Aspects of Redemption (12/15/2002)

Read the last portion of the book of Ruth. That last verse is quite astounding when it says,

And the women her neighbors gave it the name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi, and they called his name

Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. What an amazing lineage of the

Lord Jesus Christ. The next mention of the word redemption in the

Bible, as we discussed also last time I was with you, was in Exodus chapter six.

So if you would turn there with me today, Exodus chapter six and verse six. We'll have a few verses in just a moment out of John chapter one and chapter three also.

Exodus chapter six and verse six and seven, and a few verses in that little passage, give just a near perfect outline of the biblical teaching of redemption and the different aspects of it.

So let's read verse six, follow along with me. Wherefore, say unto the children of Israel, I am the

Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments.

Last time we noticed the fact that this whole thing begins with him giving us his name.

He says at the beginning of verse six, wherefore, say unto the children of Israel, I am the

Lord. Now this, you've noticed before, when it's all caps, all four of the letters are capitalized in the word

Lord, that is Jehovah. Now what's interesting about this is that in fact, his name has not been called this up until this time.

Look at this, go back up to about verse two in this little passage.

It says, and God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the

Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty.

Now do you see, God is telling him that I appear to them under a different name. Because in the

Bible, the names of God are a way that God reveals himself to us. So as time went on and progressed through the

Old Testament period and even into the New Testament, God gives himself different names that give us different ideas about his character and about his being.

And so he said, I appear to your fathers by the name God Almighty, but by my name

Jehovah, was I not known by them? So we see here that God is in the midst of revealing himself in an expanded way, a way he had never revealed himself before this time.

And so Moses is understanding this. Now this

God Almighty in the Hebrew, the word God comes from the word

El, and it simply means strong one. And that really is the first way

God revealed himself to his people, because if you realize, if you go back to Abraham's day, the main problem was that they thought there were many, many gods.

And so God thought, God decided to reveal himself as the strong one.

And a lot of the emphasis was on the word one, that there is no other. I am the one

God. But also the word strong carried in this meaning, El, the strong one.

And that's how he revealed himself to Abraham. But he was also called God Almighty to Abraham, so he was called

El Shaddai. And the word Shaddai means all powerful, the

Almighty. So he had been revealed to his people as the all powerful, almighty, strong one until this time.

And now he comes to his people at a time when they're under the bondage of Egypt.

Egypt throughout the Bible pictures the world system in the bad sense of that word. The world system in the sense that Satan has come and confused it and perverted it in all of its institutions.

And so Egypt was a picture of this. The Pharaoh was a picture or a type of Satan himself.

And so the children of Israel being in bondage was a picture of the fact that they were a slave to their own sin, for it was sin that brought them to this place.

And so now they're about to be delivered from bondage. And God for the first time reveals himself with a new name.

I shall be known now as I Am, was one of the ways he said it, but it was

Jehovah. Now let me give you the meaning of Jehovah. It comes also from the first part of the word is

Jah, which means the self -existent one. And that is the part where in Exodus 3 .14,

he said, tell them I Am hath sent thee. I Am that I Am, the self -existent one.

And the second part of the word Jehovah comes from Havah, which means to be known.

So when you put Jehovah together, you get the idea of the self -existent one who reveals himself.

So for the first time in the history of Israel, he is not only the all -powerful one, but he is your all -powerful one or my all -powerful one, the one who has revealed himself to me and to you.

So now he is revealing himself as a, yes, a powerful God, but a personal

God. And emphasis here is on relationship more strongly than it had ever been revealed before.

And so we see that even Scofield says that the word or the name Jehovah is distinctly the redemptive name of deity.

So as we see the idea of redemption coming into play, as God begins to teach us about all that it means, he gives himself a new name.

Now that has to tell us this is a terribly important doctrine. For God to say,

I'm going to give you redemption, and in the midst of that, I'm gonna call myself a different name so that you can understand me in a deeper way.

I'm not just the strong one. I am now the strong one who is also self -existent, but who also reveals himself to you in a personal way.

So redemption, you have to have a personal God to be redeemed. You have to have a personal relationship with a personal

God to have redemption. And so that's very important that we pick that up from verses two and three.

Verse four says, and I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.

So this is going to now be their home. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the

Egyptians keep, the word keep is very important, in bondage. And I have remembered my covenant.

Now we start to see this picture that God gives us in the Old Testament that's going to picture spiritual truths in our own lives.

