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And I always have the kids come over, and I tell the kids now, we don't want to have to be morbid. You don't have to do anything strange, but here's what you have to do.
You have to come over with Daddy to that open casket, and look at that person, man or woman, or maybe child.
You just have to look for a few seconds. And I want you to think of three things while you're looking at this person. I want you to think, number one, their soul, their spirit, what makes them them, isn't there anymore.
It's pretty obvious even for a kid to see the fact that this is just a shell, it's just a corpse, it's just a body.
I said, I want you to think of something else. Only Jesus could walk over to that dead body and say, little girl, arise.
Only Jesus could walk over to Lazarus' tomb, four days dead, and say, Lazarus, get up, arise.
Can you imagine? That cold body, that stiff body, get up. And then
I say to the kids, number three, I want you to be reminded that one day that will be you in that casket.
So, it will be imperative for you to believe in the one who's conquered death. But I think
I'm going to add a fourth one in light of Resurrection Sunday today. This is going to be my new thing that we'll add as I try to disciple the kids, and I've even discipled some of your kids at a funeral.
Only Jesus, laying in that casket, laying in that tomb, could make
Himself get up from the dead. How about that? That Jesus Christ Himself died on the cross, and of course the text says the
Father raised Him, the Spirit raised Him, but the text also says that the Son of God raised Himself from the dead.
Just how great is that? But my question this morning is, what did it prove? What was the point?
Why was Jesus raised from the dead? And so today we're going to examine a topic that if you understand, you will then more greatly appreciate the
Resurrection. That is to say, when you grasp this central truth, the central truth of Christianity, the truth of Christianity that if you don't get, you don't know
Christianity. If you grasp that today in Hebrews 9 to 11, you'll appreciate the
Resurrection a lot more. You'll praise God for the Resurrection a lot more. You'll say to yourself, oh, if the
Resurrection confirms something, I know what it now confirms. If the Resurrection is
God's exclamation point with a fine -tipped pencil, a fine -tipped pen, if it's the exclamation point, now
I know what the sentence is. It's one thing to say, well, Jesus was raised from the dead. It's another thing to say, why was
He raised? For what purpose? What did it signify? Why is the Resurrection a big deal? So today, we're going to look at Hebrews 9 and 11 to see these two central concepts that when you get these right, you'll understand
Christianity. So let's turn our Bibles to Hebrews 9. I usually preach through the Bible verse by verse, text by text, sequentially.
But after last Sunday, we need a break and we need a breather. So we'll hit the
Resurrection passage today in Hebrews 9 and 11. When it's
Christmas time, our Resurrection Sunday time, I'm drawn back to Hebrews. If you just want to point me in a direction and say,
Mike, you get to preach about anything you want, wherever you want. If I fly overseas and they say, just preach about what you want,
I will preach from Hebrews because Hebrews is a book that says, here's the summary of Hebrews.
Jesus Christ is great. There's nobody like Jesus. There will be nobody like Jesus. He's superior.
He's transcendent. He's the eternal God -man. And Jesus is superior to any religion, any system, any person, any angel.
Jesus is better. I think that's a pretty good Resurrection Sunday service, don't you? Jesus is great.
He's the majestic one. And so my underlying purpose, to make very explicit what you might think is implicit, is
I want you to value, if you're sitting here today, Jesus Christ as great, as superior, as majestic.
I want you to believe in Him. I want you to trust in Him. You too will be in that casket one day, and I'll probably do your funeral.
And so for many reasons, you should believe in Christ Jesus. The minor one being, so it would make it easy for me to say, this man knew he was a sinner.
This lady knew she was a sinner, and she trusted in Christ alone for salvation. You know how much easier that is for a family?
Easier it is for a pastor? But it's transcendently more easy for you because you'll stand before God one day, and you will either believe that Jesus is majestic today on earth, in your life, or you will bow before Him in the great day of judgment, saying,
Jesus is Lord. And so it's our desire here at the church that you believe today. That's what we want. If you're a
Christian who already believes today, then you'll be reminded again, Jesus is great.
He's my Savior, and He's my Lord. And so today we'll look at Hebrews, this book that stirs up the soul when the soul is kind of lethargic, when the soul is kind of out of focus.
A while ago, my wife and I went to go see a movie, and we were the only ones in the movie theater. The only ones.
And we sat there watching the movie, and I could tell when the introductory credits came up with the introduction of the movie and all that, who's in the movie, it was all blurry.
