This broadcast is coming to you from the Metropolitan Tabernacle of the First Baptist Church, Algiers, 501 Appaloosa Avenue here in New Orleans. This is J.B. Messick bringing you the message this morning in the absence of our pastor, Brother Gale, who is visiting our Tate family out in California. May the Lord bless us as we worship together. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank Thee this morning for Thy manifested presence in our midst. We thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for the two messages that have gone before this, how Thy Word has blessed our hearts. And Father, we pray that Thou would guide us and lead us in this hour of service, that once again Thy Holy Spirit may take Thy Word and illuminate our hearts. For Thou has said that Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway. Guide us and lead us. Be with our pastor as he is conducting services over in California today. Give him a safe return trip to us, if it be thy will. Be with each one of the mission stations who are holding services at this hour. Be with those who are listening in their homes over the tape recorders. And dear Father, may thy blessings rest upon each one of us. For it's in Christ's name we ask. Amen. If you have any loose chains there you'd like to drop in for this storehouse, we'd appreciate it. Let's turn to number 376. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Thank you, God, once upon a time. Glory to his name. I am the one that's been saved from sin. Going to His Name Going to His Name Going to His Name There to guard us above the flood Going to His Name Oh, precious love, don't you take from sin, I am so glad I've been heard in, When Jesus saves me, he keeps me clean. Glory to his name! Glory to his name! ♪ If my heart was a butterfly ♪ ♪ Falling to its fate ♪ ♪ Fall to the sound that's so rich and sweet ♪ ♪ Cast out my soul as the singer's feet ♪ ♪ Fly into day and behave humbly ♪ Now let's turn to number 197, Jesus is calling. Jesus is tenderly calling me home, calling to me, calling to me. I love the sunshine. I love you so much. Jesus is waiting on both of you now, waiting today, waiting today. Come with us and let His people be glad. Jesus is King, and His truth is right here today That's a mighty gracious song. Jesus is calling today. Have you heard that call? And if so, what has been your response to it? I'm glad to be with you this morning to bring you this message from God's Word. Of course, I'd always rather hear someone preach than have to get up here and preach myself. But I'm glad to be able to fill in for our pastor so that he could make this trip to see some of the People out in California, they've never seen him perhaps and have never been here in service. We don't realize how fortunate we are here to be in this local vicinity where we can come to church every Sunday. It's one thing to sit before our tape recorder and listen to a message. It's quite another thing to be in the audience and see the speaker as he brings the message and have the fellowship of the saints there as we assemble together. And we just don't realize and many times don't appreciate what God has done for us in giving us this opportunity of meeting together as a group every Lord's Day. I want to bring you a message this morning on the subject of justification. Now that's a large word, but we're hoping to explain it so that You may understand more about what it is, and may the Holy Spirit enlighten our eyes and let us understand and hear God's Word. Our text is found in Romans the third chapter and the 24th verse. No doubt this verse is familiar with all of us, but let's read it together. Romans 3, 24. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The word justification is a legal term. When a person is accused of a crime, arrested, brought before the court of the land, the evidence given on both sides, the jury or the judge, whoever it may be that has charge of it, has weighed the evidence, they bring a verdict then either of guilty or acquittal. That individual that is brought before the court is either justified in the eyes of the law according to the evidence that is heard, or he is condemned as having been guilty of the crime for which he was accused. Of course, the innocent person will be set free and the guilty person will be sentenced according to the enormity of his crime. If I remember correctly, there came up a case in England a good many years ago where a man was arrested falsely. He was falsely accused of a crime that he did not commit and was put in jail. The evidence showed up against him, largely circumstantial evidence, but he was put in jail and served many years in prison. But he kept on insisting that he was not guilty. And his friends on the outside didn't think he was guilty, and so they continued to search until they found conclusive evidence that he was not guilty, that he had been accused wrongly and was serving time, that he was not guilty of the crime. And so the judge, or the officer, whatever, the governor of the state, I believe it was, sent down to the prison with a pardon to give him a pardon. But to the surprise of everyone, he wouldn't accept the pardon. He says, no, I'm not guilty, therefore a pardon doesn't apply to me. I want to be acquitted. Or I want to be justified. Either one of the terms has practically the same meaning. And he would not leave the prison until they passed a special resolution in the governing body to account him acquitted, to acquit him. Now there's a difference between a pardon and justification. Guilty sinners may be pardoned, but they cannot be justified by the law. Now you listen to that statement carefully. A guilty person may be pardoned, but a guilty person cannot be justified in the eyes of the law. Well, now you say, how is it then that an individual can be accounted just or can be justified in the eyes of God? Well, that's what we're going to study about this morning. Job, the ninth chapter and the second verse, Job says, I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just before God? Our text says here that we are justified by faith. We are justified by faith. The justification that the born again believer has is an imputed justification, or is an imputed righteousness. A guilty person, as I said a while ago, cannot be justified But you and I are guilty, every one of us. As far as God is concerned, God knows all about every one of us. We don't have to be brought to the court and be tried because we are all of us guilty. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We are all under the condemnation of the law of God justly because we have committed sins. We are sinners by nature, sinners by practice, sinners by God's divine decree, and cannot be justified in ourselves. There's not a thing that you and I may do. There is no amount of works that we may perform whereby we can justify ourselves. And the only way that we can be justified is by someone taking our place and paying our sin debt, and then we may receive of his righteousness as a gift. Now notice, by His grace, I've often likened righteousness to a soap bubble. A soap bubble is very beautiful as it floats around there in the air, but it's a complete unit within itself. If you were to take a very small pen or a very fine needle and pierce just a very small hole in that bubble, it'll disintegrate. Righteousness is the same way. You may live a good, clean, moral life, and just one sin, one of what we might call the very minutest of sins, one sin would prick that soap bubble and cause our whole structure of righteousness to disintegrate and we could no longer be righteous again. Or as another illustration, you may take a vial of poison encased in a capsule. That poison may be very deadly. But as long as it's held within that capsule, it can't do you any harm. You may play with it or even can swallow it. And as long as it's contained within the capsule, it will not be dangerous. But let just a small hole be found in that capsule and the poison leak out, then the individual that touches it is poisoned by it. The very first sin that an individual commits, whether it be by word, deed, or by thought, destroys forever his chances of being saved by his own righteousness, or by his own goodness, or by his own justification. God created man holy. We find in Genesis 127, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. God created man righteous or holy, but man sinned and fell. You read about it in the third chapter of Genesis. Now here's an interesting thing that I saw the other day when I was reading about the fall of man in the third of Genesis. When God faced man with his sin, he passed the blame onto his wife. He said, the woman that thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. The woman, she passed the blame onto the serpent. She said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. But now when God pronounced a curse, he reversed the order. His first curse was upon the serpent. The second curse was upon the woman. And third curse then was upon the man. I think this is significant. because the curse that God promised, or God pronounced upon the serpent, was a promise of redemption to man. The Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, And between thy seed and her seed, he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now this is a promise of redemption for mankind. This is a promise whereby man who had fallen into sin, had lost his righteousness, had lost his perfection wherewith God had created him, there was an opportunity for man to be brought back in favor with God. How? By the shedding of the blood of his substitute. As the cross sweetens repentance, so this promise must have sweetened to a certain degree the judgment that fell upon the woman and upon the man. For we find in the 20th verse of that third chapter, and Adam called his wife's name Eve, which literally means the life giver, because she was the mother of all living. Even here, back in the beginning, right after sin was committed, and right after man lost his innocent state, he began to look forward to the arrival of the promised seed, who was to bruise the head of the serpent and redeem man by his shed blood. Now let's notice that 21st verse. For Adam also, and for his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. There is your blood redemption. Where did he get the skins of those animals? He slew the animals there in the garden. I believe that he set up an altar there in the Garden of Eden. That is where Adam and Eve first learned how to offer a sacrifice, a blood offering unto the Lord. For there is of necessity the shedding of blood, before there can be remission of sins. And the skins of the lambs are symbolic of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He wraps around the sinner when He saves him. God, looking upon that sinner, sees him not as he is, but as the Lord Jesus Christ. The story is told once of a man and his daughter who were standing up in the fifth floor of an office building in one of the large cities. And there was a parade passing down on the street below them. Their soldiers were all dressed in red. And the little girl was just small. She just could see over the top of the windowsill. And they were there standing watching the parade. And the little girl said, Daddy, aren't those white soldiers beautiful? He said, well, darling, those soldiers are not white, they're red. Well, she said, no, they're not dead. He said, they're white. She said, can't you see they're white? He said, put your eye down here close to mine. And he stooped down there and looked, and at the bottom of that window, there was a border of red that had been painted there on account of the glare. And she was looking through that border of red and looking upon