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26. Tourists go now anyway just to see the unfinished building. But Germany's Cologne Cathedral took even longer to build. 1248 it started and it finished 632 years later in 1880. Some things don't even get started, they're just blueprint, they're just white print and they never get off the ground.
Castle Falkenstein in Germany, designed by Ludwig II, never built. The Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, planned, never constructed. Some buildings that were never completed remain in that state. Around the world, Bishop Castle in Colorado, National Monument in Edinburgh.
It's hard to finish. There are roads and highways across the world that were started and never finished from Madrid to Los Angeles. There are railway structures, Cincinnati Subway, started, never finished.
I even found one for some of you Six Flag crazy people. Ferris wheels, started, the turn of fortune in China, never finished. It's hard to finish. And of course, what illustration about finishing and counting costs would not be complete without a tower that was built and not finished.
Watkins Tower in London, UK, started, not finished. It reminds me of Jesus' words in Luke 14. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the what? Cost, whether he has enough to complete it.
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him. That's why I like to mock those buildings because Jesus actually said that. This man has begun to build but was not able to finish.
Or what king, Jesus said, going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10 ,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20 ,000. It is hard to finish and it's hard to finish well.
I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to the book of Hebrews because our passage today talks about Jesus, the finisher. Jesus started his course and he finished well. So well that he can be a high priest to all those who will look to him by faith.
So well that you can trust your eternal soul, your eternal sinful soul to Jesus because what he started, he finished. And he even is faithful in our lives. Remember the song from Philippians 1? He who began a good work in you didn't count the cost and isn't faithful to complete it.
That doesn't really rhyme now, does it? He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. And so what God starts, he finishes. And that's what we're going to celebrate today. If you look at your own life, forget the towers, forget the Ferris wheels, forget the roads.
How about just your to-do list? You start something and you don't have enough foresight, you don't have enough money, you don't have enough time, you don't have enough skill, and you can't finish the job.
But when Jesus started, he finished. And when the Father said, this is my plan for you, I want you to go redeem those dear elect people, Jesus finished the job. And when Jesus had to start with suffering and end in glory, he finished.
It's nice to talk about someone who can finish. This book of Hebrews talks about Jesus in every way, shape, and form. And since we have a Presbyterian here in the congregation today, R .C. Sproul said, if I were cast into prison and allowed but one book, it would be the Bible.
If I were allowed only one book in the Bible, it would be the epistle to the Hebrews. Because it contains our most comprehensive discussion of the redemption wrought for us in the sacrifice of Jesus. It really is the fifth gospel, because it's so much about Jesus.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the book of Hebrews. There are very many practical outflows from this book. When you have the right view of Jesus, everything else is in its right view. So when you make people big, God's small, everything's messed up.
And here's a great view of Jesus. So then you see people for who they are. You see yourself for who you are. I love the book of Hebrews. It tries to encourage you by saying, you just think of somebody great.
Who's the greatest? I am the greatest. We've heard people say that before. But Jesus put anyone in the ring against him, as it were, whether it's an angel, whether it's a prophet, whether it's a priest, whether it's a king, whether it's an emperor, Jesus is greater.
Greater than Moses? Yes, by far. Greater than Aaron? Yes, by far. Greater than Elijah? Yes, by far. Everything in this book speaks to the greatness of Jesus, the high priest. And if you want to summarize the book of Hebrews for some of the visitors, it would be Hebrews 8 .1.
Now, the point in what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. You've got a priest. You're going through trials, difficulties, situations in your life.
You have a high priest. Not a sinful priest, but a compassionate high priest. And that is why when you're in trouble, the book of Hebrews helps because Hebrews 12 gives us our end, and that is looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus finishes. And right away, you're probably thinking to yourself, even that language of seated at the right hand of God, he's finished. Because the Old Testament priests, there were lots of things in the tabernacle, lots of things in the temple, but there wasn't a chair.