And so I got up, and I walked to the person, and I said, do you think you could tune that movie? After all, we're the only ones in the movie theater, so it's not like it's my eyes were bad, and everybody else is good.
I guess, you know, fix it to my eyes. And so the same thing with the book of Hebrews. The writer writes it in such a way where when people are kind of seeing
Jesus hazily, out of focus, He's not very crisp or clear. Hebrews just puts a fine point to it.
The nice focus. And then after, I sat down with Kim, and then you could see, first it was even out of focus more, and then they tightened it down, and I thought, okay,
I'm engaged. And then we watched a horrible movie and then went home. The absolute supremacy of Christ Jesus, preeminent over Mosaic law, replacement over Mosaic law,
Jesus Christ is great. And once you get this, there's no going back. There's no going back to tradition.
There's no going back to religion. There's no going back to one of my major pet peeves in all of life, and that is, oh, you know, are you a
Christian? Well, no, but I'm very spiritual. I'm just kind of spiritual.
Translation, get all that Holy Roller stuff out of my face. I'll die on my own terms, thank you.
And I usually think to myself, you are very spiritual. You just happen to worship money, you just happen to worship yourself, and you need to know who
Jesus Christ is so you can get that stupid notion out of your mind that spirituality gets you to heaven.
What we'll talk about today is, there's only one thing that will get you to heaven. Only one thing.
If there was 50 things, I wouldn't be so riled up about it. If there were three ways, well, then, you know, engage in these other two ways.
But if there's one way, one person, one Christ, one sin bearer, then don't you think it would be important to preach that one way?
Absolutely. So today we're going to look at Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 11, looking at two key words.
And those two key words are blood and faith. Two key words. Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins.
And without faith, it's impossible to please God. Our two centerpieces of the table.
When you go home and have a nice dinner today. My mother was very strange, as you know.
She was a godly lady. But I remember the day we had bunny rabbit. We had rabbit on Easter. That was very interesting.
You go, that explains it. The psychological shrink in you are going, now I get why he is the way he is.
I thought that was kind of a good lesson. There's no such thing as Easter bunny. We just ate rabbit for Easter. Then we had hallowed chocolate eggs after that.
Not hallowed, but hallowed. Blood and faith.
Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission, no forgiveness. And without faith, it's impossible to please him.
So those are the two pieces on the center of our Easter table this morning, resurrection table. The hubs, the focus, as we'll do some exposition in chapter 9.
Some exposition in chapter 11. Without faith, it's impossible to please him.
And without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins. And I want you to believe. And I want you to believe in the blood atonement.
And if I had to describe Christianity with two words, and only two words. Not saying
Jesus Christ, but saying what he accomplished, it would be blood atonement. It would be blood atonement.
Substitutionary atonement. And that is going, I'm already telegraphing what I'm going to say, but that's good. Because I want you to get it.
The exclamation point called the resurrection makes blood atonement much more important.
Much more efficacious. And so today in this book that talks about Jesus is superior to angels, to prophets, to Moses, to Aaron, to the old covenant.
We're going to look at these two key words. Blood and faith.
And the resurrection, by the way, frankly, would be moot if these truths didn't exist. Now let's look at chapter 9, verse 22 to start.
This is our first centerpiece. And we'll take a look at it, then we'll back up, and then we'll focus in on it once again.
The first word is blood. And we'll see without the shedding of blood in Hebrews 9 .22.
The bloody Christianity. I'm not talking about wars, I'm talking about sacrifice. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood.
Hebrews 9 .22. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. No forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood.
This is like the law of gravity. This is like the law of entropy. This is like the law of thermodynamics.
In God's economy, no forgiveness without bloodshed. That's just the way the world works.
That's just the way the creator has designed it. So I ask you a question. How does God forgive?
How does God forgive? Does He just kind of let things go? Does He just kind of maybe forget?
He's got a lot of things to control in the universe and a lot of people to be concerned about and a lot of false religions to go after. So God just kind of forgets once in a while or says, ah, that's not that big a deal.
Remember the old movie, Oh God, with George Burns? He's kind of like a senile grandpa.
Kind of forgets, hardy har har. They're not really portraying God at all like the real
God. I ask you another question. When someone sins against you, how do you forgive them?
And is it similar to the way God forgives? The answer is it's not similar at all because if I sin against Tom and say,
Tom, would you please forgive me? Tom says, yes, I do. So why can't
God forgive that way? God, please forgive me. Okay, you're forgiven. But that's not how God forgives.