First of all, to understand redemption, we have to understand that there was first bondage, that there was first a time in our lives when we were kept under bondage.

In other words, we did not have much of a choice at all in it, although our thoughts were to go along with it, unfortunately.

But the truth is something bigger than us and more powerful than us was in control of us.

And it was Satan and the world system as pictured by Pharaoh in Egypt.

And we were kept under bondage. There was not a time when we came out of it.

There was not a time when we had quote victory from sin in our lives.

And this is before salvation, of course. And so this is pictured so in such detail in this story of the children of Israel being kept by the

Egyptians in bondage. And God says, this personal Jehovah God says,

I heard your groaning. That's personal. That means he was right there in the midst of them and perhaps they didn't realize it.

Because sometimes when we're in the midst of the greatest burdens and the most difficult times in our lives, we just sense that God has turned his back on us and he's not there.

And that's why we're going through it. That's not true. He was there and he heard the groanings of the children of Israel as they were under this strong, hard bondage.

And sin is always that way. Young people, you need to especially listen to children, teenagers, young people.

Is that sin is always hard. It always is a bondage. It always is a slavery.

It always brings hurt and pain, not only to ourselves but to everyone around us.

And so we need to understand that without God, without a personal relationship with God, we will be kept in bondage.

God remembered his promise as well that he had made to their fathers. God is a faithful God.

Do you see how he reveals himself now as the self -existent one who is the faithful one?

Now it brings us back to verse six where we started out a moment ago. And I will bring you out. Now, there are several aspects to redemption.

The first one, of course, I guess you would call it the introductory aspect or the underlying aspect is that he is

Jehovah. I am your personal God. But the first real point in the idea of redemption is explained very well in the first phrase here in verse six where he says, this little phrase where he says, and I will bring you out.

I will bring you out. So the first aspect of redemption is that God has to do it.

We cannot free ourselves from this type of bondage. We're held bondage before salvation.

We're held in such a bondage that there is no escape. There's no hope of escape.

There's no reason to think of escaping. It would be as if you imagined yourself in the most horrible dungeon, the deepest dungeon with the slickest walls and with no opening at all and being chained there with absolutely no hope of escape ever on your own.

Only if someone greater and stronger and freer could come and get you out of there would be your only hope of ever escaping this dark place.

That's the life of sin that lost people find themselves in and that all of us before our salvation were in, this dark dungeon of sin and despair, kept in bondage, never escaping, never coming out.

And the first thing God, our Redeemer says is, I will bring you out. So there has to be a bringing out.

It's really one of the first things we notice when we're saved. There are many things we notice when we're brand new

Christians, but one of the first things we notice is there is a bringing out from under a burden.

There is a freedom, a feeling of a lifting of burden and a sense that we have been brought out from a group or a place and we're in a new place and even our old friends don't like us as much anymore because we've been brought out.

This word in the Hebrew, where he says, I will bring you out in verse six, is the

Hebrew word yatsal, which means to pluck out. Now, I want you to picture this and think about this because this is not, as you know, taught today in salvation very much at all.

It is not taught that our salvation is a God, a personal

God who is the strong, all -powerful one, but who is also the self -existent one who reveals himself to us, that this salvation that we have is of him as he reaches down into a lost, dark world and plucks us out, as if to pluck us out of a dungeon that we can never escape from.

Salvation, therefore, cannot be of man. It has to be of a redeemer.

His name is Jehovah. Jesus was known as Jehovah in the

Old Testament. A lot of people don't know that. They think Jehovah means the father, but more often it actually is a reference to the eternal son.

There has to be a bringing out and you can't do that to yourself. So any idea in salvation that has to do with a list of things we can do to be saved or a list of things we must do or that it involves the earthly church or that it involves any human endeavor is a lie from hell.

It's a lie that's designed to keep us in bondage. Turn with me, we're gonna come back to this passage, but turn with me to the book of John and see if you don't see an amazing parallel with this idea in the

Old Testament. So many years ago, as God reveals himself for the first time as Jehovah with the idea of the redeemer, the redemptive name of God, and he begins the whole process by saying,

I will pluck you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will yatsaw you.

I will pluck you out. See if that's not similar to some of the things we see in the book of John.

First in John 6, 44. This is not a

Calvinistic idea. By the way, Jehovah revealed this to Moses many years before Calvin was born.

John 6, 44, no man can come to me, Jesus says, except the father which hath sent me draw him.

