We might receive the promise of the Spirit
by faith.
Notice the statement here, Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law.
What was that curse?
Well, God gave his holy law to show
man how he ought to live in this
world.
And he said, the man that doeth these
things shall live in them.
I often have people come to me and
say, I don't see why I need a
savior.
Surely it's enough if I try to keep
the law of God, if I obey his
commandments, that ought to be all that anyone
would expect of me.
Well, to be perfectly frank, that's a good
deal.
Have you ever seen anyone, have you ever
known anyone who did keep God's law, who
did obey all his commandments?
You see, that's just the trouble with us.
He said, if you do keep my law,
then you'll have life.
But on the other hand, he said, every
one that continueth not in all things that
are written in the book of the law
to do them.
And therefore, every one of us comes under
that curse, because not one can be found
anywhere who has continued in all things that
are written in the book of the law.
We've not all sinned in the same way,
but the apostle James says, if a man
should keep the whole law and yet offend
in one point, he's guilty of all.
You take a man who has lived a
respectable, upright life all his days, until perhaps
he is forty or fifty years of age,
and then that man becomes guilty of a
forgery, and he gets away with a large
sum of money because of it.
All the years of good living that went
before count for nothing now.
The man is a criminal in the eyes
of the law.
He has broken the law, and therefore he's
subject to its penalty.
And so, though one may have lived respectably
in the main, still, if he's broken the
law of God in some one particular or
more, why, he's guilty of all.
That is, he's a lawbreaker.
And that puts him under the curse.
Now, for that man to say, I don't
need a savior, I can save myself by
doing good and keeping the law and trying
to live up to the Sermon on the
Mount, well, that's all nonsense.
The man has already failed.
He's already broken the law.
He has already come under the curse.
And that's why he needs a savior.
And the Lord Jesus Christ took all this
into account.
And so he came from heaven.
He who was one with the Father from
all eternity, became man for our redemption, lived
his holy, beautiful life here on earth.
He did not break the law of anything.
He could say, I do always those things
that please the Father.
No penalty of a broken law hung over
him.
And yet he went to the cross.
He was lifted up.
He was hanged on a tree.
He was made a curse for us.
He who knew no sin was made sin
for us, that we might become the righteousness
of God in him.
And so that's what the Scripture means when
it says, Christ hath redeemed us from the
curse of the law.
As it's written, cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree.
We were under the curse.
He became a curse for us.
He went down into the grave.
And now he has risen again in triumph.
And he's able to save to the uttermost
those who come unto God by him.
Have you trusted him?
Have you ever acknowledged the fact that you're
a sinner?
Have you ever come to God confessing your
guilt?
This, you know, is really repentance.
And God commanded all men everywhere to repent
and to come to the knowledge of the
truth.
When I take my place before God as
a self-confessed sinner, when I cease trying
to hide or to cover my guilt, when
I acknowledge that I'm just what God says
I am, lost and undone, that's repentance.
And now as a repentant sinner, I put
my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ who
died for me, who shed his precious blood
that I might be cleansed from all my
sin.
And the moment I do that, the moment
I thus receive him, the blessing of Abraham
comes to me.
You remember what the blessing of Abraham was?
God said to Abraham, In thee and in
thy seed shall all nations of the earth
be blessed.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the seed of
Abraham after the flesh.
And he's the one through whom all blessing
comes.
What blessing is it that I receive when
I trust in him?
Well, I receive the blessing of salvation.
And that includes regeneration, a new heart, a
new life, a new birth, and also forgiveness
of sins and justification from all things.
So I'm blessed with all spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ when I trust this
blessed Savior.
You know, even if I could be justified
by works of my own, I wouldn't want
it now because I found such a wonderful
Savior in Jesus.
I would rather owe everything for eternity to
him and be able to give him alone
the glory for saving my soul than enter
heaven and give myself the credit for it.
