Whiter Than Snow - [Hebrews 1:3]

Well, as much as I rib you about my California background and Lakers, San Francisco Giants and talk like that. By the way, I want you to know when I'm in California, I wear Celtic stuff and Red Sox stuff.

I just want you to know that. That's true. But I love to study history of Boston and learn about Boston and Massachusetts and whether that's the perfect storm book that was written intrigued me or maybe the finest hours.

If you haven't read that book about the rescue in the U .S. Coast Guard in 1952, that intrigues me. Whitey Bulger books intrigue me. But I read a book recently entitled Trapped Under the Sea. And the subtitle of that book is One Engineering Marvel, Five Men and a Disaster Ten Miles Into the Darkness.

Neil Whitey wrote that book. Have you read that book? Metropolitan Sewage District under federal court order in 1985 said, you've got to rebuild the sewer system in Boston because the harbor, the haba is affected.

Before the year 2000, there were days when it was so wet with rain that 10 billion gallons, if you add it up for the year, of untreated sewage flowed into the Boston Harbor. So they had to get a new plant.

And so what they did is they built a 10-mile long tunnel underneath the sea from Deer Island so they could put that water out there, they carry the waste water. I don't know if you remember, but two divers died in the final phase of construction in 1999.

Not much was said because John Kennedy died in a plane crash outside of, was it Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard? Can you imagine cleaning up Boston Harbor? Is there anything harder to do? Is there anything more difficult than to take all that sludge that was in the harbor and clean it up?

Can you think of anything worse than what it must have smelled like to be by the Boston Harbor, to take in a whiff of that odor? It had to be hard to clean up and it was awful to clean up. And I thought to myself, you know what?

What's harder to clean than the Boston Harbor? And what's more amazing when it is clean than the Boston Harbor when it was cleaned? And that is, can you imagine, that even though we have the filth and dirty taint of sin on us, the Bible teaches that we are cleansed, purified, purged from all sins, not because of some men and women who cleaned up the harbor, but because of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 1 today. Jesus makes sinners clean. Filthy sinners cleansed by the work of Christ Jesus, the risen Savior. Dirty iniquity is pardoned. Past, present, and future sins for all Christians removed.

I mean, can you imagine, is there anything better than providence? We've had the last probably five sermons on the providence of God and how He upholds things and brings them to conclusion. Could anything be better?

I've told you many times that to me, the sovereignty of God is a second blessing. I don't need to speak in alleged tongues. I don't need to get slain in the alleged spirit. I just need to have a solid understanding of the providence of God.

That's all I need. It's like a second blessing. But there is something better than sovereignty and providence. And that is the cleansing work of Jesus Christ. Now Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 to 3 is written for a particular reason.

The whole book of Hebrews is written so that you would value the superior high priest named Jesus Christ. Matter of fact, don't you love it? Chapter 8 verse 1, if you want a summary of the book in one sentence.

I like the way the writer says this. Now the point in which we are saying is this. Don't you like the clarity? We have such a high priest. One who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.

To have a superior high priest. To have somebody go between me, sinful humanity, and the thrice holy God. We need an intermediary. We need a mediator. We need a go-between. We need an advocate. And so the whole book of Hebrews is about this great advocate, Jesus Christ.

Now there were a lot of great people in history. A lot of great people in the history of Israel. A lot of great people in church history. And so what the writer is trying to do is to say, you know, Moses is good, but Jesus is greater.

Aaron's good, but Jesus is greater. Old Testament system, old covenant system was good, but Jesus is greater. And he is greater even, number one, than the prophets. The prophets were great, but Jesus is greater.

And then the answer to the question, how is he greater, is given in verses 2 and 3. Verse 1, just to get the context, long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. Why listen to this Jesus, this Son? And then he lists seven reasons you should listen to Jesus. Seven affirmations of why Jesus is great and should be listened to.