And I will raise that person up at the last day. The word draw in the

Greek language is similar to the word yatsaw in the Old Testament Hebrew. It is the word helkuo, which means to drag.

So God reveals himself to Moses as saying that there will be no redemption for you unless I reach down with my strong hand and pluck you out of bondage.

And the Holy Spirit revealed through the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of John as it's written for us that there will be no salvation for you unless the father reaches down and plucks you out or draws you or drags you away from that world system as pictured by Egypt, that bondage that we were in, in chains and told to make more and more bricks.

And as Moses approached Pharaoh, as you remember, he said, well, I'm not even gonna give you straw anymore, which was what helped make the bricks easier to make them.

He took the straw away and said, but I want the same amount of bricks made. He put a greater bondage on them.

Isn't it interesting all that it pictures? As a person begins to think about the

Lord as is pictured by Ruth, as Naomi, as you remember, was a type of the

Holy Spirit drawing her towards Bethlehem where Jesus was pictured to be, always moving her in that direction.

And as the Holy Spirit begins to move a person, a lost sheep who is just as lost as a lost goat, by the way,

I don't know what a goat is, a goat, just, it's kind of like a goat and a sheep, isn't it?

A goat. A goat. Just as lost, just as much in darkness. And it requires this drawing, this leading along.

And the Holy Spirit begins to bring this person to the place where they're going to meet their

Boaz face to face, which is a picture of Jesus, the Redeemer. Same process.

The same plucking out or bringing you out from under the burdens of Egypt found in verse six of Exodus chapter six is found in John chapter six, verse 44.

No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. I look back to John chapter one in verse 12.

If there's any doubt in our minds that this salvation is not from man, this salvation is not from ourselves, it's not from our mom or dad or preacher or the soul winner or the altar worker or the church, the physical, when

I say the church, I mean the physical organization of the church in this world today. If we think this is where salvation comes from, we need to reread.

Look at John chapter one, verse 12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.

Now, I want you to do this.

Hold your hand right there in John and turn over to Acts. You can tell this is not in my notes.

Look at Acts chapter 10 and verse 44.

While Peter yet spake those words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word.

Now, the Jews were amazed because they didn't think God would save a Gentile. And they were of the circumcision which believed were astonished.

As many as came with Peter because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Now, the scripture now turned to chapter 13 in Acts in verse 48.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the

Lord. They had heard the gospel message. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Now go back to John chapter one, verse 12. But as many as received him, you see that's the same group that it talks about in the book of Acts.

Those that were ordained believed. As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

Now look at verse 13, which were born and it tells us first how you're not saved.

You are not saved of blood. It is not passed down through your human family lines.

You are not saved because your grandpa was a preacher. I've heard that so many times out witnessing.

Are you saved? Yes, sir. Matter of fact, my grandfather was a preacher and so was my dad. And as if that makes them saved.

The second way you're not saved is by the will of the flesh. Nobody ever wanted to get saved in the flesh.

Now I grant you that on the human side, it can appear that it happened that they wanted to because there is this drawing of the

Holy Spirit as he begins, but it's not drawing, it's dragging. That implies they didn't want to. It's like we want to stay in the dungeon and they're lifting,

God lifts us up out of there and we're pulling against it, not wanting to come out. That's the way, that's more like what it is.

It's not like men are looking to be saved. So they're not born of the blood. They're not born of the will of the flesh.

There is no will of any man. Yourself, your parents, your loved ones, your preacher, no man can will you into being saved.

And yet that's the very thing that's taught in our soul winning classes is let's get them saved.

It's even worded that way. Let's get them saved. Let's go out and get them saved. Come back and report it. Get them in the water.

But it's not of the blood. It is not of the flesh. No, it says another thing it's not of.

It's not of the will of man. Doesn't matter what men want you to be saved.

None of it has to do with it. Look what it says. Which were born, the last praise of God.

Why is that true? Because God is the redeemer. God is the one who can save us from bondage.

God is the strong one. The self -existent one. The one who is higher and stronger than this one named

Satan who holds us in bondage. Now one more, John chapter three verse seven and we'll go back to our passage.

If there's anything left in us that thinks that salvation is of man, then let's read

John chapter three and verse seven. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.

The wind blows where it wants to blow. That's what the word listed means.

The wind blows where it wants to blow. And you hear the sound of it.

But you cannot tell where it is coming from. You cannot tell where it came from. And you cannot tell where it's going to go next.

This is exactly how it is with everyone that is born of the spirit.

