Day of Atonement from Shadow to Substance

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Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
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Most gracious Heavenly Father, what a good Friday it was.
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What a glorious tragedy You sent Your Son to bear the sins of His people.
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Father God, be honored through the preaching of Your Word.
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Keep me from error and may we preach it with power and boldness and the power of the Spirit.
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In Christ's name, Amen.
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Amen.
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If any of you have ever had a friend or family member who has had a terminally ill illness, they would go to a treatment.
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The bad part about that treatment is they have to continue to go.
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It was a clear reminder that they were not getting better.
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It was a clear reminder, whether it be month after month, week after week, and sometimes even day after day, that there was a problem and that they were going to die.
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Well, that's the way it is with the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament.
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It didn't get better.
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It was a clear reminder as they went week in and week out and day after day and then once a year, year after year, that there was a problem.
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But in order for us to understand the Day of Atonement, we must understand the establishment of the tabernacle and all of its courts.
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See, the dwelling place of God had been fallen because of the fall in the garden.
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As Keith has preached, if you notice, the dwelling place of God was in the Garden of Eden until the fall of Adam and then we don't see that reemerge in the Scripture for some 25 or 26 hundred years until the Exodus.
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And as the Exodus takes place, they get into the wilderness and God tells them to make a tabernacle.
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Well, what was the tabernacle? Well, it was going to be the dwelling place of God.
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And it began with the courts and its outer courts with a surrounded linen barrier.
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It was 150 feet long by 75 feet wide.
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And you would enter from the east end.
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And as you would enter from the east end going west, the first piece of furniture that you would see would be that brazen altar.
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And just beyond it would be the bronze laver where the priest would wash their hands and could be cleansed for their priestly duties.
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And just beyond that would be a 45 foot long by 15 foot wide into two compartments tent called the tabernacle.
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And the tabernacle were two compartments.
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There would be the holy place and the most holy place or most commonly called the holy of holies.
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And the holy place, as you walked into that first curtain or what they would call the screen, on your left hand side would be the menorah or the lamp stand made of pure gold.
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On the right side would be the table of showbread which had 12 loaves of bread seven days a week replaced on the Sabbath.
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And then directly in front of that, as you came through that screen, would be a golden altar of incense.
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That golden altar of incense was right before the veil.
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And just beyond that veil was the most holy place.
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And only one person could go in there once a year.
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Inside that holy place was what they would call the Ark of the Covenant.
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It was three and a half feet long, two feet wide, and two feet deep.
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And inside of it was exactly what it said, the covenant.
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It was a box, an ark for carrying the covenant.
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And what was that covenant? It was the Sinai covenant.
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The very covenant that God gave his people and then they broke it.
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But also inside of that ark was a jar of manna.
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And that jar of manna represented how the people grumbled in the wilderness and God gave them manna to eat and they were ungrateful.
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But there was also one other thing that was in that Holy of Holies.
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And it was Aaron's rod that budded.
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And many of us don't understand or don't know what that was all about.
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I'll make this very quick.
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And you can read, if you want to make a note of this, you can read it in Numbers 16 and 17.
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Interesting story.
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The Arianic priests were doing their duties.
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A man named Korah, Dathan, and Abiram decided they were going to raise up a rebellion and that they wanted to be priests just like them.
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And God said that ain't going to happen.
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So long story short, Moses gets the word that that's what's going to happen.
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He says, all right, we're going to have a showdown.
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We're going to come out here to the tabernacle in the morning.
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You bring your people, we'll bring Aaron.
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You bring your guys, you light your censers, and we'll see what happens.
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Well, Korah got his men and his censers and they, 250, and they started lighting their incense.
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And God said, Moses, you and Aaron back away.
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And God opened up the ground and swallowed Korah and all of his family.
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Bible says it was infants and cattle and everything.
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And then, just after that happens, God sends fire out of the tabernacle and consumes 250 people.