Because it means so much more to think
that God's own blessed Son thought enough of
me to come all the way from the
glory that he had with the Father before
ever the world was, and to lay down
his precious life, a ransom for my guilty
soul.
This little hymn I love to sing, O
Jesus, O Jesus, how vast thy love to
me I bathe in its full ocean to
all eternity And wending on to glory this
all my song shall be I was a
guilty sinner, but Jesus died for me O
Calvary, O Calvary, the thorn, crown, and the
spear Tis there thy love, Lord Jesus, in
flowing wounds appear O depth of grace and
mercy to those dear wounds I flee I
was a guilty sinner, but Jesus died for
me I'm coming, I'm coming, Lord Jesus, to
thy throne A few more fleeting hours and
I shall be at home And when I
reach those pearly gates, then I'll put in
this plea Admit a ransomed sinner, for Jesus
died for me That's the ground on which
I'm going to heaven Let me give my
personal testimony Fifty-three years ago, I came
to the Lord Jesus Christ as a sinner
I knew I'd broken God's law many times
I knew that I was under condemnation I
knew that that law was to me a
ministry of death, a curse But I found
that Christ had given Himself a ransom for
my soul I trusted Him, and oh the
joy and the blessing that came to my
heart When I realized that because of what
Christ had done God had delivered me from
the curse of the law And that blessing
of Abraham, free on merited grace Was mine
through faith in the blessed Lord Jesus Christ
And you know I've spent the years since
trying as well as I knew how To
point other people to Christ It's been such
a joy down through the years To see
oh so many turn to Him And give
the same testimony when they came to Him,
when they trusted Him He was more to
them than they ever thought He would be
And now I just press this upon you
If you don't know Him, if you've never
yet trusted Him Turn to Him today, receive
Him now as your own Saviour And you'll
know the joy of the blessing of Abraham
The first
chapter of John's Gospel in the 29th verse
You'll find these words The next day John
seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith Behold
the Lamb of God which taketh away the
sin of the world It's often seemed to
me that there's been a great deal of
misunderstanding As to the ministry of John the
Baptist, the great forerunner of our Lord Jesus
Christ You'll remember how appreciatively Jesus spoke of
him He said of all those born of
women there's never been a greater than John
the Baptist What was there about this man
that was so great?
Well of course the outstanding thing was this
That he proclaimed the coming of Messiah Lived
to see Him for himself Baptized Him, saw
Him start out on His wonderful mission And
died for His name's sake Some people have
an idea, you know, that the great business
of John the Baptist Was baptizing people And
that somewhere or another by his baptism Their
souls were saved We read in the scripture,
then cometh John in the wilderness of Judea
Preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission
of sins And people get an idea that
John was preaching baptism for the remission of
sins That wasn't what he was preaching at
all He was preaching, proclaiming a baptism of
repentance With a view to the remission of
sins That is, John's baptism was the expression
of repentance John was telling people that all
were sinners and all deserved to die He
said the axe is laid to the root
of the tree Every tree that bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast
into the fire And so he called upon
the people to come down to the waters
of Jordan And there be baptized, confessing their
sins Now that's repentance They came confessing their
sins They came justifying God, acknowledging that what
He said about them was true And their
baptism was simply the outward expression of their
penitence But now that was a baptism of
repentance for the remission of sins The sins
weren't remitted through the baptism But in what
way were the sins remitted?
Why, he tells us here in this 29th
verse of John 1 Behold the Lamb of
God which taketh away the sin of the
world Baptism doesn't take away sin But the
Lamb of God does And how does the
Lamb of God take away sin?
Why, He came into the world, the only
begotten Son of the Father And Himself absolutely
sinless Went to Calvary's cross And there upon
the cross He bore our sins The Word
of God says He was wounded for our
transgressions He was bruised for our iniquities The
chastisement of our peace was upon Him And
with His stripes we are healed And now
because our sins were laid upon Him Because
He paid the penalty due to those sins
He takes away the sin of the world
That is, if we turn to Him, if
we trust Him If we believe in Him
We have the right to say, thank God
my sins are gone Gone in what way?