This is exactly how it is with everyone that's born of the spirit. You cannot control the wind.

You can feel it. You feel it on your own life. You can sense it.

You don't know where it came from though or where it's going next. And you can't control where it's going next because it goes where it wants to go.

And that is a picture of the Holy Spirit of God who goes under his own sovereign will.

Nothing controls his will but himself. You might say from the human side, there is something that controls his will and that would be the great counsel that happened before anything started, any time or any physical matter was created.

The great counsel of the Father and the Son and of course the Spirit of God being there determined where the wind would blow.

But it blows where he determined and where he wants to go. This is the way salvation is.

Psalm 25, 15, turn there for a moment. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the

Egyptians. I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians. The first step in redemption is that God has to bring the one who is in bondage out.

Beautiful picture of it in Psalm 25, verse 15. Mine eyes are ever toward the

Lord for he shall pluck, it's the same word, the same Hebrew word that's used where it says

I will bring you out is I will pluck my feet. So you see it is the word to pluck out.

He shall pluck my feet out of the net. That is redemption. Because this is a picture of the fowler who is out capturing birds and he's gonna eat the bird and he puts a trap out there for the bird and puts some bird seeds out there and when the bird comes he pulls a rope somehow and the net comes up and catches the bird.

Now that's a smart fowler if he can do that. Brandon, if we could figure out that it might be fun, way to hunt.

And this is what was done in those days somehow. Maybe this is a lost art,

I don't know. But this is what was done and this became a picture of how

Satan has a trap set for humans and they step into the trap, he pulls the rope and the net comes around them, they're now in bondage.

But David says, my eyes are ever towards capital L, capital

O, capital R, capital D. This is the redemptive name of God.

My eyes are ever towards Jehovah for he shall pluck my feet.

I'm already in the net and he plucks my feet out of the net. Turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me for I am desolate and afflicted.

You see how this pictures the state that Satan places us in. The troubles of my heart are enlarged.

You see, now this takes the physical and now brings it into spiritual applications of it. The troubles of my heart are enlarged.

Oh, bring thou me out of my inner distresses. Look upon my affliction and my pain and forgive all my sins.

Now look at verse nine, well you may not be there, but we're in Psalm 25, 19, this is amazing. Because relate this to Israel and the enemy

Egypt. Now this turns it spiritual. He says, consider mine enemies for they are many and they hate me with cruel hatred.

Pluck my feet out of this net because they're gonna come and devour me. That's Satan and his demons. What an amazing picture.

Oh, keep my soul and deliver me. This deliverance is the first step in redemption to be. Plucked out, deliver me.

Let me not be ashamed for I put my trust in thee. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me for I wait on thee.

Redeem Israel, oh God, out of all of his troubles. Now turn one more place to Zechariah chapter two, verse 10.

Who is our enemy? Our enemy is not Egypt. We're not held in bondage by the

Pharaoh and by Egypt. We were held in bondage by Satan, by Satan and his demons and the world philosophical systems that he has set up in this world all around us with the pornography and the bad philosophies that are taught in our school systems and in our colleges.

All of those are part of Satan's world system. The politics, political systems that are set up, the wars, all of it.

Man is held bondage by these things. But who does that? Who does, so who does

Egypt picture? The spiritual enemies, Satan and his demons.

Now, it takes a while to find Zechariah so I had to get on a little rabbit trail to help you out there, but you're probably there.

Zechariah chapter two now, verse 10. Sing and rejoice,

O daughter of Zion, for lo, I come and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the

Lord. Now this gets to another aspect of redemption that we're not teaching today.

We will get to it next time. But I just want to point out, this is talking about redemption. And many nations shall be joined to the

Lord in that day. This gives a foreview of the kingdom age. And actually even right before the kingdom at the second coming.

When it says that day, that is the second coming when Jesus comes back and he separates the sheep from the goats and there will be many

Gentiles, people in all manner of Gentile nations and all of the

Israelis who are still left alive at the end of this tribulation period and many of the Gentiles will be saved in a moment.

And this is a reference to this. He says, in that day shall be many will be joined to the

Lord, they will be my people and I will dwell in the midst of thee and thou shalt know that the

Lord, notice this is Jehovah, the Lord of hosts and the phrase Lord of hosts in the

Hebrew means the God of armies. It's a military term.

Had sent me unto thee. Now isn't it interesting in that phrase that you see that God is talking.