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Then, the next morning, while all this is still simmering down, the people begin to grumble.
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Do you know what God does? He sends a plague, kills 14,000 people in a day.
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Aaron intercedes on the people's behalf.
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He lights a censer and stops the plague.
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But then Moses says, I want you to go get a leader from every tribe.
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I want you to put a name on a stick.
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And we're going to set that stick.
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And in the morning, we're going to, and we'll put Aaron's stick out there, and God will pick whose man it's going to be that does his priestly work for good.
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Well, in the morning, Aaron's rod budded with blossoms and with almonds.
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But the reason why God said put that in the, near the Ark of the Covenant was for this very reason, to show that God will not put up with rebellion.
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This is what God says, I'm going to do to people if they rebel against my leaders.
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So that's just an interesting thing.
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Well, there on the top of that box were two arched cherubim.
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And those cherubim peered down into the broken law of God that was in that covenant, the Ark of the Covenant.
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They peered down into the jar of manna where the people grumbled.
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They peered down at that rod that represented the rebellion and the disobedient people against God.
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But in that centerpiece, where the Shekinah glory of God would go one time a year, was called the mercy seat.
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And it would be the place where propitiation would be made.
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Propitiation means to appease the wrath of God.
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In Leviticus 16, we get those instructions.
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I'm going to read the 22 verses of that, so you can either follow along or you can listen.
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God says this, He will take a bath for his body before he puts them on.
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And then he will go to the congregation of the sons of Israel and take two male goats for a sin offering.
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One for a ram and then a burnt offering.
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Then Aaron shall offer a bull for the sin offering, which is for himself.
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And he will make atonement for himself and for his household.
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He shall take the two goats, present them before the doorway at the tent.
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And Aaron will cast lots on the two goats.
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One lot for the Lord and the other is a scapegoat.
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Then Aaron shall offer the goat on the one which the lot fell.
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He shall offer to the Lord as a sin offering.
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But the goat on which the lot fell for the scapegoat, he shall be sent alive away before the Lord.
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And he will make atonement upon it, to send a scapegoat into the wilderness.
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Then Aaron shall offer a bull of sin offering, which is for himself.
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And make atonement for himself and for his household.
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And he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself.
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He shall take a firepan full of coals and fire from the altar before the Lord.
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Two handfuls of finely ground sweet-smelling incense and bring it inside the veil.
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He shall put the incense of fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat, that it is on the top of the ark of the testimony.
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Otherwise, he'll die.
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Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger at the mercy seat on the east side.
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Also on the front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.
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Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people.
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And bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull.
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And sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.
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And he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all of their sins.
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And thus he shall do for all the tent of meeting, which abides with them in the midst of their impurities.
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And when he goes in to make atonement to the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household and for all of the assembly of Israel.
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Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it.
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And shall take some of the blood of the bull and the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altars and on all sides.
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With his finger, he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times and cleanse it.
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And from the impurities of the sons of Israel, consecrate it.
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And when he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat to the Lord.
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Then Aaron shall lay both hands on the head of the live goat.
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He will confess over it the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard of all their sins.
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And he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of the man who stands in readiness.
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And the goat shall bear itself with the iniquities to all to a solitary land.
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And he shall release the goat into the wilderness.
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Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, was the highest and holiest day of all of Israel.
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It was a day in which they would fast.
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It would be a day in which the sins of the people would be atoned for.
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These specific instructions would be, he would have to first cleanse himself.
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He would take off all of his fancy robe with all of the jewels on it and his crazy funny looking hat that we would say and his purple robe.
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He would take those things off and he would be stripped down and he would be cleansed and wear just a plain old tunic.
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He would become like a plain old priest.
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Then he would have to offer up a goat, I mean a bull and a ram for himself and for his household.
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And notice as you listen, as he went into the holy place, he had to make incense, burn.
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Still a barrier between him and the Lord.
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Still a barrier.