Why? Because when people sin, you have to have a sacrifice. And then they would sin again, and there would be another sacrifice, and it would never, ever end. The job of the priest was never finished.
But Jesus, we're going to learn today, finished. And just to make sure our minds are set properly, what if we had someone who didn't know anything about Christianity, and they were to walk in through that door right now, if Vincent would allow them?
He's counting, by the way. It's all about attendance, billings, and cash now, isn't it? What if somebody were to walk in? I mean, this is just the oddest thing, isn't it? Could we make it up? We'll put a pulpit up here, and there'll be some sinful man standing up here for 45 minutes telling you from this book that's at least part of it 2 ,000 years old, some of it older, this is the voice of God in this Word.
When God speaks in His Word, God speaks. And we listen, and we focus, and the more we learn about Jesus, and the more we concentrate on Him, the Spirit of God is applying the Word, and He changes us by the preaching of the Word, by the listening of the Word.
And that's why that last song, I'd like to see Jesus because I'd like to be more like Him. Show us Christ from this book. God is here. God is deserving your worship, and part of worship is listening to the Word where we talk about His Son.
I wonder if the father is bored after 50 minutes when he hears a frail, sinful man extol the virtue of Jesus Christ. It reminds me of the story of one pastor, Don Kistler, and he was up in New England.
It was his first pastorate, and at the door, the first day he was there, he got done preaching, and there was a man who said to him, your sermons are too long. And he said to the man, this is a good answer, too long for whom?
Well, for me, of course, he said. And then Don Kistler said to the man, well, Jim, or whatever his name was, sorry, Jim, well, Francis, we've got a Francis too. I'm trying to think of a man's name that we don't have here.
That's the problem, you see, because I don't preach for you. I preach for the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm quite sure after 40 minutes he's not bored hearing His Word. That was the last time Don saw Francis.
But I praise God for you, congregation, because you want the Word. This is a pastor's dream church. Show us Christ. Tell me about Jesus. Yes, we have a thousand problems in our world, but we'd like to see everything clearly through the lens of who Jesus is.
I'm not great. The world's not great. The world will let you down. But Jesus is great, and Jesus finishes the job. No wonder He's called in the book of Revelation faithful and true. Who's faithful these days?
Who's true these days? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. So we are in chapter 5 right now of the book of Hebrews. And so if you open your Bibles and find Hebrews 5, we just go verse by verse by verse. Show us Christ, epistle of Hebrews.
And, in fact, He does. This is really a sermon, a sermon of encouragement to people who are suffering. How do you encourage suffering people? Say, well, it won't last forever. One day you'll be in heaven.
That's true. Other people have it worse. That's true. But for Him, He says, that's all true, but I'm not going to get you out of your trouble. I'm going to see you through by showing you who Jesus is.
It is enough, even though we don't intellectually believe it at times, to have a problem and then say, you know what? The solution to my problem is simply this. And, lo, I am with you always. I'm not getting out of my problems.
Things aren't changing, but God is with us. Emmanuel, God is with us. It says in verse 7, remember, in the days of His flesh, we're talking about the incarnation, we're talking about Jesus is showing Himself to be a high priest who can identify with us.
He's not a God who's only far off, but He's close. How close? He added human nature so He knows what it's like to be human. You want a priest that understands you. You don't go to a priest who can't get married for marriage counseling.
You don't go to a priest when you're hurting and he's never hurt. But since Jesus is a high priest who is fully human and has suffered and has been tempted more than we've ever been tempted and who's not selfish, who loves sinners, then we can go to Him.
And so the text says, in the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers, that's what priests do, they pray, and supplication with loud tears. I mean, He's human. He understands. This is not just empathy, but this is sympathy with loud cries and tears.
And to whom was He praying? To Him who was able to save Him from death, right out of death. That prayer was answered, by the way, because Jesus was raised from the dead by the Father. And our text says the answer.