This is not some kind of divine fiat like in creation. Let there be light and there was light. So God says by divine fiat you've sinned against me.
Let there be forgiveness. And then there's forgiveness. That's not the way God works.
Lloyd -Jones says God the Father is no indulgent father who just says, all right, my child, come back.
All is well. Let bygones be bygones. No big deal. You're forgiven. Let them gone are your sins.
God is not like my grandmother Nona. And on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, my mother's parents, and we called them
Grandma and Grandpa up the hill because they lived up the hill. They loved us.
And I was an ornery young lad. And she had a yardstick over there.
You know, the kind you get from Ace Hardware or True Value, Al -Bashan used to give them out all the time. Oh, here, put this in your bag, a yardstick.
And she just kept saying, if you don't obey me, you're going to get that right on your derriere.
And she kept saying it over and over and over and over. And I realized she was never going to follow through with her promises.
She was all talk. And so I walked over one time and she said, you're going to get that on your bottom if you keep it up.
Walked over, took it right in front of her, walked over to the kitchen table, broke it over my knee and handed it to her. And she still didn't spank me.
That the way God is? He's kind of grandma, all threats. But see,
God is a holy God too. The holy seraphim veil their faces in the presence of God.
Abraham, the friend of God, said before God, I am but dust and ashes. Job said,
I abhor myself. Isaiah said, woe is me, for I am undone. My eyes have seen the king, the
Lord of hosts. Habakkuk says, God, your eyes are too pure to approve evil. And you cannot look on wickedness with favor.
Let's go back to Genesis chapter 2. And I want to give you three illustrations of blood atonement so you can see how bad sin is and how great
God's forgiveness is. Three examples of gracious substitution. Here's what
I'm going to try to do today. I'm assuming that some of you know hardly anything about Christianity. And so you need the basic rudimentary principles.
And this is the rudimentary principle. That there has to be bloodshed for there to be forgiveness. No forgiveness, no shedding of blood.
No shedding of blood, no forgiveness. And it's very, very interesting if we go all the way back to the garden.
We see this. This is why it's good to read all your Bible. To see the way God works through time. And you'll see the theme is the same.
Bloody atonement, substitutionary atonement. Something dying in another's place. Something dying instead of.
And by the way, that's what you're going to need today. If you're a Christian, you need to be reminded of that. So you say, oh, this morning we were singing those songs.
I thought, yes, hallelujah, what a Savior. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I'm forgiven, I have a risen
Savior. If you're not a Christian, you need to understand this. Adam and Eve were given commands by God.
And it says in chapter 2, verse 17, But of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.
For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely what? Die. The wages of sin is?
Death. That's God's law. The good thing is God's not just just.
He's not just holy. He's not just righteous. But he's compassionate, gracious, merciful, loving.
And he provides atonement through the sacrifice of another. He makes a substitute.
This person should have died, but he has something else die instead. But what do Adam and Eve first do?
I call this, along with Estilus Johnson, the denomination of the fig leaf. This is where all religion started.
This is where all, we're really spiritual, started. I don't know why I have to say it that way, but I just have to say it to make it more lame.
We're so spiritual. Here's Adam and Eve being really spiritual. What do they do?
They sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loincloths.
This is religion. This is tradition. We figure out a way. We know we're sinful. We know we have a conscience.
We know we try to believe in evolution and everything else. But we realize at the end of the day, there's a God. He created us.
We'll stand before him. So let's kind of throw out some things to God. We'll appease our conscience. We'll soothe our sin.
And we'll just kind of make our own fig leaves by being spiritual or by doing any kind of ordinance.
But God's goodness is seen by a bloody sacrifice. Look at chapter 3, verse 21.
Adam and Eve can't pay for their own sins. They've sinned. They need someone else to pay for them.
Because if they pay for their own sins, they not only physically die, but they eternally die forever and ever.
And here we have the first illustration of bloody perfect. No, not quite perfect yet, but bloody atonement.
And the Lord God, Genesis 3, verse 21. Forget the denomination of the fig leaf. The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Instead of Adam and Eve immediately dying, these animals did. Either one animal or two or more.
How about that? The wages of sin is death. You sin. Something has to die. And instead of Adam and Eve dying,
God kills animals and then takes their skins and gives them clothing. Every sin has to be dealt with.
Jump with me to the next book of the Bible, Exodus. I'm going to give you three quick illustrations of bloody substitution so that the resurrection makes sense.