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He could still not enter in unapproached to God.
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Then he would go out, he would sprinkle the blood, then he would go back in with the goat.
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The goat that had been cast a lot to be slaughtered.
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He would kill that goat for the people as a propitiation and he would appease or placate the wrath of God.
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Then he would come out, put his hands on the scapegoat, confess the sins of the people and then send that goat away into the wilderness.
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That is expiation.
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So the Day of Atonement had to deal with two things.
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One, satisfying or suppressing or placating the wrath of God and the other would be to the removal of the sins of the people.
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Day after day, burnt offerings would be made.
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Day after day, sin offerings and guilt offerings were to be obeyed at the brazen altar.
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After the Sabbath, the show bread inside the holy place would be replaced with fresh bread.
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Every morning and every evening, the priest would have to go in and make a burnt incense in the holy place.
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And they would do this before the Holy of Holies and they would do it at the golden altar of incense.
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But only once a year and once a year only could the great high priest, the only high priest of Aaron's line that could go in to the Holy of Holies and he went in there one time to make a sin, an offering for the sins of that which goes committed in ignorance.
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Understand that this should have been a sign to the people that something is wrong.
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They would continually slaughter these animals and it never did anything.
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And if you go back and you look in Hebrews, it often says it never cleared the conscience of the people.
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So there was a clear reminder that every time the animal was killed, it's got to come back.
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There was a clear reminder that me as a human being is sacrificing something of less value.
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It's a clear reminder that year after year, decade after decade, century after century, that the Holy Spirit would be showing them that the sacrifice was deficient.
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Let me read it to you real quick.
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It says in Hebrews 9, verse 7, it says, But in the second only, meaning the second chamber, only once a year the high priest would go in and not without taking blood, which he had offered for himself and for the sins of the people committed.
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The Holy Spirit was signifying this, that the way into the holy place had not yet been disclosed.
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So we even see in the Old Testament, under the inspiration of the author of Hebrews, the Trinitarian act that was going on even then, that God gave a commission for these men to do these things.
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This prescription in the Holy Spirit was signifying to them that something greater would come.
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This thing that was very evident in all of the sacrificial system was that the priesthood was broken, the priests were flawed, and the sacrifices were deficient.
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They could not accomplish the goal.
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They could not offer forgiveness.
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Hey, it made God unapproachable because He was.
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And not only was He unapproachable, this was done by His divine plan.
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Job, chapter 9, verse 33.
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Probably the oldest book of the Old Testament said this, if I only had a person that could put his hand on me and on God and be my mediator.
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The whole sacrificial system was typological.
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Everything from the outer court making a barrier for only a few to its furnishings inside the tabernacle.
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Yes, typological, but real.
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Was it real? Was it a real place? Yes.
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Was it real animals? Yes.
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Was it real sacrifice? Yes.
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Was it real blood? You better believe it.
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And those consequences of not approaching God in the way that He prescribed were real.
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And if you don't think so, read what happened to Nadab and Abihu.
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When they went to offer incense before the Lord, and the fire came out and the first two priests were consumed by fire at the day they basically inaugurated the tabernacle.
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Everything in the sacrificial system pointed forward.
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It pointed forward 1,500 years to the most important week in human history.
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The week which we call Holy Week.
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And I want you to listen to the events that led up to the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement.
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I spent some time a few years ago and made a detailed account of what took place that week.
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On the Saturday or the Sabbath before Passover, Jesus was reclined at the table with Lazarus, the one whom He had resurrected.
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And Mary had broke an expensive vial and she anointed Him.
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And there was some confusion and bickering among what she did was wrong.
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And Jesus said, hold on a second.
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She did that for my burial.
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This was the Sabbath before the Passover.
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Then on that Sunday, which we would call Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.
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And as He entered that, Luke says, He weeped over the city.
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He then went into the city and He went on into the temple and He saw all the commotion and things and the extortion that was going on and He made His way back to Bethany.