In verse 10, God is talking. And you go into verse 11, God is still talking and at the end of verse 11,

God says, God is going to send me. Explain that one. You cannot explain that unless you understand the triune nature of God.

That he subsists and exists as the Father but also as the distinct eternal

Son of God and that they each have the sevenfold Spirit of God in the eyes of the

Lamb and in the front part of the throne of the Father is the Holy Spirit picture. Only if you understand

God that way can you understand this passage. Because he says, and many nations shall be joined to the

Lord in that day and shall be my people. So it's God talking. Jehovah, God is talking.

My people, I will dwell in them. Jehovah, God says, I will dwell in the midst of them. And now shall know that the

Lord of hosts, that's the Father, have sent me, that's the Son.

And Jehovah shall inherit Judah, that's Jesus, the Son of God, the everlasting eternal

Son of God. God in the flesh, God manifest in the flesh.

Verse 12, and the Lord shall inherit Judah, his portion, in the holy land. I hate to tell the

Arabs and all the Gentile nations in Europe and even some of our misguided politicians over here such as our

Secretary of State that the Arabs are not gonna inherit this land. I don't care if you love an

Arab or not, he's not gonna inherit the land, neither are the Palestinians, but it tells us right here that Jesus, Jehovah, Yeshua, will inherit

Judah, which is his portion, in the holy land. Now that includes, that's not, by the way, the modern

Israel. The holy land includes most of what the Arabs own too. Jordan, it would come down and include the

Sinai Peninsula, part of Egypt. It would include Lebanon, all of Lebanon. It would include all of Syria.

This is bad news for these guys. Good news for us.

His portion of the holy land and shall choose Jerusalem again, be silent, oh all flesh, before Jehovah, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.

He is in the third heaven. He's coming from the third heaven. Then he's going to be placed back on the planet.

And from our viewpoint, it's as if he's raised up again from where he was. And this is the second coming described.

I want you to jump down to chapter three for a minute. And I want you to see this amazing picture of redemption that is found right in this passage, right in this context.

You see, it jumps forward to the second coming, which is a redemptive act, by the way.

Comes back into the physical like it happened in the Old Testament. It comes back in the physical to show us physically how it works to teach us the spiritual truth of how it works on the inside with us today.

You can look back at the Old Testament. You can look forward to the second coming in the kingdom period. You get the physical viewpoint that teaches the spiritual truth.

It shows Jesus comes in the air, and it says you don't have to worry if someone tells you

I'm coming invisibly or I'm coming out in the desert or I'm coming into a secret place.

He said, that's not really me. I don't come that way. He said, when I come, I come like the lightning from the east to the west.

And I'm gonna come and rain fire on all of the enemies of the Lord Jesus and his land and the promised land, his people, which will include also the

Gentiles that will be saved, and I'm gonna destroy them with fire. I'm gonna destroy these enemies. And in destroying the enemies,

I am redeeming my people. It's a redemptive act that it pictures in chapter two. But now in chapter three, it's going to picture this from a spiritual viewpoint of how redemption is in our lives today during this last part of the church age.

Verse one of chapter three, and he showed me Joshua, the high priest. Now, Joshua is going to be a type or a picture of the believers.

We are all believer priests today. So he's a picture of us. The high priest, this is like a picture of the church, the saved people in this age, the church age, us,

Christians. Here, Joshua is a picture of us standing before the angel of the

Lord. The angel of the Lord is Jesus. And Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.

Now, don't tell me for a minute that Satan doesn't come to play in the life of the believer. Because just as surely as Jesus Christ, the angel of the

Lord, is standing at the side as the advocate for the believer, Satan is standing at his other side as the accuser.

Now, look at what it says at the end of verse one. Standing at his right hand of Joshua, which is picturing the church here, to resist him.

That's the job God gave him to do. God gave him the job to resist us because resistance brings growth and strength.

And we become stronger through this. But he would never leave us there with him alone.

The Lord Jesus Christ is right there. And as long as you are in Christ, then

I would agree with my friend. It's as if he's not there. It's as if Satan is removed. But only if you're in Christ.

If you're in the flesh, guess who's back? The demons can bother you, even as a

Christian, if you're in the flesh. So here's the battle pictured in one verse.

All of spiritual warfare is pictured, but it goes on, it gives a more vivid picture. Here we have the accuser of the brethren, the resistor of the brethren, standing at our right hand.

He is right here at the midst of us, right here with us, but we are in Christ.