Because I was baptized?
No, that wouldn't put away my sins Because
I joined some church?
No, that wouldn't put away my sins Because
I turned over a new leaf?
No, that wouldn't put away my sins Because
I tried to be charitable and kind to
the poor and the needy?
No, it's a very good thing to do
all that But that wouldn't put away my
sins What then?
Because I put my trust in the Savior,
the Lamb of God Who taketh away the
sin of the world The Savior knew all
that I was guilty of That is, of
course He died long before I came into
the world But He knew all I'd ever
be guilty of And He took all my
sins and bore them there in His own
body in the tree Endured the judgment that
those sins deserved So that now God can
be just in the justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus And this is the gospel
that John the Baptist preached Some people think
that John didn't know the gospel But here
it is, you couldn't get a clearer gospel
than this Behold the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sin of the world That's
the very pith and marrow of the gospel
The Lord Jesus Christ is God's Lamb God's
sacrificial Lamb who gave Himself for us You
remember when Abraham and Isaac were going up
Mount Moriah And Isaac turned to his father
and said Father, here's the wood and here's
the fire But where's the Lamb for a
burnt offering?
And Abraham said, my son, God will provide
Himself a Lamb for a burnt offering Well,
John the Baptist says, this is the Lamb
This is the one that God has provided
This is the Savior for sinners This is
the one who can offer Himself without spotting
to God in our behalf And this is
the one whom He calls upon us to
receive We read in the same first chapter
of John's gospel In verse 11, He came
unto His own and His own received Him
not But as many as received Him, to
them gave He power to become the children
of God Even to them that believe on
His name The Old Testament that abounds in
all kinds of wise sayings And it would
be well if many of us read more
frequently than we do I refer to the
book of Proverbs That book that contains so
many maxims Emphasizing for us the path of
life as we go through this world I've
selected my text at this time from the
27th chapter of Proverbs, verse 1 Boast not
thyself of tomorrow For thou knowest not what
a day may bring forth You know, I
believe the great majority of people In this
great land of ours where the gospel is
so widely known The great majority of people
are somewhat acquainted with the gospel And of
the great throng who turn away from it
and are lost The most of them will
be lost Not because they didn't know Not
because they'd never heard of Jesus Not because
they did not understand that faith in Him
saves lost sinners But the great majority in
a land like this who are lost Will
be lost because they procrastinated We say sometimes
procrastination is the thief of time And the
Spanish of a proverb which translated into English
would be The road of by and by
leads to the house of never All around
we meet people who say Yes I know,
I know I ought to be a Christian
I know Christ died for sinners And I
know that He'll save if we come to
Him And I intend to come someday but
not now And so they're saying tomorrow, tomorrow
And putting it off and putting it off
Hoping that God will be merciful And eventually
when they're ready That He too will be
ready to receive them He has said in
His word here Boast not thyself of tomorrow
For thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth Just think of what may happen
if you put it off till tomorrow Of
course the first thing that occurs to every
one of us is this You might die
tomorrow You might not be living when tomorrow
came Tomorrow's sun may never rise This is
the time, oh then be wise Thou wouldst
be saved, why not tonight Just think you're
perhaps strong and healthy today Or at least
you've got a clear mind And you're able
to understand Tomorrow may find you cold and
lifeless And beyond all possibility of mercy What
must be the thought of the man who
goes out suddenly Into eternity unsaved And who
cries from the depths of his broken heart
Oh what a fool I've been Jesus died
and I knew all about it Jesus died
and died for me And He wanted to
save me but I didn't come I meant
to come but I kept putting it off
And now it's too late And then there's
something else to consider It's not only true
that you might die before tomorrow But you
might live You say well that's alright if
I live everything's alright Yes but listen To
live on without Christ To live on every
day adding to the sins That you've already