Without this stuff, there's no real reason for the resurrection. And why is Christianity so bloody?
Because men and women are so sinful. And because God has ordained it this way. So this is interesting.
Passover, Exodus chapter 12. Remember, the wage of sin is death. Something has to die.
But God in His goodness and His mercy and His compassion says, I'll have someone take the bullet for you.
We use that terminology today. I'll stand in your place. I'll be the vicarious sacrifice.
I'll die instead of you. And early on, it was not another person dying. It was the concept of something would die.
And instead, it was the animals. And now we have Passover. Verse 5 of Exodus 12.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
And you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
That's not just the entrance of the door, but a place of security back in those days. Verse 12.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt. You don't want God passing through. You want Him passing over. I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.
He's also going to punish those false gods too. And on the gods, all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments.
I am the Lord. Verse 13. You don't want to pass through.
You want this Passover. And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.
And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And no plague will befall you to destroy you when
I strike the land of Egypt. There's going to be a sacrifice instead of you.
A substitute. Something's going to die. You've earned death. You've earned it because you've sinned. But when I pass over, if I've already seen there's been a death in place of you,
I'll just keep right on going. I was trying to explain this to some kids the other day, and I said, just imagine how costly sin is.
Just imagine dad comes home. Maybe you're on the farm, and dad comes home and says, I have a little three -week -old little lamb.
And it's going to be your pet, kids. Gather around. Let's name the lamb. What do you think we should name the lamb?
Fluffy. Scruffy. Whitey. I don't know what we name these little lambs. And you know what? You have inside dogs and outside dogs.
It's going to be an inside lamb. You get to have the lamb in the house. You get to feed that lamb, and this is what the lamb gets to eat over here.
Sometimes the lamb gets to sleep in the same bed with the kids, and they love the lamb so much. That little lamb.
Mary had a little lamb. And then it's one year later.
You say, okay, kids. We've sinned in this household. Dad sinned. Mom sinned.
Everybody else here sinned, too. You kids, too. The wages of sin is death. And so God can either kill you, and you'll die one day and stand before him, or we have a sacrifice.
Lamb didn't do anything wrong. Lamb's perfect, matter of fact. It's got all four legs, and it's just nice and unblemished.
We get a lot of money for that down at the shop if we sold it. So I want kids all to come around with Daddy.
Son, go get me the knife. All the kids come around. Put your hands on that lamb, and we'll symbolize that our sins are going to go into the lamb, and the lamb will die in our place.
So put your hands on the lamb. Put your hands on the lamb's head, and calm the lamb down a little bit. And Daddy takes a knife from the son, and from one side of the neck to the other, that young man right there is listening.
And as the blood and the life drains out of the lamb, so, too, do the tears just come screaming down the faces of the kids and probably parents.
That concept, with a little bit different arrangement, as the priest would slay things, is the exact concept of how heinous sin is, how heinous sin becomes unless there's a substitute, because it should have been the neck of the dad.
This is just the economy of God. And instead of saying, how sad, we should say, how sad, yet I'm so happy it's not my neck.
It's not my neck on the line. Now let's go to another one, the third one to get us an idea here of blood sacrifice is found in Leviticus 16,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, three illustrations, three quick ones of blood sacrifice, substitution, so you realize why the atonement had to happen and what the background is, how bad sin is, the goodness of God that He would provide a sacrifice, that He would provide a lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
Leviticus 16, this is the day of atonement. The Jews would call it the day. And this is almost exactly what
I was talking about in the last illustration. Leviticus 16, 14, jump right in there. I want you to think of substitution.
I want you to think of blood. I want you to think there's life in the blood, and when you sin, something has to die. And He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it,
Leviticus 16, 14, with His finger on the front of the mercy seat, on the east side and in front of the mercy seat.
He shall sprinkle some of the blood with His finger seven times. And He shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people.
See that? Kill the goat for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as He did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.
Verse 18, skip down to there. Then He shall go up to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it and shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar all around.
Yearly, the substitutionary atonement in Yom Kippur. All leading to what?
All leading to whom? To whom was it leading? You think about Adam and Eve. You think about Passover.
You think about Yom Kippur. And now let me read these Old Testament words to you and then you get the point. All of us like sheep have gone astray.
Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.
Substitutionary atonement. If you'd like to describe Christianity, that is it. Substitutionary atonement. Something dies in your place.