Was Jesus' prayer heard? Answer, and He was heard because of His reverence, because of His cautiousness. It's a very strange word, an interesting word, a word that's not used much. It means caution, it means concern.
It's translated in Joshua, concern, care, detail. You've got a very detailed priest, unlike Nadab and Abihu, who said, you know what, I know God wants fire, I know He wants a sacrifice, I know He wants all these things, we do what we want.
And God consumed them, remember, in Leviticus 10. Jesus wasn't the priest that said, I could care less, I have a job to do, it's government work. This word here means cautiousness, circumspection, detail.
It's not innovated, it's not, I'll do what I want, when I want. Piety, fear, being devout. Verse 8, remember last week, although He was a son, He learned obedience. Well, sons have to obey, but does this Son, the Son of Hebrews chapter 1, who purifies sins, who makes the world, who's the exact image of God, who's the radiation of God, as it were, the radiance of God, rather, He learned through what He, what?
Verse 8, suffered. That's what a grammarian might call, this is for you grammarians, we have engineers in this congregation, how many engineers? Good, how many grammarians? Okay, there's a couple. For you grammarians, you two in the back, this is a contra-expectation.
You're expecting one thing, but it's different, it's kind of a surprise. You mean the Son of God, the eternal Son of God, who never sinned, who never was created, He had to suffer? He learned obedience by suffering?
That should tell you something. Christ is my representative. Christ is my brother. Christ understands. He has solidarity with us. He knows what it's like. Oh God, you don't know what I'm going through.
You can strike that off your list if you understand Hebrews. God, you don't know my pain. You can strike that off your list if you know the book of Hebrews. You would not expect someone with Jesus' position and stature and deity to have to suffer.
But He learns to obey by suffering because He's got to be the best high priest. He's got to be a sympathetic high priest. Yet without sin, that's true. He learns by suffering. So now we move to verses 9 and 10, which we'll get through today.
Let me give you for our outline. Everything was just kind of a setting things up, placing things properly so we can understand it. Verses 9 and 10, let me give you two words that highlight the person and work of Christ so that you might rest in Him and trust in Him.
The whole point of this book is you might believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and was raised from the dead and that you can't work for heaven, you can't be good enough for heaven, you can't do enough civil things for heaven, you can't do enough ceremonial things for heaven.
Somebody else has to do the job. I hope he did it well. I hope he finished. Two words that help you understand Jesus, the high priest, so that you might rest in Him. Number one, finisher. He is the finisher.
Now your text says in English, verse 9, and being made perfect. Well, what's that all about? It has nothing to do with Jesus was imperfect and now He's perfect. He had moral problems and now He's better.
Hebrews 4 .15 has already said He's without sin, so He's not getting better. The word means to complete. The word means to finish. Jesus suffers, He goes through passion, He dies on the cross, and He has therefore fulfilled His role as high priest.
He finished the course. He drank the cup. He didn't say, you know what, I'll drink 90 of the wrath of God and you take care of the rest. Can you imagine if that happened? Can you imagine if God said, you know what, God the Son, I know you deserve hell and wrath for your sin and for your law-breaking.
And so you know what? I think Dave Jeffries used to say this. Jesus paid it all. Now let's strike that. Jesus paid 90%, 90 to Him I owe, and 10 I have to do the rest? You can tell I don't write songs for a living.
Praise God. He drank the full cup of God's wrath, and He knows what it's like to identify with humans, and so He finishes. Here's another place it's used, this exact word. But I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, Paul said, if only I may, here's our word, finish my course.
To bring an end to, to accomplish, to fulfill, to finish. Jesus completed the work. It has nothing to do with moral imperfection, and now He's better. There's a process. He's human, and He has to obey.
He becomes obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross, and now He's the perfect high priest. John 17 .4, I glorified you, Father, on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
He finished His work, therefore He's fully able to be priest and Savior. If He didn't finish, then who is He? And He's qualified through suffering. Go back to chapter 2, verse 10. Doesn't this language sound familiar in Hebrews 2 .10?