committed To live on every day doing the
things That in days to come you would
give worlds If you could only undo What
folly this is There never was a man
or a woman yet Who became a Christian
in mature life But as they look back
over the past Would have given anything If
they could only have undone The sins that
they had already committed Not only sins that
hurt their own souls But sins that often
involve People that in some way or another
Every day that you reject the Lord Jesus
Christ Every day that you spurn His grace
You're adding to the things That you never
to all eternity Will be able to undo
So why not come to Christ now Boast
not thyself of tomorrow For thou knowest not
what a day may bring forth And then
another thing I think we ought to remember
The Lord Jesus when He went away Told
of His coming back again Again and again
in the gospels He tells of His return
He went away to receive for Himself a
kingdom And to return And He says of
that day and hour knoweth no man Not
even the angels in heaven When He Himself
was man here on earth He chose not
to know He left that in the Father's
power Well now His promise hasn't yet been
fulfilled He hasn't yet returned But He may
return And He might return before tomorrow He
might come back before another sunrise And if
He came back And you were still in
your sins Then you'd be shut away in
the outer darkness It'd be too late then
to come to Him Too late to repent
Too late to plead His grace Too late
to trust His mercy Too late to be
washed in His blood And then there's another
thing And oh don't forget it The Holy
Spirit is now pleading with you He's here
in the world And He's pleading with man
It's He who convinces of sin Righteousness and
judgment But you know You can resist His
pleading You can turn away from Him so
often That finally the day may come when
you cease to plead And when God will
say He's joined to His idols Let Him
alone And you will be left And you
may live on You might live on for
days or weeks or months or years Never
again to be troubled about your soul Never
again to care Never again to be concerned
or interested Never again to realize anything about
your true condition Until you wake up in
eternity lost forever Oh then how bitterly you
would rue the fact That you had procrastinated
That you turned away from God That you
had not obeyed His word That you hadn't
heeded His word That says boast not thyself
of tomorrow For thou knowest not what a
day may bring forth He says now is
the accepted time Now is the day of
salvation Don't say tomorrow when God says today
But turn to Him in repentance Confess your
sin Trust the Savior And begin now the
new life I want to talk to people
today Who are in the habit of taking
the communion All over this land And all
other Christian lands From time to time Those
who profess to know and love Our Lord
Jesus Christ Come together in various To obey
the command of the Lord Jesus This do
in remembrance of me But you know I'm
afraid there are a great many people Who
sit at the communion table Who partake of
the bread and drink of the cup Who
have never yet entered into the reality of
it all Who have never yet known for
themselves What it really means And so I
want to read a few verses From the
11th chapter of 1 Corinthians Verses most of
you know well And then say a few
words on them 1 Corinthians 11 23-25
I have received of the Lord Jesus That
which also I delivered unto you That the
Lord Jesus the same night in which he
was betrayed Took bread And when he had
given thanks He broke it and said Take
eat This is my body which is broken
for you This do in remembrance of me
After the same manner also he took the
cup When he had stopped saying This cup
is the new testament in my blood This
do ye as often as you drink it
In remembrance of me For as often as
ye eat this bread And drink this cup
Ye do show the Lord's death Until he
come This was the instruction given to the
apostle Paul By the risen Lord You see
Paul hadn't been at the Lord's supper When
it was first instituted He was at that
time still an unbeliever And so the Lord
Jesus gave him a special revelation Concerning it
And you'll notice this That it made it
very very clear That the bread Which symbolizes
the body of the Lord Jesus And the
cup Which speaks of his precious blood Shed
on Calvary's cross In each instance set forth
Christ As dying for us And we are
to partake of it In remembrance of him
Now just imagine one who doesn't know Christ
Who has never trusted him And yet carrying
out this service Just as a mere matter
of form Can't you see the incongruity of
it?