Seven reasons that you'll go, that's not Moses. What's described next couldn't be Moses, Aaron, or anybody else. And so do you remember what he said about Jesus? How is Jesus' revelation final, superior?

Well, He's the heir of all things. Do you see it in verse 2? Whom He appointed the heir of all things. The inheritor of everything that God the Father had was Jesus. Not anybody else, not Moses, not any of the other prophets.

That's not all. Verse 2 goes on to say, through whom also He made the world. He's the inheritor and He's the creator. And actually, it doesn't mean world there. Remember, it means eons or ages, matter, space, time, everything in between.

You should listen to Him because He creates, He inherits. Does He do anything else? Well, He reflects the divine glory. No, He is the divine glory, verse 3. And He is the radiance of His glory. The effulgent glory of Christ Jesus is the effulgent glory of God.

I think of the Damascus Road experience, and suddenly the heavenly shining went on in front of Paul from Jesus Himself. Why listen to Jesus? He's the inheritor. He's the creator. He's got the radiance of God's glory.

And as we know from last time, He is the exact representation of His nature. He bears the stamp of God, the exact replica. If you wanted to know what was on this ring that I wear, and I were to put it in some warm wax or into some kind of seal or Play-Doh, remember what Play-Doh is?

I remember Play-Doh for two reasons. One, we played with it. Number two, I can remember the taste of it. N-A-C-L are the only letters that I will give you there. We also had something called incredible edibles.

Remember incredible edibles? You put them in a mold and bake them and everything, and you play with the tarantula for like 10 minutes, then you could eat it. So, incredible edibles. But if I put it into warm wax, and you wouldn't get to see my ring, but I gave you the wax, you would know exactly what my ring looks like.

And that's the idea here. If you want to know what God is like, Jesus, in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, Colossians 2 says. And then, as we looked at for several weeks, why should I listen to Jesus?

Number five, He upholds all things by the word of His power. Now, think about it. If God upholds all things, that is, Jesus upholds all things and drives them to its consummation, drives them to glory, something's got to be done with sin for that to happen.

There's no glory, there's no consummation, there's no eternal state, there's no heaven as God sovereignly controls everything unless sin is dealt with, correct? So, that's why the sixth reason you should listen to Jesus and why He is superior to the prophets is because He purifies sins.

It's more spectacular than the other five maybe put together. He purifies sins. Hebrews 1 .3 says, when He, Jesus, had made purification of sins, and we'll look at maybe next time He sat down, He's the risen Savior, but He made purification of sins.

If I were to read the Greek, I could tell you it says purification of sins having made. He cleanses, He purges, He makes clean. What's the goal of upholding and driving it to the end? There's a glorious consummation which includes no sin in heaven.

Purified. And when Jesus does it, nobody else does, not Moses, no one else. Now, this purification of sins is going to be talked about a lot in chapter 9 and chapter 10, but it's just kind of given here as an intro.

Keep your finger in Hebrews and turn to the only other place that this word is used in the New Testament, 2 Peter 1 .9, to make clean, to purify. The Greek word is katharizo, cathartic, cleansing. This word is used not many places in the New Testament, but it is used here and I think it's good to see.

And it talks about Christ's atoning sacrifice and its benefit, and what we receive from that as a gracious gift from our triune God. 2 Peter 1 .9, see if you can spot the word purification. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was, there it is, cleansed from his former sins.

Cleansed, a meaning that sin is defiling, sin is filthy, sin is dirty. And why is it that? Well, because we're told it is that in Scripture. But remember, sin is always measured against the one you sin against.

So if God is holy, no holy, holy, no holy, holy, holy, every sin against a thrice holy God is awful. Jesus continually upholds the universe, its present tense driving someplace, but here the language in Hebrews 1 is a once and for all done.

Providentially upholding, but once and for all sacrifice, purging our sins. I think this was in MacArthur's book, but I read it recently, not in MacArthur's Vanishing Conscience, but online. MTV did a series years ago called The Theology of Sin.