But I've got a question for you. If blood is required for your sins to be taken away, and if you don't want to keep sacrificing something every year because you need a better sacrifice, you're going to need some better blood.
You're going to need infinite blood. You're going to need godly blood, divine blood. But God is a spirit.
God doesn't have a body. You need God's blood. God doesn't have any blood. So what happens?
You need God's blood to be shed because it's of infinite value. Because there's no sin in God.
He's not dying for himself. He's dying for somebody else. But you need to have a bloody sacrifice.
God is invisible. God has no body. So in the eternal counsels of God, in the great plan of redemption, what did
God decide to do? God decided, the Father, Son, and the Spirit decided that the
Son would go and cloak himself with humanity and bleed for his people.
So now let's go back to Hebrews 9. A substitute life and blood needs to be shed.
If it was as easy as, you know, somebody needs to be strangled in your place, then let's find somebody to strangle. But here we need bloodshed.
And so how do we have bloodshed? A bloodshed that's righteous blood, of an infinite value that can be applied to all those who would ever believe.
What do we do when God doesn't have a body? God adds human flesh. And it's called the incarnation.
It's called Jesus Christ, the God -man. It's called the virgin conception. And now we parachute into Hebrews 9.
Go up to verse 11. And all this language is about Jesus' personal sacrifice causes eternal salvation for those that would believe.
Christ's blood instead of goat's blood, instead of your blood, instead of anybody else's blood.
It's divine blood that's efficacious, that can save you from your sins. If your sins require death, and they do, then you need somebody who can pay for those with the blood that's shed that won't just happen once a year, but once and done.
That's Christianity. Christianity is not, look at Jesus, how much He loves us on the cross.
I love you this much. He does love us on the cross. And I get it if kids say that.
But here's the love of God. Not that He just dies on the cross as some example of love, but that He dies as an atonement for the sins of people who would believe in Him.
He didn't deserve to die, and yet He dies. He takes our death instead of us dying. He dies, and look at how great the death is.
Chapter 9, verse 11. Hebrews 9, 11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation,
He entered, verse 12. You might want to underline these next three words. Once for all.
Once for all into the holy places. Not by means of the blood of goats and calves, those yearly Yom Kippur sacrifices, but by means of His own blood.
Thus securing not just an annual redemption, not just forgiveness for a year, but securing a what?
An eternal redemption. Just imagine if you had to do that game with the kids every year.
You just got done slitting the throat of that lamb. Fluffy was dead, and now you go out and bury Fluffy, and then
Dad says, By the way, kids, we're adopting another animal today because we have to do this next year too.
And then when you kill Fluffy number two, then that same day after you bury Fluffy two, you say,
Go get another lamb because we have to do it again. And you think you cried with Old Yeller.
I know my kids will watch Old Yeller. Dad, we can't watch Old Yeller. It's such a good show. Sacrificial.
Death of Yeller. Sorry. He saved him. It's a picture of Christ.
No, it's not. Don't you hate that? Well, we really want to go see this movie, so we have to turn it into something very
Christian, and then we can. You know, the gospel and the matrix. Just quit. And then have a movie screen up here.
You know what? Today my sermon is so weak and so unbiblical. We'll have a big video screen, and we'll play Braveheart for you.
Come on. I mean, aren't you in the drama of redemption here? It should have been you. It was someone else.
And in the plan of God, how does God bleed? Because He adds human flesh, and then He bleeds once, and done.
Took Christ's blood to make effective once for all salvation. God had to become human to make redemption.
Verse 13. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctified for the purification of the flesh, how much more?
How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living
God? Jesus, in the plan of God, offered Himself, and He wasn't coerced.
He wasn't forced. We used to take field trips to the stockyards in Omaha, Nebraska. I don't remember anything, but if I could remember,
I would see things like animals tethered together in the line being drugged to the executioner against their will.
The pigs and then the cows, they know something's wrong. They know death is imminent. They hear the sounds.
And they were brought involuntarily. Fluffy would have been killed involuntarily. It would have liked to have gotten away.
And what does the text say about Jesus? It says because of this great triune love to glorify the
Father and to then secure our salvation. What does the text say? He offered Himself. He's not just the high priest.
He's the sacrifice, too. That's better. That's great. Death by sacrifice.
Same terminology used for the sacrifice of animals. What's the price of redemption, you ask?
The blood of Christ Jesus, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give
His life a ransom for many. That's why if you sing a song, Washed in the Blood, what are you talking about?