For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Qualified, completed, finished.
Jesus said in Luke 13 about Herod, Go and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. That's the word. Jesus is fully qualified to be your high priest.
He finished. He suffered, triumphed, finished. No Old Testament priest could ever say such a thing. There was no end. Hebrews 12 says, Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter, our finisher of our faith.
His vocation done. Let's just think about this for a second. What if Jesus just got you back to neutral, and now you have to finish the job? What if He did His part, now you do yours? This is the great lie of the world.
Here's what the world says. Even the Christian world. God casts His vote for you to be saved. Satan casts his vote against you, and you cast a deciding vote. Well, if that was the case, guess what our vote would always be as sinful people?
We will not have that man rule over us. But Jesus did such a work that He made salvation not possible, but He achieved salvation. Don't ever think to yourself, what is potential energy for you WPI students?
What's the difference between potential and kinetic? Do we know? I think you know. It doesn't matter. Potentiality. That's not with Jesus. When you think of the word redemption, never does the Bible say, He made redemption possible, now you do your part.
Propitiation, He made propitiation possible. Assuaging the wrath of God, it's possible, now you do your part. Reconciliation, He did what He could. He made it possible, now you do your part. No, He made propitiation.
He made redemption. He made reconciliation. And your part isn't even faith, because that would be a work. Faith is, I don't bring anything. I'm just trusting in your promises. I take you at your word.
I receive it by grace alone, through faith alone. And faith isn't some meritorious work. Now, when you think of the word finish, and Jesus does the work at Calvary, and He finishes His job, what's the word, what's the passage that just goes through your mind automatically that relates to this?
If Jesus is a finisher, He starts what He finishes, He finishes what He starts, rather, what do you think of? And the answer is, when Jesus said on the cross, it is what? Finished. Let's go there, John 19.
Is it hot in here to you? It is hot. We used to have no air conditioning. We have a broken air conditioning now, but we used to have no. So, here we go. I dare you to fall asleep in John 19. Some of you are sleeping.
I can see you. What if I read my manuscript, you know, and just read words? So, sit at the end of your seat. You know, when Steve Cooley first would listen to me preach, I probably wasn't a very good preacher, but he'd work all night, and so he would just stand in the back, so he could stand up and make it through the sermons.
That was a good thing to do. Cardin, is that why you're standing? You're a pagan. You don't even have a Bible. You just have an electronic thing. I mean, there are two classes of Christians. Well, the pagans, they don't bring anything, but the Christians, they bring their phone Bibles, but the real anointed Christians, the Keswick Christians, the real spiritual ones, they have paper.
Bibles. The word Bible means book. So, let's think of this. Okay, if Jesus didn't finish what he started, it's on you. How would you do? How would you fare? For a day, maybe it'd be okay. You're like, well, let's see.
I need to perfectly love my wife from here on out. And if Jesus didn't finish, I've got to do that, because that's part of his law is for me to love my wife. I'm not going to make it. Plus, what about in the past when I haven't?
I just can't go to the judge of the universe and say, by the way, I murdered a couple people with my hatred, but I won't do it again. Am I good? I'm just going to do more good than I've done bad. Let me in.
I'm going to walk more old ladies across the street than I have murdered young people for drugs. Sound like a good deal, God? Of course not, but that's how we kind of process it. So, we need a Savior who saves, who does it all, 100%, who's the author and finisher, captain and completer.
In John 19, we see this of Jesus. It's great. It's one of those passages where you just read over and over and think, Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. John 19, 23, let's pick it up there. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also His tunic.
I mean, can you just see? This is just the hatred and the awful sinfulness of man. The tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to the bottom. So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be.
Let's do this right in front of the dying prisoner. What they didn't know was this was to fulfill the scripture which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas.
And Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son. Then He said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home.
Can you see Jesus even there honoring His mother, perfectly obeying the law because it was right and for us in our place? On His deathbed, still thinking about His mother, honoring His mother. It's called the active obedience of Jesus.
After this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished, that's the same language from Hebrews, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch, held it up to His mouth.
When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, it's one word in Greek, three in English. It's got the concept from Hebrews 5, it is finished. And instead of giving up His spirit and bowing His head like others, He's in control of His own destiny and He bowed His head and He gave up His spirit.
Jesus knew His responsibility was to obey the Father and to do His will and He did it. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He did it. He finished the work that God had given Him to do, John 17. It was completed.
The Greek word is tetelestai, same root from Hebrews 5. It means to complete or to finish. When I was younger, I remember a pastor said, Jesus on the cross did not say, I'm finished. He said, it is finished.
The second to last word was, it is finished. And then He said, into Thy hands I commit My spirit. Now these three little English words, so many people have written about them. Here's just a sample of some great theologians and what they've said about these three little English words.
Spurgeon said, it is finished is the most charming note in all of Calvary's music. J .C. Ryle said, it is surely not too much to say that of all the seven famous sayings of Christ on the cross, none is more remarkable than it is finished.
A .W. Pink said, eternity will be needed to make manifest all that it is finished contains. Charles Simeon said, out of all the words Jesus said on the cross, to tell us I eclipsed them all. It is finished.
Friends, if you're a sinner, Jesus paid it all. You're safe if you trust in Him. Yeah, but you don't know what I did this week, Pastor. You're safe if you trust in Him. It is finished. Here's for the grammarians part two.
It's a perfect. Perfect tense means this, accomplished in the past with ongoing effects. Yes, it happened at Calvary 2 ,000 years ago, but it is still valid today. To tell us I, it stands finished. It will always be finished.
This is almost like Jesus with self-satisfaction, divine self-satisfaction. I did everything. Mission accomplished. If you go back to Genesis chapter one, there's that same kind of language there, and God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
Self-satisfaction of God. Now, when you study this, there's ancient literature for this word, to tell us I, that help you figure out a little bit more with a extra nuance, how great this word is. This word could be used in the ancient world with servants.
So you have a servant, and this servant needs to clean. This servant needs to mow. This servant needs to shovel snow. I mean, we were just doing that a month ago, were we not? I was just in Orlando for the wedding, and it was hot and humid there two weeks ago, and we flew back that night into Logan, and I got off the plane.
I could see my breath. It's the middle of May. So you hire somebody to do a job, and after they do that job, they've fed the cattle, they've returned from a business trip for you, representing you, and they've come back on the mission, and you say, did you get the job done?
I always would tell Luke and my kids, you know, check your work. That's one of the attitudes. If something's worth doing, do it with all your heart, and check your work, and they did the job, and they would say to the master, they would say to the sender, to tell us I, it's finished.
I did the job. Everything you sent me to do, I did. This word was also used in ancient world for priests. Here's what the priest would do. You're a sinner. You bring a lamb in, and what I need to do is, I need to investigate that lamb so that there's no blemishes, there's no faults, there's no spots.
If you bring me a lamb that's got some kind of weird eye disease, some kind of goop in its eye, that's not sacrificial, because sin costs, and so you have to give your best to God. You can't say, well, you know, I had two cows from this, you know, two calves, and I'm going to dedicate one to the Lord, and you know, the one that dies, you say, God, sorry, that was the one I was going to dedicate to you.
I mean, it just doesn't work that way. It has to be perfect and spotless. Why? It'll be sacrificial, number one. Number two, it's going to point to the one who is Jesus, the sacrificial, spotless lamb.
But you bring me the lamb, and I kind of go over it, check the ears. There's no mites in the ears. I check the foot. You know, the foot's not, you know, lame, and I give a careful inspection, and I just check it all out.