those red soldiers, and they appeared white. The Lord Jesus Christ looking down upon this sinner, crimson with sin, crimson with his wickedness and violence and corruption. God sees me through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and I appear just as white and just as clean and just as pure in God's sight as the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you know that thought ought to break your heart. The Lord Jesus Christ imposed Himself between God and the sinner, took the sinner's place and became the sinner's substitute. That's grace, I don't understand, but yet I just praise the Lord for it. Now, what are we talking about by God's grace? Let's go back to the law court. Here stands an individual who had been tried and found guilty. We've said before that no guilty individual can be justified, but he can be pardoned. Now let's suppose, although it could never possibly happen, that a righteous person should come to the judge and offer to take the condemned person's place. Now the judge would say, well, you may take his punishment, but you cannot take his blame. You can take the punishment after he's been sentenced. You can pay his punishment, but you can't take his blame because his blame rests upon him. Now, I want to read you something that I picked up from C. H. Spurgeon the other day. He puts it in such words that I can't express, but I want to read it to you and let you see the difference between the two thoughts. Now, allow me to explain the way whereby God justifies a sinner. I am about to suppose an impossible case. A prisoner has been tried and condemned to death. He is a guilty man. He cannot be justified because he is guilty. But now suppose for a moment that such a thing as this could happen, that some secondary person could be introduced who could take all that man's guilt upon himself, And he could change places with that man, and by some mysterious process, which of course it is impossible with men, become that man, or take that man's character upon himself, and making the rebel, taking the place of the righteous man, putting the rebel in his place, and making the rebel a righteous man. Now we cannot do that in our courts. If I were to go before a judge and he should agree that I should be committed for a year's imprisonment instead of some wretch who was committed yesterday to a year's imprisonment, I could not take his guilt. I might take his punishment, but not his guilt. Now what flesh and blood cannot do that Jesus Christ by his redemption did. Here I stand a sinner. I mention myself as a representative of you all. I am condemned to die. God says, I will condemn that man. I must, I will punish him. Christ comes in, puts me aside, and stands himself in my place. When the plea is demanded, Christ says, guilty. Takes my guilt to be his own guilt. When the punishment is to be executed, forth comes Christ. Punish me, says he. I have put my righteousness on that man, and I have taken that man's sin on me. Father, punish me, and consider that man to have been me. Let him reign in heaven. Let me suffer misery. Let me suffer his curse, and let him receive my blessing. This marvelous doctrine of the changing of places of Christ with poor sinners is a doctrine of revelation, for it could never have been received by nature." I think that is a gracious statement. The Lord Jesus Christ did for me what I could not do for myself. I could not work and retain a righteousness. I could not receive a righteousness. I could not merit a righteousness, no matter what I did. But the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous one, took my place, as it were, took my character, took my nature, took my sin nature, took me as I was, and exchanged places with me. Therefore, in the eyes of God, the Lord Jesus Christ became a sinner. I heard someone make the statement the other day, Christ is the only person who ever became a sinner. All the rest of us were born that way. But Christ became a sinner because he took upon himself my sin nature. He took upon himself my sin. All of my guilt, all of my sin, all of my nature was transferred to him and he became as it were, Jack Messer. And I became in God's sight, the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as pure, just as holy, just as righteous as he is. That's one of the most humbling thoughts that I ever had brought to my mind. that I, in God's sight, should appear as the Lord Jesus Christ, just as clean, just as pure. When I see myself still full of wickedness, still full of sin, there'll never be a time that I'll be free from all sin as long as I'm in this body. Although there is a cry in my heart to be free, there is a desire in my heart to be free from sin, and I believe in every individual that's saved, there is a hatred of sin, There's a hatred of yourself because of sin. There is a longing in your heart to live above sin. If I had my way, I wouldn't sin another sin the rest of my life. But in this body of flesh, I do know that I do sin. Yet there is a cry in my heart to be redeemed, to be completely sanctified in person as well as in God's sight. Well, now you say, that's substitution. Yes, that's substitution. That's what we mean by the word substitution. The salvation that we have is through the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our text says, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus on the cross of Calvary gave himself for me. gave himself as a substitute for the sinner. God the Father accepted him in the sinner's place and justified the sinner. Now what happened to the sinner? God accounted him righteous. God looked upon him as though he had never sinned a single sin. Isn't that grace? No human being could ever have conceived of that type of salvation. That's a salvation that God alone could conceive of. For the innocent dying in the place of the guilty, and granting to the guilty eternal life through himself. For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any should boast. Even after God had brought out such a salvation and offered it to the needy sinner, he could not believe it or receive it, except God gave him the faith whereby he might receive it. Man is so blinded that even after God has given himself in the person of Christ Jesus for sin, man cannot receive it until God gives him grace and gives him faith to receive it. In my study of the scriptures at times, I've been struck with the many times that little word, hath, shows up in connection with our salvation. That little word, hath, H-A-T-H. Let me read a few scriptures where it's found. Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. As it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Let's notice again Ephesians 1.4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Let's notice Ephesians 2.1. And you hath he quickened, or made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians 2.14. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. And Colossians 1, 13 and 14, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin. Now you notice this word hath is in the past tense. Salvation hath been wrought out. Redemption hath been wrought out back in the eternities in the mind of God. Back in the eternities before the world was created, my salvation and your salvation, the salvation of every individual who has ever been saved or ever will be saved until the end of time was wrought out in the mind of God. You and I don't know about it until it actually becomes an actual experience when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes, grants us faith, and bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now let's go back to the statement we made a while ago. I keep on repeating these statements lest we should forget them, lest they make them impressive upon our mind. There is only one way that the guilty sinner may be justified. and that is by imputation or by substitution. The only righteousness that I'll ever have or that you will ever have is an imputed righteousness. Now let's see what the scripture has to say to that. Let's go back to the book of Romans and see what Paul says, beginning with the first verse of the fourth chapter. If you have your Bible there, you can turn with us. Fourth chapter and the first verse. What shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath something of which to glory, but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. That word counted has the same thought as imputed. Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him or counted unto him for righteousness. The only righteousness that Abraham had was the imputed righteousness that God gave him. The only righteousness that any of the saints of God have ever had has been the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's go back to the Old Testament and read the story of the faith of Abraham there in the 15th of Genesis. Genesis, the 15th chapter, the first six verses. After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in mine house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own loins shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. Here was Abram up in years. Sarah, his wife, was getting old. They were both beyond the age of childbearing. Yet God said, you shall have a son. You shall have an heir. Abraham believed God. It seemed impossible on the surface. It seemed as though, as far as Abraham and Sarah were concerned, it was impossible, but Abraham believed God. He believed that God was able to do what He said He would do. He believed that God was willing to do what He said He would do. And he looked to Him in faith, and God blessed him. What did Abraham do to merit justification? Absolutely nothing. The same thing that you and I do, nothing. We believe God. You say, well, you believe God, don't you? But even that faith is a gift of God. You can't even brag about that faith because if God didn't give you that faith, then you wouldn't be able to believe Him. How did Abram get his faith? Where would he believe God? God gave it to him. It was God-given faith. Let's notice Romans 4, 20 and 22, talking about Abram. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was counted or imputed or reckoned unto him for righteousness. He believed God and God imputed that righteousness unto him. I just never ceased to praise the Lord that one day He imputed righteousness to me. But before I received that righteousness, before I was able to believe Him, I was brought to the place that I had no faith. I was brought to the place that I saw myself condemned under the condemnation of death. under the condemnation of judgment, and every individual is brought there. He is brought to see condemnation written upon everything that he has, everything that he is, everything he has ever done or ever could do. And then we have in our text one more word I'd like to notice, being justified freely by his grace. I want us to notice that word freely. The only way God does anything for a sinner is freely because God is sovereign. You can't make God do anything. You cannot persuade God by your persuasion to do anything. God is sovereign. He is sovereign. He rules completely over heaven and earth, everything that's in the heaven and everything that is in the earth. When we come to the end of our way and see ourselves helpless, guilty, when we expect condemnation at any moment, when we see that there's no way out, there's no hope of relief any other way, then God comes to us and grants us freely his salvation. What rejoicing there is in that word freely. Romans 8.32 tells us, he despaired not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? If you want a good study, sometimes take your Bible and look up that word free or freely. I see how many times it is spoken in God's Word that what God does for us, he does freely. You and I cannot command God. You and I cannot tell God what he must do, what he could do, what he should do, but God is sovereign. All we can do is to fall at his feet and cry unto him for mercy, that he may have mercy upon us and redeem us by his grace. 