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On Monday, Jesus, on His way from Bethany, probably Lazarus' house, on His way back, He was heading into the city for the Passover week festivals and He saw a fig tree and He cursed it.
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Jesus then goes in and He cleanses the temple of its extortion and the money changers.
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That night He returns back to Bethany.
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Then on Tuesday, Jesus goes back to Jerusalem.
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And as they're going back to Jerusalem from Bethany with His disciples, they notice that the fig tree which Jesus had cursed was withered.
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And they said, How did you do that? And then Jesus began to teach them about faith and prayer.
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Jesus then goes into the temple and He is challenged by every religious leader on the temple complex.
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They challenged Him and said, By what authority did you do what you did yesterday? Jesus teaches the people in parables.
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He teaches them about the two sons, the faithful and the unfaithful.
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He teaches them about the lawless vine dressers.
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Then He teaches them about the marriage feast.
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That a person cannot approach the marriage feast without the proper garments.
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Then He bickers with the Pharisees and the Herodians because they try to trap Him in a speech.
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Then Jesus picks up and has them ask Him for a coin and says whose inscription is on it.
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And it had to do with who was the image and it had to do with Caesar.
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Then Jesus baffles the Sadducees who didn't believe in the afterlife of the Kingdom of Heaven.
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Then Jesus responds to them that He was asked the question of which is the greatest commandment.
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But then Jesus gives them an unanswered question.
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As He is constantly being questioned and trying to be caught in His speech, He questions them about the Christ and King David.
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Later on that Tuesday, Jesus would warn them, the scribes and Pharisees, of the declaration of the judgment that would come on them.
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Matthew 23, He calls those men vipers.
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You, woe to you vipers.
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Then Jesus comments on the widow's mite which she gave all that she had and gave out of her necessity.
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Jesus then departs the temple for the very last time.
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Jesus leaves.
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The glory of the Lord was departing the temple.
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And He goes to the Mount of Olives.
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And He begins to tell His disciples that the destruction of Jerusalem was coming.
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He teaches parables of the faithful and the wise.
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He teaches parables on an evil servant and a wise servant.
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He teaches the parable on the ten virgins, the talents.
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And then He says what's going to happen at the end of the age when He separates the sheep from the goats.
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And then on Wednesday, Jesus tells His disciples, the Son of Man will be turned over to sinful men and He will be crucified.
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The Sanhedrin then approach Judas on that same day and tell him how he can betray Christ.
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Thursday morning, Jesus sends two disciples in.
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He says, you'll find a place for us.
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Tell the man that the Lord desires to be in his place.
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So Thursday night, which would be at sunset, that Passover began.
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Jesus enjoyed with His disciples.
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On that Passover night, He says, I have longed to have this with you.
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I have desired for this time.
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He predicts the betrayal by Judas by saying the one that sticks his hand into the sop is the one who will betray me.
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Jesus demonstrates His love and His humility.
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Even though He was King of kings and the Creator of all things by washing their feet.
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He then reveals Judas as the betrayer again.
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And then Jesus looks at Peter and He says, Satan has a desire to sift you all.
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But Peter, I prayed for you.
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Now He's going to restore you.
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Then He gives them instructions and be encouraged as He prays the high priestly prayer.
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He continues on what we would call the upper room discourse.
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Then Jesus goes to His Gethsemane moment where He prays and He falls down three times.
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And He says, if there's any other way that this cup could pass, let it be.
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It was not in any moment at that time that Jesus was wondering, did He want to turn back? The Son of God knew what was facing ahead of Him.
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And it wasn't the hammer and the nails.
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It was the sinless Son of God was fixing to become sin.
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And if there was any other way, Jesus is then betrayed by Judas.
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Jesus then approach.
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Imagine saying we're looking for Jesus and He says, I am He.
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And everybody falls on the ground.
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I think at that time, it's time for me to go.
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But no, Peter cuts off Malchus' ear.