Now might I tell you right away that probably is going to be a little loose theologically. Right, if you ever watch PBS or CBS, new stories about Jesus, you know it's going to be all liberal. Seven deadly sins it talked about, pride, covetousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth from that medieval list.

That's not a biblical list, but a medieval list. And here's what some of the people said about sin in that old MTV series. Queen Latifah said, pride is a sin? I wasn't aware of that. Kirstie Alley, the actress, said, I don't think pride is a sin.

I think some idiot made that up. Since we're talking about Boston, the singer for Aerosmith said, lust is what I live for. It's what I got into the band for. Rapper Ice T said, you have to release the tension regarding anger because life brings tension.

I think even Michael Douglas, playing a man in Wall Street, said something about greed, didn't he? And to tell you how much you're influenced by the world and pop culture, what is good? Greed is good, they said under their breath.

Turn back to Hebrews chapter 1. What we have to say to ourselves is if Jesus purges sins, then let's call sin sin. It doesn't do you any good to say, you know what, I see the big ads over by Salter School.

Addiction is not a choice. It's a disease, right? So if you drink too much alcohol, it's just forced upon you. So let's recategorize sin. Let's put it not in biblical terms, not in judicial terms, not in courtroom terms, but let's take it into the psychotherapist's couch terms.

And now instead of calling it sin, let's call it illness. Let's call it disease. Let's call it syndrome. But then we're not helping ourselves. We might feel better, but we're not helping ourselves. And especially if Jesus purifies all my sins, how great is the gospel where I can just say, yes, I am a sinner.

I'm a sinner. You know, Martin Lloyd-Jones said, here's a definition of a Christian for you. A person whose mouth has been shut. That's the definition of a Christian. Because in light of Romans 3, verse 19, when the law comes to you, the goal of the law is to shut your mouth.

I have no more excuses. I can't give you any more blame. I have to accept it. I am a sinner and based on the holiness of God and His righteousness and judgment, justice, I'm going to be judged. I deserve to be judged.

I should go to hell. And that's when the good news of the gospel tastes sweet. We don't want to redefine things. What does the text say? It's a general term. Purification for sins. Well, there's lots of things that are sin.

Let me give you a few. One is unbelief. That's the recurring sin in Hebrews. You know, Jesus' death is so great that it cleanses unbelief. I think of John chapter 16. Jesus said concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.

Would you think transgression of the law is sin? Yes. Purged. 1 John 3, 4, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. The death of Jesus is so great, it purifies unbelief, it purifies transgression, it purifies unrighteousness.

1 John 5, all unrighteousness is sin. So I think what the writer is trying to do is he's using this general term. He purifies every sin. All sin. Every sin that a sinner has ever committed, a believer, is forgiven.

I don't know what pastors did before Google, but I typed in things that we forget to clean into the Google search bar. Any ideas what came up? I'm sorry to tell you, colon is at the front. Hairbrushes, toothbrushes, vacuum cleaners, trash cans, shower curtains, telephones, TV remotes, car steering wheel, bathtub drains, water faucet aerators, bathroom exhaust fans, pillows, barbecue grills, house plants, credit cards, bathroom loofahs, yoga mats, and lampshades.

But at the top of the list, the writer is saying, don't forget. It's like John Newton and his deathbed. I'm losing my mind, but I remember I was a great sinner and Jesus was a great Savior. Even though the discussion in Hebrews 9 and 10 will talk about the purification of sins.

He's got a front loaded. He's just got to put it in there so you don't ever forget. Spurgeon. There was never such a task as that since time began. The old fable speaks of the Aegean stables foul enough to have poisoned a nation which Hercules cleansed.

But our sins were fouler than that. Dunghills are compared as sweet with these abominations. What a degrading task it seems for Christ to undertake, the purging of our sins. The sweepers of the streets, the scullions of the kitchen, the cleansers of the sewers have honorable work compared with this task of purging sin.