The angel of the Lord is standing there. But look what happens here. And the

Lord said to Satan, now this is not something we can do. And there are many misguided people.

In many of the books, you have to be careful if you read books from the Christian bookstores. It teaches spiritual warfare.

Very few of them are sound. I can direct you to a few sound ones, but maybe two or three.

Most of them are not sound because they teach that you can rebuke the devil. Or you can say, devil, be gone, and stuff like that.

No, that's not what happens here. Look what happens here in the Bible. That's the best book you can find in the bookstore, by the way, to teach these things.

And the Lord said unto Satan, now this is interesting again. Here we find the

Lord God saying, the Lord God rebuked you. Now you can't figure that out unless you understand

God exists as the Father and as the eternal Son of God and the

Holy Spirit being omnipresent. The only way you could ever figure this out because look what he says.

And the Lord said, this is the Son, the Lord Jesus said, the Lord, that's the

Father, rebuke thee, O Satan. Even the

Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, who did that? The Father. Actually, the

Son was a part of it in the great council. That Lord rebuked you.

The one who chose these very people that you're standing at their right hand resisting them, the one who chose them for himself, he will resist you and he will rebuke you, the devil.

Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? He's pointing at the one who's been chosen. This is a picture of us, ladies and gentlemen.

Satan is at our right hand, accusing us. Boys and girls, when you do wrong, when you do something wrong, the first thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna feel terribly guilty.

And then Satan is gonna come and make you feel dirty and filthy and tell you, you can't pray to God because God's clean.

Children, you listen to me. I'm telling you exactly how it works. You won't know that that's

Satan, but you'll just have a feeling that says, oh, you can't pray to God right now because you just did something bad.

That's a lie because that's exactly the time you need to pray to God is when you've done something wrong.

You need to come back to God just like you do your parents. What do you do with your parents right after they spank you?

You say, I'm sorry, and you sniff. Gets out of control a little bit.

I have to say now, if you don't want some more of that, stop. You may cry, but you may not scream and all that good stuff.

That's the time to say, I'm sorry. So don't let the devil ever tell you you can't talk to the

Lord because that's the time to talk to him, but Satan is there resisting. And the

Lord says to Satan, the Lord rebuke you. That's the only one who can rebuke him. Not even the angels will rebuke

Satan. Even the Lord that hath chosen, yes?

Yes, that's right. Even the Lord that hath chosen us, the one who chose us from before the foundation of the world is the one who will rebuke our accuser.

Because we, and here's how he rebukes him. It's this amazing thing, but this is real.

This is reality. There's communication that goes on between the Son of God and Satan.

And the Son of God reminds Satan as he accuses us. He says, wait a minute. I know these are like firebrands.

I know these deserve to burn like all the rest of them deserve to burn in hell forever, but they have been plucked.

What does the word pluck mean in Hebrew? Drawn, pluck, it's the word for redemption.

I have taken you out. I have drawn you out from Egypt. I have brought you out away from the bondage of this one right here is pictured.

Are these not brands plucked from the fire? Satan even has to acknowledge it. Satan has to acknowledge the truth when

God tells him the truth. He has to back down at that point. He has to go away. He has to be removed from you.

Now I will say this, you do have a part in this in that the Bible tells you to resist the devil, but that doesn't mean that you turn to the devil and say, get away from me.

Don't ever try that. What it means is you turn to whom? You return to the one that's at your side, not the side

Satan's on, but the other side, and you say, Lord, help me. Lord, the

Lord rebuke you. That's how you say it. The Lord rebuke you, and the

Lord will. You know what he'll do instantly? He'll turn to Satan and say, this is the chosen one plucked out of the fire.

He's not yours, and he will leave. Satan will leave at that point. Now Joshua was closed with filthy garments and stood before this angel, before the

Lord Jesus Christ. This picture's right before salvation, just at the point where he's been drawn, Holy Spirit's drawn him up where he's face front looking at his

Redeemer for the first time. Now that's irresistible, by the way. When you look at Jesus and you have eyes that can see him for the first time, you can't resist that.

You wouldn't want to resist that. You're gazing into the eyes of the Redeemer and you've been in a dungeon, and for the first time you realize how bad that dungeon was.

And you're looking into the eyes of the Redeemer, and all of a sudden you realize how filthy your garments are and that you smell, and that you reek of sin, and all of the vomit and the garbage that was down in the bottom of that dungeon that you were laying in.