And, of course, if I was one of those bad priests back in the day, I would say, yeah, something's bad here, but I got my own over here that you can buy for extra. But if I checked everything out, and it was perfect, I would say to him, Tetelestai, it's done, it's complete, it's perfect, checked out, good to go.
After a careful examination, this is acceptable. This word is also used for artists. Artists would use this word. Can you imagine? I've never really painted much in my life. I guess I've done some hangman sketches, you know, kind of thing.
And you're painting something. My mother was a painter. Kim's grandmother, Evie, was a painter. And they would paint some, and they would stand back, and they'd go, oh, it needs a little more, how can I talk like I know what I'm doing?
Some more hues. It needs some more greens. It needs some more details. And you paint a little bit more, step back, paint a little bit more, step back, and finally, that last time you step back, and you go, it's perfect.
It's complete. It's to telestai. By the way, that's a great way to picture the Old Testament as the artist is rendering these great pictures and shadows in the Old Testament all pointing to Christ. It is finished.
But the one you probably know about the most would be merchants. You owe somebody money. There's an I owe you promissory note. And the person would owe you money. And when they would finally pay it off, you would write on top of the bill, paid in full, but the Greek word was to telestai.
That is why, when you think about this great word, to telestai, or it is finished. The job has been completed by Jesus. It's paid in full. Nothing needed to be added. In spite of our sin and our indwelling sin, Christian, there's no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus.
I could do it this way. Don't answer out loud. What's the worst thing you've ever done? What's the worst thing you've ever thought? By the way, God knows those. He knows everything. He doesn't learn anything.
He knows those. Since God knows everything I've ever done, even the worst things, everything that I've ever thought, even the worst thing, is there any hope for me? I mean, God's holy. He's righteous.
Isaiah 64 says, we've all become like one who is unclean, and our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. That's not even my crime. That's not even my sin. The best I have to offer God is like an unclean garment.
How can I stand in God's presence? How about this week? Did you live a sinless week? I didn't. But Christian, you can stand with confidence under the cross of Christ where Jesus says, it's finished. It's been paid.
Everything's been done. Colossians 2 echoes that. You were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, yet God made alive together with Him, having forgiven all our trespasses. Why? Listen, by the canceling of the record of debt, it is finished, that stood against us with its legal demands.
Then He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him. Tetelestai. This is the difference between every religion and Christianity.
And every religion besides Christianity is do. Be baptized. Be good. Do more good than bad. Do, do, do, do, do. It's impossible. A perfect one Adam couldn't do it, let alone now us, tainted by sin. Do, do, do.
It's impossible. Jesus, the last Adam, comes. And He does. He perfectly obeys, even through suffering. And what we couldn't do, He did. And now we look at Jesus and we say, it's been done. And all we do is we take it by faith and we believe.
Turn from our sins and trust in Jesus and rest in Him. Everything's do, do, do. Friends, let me just tell you this. You want a good evangelistic strategy for your friends? If they're not Christians, they're under the do.
There's no rest for them, not in this earth or anywhere else. So why don't you talk to them about the completed work of Jesus? The Catholic Jesus? Do. The Islamic? Do. The Mormons? Do. JWs? Do. Friends, let's just be honest with ourselves.
How are you doing? Because if you're not doing things perfectly, God isn't going to just say, by the way, you've only spit in my face once, you're still coming to heaven. God is a consuming fire. You cannot stand before God on your own.
Everything in the Bible paints to that. There's a holy of holies that you better not go into. But what has been done by Jesus, it's been done. Tetelestai. No wonder some of the writers say, this thought is enough to make a man leap.
Though his legs were chained with irons and make him sing, though his mouth were gagged. We are perfectly accepted in Christ Jesus and our justification is not partial. What about my dwelling sin, Pastor?