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And what does Jesus do? He reaches down there and pops it back on.
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He's then arrested.
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He's taken to Caiaphas.
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You know who Caiaphas is? He was the high priest.
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This has always baffled me.
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He was the high priest for 18 years.
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How many times did that wicked, rotten scoundrel go into the Holy of Holies and make atonement for the people? That never crossed your mind? God should have struck that man dead.
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Three years he had done that.
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And three years he had sought to see how he could kill Christ.
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Tell me God's not gracious.
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Jesus claims to be the Messiah before Caiaphas.
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Claims deity.
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They condemn Him of blasphemy.
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They mock Him.
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They smack Him around.
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They bring Him to Pilate.
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Pilate asks Him some questions.
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Says, what is truth? And I just want Jesus to say, you can't handle the truth.
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But He doesn't.
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But then Pilate refuses to listen to the dream of his wife who said, don't have anything to do with this guy.
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Don't have anything to do.
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He's an innocent man.
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And Pilate, being a coward, he sentences Jesus to death.
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That was the week that led up.
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Interesting week.
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It was at that point that Jesus was given His instrument of execution.
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Pilate had Him beaten.
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A cross beam of crucifixion was given to Him.
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He was beaten beyond recognition.
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His flesh had been ripped from His body by the scourging of the Roman whip.
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Bones exposed.
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He had been mocked as a king.
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He had been given a crown of thorns.
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And then smashed on top of the head with a reed.
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They had given Him a scarlet robe.
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Bible says He had been punched repeatedly, spit on, His beard plucked.
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And then they led Him northward.
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Northwest, out of the temple and away from the Holy of Holies through a gate called the Damascus Gate.
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And they would bring Him to a place called the Skull, called Golgotha.
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Golgotha was a known place.
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It was a place of execution.
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It was a place where criminals were crucified regularly.
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Hundreds, hundreds of criminals had been executed there.
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This place was vile.
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It was repulsive.
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You can imagine the smell of death in the air.
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It would be here that the King of Glory would be stripped down to nothing.
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And when I say nothing, nothing.
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He was humiliated.
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He was degradated.
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And then they didn't have to take Jesus like they took most criminals and take a rope and tie it around His hand and snatch it back so they could lay the hand on the cross beam to hammer it.
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Jesus willingly, stumbling down, laid on that beam.
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And then He took the hammer and He took the nail or the spike and went between the two bones and hammered Him to a cross beam.
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Then they lifted Him up and they took that cross beam and they dropped it on top of the stipe.
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The stipe was already there.
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It's nothing like you see on TV where they got these guys and they're drilling up this 12-foot cross.
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There's nothing in history that reveals that.
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But there is stuff in history that say how it was done.
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And He was crucified on a main road.
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He was crucified where on-goers could see what was happening.
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And the reason why they did that was so as people entered the city, they didn't have to look on a hill far away.
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It was right there.
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And they could see the men that were crucified for being insurrectionists.
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They could spew vile and spit and throw things at them and make fun of them.
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And then once they set that beam on top of that stipe, they took the feet and they put them on the side of the stipe and they run the nail between the ankle bone and between the Achilles heel.
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Amazing! That the sinless hands of the Son of God, the very hands that had broken and prayed over two fish and five loaves and broke it, and what did He do? He fed 5,000 people.
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The very hands that would reach down and tell a person that couldn't walk, would help them up.
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The very hands that held up towards heaven and He prayed for the people of Israel were now hammered to a tree.
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The very feet that walked the roads of Israel, preaching the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the same very feet that did what none of us could ever do, walked on water, were now nailed to a tree, beaten beyond recognition.
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It was the traitor Judas that sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
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It was the Jewish leaders that made a fake trial and had Him murdered.
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It was Pilate who was a coward and had him beaten and condemned to crucify.
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It was a Roman executioner that nailed Jesus to that tree.