Let's just get some of Jesus' blood and just pour it and just wash. We're washed in the blood. Are you washed in the blood of the
Lamb? It's figurative language to say are you cleansed by Christ once and for all, effective sacrifice?
You knew it should have been you getting your throat slit, but Jesus was crucified on your behalf. You know there's power in the blood?
What does that mean? It's got a little beaker full of blood. There's power, power, wonder -working power.
If you want to get saved today, I'm just going to throw the blood over you and if a drop hits you... Maybe that's why the centurion said this is truly the
Son of God because when they were beating Him up, some of the blood fell onto Jesus. Some of the blood of Jesus fell on the centurion and therefore
He was cleansed. No. Because the blood here is a blood that's a vicious death.
It's a blood that you let blood unto death. Not that you bleed to death, but you're killed in a vicious way.
Death and violence of the blood sacrifices. Look at how He just won't let this go.
Verse 15 of Hebrews 9. Therefore He's the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
Since a death has occurred that redeems, there are some deaths that occur that don't redeem. You have to do them next year.
It redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. Just as all those people before Jesus died were retroactively credited with Christ -perfect substitutionary bloody death, so too all those on our side of the cross who look back to the cross are credited with Christ -perfect atonement.
Verse 22. According to the law, one may almost say all things are cleansed with blood.
There's a few things that weren't. But the principle is, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.
No cleansing. Theological shorthand. The word blood means substitutionary death.
So here's the issue. What does the resurrection punctuate? Why is the resurrection an exclamation point?
Answer Romans 4 .25. I wonder if God accepted the sacrifice.
I wonder maybe Jesus died for his own sins and then he would have been punished for his own sins. I wonder if God said, you know what, that was a once -for -all sacrifice.
It accomplished eternal redemption for all those who had looked to the cross to live. It really worked. It was effective.
And the answer is, the resurrection proves, of course, that he conquered sin and death and hell and Satan, but it also confirms that the satisfaction was accepted by God.
I accept the sacrifice. Let's say back in the Old Testament, you say, well, you know what, I don't really want to give this good lamb.
I want to give this lamb that's got some blemishes and just something's wrong with this lamb.
It's kind of like that story where the farmer has the two calves and says, I'm going to dedicate one of these cows to the
Lord's service and when they get older, I'll give the cow to the pastor and the church. The cows grew up and then one of them died and then the farmer called the pastor and said, you know,
I got some bad news. Your cow died. For those of you that didn't get it, then it's either not funny or it doesn't really matter.
The best we give to God. Was the best given to God, the Son? Yes, and so God says,
I affirm, Christ's death was a sacrifice pleasing to me and I will raise him from the dead.
It worked. And to think, listen to these verses.
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.
For you, if you're here in the congregation today, you're a sinner too. And God does mark iniquities.
He's counting them all and you'll stand before God and either you'll pay or Jesus Christ, as you look to him by faith, will stand in your stead.
John Calvin said, no one knows the 100th part of sin that clings to his soul. Spirituality isn't going to get it.
Religion isn't going to get it. Tradition isn't going to get it. Blood atonement is the only way you can have for your sins forgiven.
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunge beneath that flood whose all their what?
Guilty stains. John Wesley was returning home from service one night and he got robbed.
Wesley hardly had any money on him but he had some Christian tracks. Stop, Wesley said as the man was rushing off.
I have something more to give you. My friend, you may live to regret this sort of life.
If you ever do, here's something to remember. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
Fast forward five years. Sunday service. People approach the pastor. They approach
Wesley. I'm now a successful businessman. I'm now forgiven.
I'm born again Christian. I owe it all to you, Mr. Wesley. Oh no, my friend.
Not to me but to the precious blood of Christ that cleanses us from all our sin. The sacrifice of Christ worked.
Second word. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6. The second word this morning. Not just blood but faith.
Without faith it's impossible to please Him. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6. This is our second centerpiece.
Blood atonement was confirmed by God the Father and acceptable in the sight by God raising Him from the dead.
And now since this is such a great truth, I call on you to believe this truth. To repent of your sins and your own spirituality and trust in this
God. Without faith it's impossible to please Him for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who seek
Him. You know the bumper sticker, don't you?
Everyone must believe in something and I believe I'll have another beer. Faith is not jumping to conclusions, it's concluding to jump.
These ridiculous kind of quotes don't describe what real faith is. Let's back up to chapter 11 verse 1 and just look at the nature of faith.