And you see that and realize it really for the first time at that point. And that's on the human side, that's when you get saved.

You say, Lord, take me out of this place. Lord, save me from this place.

He was clothed with filthy garments and stood before Jesus. Jesus was right there. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, now look what

Jesus says, take away the filthy garments from him. This is redemption. This is the redemptive side of salvation.

Salvation has over 33 things that happen way over that, but I mean, we can list 33 things that happen at the moment you're saved.

And redemption is a huge point in this. Take away the filthy garments from him.

Now, let me ask you this. Does this say that Joshua said, here, let me take off these filthy garments and give them to you because I don't want them anymore?

Doesn't say that at all. Who is doing the work here, Joshua or the

Lord? Is Joshua saving himself by running to God, pulling off these filthy garments and trying to put on something clean real quick?

No, he just stands there like this. I stink. I have filthy garments and here

I am in a fine palace before the king of the universe. And I'm dressed like this.

And he's just standing there. That's all he can do. It's too late. He couldn't do anything.

And this king reaches over, his king reaches over, his savior, Jehovah, and he removes the filthy garments.

The one who stood by him said, remove them. You know, this picture's, remember when

Jesus was at the grave of Lazarus? And he said, Lazarus, come forth. What's the next thing that happened?

This mummy comes shuffling out of the grave with his feet tied up. They're tied together because he's wrapped up like a mummy and stuff all around his head because he had been dead for four days.

What did Jesus say? Remove, loose him. Remove the grave clothes.

This is what Jesus did for Joshua. It pictures each of us, pictures the church in the heavenly realms, in the spiritual realms, the day you got saved, the moment you came to understand that you were looking in the eyes of the savior for the first time and you saw yourself as filthy and you realized you stunk and you realized you'd just been brought from the pit.

You'd just been snatched from hell and you realized it. And all of a sudden, he says, loose him.

And they came and they took these filthy garments from you because you know what? He had them on when he was on that cross.

He had your garments on the day he was nailed to the cross. Your sins, your filth, your wretchedness, your dirtiness and mine were in Christ the day he died on the cross.

So he has the right to tell them to remove it. He actually removed it that day. He's really the one that brought the man out of the grave.

They couldn't do that. Take away the filthy garments from him. And to him, he said, behold,

I have caused your iniquity to pass from thee. Children, this is some deep doctrine here.

So it's best to color and draw pictures when that's going on. But I want you to listen to this part.

God says that when Jesus removes your bad things, that's when you get saved.

When you finally come to the place where you understand, Jesus, I want to be yours. I want you to save me from that dungeon.

I don't wanna go to hell. And you ask him to. It says right here that I have caused your sins, your bad things to pass from you.

It means you don't have them anymore. Jesus takes them away and removes them. And you are made clean as if you've never done anything wrong, and that's why you can go to heaven.

And I will clothe you with a change of raiment. It's not enough that he takes the dirty clothes away.

He gives us his own righteous robe. He puts a clean robe on us, white and shining, resplendent in its glory.

Never has sin touched this robe. And that is what you are in today if you're born again.

Don't ever let the devil come and accuse you. Yeah, he will. He will come and accuse you.

You do something wrong as a Christian, he'll come and say, see, you're not really even saved. And all you have to do is say, the

Lord rebuke you. And he'll go away, and all of a sudden, you'll look down and say, wait a minute. I thought

I was dirty. I just did something wrong. I thought these are Jesus's clothes. I'm clean as Jesus.

Look at this. And he caused the iniquity to pass, and I will clothe thee with a change of raiment.

And he said, let them set a fair crown upon his head, because we're kings. We're believer priests, but we're also kings, just like Jesus was a king.

We're little kings that will serve in his kingdom. Place a crown. Here's this man that was just a moment ago standing before Almighty God in the filth of his wretchedness, filled with his sins and wrong things he had done, all the bad stuff he had done, the bad thoughts he had had.

It's all over him, just dripping off of him, standing in front of God. And now he finds himself having been redeemed by Jesus Christ, the filth removed, given a clean change of clothes, and he has a crown on his head.

Now he's fit to be in this palace. Now he's saying there, well, you know, I really look pretty good now.

I think I can enjoy this. I'm not in this filthy, awful, tattered clothes.

I'm dressed just like the king is dressed. I look just like him. I have a crown on, just like he has a crown on.

So they set a fair mitre upon his head and clothed him with garments, and the angel of the Lord stood by.