Yet the Holy Christ, incapable of sin, stooped to purge our sins. I want you, Spurgeon said, to meditate upon that wondrous work and to remember that He did it before He went back to heaven. Isn't it not a wonderful thing that Christ purged our sins even before we have committed them?

There they stood before the sight of God as already existent in all their hideousness. But Christ came and purged them. The surely ought to make us sing the song of songs. Before I sinned, He purged my sins away, singular and strange as it is, yet it is so.

Every sin. Now if you're thinking about the book of Hebrews, you might automatically say there's probably going to be a lot of Old Testament quoted, true, and alluded to, true. Let's look at one of those allusions, Leviticus 16.

If you'd like to know the kind of language that the writer of Hebrews is using, he's using language from Leviticus, the day of atonement, the great cleansing of the nation. Now you could say forgiveness, that's wonderful.

You could say reconciliation, that's wonderful. Propitiation, that's wonderful. You could say redemption, that's wonderful. You could say justification, that's wonderful. But here he uses the word cleansed.

Why? Several reasons. I mean, practically, we can feel the dirtiness of our souls when we sin. Now we want to get cleansed, but it's from Leviticus. Leviticus 16, please. If you need to say what's Leviticus all about, the root word for Leviticus is Levi.

Here's how the priests act. Well, that seems to make sense if we're talking about the high priest in Hebrews. What about how the other priests need to do things, all pointing to, leading up to, serving as a shadow to the ultimate reality, Christ Himself.

Leviticus 16 .29. It shall be as a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

For on this day shall atonement be made for you, and here is the echo, to cleanse you. You shall be clean, not before society, not before the pagans, not before the Canaanites and the Hittites, but before the Lord from all your sins.

Hear the echo? It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you and you shall afflict yourselves. It is a statute forever. Cleansing. And they had to do this every single year, right? Yom Kippur, the day of covering.

And for Jesus, it is once and done. Now, let's go back to Hebrews. The language is, He makes purification for our sins so that we might listen to Him. Sin stains. Sin contaminates. Sin is ugly and gross.

It induces shame and guilt. And we need to be cleansed from that. It would be one thing if you had something on your hands and you could clean it. Yesterday, some friends were over helping me and I saw my dog jumping over by the tree.

She jumps to this frisbee that we put up the tree. And I mean, Jack Russell Terriers are so hyper. It's either Prozac for dog or the frisbee up the tree and she just jumps and jumps and jumps. And I hate to admit this to you, but it's true.

I went over to get some snow to make a snowball to throw it at the dog. I figured it would help her jump a little higher. And I picked up that snowball and I went like this. And by the way, that snow yesterday was perfect snow for snowballs.

It's just the kind that you can just make and mold and manage. And I mean, it is one of those perfect snowballs. And I went to go like that to throw it and John, remember what happened? There's a bunch of fecal matter from a dog on my hands.

She showed me. And I just thought, here it is. It's just like, oh. Seriously, you just get that kind of feeling. I wanted to just go, Mommy, help me. I mean, this is just sludge. Nasty. Yuck it up while you can.

Enjoy yourself while you can. Okay, let's go from the greater to the lesser, or lesser to greater. If here, this is just, I mean, I went and washed my hands off with like lava or something, pumice soap.

What do you do if your heart and your soul is stained with a fecal matter of sin? How do I get a new me? How do I cleanse myself? How do I wash my heart? What if I have pride and arrogance? What if I've lusted in my heart?

What if I have envy? What if I don't forgive people? What if I've committed all kinds of sins with my body and my heart and my mind? Is there any hope for sinners? Is there any cleansing? That's why the writer says, what height of glory, what depths of abasement.

Infinite in His majesty, and infinite in His self-humiliation, and in the depths of His love. What a glorious Lord! And what an awful sacrifice of unspeakable love to purge our sins by Himself. I don't know when's the last time you said, Lord, thank You for purging my sins.