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But ultimately, it was His Father.
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The Bible makes no mistake.
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Isaiah 53, it pleased God to crush Him, putting Him to open shame.
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It was God who did that to Him.
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It was God, His Father, that would punish Him.
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And He didn't do it in a back room, behind a veil, where no one could see what was going on.
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Romans 3 says He did it.
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He placarded it publicly.
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Let me show you exactly how He says it.
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Listen, I'll begin in verse...
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I think this is the most important chapter in all the Bible.
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If I had one book, it would be Hebrews.
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If I had one paragraph, it would be this one.
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Romans 3, chapter 3, verses 21 through 26.
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Listen to this.
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But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, being manifest and witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.
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For there is no distinction.
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For all have sinned, all have fallen short of God's glory, and being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ, whom God publicly displayed as a propitiation in His blood.
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And He did it for this reason, so that He could demonstrate His righteousness.
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Because in the forbearance of time, it looked like God was slack on sin.
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But now, at this present time, it would show that God is now the just and the justifier.
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Jesus was not taken out into the desert somewhere and murdered for no one to see.
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He was not executed in the back room of a prison somewhere.
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He was nailed to a Roman cross on a public road for all to see in humiliation.
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It would be in this day in history, the most important day in history, that the eternal, undefiled, precious Son of God would bear the wrath of God for every sin of every person that would ever believe.
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The Bible says that Jesus drank the chalice of God's wrath.
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And that He took the full weight, the white, hot wrath of God and unmitigated, unmixed, and He drank it down to its last dreg.
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And He did it as a substitute for sinners.
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The Bible says that He made Him who knew no sin.
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He made Him? Who's that? God made Him.
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Who's the Him? Jesus, who knew no sin.
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Jesus didn't become a sinner, but He was treated as a sinner.
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So that we, the believers, could have the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
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And then the Bible says, from the time of 12 p.m.
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to 3 p.m., the whole land was covered in darkness.
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And I don't have any proof of this, but I believe that was a darkness that you could feel.
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I believe it was a darkness that He talks about in Exodus as a plague, as the judgment was going across the land.
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Because I do believe that the darkness in that time represented the judgment of God on His Son.
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And with every breath He took, every joint was pulled apart, bleeding profusely, labored in every breath.
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You heard this very loud cry in that open air preacher voice.
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My God, why have You forsaken Me? And I'm going to say something very clear.
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And this may rub some people the wrong way, but I'm preaching.
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That is not a cry of abandonment.
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That is a cry of vindication.
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Those men that were standing there were Pharisees.
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Those men that were standing there were religious people.
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If they would have known when He said, Eli, Eli, Eli, they would have known that He was speaking of Psalm 22.
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And you read Psalm 22 to its end, and this is what it says.
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Beginning it does say, My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? Far from My deliverance are the words of My groanings.
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O my God, I cry to You day by day, but You do not answer.
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And by night I have had no sleep.
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But then you go on and you continue to read.
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And it talks about His bones are out of joint.
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His heart is melting.
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His tongue is sticking to the roof of His mouth.
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And they have pierced His hands and His feet.
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And He says, Save Me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild ox.
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And this is what He says, For He, meaning God, has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.
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Nor has He hid His face from Him.
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But when He cried, He heard Him.
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Jesus was vindicated.
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I don't believe for one second that God turned and abandoned His Son.
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I do believe that Jesus was feeling the full weight of the wrath of God.
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But not in one second do I think you hear people say there was some mysterious separation between the Father and the Son.
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That is ridiculous.
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The Trinity is inseparable.
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And then He goes on, knowing that everything had been accomplished, it says in John.
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And He says the words to Telestai.
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It is finished.
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It was the debt had been paid.
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The wrath of God had been satisfied.
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And then, just to add the fact that Psalm 22 is a sign of vindication, Jesus quotes another Psalm.
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Psalm 31, which is also a cry of vindication.