You know why? Because he might sin again. He stands there as the advocate, the lawyer, who says, wait a minute, he's not guilty.

He's not guilty. It's all been removed. Boy, this

Old Testament preach is almost as good as the New Testament, doesn't it? We're a New Testament church. Why don't you preach so much from the

Old Testament? That's a funny thing to say, wouldn't it be? And the angel of the

Lord stood by, and the angel of the Lord protested. Now this is amazing. He protested at Joshua.

He said, now, Joshua, don't you realize that the Lord's already told you that if you would live a perfect life, that you could walk with these?

And he pointed around to some of the angels and so forth, said you could have had a place, you know, you could walk here.

And what is Jesus doing? He's pointing out to Joshua that you blew it.

You didn't do what God said. Well, that's true of all of us, isn't it? So he protested and said, why didn't you just live by the law?

Why didn't you keep the 10 commandments? Why didn't you ever lie? Why did you ever lie? You children could think about that.

Why did you ever lie even one time to your parents? No, you could have been in heaven forever if you hadn't, and now, you know, you're like a firebrand.

And Jesus just points out that, you know, the law is not what saved you. He protested and thus said the

Lord, if you'll walk in my ways, et cetera. And I'm gonna skip down to verse eight. Hear now, oh Joshua, the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee.

He's saying like, I'm gonna talk to you, Brother Roger, but I'm gonna talk to all your friends in this room, all of these that you're with, the fellows that sit before you, for they are men wondered at.

There's gonna be a day when the angels, they already do, really, but when we are in our glorified state, the angels are gonna wonder at us.

They're gonna say, wow, how did the Lord do this? I remember the filthy clothes they used to wear. How did they, how did

God, praise God. Praise the grace of God. Praise the mercy of God.

Praise that God is a redeemer. Look at them, how can they be this way? This is how the angels see us.

And he says, hear Joshua, the high priest and the fellows that sit before thee, for they are men wondered at.

For behold, I will bring forth my servant the branch. He says, look, the rules didn't work.

You didn't keep the law, you blew it. But you are one that's plucked out. You are one that is chosen.

You cannot go to hell. So what has to happen? There has to be the branch. The Lord Jesus has to come and die for you.

He has to die with your sins in his body. He has to be slain.

He has to be separated from God because of your sins and mine, and the branch will do that, and that is the answer.

That is the one who can rebuke Satan and say, I've paid the price. You can't pluck them away from here.

You can't point out anything they did wrong. I've paid the price. They haven't done anything wrong. They're perfectly clean.

Look at the clothes they're wearing. Do you see a spot on their robe? And Satan has to back away.

For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, the stone, that's Jesus, upon one stone shall be seven eyes.

That's the same seven eyes, the seven spirits of God that are in the eyes of the lamb. When you see that in the book of Revelation, this is the

Lord Jesus, totally filled with the Holy Spirit of God. I will engrave the graving, that's the new heart, saith the

Lord of hosts. I will remove the iniquity. That means we now have a new robe of righteousness out of that land one day.

In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree.

That's the fellowship that comes when we're saved together. What an amazing picture of the first, that's just one little aspect of redemption.

There are many aspects of it, but the first aspect is that he must bring us out.

Who did all that work we just read about? Jesus Christ.

How much of it did Joshua do? None. So how much can you do?

All you can do is receive it. That's all you can do, just receive it. As you're standing there saying,

I can't believe I have a crown on my head now. And be thankful. And praise his grace.

Let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, thank you for your word and how you reveal yourself as Jehovah God, the revealed one, the self -existent one, our redeemer.

Thank you that you give us these vivid, explicit pictures of how you redeemed us, of how actually it worked in the spiritual realms, of how you took us from the very place where Satan was at our side and you rebuked him and reminded him that we are as firebrands plucked from the fire because we're chosen ones of God.

And you took away our filthy garments and you gave us the very robes of righteousness that Jesus himself wears and the crown of royalty that he himself wears.

And you saved us, you redeemed us, you brought us out of the place of bondage.

Father, bless us as we continue to study what redemption means in the coming days. Bless our fellowship together today.

If there's anyone here, Father, who is not saved, maybe one of the little children who's been thinking about what it means to be saved, work in their hearts,

Lord, and teach them that it means just simply to look into the eyes of Jesus and thank him for taking away the dirty, bad things that you've done and for giving us cleanness so that we can go to heaven.

And Father, we ask you to bless our fellowship together today, our meal, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.