Thank You that I have forgiveness. One of those sins would have me bust hell wide open forever. And I can't cleanse them. It'd be one thing if I could cleanse them, but didn't. But I can't cleanse them.

The definition of a Christian is true. My mouth is shut. I can't do anything about it. Guilty as charged. There is condemnation for those who aren't in Christ. I'm condemned. But then here comes the love of God.

Here comes the Savior. And He Himself is greater than a prophet. Why? Because the prophet could only die for his own sins. Jesus is sinless. He dies for the sins of all those the Father gave Him. And God the Son is not going to hand back the bride to the Father, stained and spotted and filthy.

Is He? How is He going to hand that bride back? Cleansed. Now in the 70's I used to read something called the Book of Lists. Remember that? Guinness Book of World Records and the Book of Lists. I found a big book of Bible lists.

And it talked about how sinful mankind was and it listed 31 things alphabetically to describe the sinfulness of man. Not very good for self-image. But good if you want to magnify who Jesus is. Because if He just took away some low self-esteem, I'm not really that impressed.

I've got tablets that could do better, thank you. But if He really cleansed me on the inside and out and sees me as holy, then I'm impressed. Blind, carnal, corrupt, darkened, filthy, defiled, disobedient, evil, foolish, going astray, hateful, hypocritical, impenitent, malicious, envious, world-loving, proud, unbelieving, lovers of self, self-satisfied, slave of sin, unsubordinating to God, unrighteous, vain in their imaginations.

All against a thrice holy God and because of the work of Christ. How about this? Clean. Clean. When I was growing up we'd go run around and this was before iPhones and all that, so you actually had to play outside and dodgeball.

This was before social, progressive kind of things where there was a loser in dodgeball, there was a winner in dodgeball, there were the haves and have-nots in our neighborhood. And the first thing I would do when I got back home, can you imagine some kind of 13-year-old boy from Nebraska with a crew cut and just like dirty hands?

My dad would say the same thing every single time. What would he say? You don't know what the kids listen to and they listen to a lot. So I'm glad for the BBC kids in here who are listening and the parents who bring them.

Lloyd-Jones. Sin is so terrible, so foul and so vile that nothing could deal with it but the blood of Christ. That is what happened at the cross. Not a patching over, a covering over of sin. It's not saying, God is saying, oh don't worry, all is well.

It is God showing us what sin is. Really bringing it to the light and then dealing with it. I've not come to call the righteous, Jesus said, but those that have illnesses. Those that have diseases. When my friends say I've got a disease, an illness, a sickness or an addiction and they want to pass the blame off on something, their DNA, their chemical balances, their parents.

Something back in the old Mike would go, then you get what you get. Now I guess I'm getting older or maybe just kinder. I just want to put my arm around them and go, friends, there is someone who purges.

Confess your sin as sin and let God cleanse it. Don't you want to be cleansed? Don't you want to have your sins purged? Don't you want them as far as the east is from the west? But sin is a politically incorrect word.

It's the S-I-N word because if you say sin, you've sinned against God and that means I'm at fault. I'm at guilt. You say, well, all this sin talk, I mean, is that healthy for Christians? Kind of groveling too much?

Kind of too much worm theology? I mean, let's just make it easy on ourselves. Let's have a couple categories. That will be better. There are really bad sins. We don't want to do those. We'll just call those mortal.

And we've got some that aren't so bad. We might accept a few of those. They're venial. But friends, against the cross, every sin, even venial sins, are mortal. As I've said many times before, how many times do you have to spit in the face of a Near Eastern king before you're decapitated?

So what does every sinner want? Cleansing. Let's turn to Psalm 51, please, and look a little more at this language from the Old Testament about cleansing. To think we've been cleansed and washed whiter than snow.

We'll look at one of those verses soon. I wonder if you could be purged from the sin of murder. I'm curious. Could you be purged from the sin of adultery? I'm wondering, could you be purged of the sin and the guilt and the defilement of supposing to lead a nation into righteousness, but you lead them into ungodliness?