What is faith, you ask? Let's find out from the writer of Hebrews. What is faith? God's not going to believe for you, you must believe.
And you can try to trick yourself all the ways you want from alcohol to evolution to say, you know what, this isn't true but one day you'll stand before God, I'm certain.
And I want you to believe now in this great bloody atonement confirmed by the resurrection. Hebrews 11 1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, verse 2, the people of old received their commendation.
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
And then now we come to a bunch of heroes of the faith. These are great heroes who believed
God. Adam and Eve are jumped over, I think they're in heaven, why are they jumped over?
Because they talked with God, they walked with God along life's narrow way. You could say they didn't have faith initially, they could hear.
But then there's some general history here and there's some people here that are saved by faith before even the law.
They couldn't have kept the law to get in because they had no law. Abel. And then we come to the passage that we'll dwell on this morning, just for a few minutes.
Verses 5 and 6, Enoch. Direct rapture to heaven, how about that? Extraordinary faith of Enoch and an extraordinary saving
God. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. He was not found because God had taken him.
Now before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. By divine testimony,
Enoch was walking with God, he was a godly man, and then up to heaven he went. And, verse 6, don't lose the context, 5 goes with 6, and without faith it's impossible to please
Him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. That's what
Enoch was. He pleased God with faith, he came to God believing that he was who he said he was, monotheistic, for us we understand
God as triune, and that He is a rewarder, not just on earth, a rewarder by taking
Enoch to heaven to His eternal reward of those who seek Him. By faith.
So here's my question. When I was growing up in a church, I got baptized, I got catechized,
I got confirmed, I went on missions trips, I would have said Jesus is the only way of salvation, but I didn't have a saving faith.
Did you know there's a faith that doesn't save? There's a faith that just believes a fact. So let me just give you a quick acronym so you can understand faith.
It's super easy. K -A -T. CAT. If you understand this acronym, you'll understand
Bible faith, that is a saving faith, that has the right object, that's not just,
I believe I'll have another beer. K -A -T. Knowledge, Ascent, Trust.
Knowledge, Ascent, Trust. You have to have knowledge of the one that you believe in, or else it's just a blind faith, it's a blind leap.
You don't even know what you're jumping to. Some kind of guardian thing, where you just don't even know.
You have to have knowledge. You have to have knowledge, you, if you're not a believer today, yes, there's this blood atonement, a sacrifice in the place of sinners, confirmed by the resurrection.
Knowledge is good, it's essential, but it doesn't go there. You also have to affirm that knowledge, our ascent.
Yes, I believe it. I believe that's true. I would affirm it. Yes, there's some truth over here, the
Buddhists believe such and such, the Hindus believe such and such, the Muslims believe such and such, but you don't say, if you're a
Christian, you could say, I have knowledge of that, but you don't affirm it, you don't ascent to it, you don't say, yes,
I agree. You don't say, I'm signing on the dotted line, I believe that. No, with Christianity, I have knowledge of it,
I ascent of it, and then what's the last part? K -Knowledge, A -Ascent, T -Trust.
To trust, to say, I'm looking away from me, all my works, all my merit, all my gyrations spiritually, my spirituality, my goodness, my dad's a
Christian, my mom's a Christian, everything else, I turn away from that, and then I cling, I trust,
I rely on God and His promises for my eternal salvation. I believe that He is the
I am who I am. I believe He's a living and true God, the only living and true God, and I believe that He rewards those who earnestly seek
Him. If you read the Psalms, it doesn't take you long to read the Psalms and know that seeking the
Lord means to firmly rely on all His promises. To say that I'm going to seek
Him means I will rely upon all His truth, all His promises, His great covenants.
Jesus and Nicodemus were talking and John's Gospel says, For God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him, that's just not knowledge, that's just not assent, that's just true reliance upon.
The one who believes in the Son of God has a witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar.
Why is this so important? If you say, you know what, I'm not really a believer, I'm not really a Christian, I have my own way, I'm really spiritual, then that blood atonement that God has provided for all those who will look to Him has been counted in your mind as a big, fat lie.
We all, you know, I'm kind of there, I'm almost there, not too sure, well then basically you're saying
I won't take God at His word and God, you're a liar. Belief, trust.
John Payton, he was a missionary and this missionary shows up to the New Hebrides Islands and they have a lot of cannibals there and since John Payton doesn't know how to speak cannibalese, he just camps out on the beach.