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And He cries out in that open air preaching voice.
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And He says, Into your hands I commit My Spirit.
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And that is a quote from Psalm 31.
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Listen to this.
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And tell me if you think that somehow God abandoned His Son.
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In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge.
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Let me never be ashamed.
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In your righteousness deliver me.
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Incline your ear to me.
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Rescue me quickly.
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Be to me my rock and my strength.
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A stronghold to save me.
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For you are my rock and my fortress.
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For your name's sake you will lead me and guide me.
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You will put me out on the net which they secretly laid for my feet.
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For you are my strength.
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And into your hands I commend my spirit.
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You have ransomed me, O Lord.
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O Lord my God.
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Jesus Christ was vindicated.
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He was not a crucified erectionist.
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He was not a crucified Jew.
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He was the crucified King of glory.
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And His Father was going to see Him to the end.
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So the cross is not something for us to feel pitied about Jesus so meek and mild.
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The cross is not something for us to look at a picture where He had been beaten beyond recognition and feel sorry.
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That should run you to the cross because that's an exposition to the depths of yours and my sin and the measures by which God went to in the extremities to see that sinners could be redeemed.
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There was no other way but the way of the cross.
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And I'll lay in the plain.
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Hebrews 10.
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For the law, since it was only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of things that can be, but the same sacrifices which they offered continually year by year, could never make perfect those who draw near.
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Otherwise, if they could, they would have stopped.
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But because the worshippers hadn't been cleaned, if they would have been made clean, there would no longer have been the consciousness of sin.
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But in those sacrifices, every year it was a reminder that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.
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Therefore, when He, meaning Christ, entered the world, He said, Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for Me.
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A whole burnt offering and sacrifice for sin you have taken no pleasure in.
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And then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.
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And after saying the above, Sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them which were offered by the according to the law.
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Then He said this, Behold, I have come to do your will.
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And He takes away the first, meaning the first covenant, in order to establish the second.
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And by this, we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of the blood of Jesus Christ, once for all time.
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Every priest would stand daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices that could never take away sin.
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But He, having offered one sacrifice for sin, He did it for all time, and He sat down at the right hand of God, and He is waiting on the time onward when all of His enemies are His footstool.
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For by one offering, He has perfected for all time those who have been sanctified.
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And the Holy Spirit testifies to us saying, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord.
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I will put my laws upon their hearts.
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I will write them in their mind.
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And He says this, Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
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Now where there is forgiveness, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.
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Jesus Christ did the unthankable.
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He died for hell-deserving, wrath-deserving sinners.
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And it doesn't matter who you are.
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It doesn't matter if you're a disobedient brat.
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There's forgiveness.
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It doesn't matter if you're a self-righteous bigot.
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There is forgiveness.
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It doesn't matter if you're a vile homosexual.
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There is forgiveness.
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And it doesn't matter if you've ever put a pistol in somebody's mouth and pulled the trigger.
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There is forgiveness at the cross.
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God's called all men everywhere to repent.
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Because He's affixed a day when He will judge the world in righteousness.
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And He will judge the world in righteousness by that appointed man, Jesus Christ the God-man.
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And how do we know it? Because God raised Him from the dead.
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And Andy will tell you that on Sunday.
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Let's pray.
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Father God, Your mercies are everlasting.
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Your loving kindness endures forever.
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And Lord, if You would have done what was right, You'd have zapped every one of us.
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But God, because You are rich in mercy, You sent Your only begotten Son.
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And whoever believes in Him would not perish, but will have everlasting life.
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Lord, it's an amazing thing that You would take cosmic treasonists and reconcile them to Yourself.
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And provide everything necessary.
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Provide the faith.
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Provide the repentance.
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And then provide the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into all truth.
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Father God, You left us lacking nothing.
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Father, what a good Friday it was.
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And we thank You for Your Son.
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And we thank You for His bloody sacrifice.
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In Christ's name, Amen.