Could you be forgiven for such a sin? And if the answer to those great sins, those grand sins, is that you could be forgiven, then I think every lesser sin that we commit could be forgiven. Psalm 51, verse 1.

You know what's happened. You know how David has killed, committed adultery, abused his power, sinned against God and the nation. Now, David deserves hell for his sins. But see, God is gracious and generous, and so David appeals to this great cleansing God.

Psalm 51. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. And here comes the language. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Here's the language.

I don't know if anybody here has done it. I've only done it when I've been out of town and have no clothes that are clean any longer. Have you ever washed your own clothes, like in a sink? Travel, and I think, okay, I only want to travel with like 10 days worth of clothes, and now it's day 11, so what are you forced to do?

I bring a little bottle of, it's not Tide, it's some other kind of travel detergent, and what are you doing in the sink at that hotel? And it's like, it's not like I'm kneading bread, but I'm just rubbing and doing all that stuff.

And let's say you're in a place that's really dirty, and there's dirty streets, and your socks are so dirty, you just don't kind of dip them in or anything. I mean, I guess if I was lazy, I could just leave my t-shirt on, take a shower, and hope it all worked.

I've never done that before. I wouldn't know. You've got to wash it over and over, and you've got to put some elbow grease into it. The text here in Hebrew is multiple washings of a garment that's so stained, it's like that 13-year-old kid from Nebraska got the grass stains in the knee of his knee jeans, because his parents wouldn't buy him Levi's.

And you've got to work to get that out, and that's the text right here. Wash me over and over. You could translate it this way, literally. Multiply to wash me. Over and over. Keep on washing me, because you know what?

Think of David. We can think of our own sin. I mean, we're sinners to the core. So I'm going to just need, not just like a quick little rinse off. My dad used to say sometimes, if you didn't have much water, just go ahead and take a spit bath.

We don't need a spit bath. We need to be cleansed with intensity and thoroughness. The idea is increasing over and over and over because I want to get clean down to the core because of what I did with Bathsheba.

What I did to her husband, I want cleansing. This is laundry language. This is David. I'm a foul stinking garment used for the outhouse, and I need to be cleansed. Wash me. God, would you wash me? Notice what he does in verse 1?

He appeals to God's mercy. If God's just a just God, a righteous God, there's going to be just hell to pay. That's it. But God, you're merciful. You're gracious. You love sinners. I know that's your character.

That's what you do. So cleanse me. How about verse 2? It goes on to say not only wash me, but cleanse me from my sin. If there was a lot of dead people after a war, in the land you needed that land to no longer be defiled, you had to clean up the corpses.

Clean the land from the dead bodies. That's the language here. God, would you just completely forgive me? Would you just forgive me? My sin's like leprosy. Verse 7. This is Leviticus 14 kind of language.

When you take blood and have some hyssop and dip that little leafy green plant into the blood and sprinkle it to cleanse lepers, purify me with hyssop. Make me whiter than snow. But if you do this, I will be clean.

Un-sin me. That's the idea. De-sin me. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. I know I'm defiled. I know I'm sinful. I know I'm polluted. I know I'm repugnant, as it were. But I'd like you to forgive me.

I'd like you to cleanse me. And what did God do? Do you think you'll see David in heaven? You're going to see David in heaven. How about that? Because Jesus makes purification. The ultimate David saves and makes purification for David's sin and all those who would believe in his son.

See, that is why friends, when Jesus dies on the cross for sinners, when someone comes along to you, and maybe some of you here believe this, you've got friends or relatives, and they say, Jesus' death on the cross isn't enough to purge your sins.

You, after you die, have to go to purgatory? What does it say about the Savior's work? What does it say about the Bible? Now, in the old days, I think I'd just blast away. Here we live in Roman Catholic land, and 80 of the people would say they were, even though they don't ultimately believe it.