You know to go to the Lord's table
And partake of the bread and the cup
And yet to reject the Savior thus presented
It seems to me must be an awfully
serious thing I can't imagine anything That would
add to one's judgment And to one's bitter
regrets by and by Than this very thing
Think of looking back from eternity And remembering
how on earth You used to sit at
the communion table And partake with others of
those elements And yet you never trusted the
Savior Who was thus remembered for yourself You
see the Lord's Supper was never intended To
be a means of salvation It was never
intended to work The miracle of grace in
your soul But it was to be a
memorial feast It was to be a remembrance
of the Savior Well you should know Him
first In order that you may remember Him
You should be able to look back and
say I see Him there in that cross
Dying for me And I've trusted Him as
my Savior And having trusted Him I love
Him And I want to keep Him in
mind Then you go with a good heart
And a good conscience To the table of
the Lord But to think of partaking of
the communion As though in some mystic way
It was going to help to put away
your sins As though it might in some
way Help to make you a Christian Is
to miss the real meaning of it Altogether
You know there's only one thing That can
make anybody a Christian And that's the personal
acceptance Of the Lord Jesus Christ As many
as received Him Oh how I love to
dwell on those words As many as received
Him To them gave He power to become
the children of God There's no other way
No other way by which you can become
a child of God No other way by
which you can become a Christian No other
way by which you can be born again
Than receiving Him The Apostle Peter says Being
born again Not of corruptible seed But of
incorruptible by the word of God Which liveth
and abideth forever And this is the word
Which by the gospel is preached unto you
The Lord's Supper is the perpetual memorial Of
the death of Christ Whenever celebrated It's a
reminder of the fact That Christ died for
sinners That He gave His life on our
behalf But if men participate in this And
yet reject Him It only adds to their
condemnation Instead of being a means of grace
Instead of being a blessing to them As
the Lord intended it to be It becomes
the very opposite It may even become a
curse It may be even the occasion of
bitter, bitter memories In a lost eternity To
think I used to sit at the table
of the Lord I used to take of
the bread and of the cup And yet
I never took the Savior for myself Oh,
how foolish To allow oneself to be so
familiar With the outward facts of Christianity And
yet refuse the Savior Trust Him now for
yourself The book of the Revelations The last
book of the Bible Contains a great deal
of very important instruction For us today Because
undoubtedly we are living in the closing days
Of the present wonderful dispensation Of the grace
of God And this book we are told
was given To show unto Christ's servants Things
which must shortly come to pass A special
blessing is pronounced upon all Who give heed
to what is recorded here We'll read in
the third verse of chapter one Blessed is
he that readeth And they that hear the
words of this prophecy And keep those things
which are written therein For the time is
at hand And again when we turn to
the last chapter of the book We hear
the Lord saying Behold I come quickly Blessed
is he that keepeth the sayings The prophecy
of this book Now God wouldn't have pronounced
a double blessing in that way Upon those
who read or hear And keep what's written
in the book of the Revelations If it
were of as little importance As some people
imagine it to be A great many Christians
pay little or no attention to it at
all And yet in a wonderful way This
book moves the hearts of those who read
it reverently And in dependence upon the Holy
Spirit Because it's the book of the unveiling
of Jesus Christ Setting forth the glories that
are to be manifested When he returns to
set up his kingdom here on the earth
In the seventh verse of this first chapter
The Apostle exclaims Behold he cometh with clouds
And every eye shall see him And they
also which pierced him And all kindreds of
the earth Shall wail because of him Even
so, amen That last expression All kindreds of
the earth Shall wail because of him Might
be translated All tribes of the land Shall
mourn because of him This links with what
we're told In the book of Zechariah in
the Old Testament That when at last The
Lord's earthly people, Israel Shall behold their Messiah
at his second coming They shall look upon
him whom they've pierced And they shall mourn
for him As one mourneth for his only
son And as one that's in bitterness for
his firstborn It will be a gracious day
for them When brought to repentance They will
recognize in the Lord Jesus Christ The Messiah
for whom they have waited so long And