1 Corinthians 6, 11 tells us, talking about the different individual death, the different types of sin, and he goes on to make this statement. As such were some of you. I don't think there's any sin in the category of sin that cannot be applied to each one of the believers. Whether we committed an actual word, a deed, or thought, there has been that potentiality in our heart. But such were some of you, but ye are washed but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. We are justified by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. When all else fails, when we come to the end of our way, when we come to the end of our trying, when we come to the end of our doing, we come to the end of our thinking, We have to come to the place where we have to stop our thinking. Our thinking is no good. We've come to realize that there's absolutely no hope within ourselves. Then we are justified by the Lord Jesus Christ and by his shed blood. Romans 8.33 tells us, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. God is the only one who can justify. God is the only one who can redeem. He is the only one who can give eternal life to a guilty, lost, doomed, and damned son. And then another scripture I love is in Romans the fifth chapter and the first verse. Therefore being justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know the blessings of that word peace? Do you know what it means to be at peace with God? There was a time that I couldn't see any peace in my heart. The only thing I could see was condemnation written upon everything I'd ever done. Everything that I'd ever said, everything I'd ever attempted to do, I couldn't find any peace. As one of the Psalms says, there is no peace saith God to the wicked. The wicked are like the troubled sea, they're tossed to and fro, there is no peace, there is no rejoicing, there is no contentment, there is no peace in the heart. You see an individual that's guilty, He walks down the street, he's constantly looking over his shoulder, looking behind him to see if somebody's coming to apprehend him, see if the law is coming to put his hand on him and take him back to jail. But that individual who has been justified by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is peace. That peace of God takes the fear out of his heart. There is no fear in love, in perfect love, 1 John tells us. There is no fear in perfect love. And when the Lord Jesus Christ redeems us by His shed blood, brings us to walk with Him day by day, then there is a constant peace and joy in our hearts. Now where does this joy, where does this peace come from? Where does this joy come from? It comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. Not because of what I've done, but because of what He has done. That's a story told us in the lives of Esau and Jacob. That's interesting. Talking about the righteousness of Christ. You perhaps know the story how that Esau was a man of the field. He liked to go out and hunt and kill Vincent. But Jacob was a home-loving man. He liked to stay at home. He liked to stay at home and cook. Esau came in one day from the field where he'd been hunting. He was hungry. And Jacob had a good pot of lentils. I imagine it must have been something like red beans and rice. And anyway, it was giving off a good savory smell. And Esau came by and said, Jacob, give me some of the beans. I'm just about starved to death. Jacob said, well, I'll sell them to you. If you'll sell me your birthright, I'll give you all the beans you want. And so Esau despised his birthright. But now getting the birthright, as far as Esau was concerned, was not sufficient. In order to receive the blessing, he had to go before his father before he died and receive the blessing at his hand. There was a lot of difference between Esau and Jacob. Esau was a hairy man. He had hair covering all of his arms and his body, but Jacob's skin was comparatively free. And so when Esau Came to receive the blessing or Got ready at the time to receive the blessing His father sent him out to kill another Vincent said go kill me some more Vincent Let me eat one more good meal then I'll give you my blessing While he was out hunting Rebekah took Jacob in there and said, now we're going to get that blessing for you because you've already bought that birthright from Esau. So she took a lamb and killed that lamb and fixed the lamb like the savory meat such as Esau was used to fix. And he took the skins of the lamb and tied them on Jacob's arms. And Jacob put on Esau's clothes that smelled of the earth, had the earthly smell about them. And clad in his brother's clothing, he went in then to get the blessing. And so Jacob was blind, now he couldn't see. And Joseph came up to him, I mean, Jacob came to him. I'm getting my names all mixed up there. And so his father told him, said, let me feel you and see if this is truly Esau. Said, the voice sounds like the voice of Jacob. And he reached over and felt that lamb skin and said, well, this is Esau's hairy arms. And he smelled the fragrance of the clothes of the field and said, well, this is my son Esau. And he proceeded then to give him the blessing. And then later on when Esau came in, he found that Jacob had stolen the blessing. It made him mad. But now the thought that I want to get is this. Although you can't condone the sin of Jacob, In stealing the birthright from his brother, he had his brother's clothes on and was the way he was recognized by his father. The Lord Jesus Christ covers me with his robe of righteousness and I am accepted in the beloved, accepted in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no