But many Roman Catholics here in New England, and now again, I guess it's age. Maybe it's godliness as well. I want to be more godly. I want to be more kind and merciful and act like who God is. Instead of me just kind of blasting and getting the howitzer out, that defames the work of Jesus.

It does. I want to come alongside of them and again put my arm around them and say, the way you're talking and what you're thinking about regarding theology, you can't know if you're going to go to heaven.

Don't you want to know? That's the number one thing I tell my Roman Catholic friends. You can know you're going to heaven. Who wants to go to purgatory? The death of Christ is sufficient. It's a once and for all act.

And he did it for sins, mortal sins, venial sins, sins of omission, sins of commission. Catholic Catechism says their own writings from the horse's mouth. Here's what purgatory is, a purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven, which is experienced by those who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified.

Catholic Catechism 103 .1, the final purification of the elect is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. Second Vatican Council, page 63, the truth has been divinely revealed that sins are followed by punishments.

God's holiness and justice inflict them. Sins must be expiated. This must be done on earth through the sorrows, miseries, and trials of this life, and above all through death. Otherwise, the expiation must be made in the next life through fire and torments or purifying punishments.

Don't you feel sorry for people that believe that? I do. I want to tell them, Jesus' death is sufficient. It is once and for all. It is complete. It is final. It takes care of every single sin. Handbook for today's Catholic, page 47.

If you die in the love of God, but possess any stain of sin, such stains are cleansed away in a purifying process called purgatory. These stains of sin are primarily the temporal punishment due to venial or mortal sins already forgiven, but for what sufficient penance was not done during your lifetime.

Did you do enough penance? Did you do enough work? Did you say enough Hail Marys? How many Our Fathers did you say? One Roman Catholic site said, but purgatory is not for everyone. Baptized infants who have died before the age of accountability and Catholic saints who live such holy lives are excused from purifying fires.

One Catholic website said, why would anyone go to purgatory to be cleansed? For nothing unclean shall enter heaven, Revelation 21. Anyone who has not been completely freed of sin and its effect is to some extent unclean.

Though repentance, through repentance he may have gained the grace needed to be worthy of heaven, which is to say he has been forgiven and his soul is spiritually alive. But that is not sufficient for gaining entrance into heaven.

He needs to be cleansed completely. End quote. And I tell you, that's a lie from hell. Because it damages the work of Jesus. And what damages the work of Jesus has effects. And here's the effect if you're Roman Catholic.

I don't know if I'm going to go to heaven. I'm not trusting in the perfect Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. I'm trusting in some kind of system where they're going to use purgatory for many things.

Including the extraction of money. Recently in the news, Catholic author Susan Tassone so wants to get people out of purgatory she has been asking for money and has received two million dollars over the years to get souls out of purgatory by having Gregorian masses said for them.

And to quote the article, the next best thing for people in purgatory is the rosary. She also recommends the stations of the cross. And I would say this, at least she's consistent. If you've got to get people out of purgatory by buying them off with indulgences and mass, then fine.

But I have a better approach. Friends, Catholic friends. My grandmother was a Catholic. Grandma! Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners. And what He did was so fantastic, so sufficient, so authoritative, so designed by God that it made purification for sins.

Which ones, son? All sins. What about the future sins? All sins. What about the sins I did back in those days? All sins. Grandma, wouldn't you like to be cleansed for all your sins? Then trust the risen Savior Jesus who makes purification for sins.

Yes, but that is going to make people go crazy. If you tell people they can't lose their salvation, it's all been done by God. Jesus purified every sin, including future sins. People are going to go crazy.

How do we control the hordes? The masses? But you know what will control a group of people who are really forgiven? To look back at the cross and say, I'm forgiven. Why would I want to keep sinning when Jesus has cleansed me for these sins?

Shall grace abound if I sin more? I don't want to do that. I want to not sin because of what Jesus did. His perfect work. And God, thank you. If you're here today and you are not forgiven, you are needing a cleansing because you're contaminated and filthy before God.