Tetelestai. What about Satan? Tetelestai. What about how I treated my wife this week? Tetelestai. Abraham was justified by his works, Romans 4. If he was, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those, David wrote, whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
Did you get that? Think about the two greatest men in Judaism. How great is their life? If you ask a Jew, you look at the Old Testament, give me the two greatest men. It would be Abraham and David. Those would be the two.
Father Abraham and David. How were they right in God's eyes? Was it due? Now, Abraham did some great things. David did some great things. But those good don't outweigh the bad. How about Abraham and David when you just kind of stop and reread their lives?
And Abraham tries to save himself twice by saying, you know what? Here's my wife. She's not my wife. You sleep with her so, in fact, you don't kill me. If he was justified by due, how's that working out for him?
To make it worse, in our kind of me-too environment where all these things are coming out, the promise was to Abraham. And he said, you know what? I'm not going to do that through Sarah. I think I'll use my position of power and authority with a weak servant under me and I'll go into Hagar.
Or you take David and he's on that roof and he sees a lady. Get me that lady. She couldn't have said no. How could David? How could Abraham? Okay, let's forget them. How can you stand before God? The only way is we have a surety.
We have an anchor. We have a savior. We have a priest. We have one who finished everything and said, it's done. It's all been paid for. Say, well, if you tell people that, they're going to go live squirrely lives.
They're going to run around, give them extra law, keep them down. Not at all. Because a person who realizes that Jesus has paid it all, you will respond with, all to Him I owe. Hudson Taylor kept thinking about, it is finished, it is finished, it is finished all the time.
And he wrote this, there dawned upon me the joyous conviction that since the whole work was finished and the whole debt was paid upon the cross, there was nothing for me to do but to fall on my knees, accept the Savior, and praise Him forevermore.
I, along with you, deserve hell. And I, along with you, Christian believer, get to go to heaven for free. Because Jesus paid it all. It cost Him. It was grace alone. It was our demerited favor. But God loves more than our sin.
Grace greater than all our sin. That's why in Romans it says, abounding grace. Lifted up was He to die. It has finished was His cry. Now in heaven, exalted high, what's the refrain? You don't know what my week's going to be like, Pastor.
I've got these problems, Pastor. I know, but still, hallelujah, what a Savior. He's the finisher. There's an old evangelist, a tent revival evangelist. His name was Alexander Wooten. And he's out taking the tent down.
The revival's been going on for five days. I don't know how you would make revival yourself, but that's another story. And a young boy comes up. He's convicted of a sin. He knows with his conscience and with the law of God, he's sinned against God, and he wants relief.
He wants rest. He doesn't want that torment of, if I die tonight not trusting in Jesus, I am in fact going to go to eternal perdition. And so he runs down there, and he says to Alexander Wooten, what must I do to be saved?
Remember what he said? How would you respond to that? You're the evangelist. It's too late. They mean too late. And he said that with alarm. What do you mean it's too late for me to be saved? Isn't there anything I can do?
Wooten said, too late. It's already been done. It's finished. The only thing you can do is to believe. Having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation. Aren't you glad? Let's pray.
Father, we are so glad that you love sinners, and you demonstrated that with great clarity. It was conspicuous at Calvary that the sinless one, Jesus, without spot or blemish, suffered on our behalf. We deserved it.
Abraham deserved it. David deserved it. I deserved it. And yet you had a job for Jesus, and that was to rescue people like that, who could never rescue themselves, and who would forever then praise you and thank you.
And so we want to trust in those words today. Jesus said it is finished, and we trust him for that. There is not one thing we could ever do, nor will ever need to do, to be accepted in your presence. It's just trust.
And Father, for those that are here today that aren't trusting in Jesus, Father, I pray that you'd convict them. They're essentially saying, Jesus is a liar on the cross. And they are against him. They are against the finished work.
Just like we were before we were saved. And I pray that you'd graciously grant them eyes to see. Simply trusting in Jesus, the risen Savior. What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
And it's in his name we pray. Amen.