other way that I could be accepted. For I have nothing within myself. I'm a sinner and have nothing within myself to prepare me for the receiving of the blessing. But it is only as I'm clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to read you something here in the book of Hebrews, the ninth chapter. Let's begin reading with the 11th verse. But Christ being come, and high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. The book of Hebrews is a type of the Old Testament and gives us a comparison of the sacrifices in the Old Testament and brings them up and applies them to us today. As the lamb was sacrificed back in the olden days, and there were rivers of blood that ran from the sacrifices of God's people down through the ages, the blood of the goats and the calves as they were offered on the different altars and the different sacrifices were a type and a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Christ came in at the end of time, and by one offering, made an offering for ever, made an expiation for the sins of his people throughout all eternity. He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? If those sacrifices in the Old Testament had the power of forgiving sins, or as we might say better, rolling the sins of the people forward one year, if they had that power, how much more shall the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, the spotless Lamb of God, who offered himself once for all, cleanse us eternally from sin. Back in the days of the tabernacle and later of the temple, that was a yearless sacrifice. Once a year the high priest went into the most holy place with the blood of the Lamb and sprinkled the mercy seed and turned the mercy seed from a judgment seed into a seed of mercy for God's people. The blood of those lambs and goats did not forgive the people's sin as such, but was a type or a picture of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This sacrifice in the tabernacle had to be repeated every year. And the blood of the lamb that was offered once a year merely rolled the sins of the people forward one year, as we might say gave them a year of grace, whereby they may go another year before another sacrifice was necessary. But the Lord Jesus Christ did not have to be offered once a year, but he offered himself once unto God. Now let's notice in the 22nd verse. Well, let's begin on the 16th and read right on through. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. Notice our 22nd verse now. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. Without shedding of blood, there is no remission. There is no remission in the keeping of the law, for the law cannot be kept by man. There is no remission in repentance as such, although repentance is a part of salvation. There is no salvation in anything except in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. A 24th verse. For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figure of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. but now once in the end of the ages hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Whereas the lamb had to be sacrificed every year, the Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice was only at one time. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sin of many, And unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Now we could go on reading other portions of scripture there in that book of Hebrews. It's one of the most gracious books that I know of in the Bible. But in that 10th chapter, in the 10th verse, by which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. I want you to notice these expressions now, once for all. And every priest standing daily, ministering and offering often the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. And then that 14th verse, for by one offering, he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Once for all, the Lord Jesus Christ entered, as it were, into the Holy of Holies of the heavenlies, and there sprinkled His blood on the mercy seat. And the judgment seat, the judgment that I was under, was turned unto mercy by the shed blood. Being justified freely, we go back to our text, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Do you know what this justification is? Are you justified in your own heart and in your own life? Do you know what that justification means? By being justified by faith, do you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ applied to your own heart? Well, you say, well, I don't know. Well, I'll know. Will I know when I'm saved? Will I know when that blood is applied to my heart? Yes, the Holy Spirit will bear witness to your spirit that you're a child of God. I don't guess anybody ever made any more profession of faith on a conviction than I did. And yet when God delivered me, I knew what had happened. I stood there with my mouth open because I'd battled and I'd battled and I'd come to the end of my way. But when the Lord Jesus Christ revealed Christ to my heart, the Holy Spirit revealed Christ to my heart, then there was peace. all the battling was over, all the struggling was over, and it was Christ within their heart, the hope of glory. If you don't know Him, I hope that you may come to know Him as your Savior and your Lord. Let's stand. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight, today, for the Lord Jesus Christ and for what He means to our heart. We thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for Thy shed blood, which is our only hope. Over Thy shedding of blood, there is no remission. We thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for Thy election, for Thy calling, for Thy justifying of sinners. And Heavenly Father, counting us righteous in Thy sight. Guide us and lead us as we go to our homes. Teach us Thy will. Bring us back together tonight to worship again what's in Christ's name we ask. Amen.