this book tells us a great deal about
the event Connected with his coming again And
also about the long period Which is now
extended to nearly two thousand years Between his
first and second coming The divisions of the
book are very clearly indicated In verse nineteen
of chapter one Where the seer was told
Write the things which thou hast seen And
the things which are And the things which
shall be hereafter Or after these things Now
when John wrote these words The only thing
that he had seen Was the vision of
chapter one The son of man in the
midst of the candlesticks Representing the Lord Jesus
Christ In the midst of his churches here
on earth These were the things that John
had seen Division one Then the things which
are Immediately follow In chapters two and three
Where under the similitude of seven letters Addressed
to seven actual churches In the Roman proconsular
province of Asia In the last decade of
the first century Of the Christian era The
spirit of God has given us In a
very remarkable way An outline of seven periods
of church history Showing us the moral and
spiritual principles That would prevail during those periods
Look at it this way We see that
the letter Ephesus To Ephesus answers to the
apostolic church And then the letter to Smyrna
To the persecuted church From the close of
the first century Until about 313 A.D.
When the last of the persecuting Roman emperors
died That would be followed by the letter
to Pergamon Which sets forth the conditions prevailing
During the days of Constantine and his successors
When the church and the world were so
intimately linked together And this in turn is
followed by the great apostasy Of the Middle
Ages as set forth in the letter to
the church In Thyatira Then in chapter three
The letter to the church in Sardis Gives
us an outline of the conditions prevalent In
the great state churches of the Reformation Many
having a name to live but actually dead
The whole mass of the population Baptized and
outwardly made members of the church And yet
many of them never born again at all
The letter to Philadelphia on the other hand
Gives us what we may call the counter
-reformation The great awakening movements of the last
200 years When in so many different lands
God has been stirring people by his spirit
To bring them back to the word of
God And to allegiance to the Lord Jesus
Christ And then this part of the book
closes With the letter to the church of
the Laodiceans And this letter clearly pictures The
latitudinarian conditions prevalent In so many places today
When though people bear the name of Christian
They're utterly indifferent to the claims of the
Lord Jesus Christ And it's addressing this church
that the Lord says Behold I stand at
the door and knock If any man hear
my voice and open the door I will
come in to him and will sup with
him And he with me Strictly speaking the
picture here Is the Lord standing at the
closed door of the church Everything is going
on inside as though all were well And
yet the Lord the head of the church
is outside Knocking at the door The church
as a whole will never admit him But
individuals will and may May and will And
if they receive him Then he says he
will enter in And sup with them And
they with him That is he will establish
blessed and holy fellowship With those who heed
his voice and admit him to their hearts
Now the third division of the book begins
with chapter 4 verse 1 We'll read in
our authorized version After this I looked And
behold a door was opened in heaven We
may instead of after this we might read
After these things And you remember that the
third division was Right to things which shall
be After these things So after this outline
history of the church on earth John was
wrapped as it were in spirit into heaven
And during all the rest of the book
he portrays for us Events that will take
place both in heaven and on earth Following
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ To
take his church home to be forever with
himself Now that church is pictured in this
division As the 24 elders That is the
24 heads of the priesthood Representing the entire
priestly family To which Old Testament saints in
the church of this dispensation belong For all
such will have their part with Christ in
the heavenly And will be priestly worshippers This
division goes right on to the consummation The
glorious return of the Lord Jesus To set
up his kingdom The kingdom itself going on
for a thousand wonderful years And then at
the close The judgment of the great white
throne When the wicked will be judged according
to their works And this is followed by
a glorious vision Of the heavenly city, the
new Jerusalem The eternal home of the saints
Concerning this we read There shall not enter
into it any thing that defile it Sin
will never be undone
And surely neither should each priest Independent
of seeking for the blessed To keep the
same