remove this cup from me.
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That cup of Jeremiah 25, that cup of Psalm 75, the cup filled with God's wrath, wrath against the sins of everyone whose redemption could be had only by their portion of that cup, that one great cup being emptied.
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Do you understand that your sins were in that cup? Do you understand that if your sins were not drunk by Jesus Christ, they're left over for you?
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You will drain it to the dregs. Let me put it another way. It must be drained to the dregs.
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As God said, you will surely drink. Drink what?
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This cup filled with undying worms and unquenchable flames? The cup Jesus drank to the dregs, he drank it to the dregs the next day on the cross.
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He refused the sour wine while he was on the cross. The only wine he allowed to pass from his lips was the wine of that cup.
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That's metaphorical, of course. That wasn't a physical cup given to him, but the cup with all God's wrath was taken by him and drained to the dregs, your sins and mine.
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All the people he represented, blessed be our God and Savior, excuse me, our
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God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
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What does that mean? That means that when Jesus said, not my will but yours, and took that cup, he took my portion of that cup and your portion of that cup and all who were in him by God the
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Father's will, and he drank that to the dregs. All the sins of all the people that God gave him, he went to the cross and drank it all down.
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Now, how could it be right for the only sinless man who ever lived to be treated as if he were every sinful man who ever lived?
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How could God break his word to Ezekiel, for example? Ezekiel, when he said that the soul who sins shall die for his own sins, not the sins of others.
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Jesus never sinned. He was tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin. So how could it be possible?
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How could it be just for God to put him on the cross and have him pay for sins he never committed?
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Well, God did not break his word. He kept his word to the full. One verse proves it, and we won't go on past that.
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2 Corinthians 5, 21. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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Jesus drank down my punishment for my sin because God made his sinless son to be sin itself.
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God made him to be sin. And when Jesus Christ became sin, it was just for God to punish him as sin.
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And when Jesus Christ became sin and drank down the punishment for all the sin that he became, because he was holy and blameless and without sin, all of his perfection could be applied to you and to me.
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And because he was holy and perfect and blameless and righteous in every way and lived perfectly before God, and no punishment was due to him, not one molecule of that cup was put in there by him.
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He could drink it all down and apply all of his perfection to it. The battle cry at Gethsemane was not my will but yours.
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When he finished my cup, when he drank to the dregs your portion of that cup, that's when he cried out and said it is finished.
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That's the great victory cry. The battle was won the night before at Gethsemane, I would say, when he said not my will but yours and put his face toward that cross finally.
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That was the victory cry, it is finished. In a garden, the first Adam made redemption necessary when he said yes, yes to sin.
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In another garden, our second Adam said yes to all it would take to undo the after effects of Adam's yes.
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From Eden to Gethsemane, the sins for which Jesus would suffer filled the cup that he would drink to the dregs and to the full.
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Not one sin left behind, my sin not the part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more because Jesus Christ bore it for me.
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He drank it all down, he suffered all that wrath, he took it in himself and rose victorious.
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And the hymn goes on, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. At Gethsemane, Jesus resoundingly said yes when he said not my will but yours.
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So from Eden, when Adam brought sin and death into the world and all that sin remembered and placed in that cup, drop by drop by drop, all taken in by the
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Lord Jesus Christ for the joy set before him, the cross.
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The joy set before him to redeem God's people, those who he had placed in him. Those whom
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God the Father before the foundation of the world determined would be redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll praise the
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Father for sending his Son, praise the Spirit for opening our eyes and praise the Son for his cross.
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Praise God this morning, we see more of the depth of his suffering, what he endured on my behalf and on yours,
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God willing. And hopefully this will increase the depth and the focus of our love for him.
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And may he continue to be glorified and lifted up in this place because it was he who redeemed us, it was he who drank my cup to the dregs.
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It's he who because of love for the Father's will and love for the people he gave him, it's you and me, as broken as we are, accomplished this redemption by drinking down our cup and suffering in our place, amen?
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Gracious heavenly Father, thank you for Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, for the suffering that he endured on my behalf and we thank you,
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Father, for the redemption that we have in him that you have given us faith to believe. Eyes to see, hearts to perceive, and a spirit within us that wants to do your will to love you all the more and to become more and more like Jesus Christ.
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I pray, Father, that by the power of your spirit you would continue to accomplish this in us. In Jesus' name, amen.
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We will close with hymn number 596, Jesus Lives and So Shall I.
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I think John and Gretchen will play it through once. We've sung this before but not very often so they'll play it through once for us.
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We close with this word of benediction. To the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only
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God, be honor and glory forever and ever. And all God's people said, amen.